CHAPTER XIV

THE ROMANS INTERPRETED THE AUSPICES ACCORDING TO NECESSITY, AND WITH THEIR PRUDENCE MADE A SHOW OF OBSERVING RELIGION, EVEN WHEN THEY WERE FORCED NOT TO OBSERVE IT, AND IF ANYONE RECKLESSLY DISPARAGED IT THEY PUNISHED HIM

The Auguries not only (as was discussed above) were the foundation in good part of the ancient Religion of the Gentiles, but they were also the causes of the well-being of the Roman Republic. Whence the Romans cared more for this than any other institution, and used it in their Consular Comitii, in starting their enterprises, in sending out their armies, in fighting engagements, and in every important activity of theirs, whether civil or military: and they never would go on an expedition unless they had persuaded the soldiers that the Gods promised them the victory. And among the Aruspices there were in the armies certain orders of Aruspices which they called Pollari [guardians of the Sacred Fowls]. And anytime they were ordered to fight an engagement with the enemy they desired these Pollari make their Aruspices; and if the fowls pecked away, they fought with a good augury: if they did not peck away, they abstained from battle. None the less, when reason showed them that a thing ought to be done, not withstanding the Aruspices should be adverse, they did it anyway: but then they turned these [aruspices] with conditions and in such a manner so adeptly, that it should not appear they were doing so with disparagement to their Religion: which method was used by Consul Papirus in a most important battle which he waged against the Samnites, which afterward left them entirely weak and afflicted. For Papirus being in the field encountered the Samnites, and as victory in battle appeared certain to him, and because of this wanting to come to an engagement, he commanded the Pollari that they make their Aruspices: but the fowls did not peck away, and the Prince of the Pollari seeing the great disposition of the army to fight and the thoughts to win which were in the Captain and all the soldiers, and in order not to take away this opportunity from the army of doing well, reported to the Consul that the Aruspices were proceeding well, so that Papirus ordered out his squadrons; but some of the Pollari having told certain soldiers that the fowls had not pecked away, they in turn told it to Spurius Papirus nephew of the Consul; and when he reported this to the Consul, he [the Consul] quickly replied that he should attend to doing his duty well, and that as to himself and the army the Aruspices were correct, and if the Pollarius had told a lie, it would come back on him to his prejudice. And so that the result should correspond to the prognostication, he commanded his legates that they should place the Pollari in the front ranks of the battle. Whence it resulted that in going against the enemy, a Roman soldier drawing a dart by chance killed the Prince of the Pollari: which thing becoming known, the Consul said that every thing was proceeding well and with the favor of the Gods, for the army through the death of that liar was purged of every blame and of whatever anger [the Gods] should have had against him. And thus by knowing well how to accommodate his designs to the Aruspices, he [Papirus] took steps to give battle without his army perceiving that he had in any part neglected the institutions of their Religion.

Appius Pulcher acted in a contrary fashion in Sicily in the first Punic war; for wanting to give battle to the Carthaginian army, he caused the Pollari to make Aruspices, and when they reported to him that those fowl did not peck away, he said “Let us see if they would drink,” and had them thrown into the sea: whence that giving battle he lost the engagement; for which he was condemned at Rome, and Papirus honored, not so much for the one having lost and the other having won, but because the one had gone against the Aruspices in a prudent manner, and the other fearfully. Nor did this method of making Aurispices have any other object than to have the soldiers go into battle with confidence, from which confidence almost always victory resulted. Which institution was not only used by the Romans, but by those outsiders; of which it seems to me proper to adduce an example in the following chapter.