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It was also the business of the augur to interpret
dreams, oracles, and prodigies.
Nothing can be so surprising than to find so wise and valorous a people
as the Romans addicted to such childish fooleries. Scipio, Augustus, and
many others, without any fatal consequences, despised the _sacred_
chickens, and other arts of divination: but when the generals had
miscarried in any enterprise, the people laid the whole blame on the
negligence with which these oracles had been consulted: and if an
unfortunate general had neglected to consult them, the blame of
miscarriage was thrown upon him who had preferred his own forecast to
that of the fowls; while those who made these kinds of predictions a
subject of raillery, were accounted impious and profane. Thus they
construed, as a punishment of the gods, the defeat of Claudius Pulcher;
who, when the sacred chickens refused to eat what was set before them,
ordered them to be thrown into the sea; "If they won't eat," said he,
"they shall drink."

ARUSPICES, OR DIVINATIONS DRAWN FROM BRUTE, OR HUMAN SACRIFICES.


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