EXAUGURA´TIO
EXAUGURA´TIO is the act of taking away from a place
or thing the sacred character which it had received by inauguratio,
consecratio, or dedicatio. That such an act was performed by the augurs, and
never without consulting the pleasure of the gods by augurium, is implied in
the name itself. (
Liv. 1.55, cf. 5.54, 69 ;
Dionys.
Antiq. Rom. iii. p. 162; Cato ap. Festus, s. v.
Nequitum.) Temples, chapels, and other
consecrated places, as well as priests, were considered as belonging to the
gods. No consecrated place whatever could be applied for any profane
purpose, or dedicated to any other divinity than that to which it originally
belonged, without being previously exaugurated; and priests could not give
up their sacred functions, nor could a vestal virgin, after the expiration
of her thirty years of service, enter into matrimony, without first
undergoing the process of exauguratio. (Gellius, vi. (vii.) 7, 4; Jul.
Capitol.
M. Anton. Philos. 100.4.)
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