[74]
Again, do you not think that formerly
it was the habit of the celebrants themselves to
make observation of the heavens? Now they order
the poulterer, and he gives responses!1 We regard
lightning on the left as a most favourable omen
for everything except for an election, and this exception was made, no doubt, from reasons of political
expediency so that the rulers of the State would be
the judges of the regularity of an election, whether
held to pass judgements in criminal cases, or to enact
laws, or to elect magistrates.
"'The consuls, Scipio and Figulus,' you say,
'resigned their office when the augurs rendered a
decision based on a letter written by Tiberius
Gracchus, to the effect that those consuls had not
been elected according to augural law.' Who denies
that augury is an art? What I deny is the existence
of divination. But you say: ' Soothsayers have the
power of divination'; and you mention the fact
that, on account of the unexpected death of the
person who had suddenly fallen while bringing in
the report of the vote of the prerogative century,
Tiberius Gracchus introduced the soothsayers into
the Senate and they declared that 'the president'
had violated augural law.2
1 Apparently Cicero ridicules the idea of a “poulterer” and not the “celebrant” taking the auspices.
2 See this incident more fully described in Cic. N.D. ii. chap. 4.; cf. i. 17. 33. The prerogative century—or the one which voted first at the election—had its rogator, or president, who collected the votes; and the entire assembly, made up of all the electors voting by centuries, had its rogator, usually the consul who received the reports of the subordinate presidents.
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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