# 14. The Romans interpreted their Auspices in accordance with their Needs, were wise enough ostensibly to observe Religion when forced to ignore it, and punished those who were so rash as to disparage it

Auguries were not only in large part the basis of the ancient religion of the gentiles, as we have remarked in a previous discourse, but they also contributed to the well-being of the Roman republic. Hence the Romans took more care in regard to them than in regard to any other institution in that republic. They made use of them in the election of consuls, in entering upon military enterprises, in leading forth their armies, on engaging in battles, and in all their important enterprises, whether civic or military. Never would they set forth on an expedition until they had convinced the troops that the gods had promised them victory.

Among other exponents of augury they had in their armies certain officials concerned with the taking of auspices, who were called poultrymen; and whenever they had to fix the day for an engagement with the enemy, they requested the poultrymen to take the auspices. If the poultry pecked, the augury was good and they fought; if they didn’t peck, they abstained from battle. Nevertheless, when reason told them that a thing had to be done, they did it anyhow, even should the auspices be adverse. But, so adroit were they in words and actions at giving things a twist that they did not appear to have done anything disparaging to religion.

Adroitness of this kind was used by Papirius, the consul, in an important battle which he fought with the Samnites, after which the latter were left extremely weak and dispirited. For, when Papirius was encamped opposite to the Samnites, and it seemed to him that in battle he would certainly win, in order that he might choose the day for this he told the poultrymen to take the auspices. But the poultry did not peck. Observing, however, the army’s great eagerness to fight and that alike the commander and all the troops thought they would win, the head-poultryman in order not to deprive the army of so good an opportunity for the work in hand, sent word to the consul that the result of the auspices had been favourable. So Papirius ordered the troops to fall in. But meanwhile some of the poultrymen let it out to some soldiers that the poultry had not pecked; and they told Spurius Papirius, the consul’s nephew, who passed it on to the consul. Whereupon the consul told him to mind his own business and to mind it well, and that, as for himself and the army, the auspices had been good, and that, if the poultryman had told a lie, that was his look-out. That the result should agree with the prognostication, he then told the legates to put the poultrymen in the forefront of the battle. Whence it came about that, when they attacked the enemy, the head-poultryman was accidentally killed by a javelin thrown by a Roman soldier. When the consul heard of this, he said that all was going well, thanks be to the gods; for by the death of this liar the army had been purged of any blame and any wrath which it had incurred in the sight of the gods. Thus, through knowing how to accommodate nicely his plans to the auspices, he engaged the enemy and beat them without the army’s suspecting that he had in any way neglected what was prescribed by their religion.

In Sicily during the first Punic war Appius Pulcher acted very differently. When about to engage with the Carthaginian army, he had the auspices taken by the poultrymen, and, when they reported that the poultry would not peck, he exclaimed ‘Let’s see if they won’t drink!’, and had them thrown into the sea. He then made the attack and lost the day. For which he was condemned at Rome and Papirius honoured; not so much because the one had been victorious and the other had lost, as because the one, in contravening the auspices, had been prudent and the other rash. Nor did this custom of consulting the auspices tend to produce any result save to cause troops to go confidently into battle, the which confidence almost always leads to victory. Nor yet was it only the Romans who used it, but also foreigners, of which I think I will give an example in the following chapter.