The basic form of magisterial auspice was the tripudium: when chickens, brought
especially for that purpose, ate their food in such greed and haste that part of the
food fell from their beaks, this signified divine assent. A magistrate could influence
such behavior by letting the chicken starve or by taking care that the fodder was
dry, so it would fall off better (Cic. Div.1.27f.). If this ritual was not public – our
sources are unclear about this aspect – it was reduced to a dialogue between the
magistrate and his assistant, who had to watch the chicken. The tripudiumwas
performed before the start of an expedition and at the beginning of the day of a
battle. When Publius Claudius Pulcher, consul in 249bc, intended to start the naval
battle against the Carthaginians at Drepanum, the chickens refused to eat. Instead
of complying with the divine sign, the consul ordered the chickens to be thrown
into the water, adding: “If they do not want to eat, they may drink” (Suet. Tiberius
2.2). Publius Claudius Pulcher lost the battle. His impious action ruined his career.
When he came back to Rome, he was heavily fined. Roman authors, especially Livy,
constructed Roman defeats along the same lines: Roman defeats result from the neglect
of divine signs.
If the interpretation of a sign turned out to be wrong, a Roman would not blame
the divination system, but himself: the mistake must be in the ritual or in the inter-
pretation. Anthropological research reveals the same phenomenon in other civiliza-
tions: there might be doubts about the quality of a diviner, but never doubts about
the system of divination. Nevertheless, divination was not uncontested. Cicero’s work
De divinatione reflects the problems connected to divine signs during the late
republic. In the first book, Cicero’s brother argues that divination is possible, while
in the second book, Cicero himself maintains that almost all sorts of divination, except
for the types important for the res publica, are bogus. At the end of the work, Cicero
leaves the reader to decide. Although it is unclear if Cicero was the first to articu-
late doubt, and although Cicero relied heavily on Greek philosophers, it is obvious
that the discourse about divination contained some skepticism.
Although seers and prophets were a part of the Roman construction of the myth-
ical past – the first augur, Attus Navius, who was contested by one of the Roman
kings, had more powers than other augurs (Livy 1.36) – they do not occur as
public priests in republican Rome. Apart from the public augurs, there were also
private seers meeting the ever-present demand for divine help in decision-making.
In contrast to the public diviners, they could be treated with disdain. Astrologers
were occasionally banned from Rome. Cato’s saying that a haruspexwas forced to
laugh on meeting another haruspex(Cat. Agr.5.4) refers to haruspicesworking for
money. The haruspiceswho were asked to find a ritual to expiate a prodigy came
from the upper class of Etruria. They were also specialists in extispicy, the examina-
tion of the entrails of sacrificial victims (North 1990: 51– 61).
Individual Politicians and the Power of Divination
Omens reported to have happened to a given person, in most cases prominent politi-
cians at a turning point in their careers, differ from prodigies. Omens are the only300 Veit Rosenberger