Pre Battle Auspices.

[Gaius Octavius]

I believe that during the First Punic War, the captain of a fleet was told that the Sacred Chickens wouldn't eat before he entered into battle. This was an evil omen and the augurs told him that he should not fight. Disregarding the omen, he flung the Chickens into the sea, commenting that if the Chickens wouldn't eat, then they could drink. Lost the battle.

 

Is this really so? If so, when, and did this practice stop?

[Klingan]

Well the practise is very true and this incident is indeed recorded. I've heard about it many times before and I'm quite sure I've got it as an example in my social history book.

 

Hungry chickens = Good omen

Not hungry = Bad

 

Must have been rather easy to manipulate.

[Nephele]

Is this really so? If so, when, and did this practice stop?

 

If this is the same chicken story (and I believe it is) then the "when" can be answered by a look at MCP's 101 Statesmen of the Roman Republic. Scroll down until you reach P. Appius Claudius Pulcher, Consul in 249 BCE:

 

"after killing Sacred Chickens, lost 93 of 120 ships to Adherbal in worst naval defeat in Roman history; charged with perduellio, Pulcher died before trial"

 

-- Nephele

[Lost_Warrior]

charged with perduellio, Pulcher died before trial

 

What is perduellio?

[Nephele]

charged with perduellio, Pulcher died before trial

 

What is perduellio?

 

Check out Seyffert's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, under the entry for Maiestas:

 

"Denoted among the Romans the sovereign power of the people and the State, or that of the emperor. To detract from this sovereign power was a crime (crimen mlnutce maiestatis). Originally the term perduellio (q.v.) included all offences of this kind ; distinctions were first made in B.C. 100 by the Lex Apuleia, which declared some offences to be treason that had previously been regarded as perduellio, such as hindering the tribunes and exciting to sedition."

 

Also, from Seyffert's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, under the entry for "Auspicia":

 

"(3) Signs from the behavior of chickens while eating. It was a good omen if the chicken rushed eagerly out of its cage at its food and dropped a bit out of its beak; an unfavourable omen if it was unwilling, or refused altogether to leave its cage, or flew away, or declined its food. This clear and simple method of getting omens was generally adopted by armies in the field, the chickens being taken about in charge of a special functionary (pullarius)."

 

-- Nephele

[ASCLEPIADES]

I believe that during the First Punic War, the captain of a fleet was told that the Sacred Chickens wouldn't eat before he entered into battle. This was an evil omen and the augurs told him that he should not fight. Disregarding the omen, he flung the Chickens into the sea, commenting that if the Chickens wouldn't eat, then they could drink. Lost the battle.

 

Is this really so? If so, when, and did this practice stop?

Salve, GO.

Yes, it is. The aforementioned naval battle was at Drepanum (modern Trapani, Sicily) at DV AUC (249 BC) during the I Punic War, with the Roman fleet of 120 vessels, under the command of the Roman consuls, Publius Claudius Pulcher and Lucius Iunius Pullus, attacking the Carthaginian fleet of probably the same size, under the command of Adherbal; the Romans lose 93 vessels.

 

 

Titus Livius Ab Urbe Condita Liber XIX is lost, so here comes its Periocha:

 

"Claudius Pulcher cos. contra auspicia profectus (iussit mergi pullos, qui cibari nolebant) infeliciter adversus Carthaginienses classe pugnavit,

Consul Claudius Pulcher fought without success against the Carthaginian navy after evil omens (he had ordered the holy chickens to be drowned if they refused to eat)."

 

It was a good example for Cicero's treatise de Divinatione (Liber I, Cp. XVI, sec. XXVIII-XXIX):

 

"Nam ut nunc extis (quamquam id ipsum aliquanto minus quam olim), sic tum avibus magnae res impetriri solebant. Itaque, sinistra dum non exquirimus, in dira et in vitiosa incurrimus. Ut P. Claudius, Appi Caeci filius, eiusque collega L. Iunius classis maxumas perdiderunt, cum vitio navigassent.

For just as we now consult the entrails of victims, though even that very practice is observed less now than it used to be, so in ancient times, before all transactions of importance, men used to consult birds; and, therefore, from want of paying proper regard to ill omens, we often run into alarming and destructive dangers:

Edited October 27, 2007 by ASCLEPIADES

[Lost_Warrior]

"Denoted among the Romans the sovereign power of the people and the State, or that of the emperor. To detract from this sovereign power was a crime (crimen mlnutce maiestatis). Originally the term perduellio (q.v.) included all offences of this kind ; distinctions were first made in B.C. 100 by the Lex Apuleia, which declared some offences to be treason that had previously been regarded as perduellio, such as hindering the tribunes and exciting to sedition."

 

Thanks for that, Nephele. So, how was ignoring the chicken-omen considered detracting from the emperor's power?

[Nephele]

Thanks for that, Nephele. So, how was ignoring the chicken-omen considered detracting from the emperor's power?

 

I should have cited the direct entry for "perduellio" from Seyffert's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Which more clearly defines the term as being:

 

"The Roman term for all acts whereby an individual within the State showed himself an enemy, perduellis, of the established constitution. It included attempts at despotic power, usurpation or abuse of magisterial powers (e.g. the execution of a citizen), violation of the sanctity of the tribuni plebis, etc."

 

The definition of perduellio under Seyffert's entry for "maiestas" may be misleading in this case, as obviously there wasn't an emperor in the time of P. Appius Claudius Pulcher.

 

Perhaps MPC can explain the term better, as he used it in his compilation that I linked above. I can only guess that somehow ignoring a sacred omen during a time of crisis (as in the case of war), with disastrous results, could conceivably lead to the responsible person being declared an "enemy of the State".

 

-- Nephele

[Lost_Warrior]

Ah, thank you!! That makes a bit more sense now.

[M. Porcius Cato]

According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary, perduellio "was the crime of activity hostile to the state. It covered a much wider field of offenses than consorting with the enemy against the state (proditio), but it was probably not clearly defined. In the early republic it came under the jurisdiction of duumviri perduellionis, who seem to have had the discretion to condemn without further reference but became subject to provocatio. By the 3rd cent. BC prosecutions were mounted by tribunes in an assembly.... In the late republic such prosecutions became obsolete when crimes of the kind were actionable in the quaestio de maiestate."

[Gaius Octavius]

If so, when, and did this practice stop?