Augur
An augur was a Roman priest who practised *augury*, the official state divination by observation of the flight, calls, and feeding behaviour of birds, supplemented by other signs from sky and earth. The college of augurs (*collegium augurum*) was one of the four great priestly colleges of Rome, alongside the pontiffs, the *quindecimviri sacris faciundis*, and the *septemviri epulonum*. Augury survived from the legendary foundation of Rome by Romulus, who is said to have decided the location of the city by augural sign, until the Christianisation of the empire in the late fourth century CE.
Origin
Roman tradition traces augury to the period of the legendary kings. Livy and Cicero report that Romulus and his brother Remus disputed the foundation of Rome by augury: Remus saw six vultures from the Aventine, but Romulus saw twelve from the Palatine, and the larger number decided the matter. The college of augurs is traditionally attributed to Numa Pompilius, the second king, who is credited with most of Rome's religious institutions. The Etruscans, from whom Rome inherited many religious practices, had their own divinatory specialists, and the Latin technical vocabulary of augury preserves probable Etruscan loans.
During the Republic the augural college numbered three, then six, then nine members; under Sulla it was expanded to fifteen, and under Julius Caesar to sixteen. Members were drawn from the senatorial elite and held office for life. Famous augurs include Appius Claudius Pulcher (consul 54 BCE), who wrote a treatise on augury, and Cicero himself, who was co-opted into the college in 53 BCE. Cicero's *De Divinatione* and *De Natura Deorum* remain principal sources for the theory and practice of augury, alongside the antiquarian writings of Varro and the historical works of Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus.
Method of augury
Augury proceeded by the ritual marking-out of a *templum*, a sacred quadrangular space in the sky and on the corresponding ground from which the augur would observe. Using a curved staff called the *lituus*, the augur defined the four quarters: east, west, north, south, with east in front. The augur then announced the question to the gods, typically a binary asking whether a proposed action would be acceptable. Signs (*signa* or *auspicia*) appearing in the templum were interpreted: birds on the left (the auspicious side in Roman augury, the inverse of Greek) generally signalled favour, those on the right disfavour.
The signs were classified by type. *Auspicia ex avibus* read the flight of certain birds (eagles, vultures, hawks, owls, ravens, crows). *Auspicia ex tripudiis* observed the feeding of sacred chickens kept for the purpose: if they ate so eagerly that crumbs fell from their beaks (*tripudium solistimum*), the omen was excellent. *Auspicia ex caelo* interpreted thunder and lightning. *Auspicia ex quadrupedibus* read encounters with four-footed animals. *Auspicia ex diris* covered unusual events of any kind. Each major public act, from declaring war to convening the assembly, required favourable auspices. Compare ornithomancy.
In practice
Augury as a state institution ended with the prohibition of pagan ritual by Theodosius in 391 to 392 CE. The technique itself, however, persisted in modified form. Medieval and Renaissance Europe retained popular bird-omens: the magpie rhyme ('one for sorrow, two for joy'), the cuckoo's first call of spring, the raven on the battlefield. Modern reconstructionist practitioners of Roman religion (*Religio Romana*, *Nova Roma*) have revived augural practice in a contemporary form, observing birds in marked sacred spaces and recording the results.
You can experiment with a simplified augury yourself. Choose a quiet outdoor place at dawn or dusk, when bird activity is highest. Define mentally a quadrant of sky as your *templum* and a window of fifteen to thirty minutes. State your question clearly. Observe and record: which species, from which direction, how many, what behaviour. Interpret afterwards. Pair the exercise with pendulum work for binary confirmation or tarot for narrative context. See also omen and sibyl.
Symbolic depth
The augur was not, in Roman understanding, a prophet who predicted the future. The college's formal task was narrower: to determine whether the gods favoured or opposed a proposed undertaking at this moment. This is divination as a discrete *yes-or-no* protocol attached to specific decisions, not as a continuous oracle. The Roman state thus institutionalised a procedure for adding divine consent to political action, and gave senators a slow, deliberative interruption between proposal and execution. The political function was as important as the religious.
Symbolically, the bird represents the messenger between worlds. Free of earth, traversing the sky, the bird belongs to a domain inaccessible to humans, and its movement carries information from that domain. The same symbolism reappears in Norse Odin's ravens, in the dove of Genesis, in the eagle of Zeus. Continue with ornithomancy, omen, sibyl, and the Oracle of Delphi. The full glossary and the mantik hub offer further study.
Also known as
- Auspex
- Augural priest
- Bird-reader
- Roman diviner
- Auguror