the gods would accept no expiation, and for which, therefore, the penalty of excommunication (sacer esto) was pronounced.
The right of taking the auspices is said to have been a gift peculiar to the Patricians; but the extent of this gift can be estimated only with reference to a fourfold division of the auspices, which, from its nature, must have been primitive and not a creation of the later disciplina of the augurs.
The auspices were divided into impetrativa (or impetrita) and oblativa.[1] The auspicia impetrativa were those which were sought and asked for, and such signs might be taken from observation of the sky or from the flight or sounds of birds. The oblativa were those which were forced on the attention, and which, since they were not sought, were generally regarded as an impediment to action, and, therefore, as unfavourable. They were gathered from a heterogeneous collection of signs of ill-omen (dirae). It is plain that the right to take or, as it is expressed, to have auspices (habere auspicia) can refer only to the first of these two categories; it was this right that was assumed to be peculiar to the Patricians; it was the members of the original clans alone, the primitive patres, who had the right of asking signs of the gods, and it was held that every important act of their lives, whether public or private, should be pervaded by this divine intercourse. It was believed that it was through auspices that the city had been raised, political development attained, and former victories won.[2] The existence of the patrician order is from this point of view a necessary condition of the existence of the state itself, for without it the right of eliciting the divine will would be wholly lost.[3] But no human power could prevent the Plebeians from following the religious scruples of their betters in giving heed to those warnings which were thrust upon their notice. The auspicia oblativa, whether the gods destined them for others besides the patrician body or not, must from the earliest times have been respected by the Plebeians, and have guided their political conduct when they became a corporation within the state.
- ↑ Serv. ad Aen. vi. 190 "auguria aut oblativa sunt, quae non poscuntur, aut impetrativa, quae optata veniunt." For the categories of these two kinds of auspices see the discussion of the auspices in the section on the magistracy (p. 162).
- ↑ Liv. vi. 41 "Auspiciis hanc urbem conditam esse, auspiciis bello ac pace, domi militiaeque omnia geri, quis est qui ignoret?"
- ↑ This view is most fully expressed in the formalities of the interregnum. See the section which treats of this institution (p. 147).
