# Malevolent Gods and Promethean Birds: Contesting Augury in Augustus's Rome - - - ### p149 > modern scholarship on Roman augury, and one gets the impression that this mythological interpretation was only seriously challenged by certain "intellectual" members of the leisured elite, particularly in the late Republic: these men, especially those from Epicurean and Academic schools of thought, would dismiss mythical/divine interpretations of augury while at the same time insisting on the political benefits of maintaining an institution that was respected by the gullible masses.3 But is this the whole story? The aim of this paper will be to demonstrate that the terms of augural debate are in fact much more dynamic than previous scholars have given them credit for. ### p149 > . Nevertheless, for a society whose religion is not based on any one orthodox text, we should not underestimate the capacity of literature to act as a primary articulator of religious debate, a situation which inevitably pulls against any Augustan desire for religious conformity. ### p150 Rome’s founding was impacted by vultures as divination augury > For centuries, it would seem, augury enjoyed positive status in Rome, a city famously founded on the consultation of birds. Wait, the Roman AND Aztec capitals were _both_ founded because of birdsign / augury? ### p150 > Octavian/ Augustus did not advertise augury as a potent symbol of religious revival in as overt a manner as he did with, for example, animal sacrifice ### p151 Roman augury required benevolent interactions between priests, gods, and avian messengers. > Augustan discourse on augury. Most importantly for our purposes, it is a discourse which is underpinned by the notion of benevolent interaction between special, (self)-appointed mortals, gods and their special avian messengers. Starting to remind me of Odin and his ravens. ### p152 Rome’s founders fought over augury interpretation > Since they were twins, and respect for their age could not make any distinction between them, Romulus and Remus decided to let the gods, under whose guardianship those regions were, choose by augury which one of them should give his name to the new city, and which one of them should rule it with sovereignty once it has been founded. Accordingly, Romulus took the Palatine, and Remus the Aventine as their quarters of the sky to take the auspices. An augural sign is said to have come first to Remus: six vultures. The augury had just been announced when double the number revealed themselves to Romulus. Each man was saluted as king by his own followers: one side based their claim on the grounds of priority of time, the other on the number of birds. How Rome was founded due to augury. Relevant for [[2021.06.14 Divination]] ### p152 > Livy's general strategy is to downplay divine elements, and rational or altruistic motives from the mortal protagonists, in favor of an earthly tale of human passion and self-sufficiency ### p153 augury is best interpreted retroactively > The augural contest itself produces controversy, in that each participant receives omens that may be significant, dependent on whether priority of time or number of signs is considered more important. In attempting to resolve the issue, neither contestant is able to appeal to any religious authority; on the contrary, it is the mortal followers of each who contend in championing their individual: The augury, then, acquires its "supernatural" significance only after decisive human action has occurred ### p154 > Far from a means of reliable communication between gods and specially-appointed mortals, augury, Livy intimates, is essentially a tool to be manipulated by powerful individuals: Romulus wins through force of personality, rather than divine right. This may provide a more general critique of Octavian/ Augustus, as a man who constructs divine sanction and uses the supernatural to legitimize his action. ### p154 > Vergil frames his epic poem with two important augural scenes, both involving a swan and an eagle. Eagles are important to the Aztecs, Romans, and Scythians at least. ### p156 > This first augural scene, then, involves twelve swans which, having been put to flight by the eagle, are now back on their correct path towards the stars. Venus not only draws Aeneas's attention to the omen but also offers him an interpretation: the swans, she suggests, represent Aeneas's men at sea/ships, in that they too have found, or are close to finding, safety (after the great storm). It should be noted that Venus's interpretation, which involves a fairly simple correlation between the antics of birds and humans, is only one of a number of viable interpretations. ### p162 > . What we do know is that there were a great number of works on augury and augural law in the Late Republic.34 The sheer number, and general forum of intellectual debate of the lateRepublic, strongly suggests that there was no standardized approach to the practice (just as with the other technical arts). ### p166 Augury is dependent on harmony between humans and avians > The integrity of augury naturally hangs on a sense of harmony between gods and birds, whereby benevolent gods send true signs by means of compliant messenger birds. As we have seen, the skeptical intellectuals of the late Republic are keen to preserve this fiction for the purpose of controlling the masses, and Augustus is keen to (re)emphasize this harmonious message during his lifetime and, at the same time, use augury as another means of forging positive links between himself and the gods ### p166 > The two most prominent Augustan poets, Vergil and Ovid, however, complicate Augustus's clear-cut mythological rhetoric on augury. In their own contrasting ways, both poets take the practice's traditional mythological underpinning to task by questioning the morality of each party in the relationship. Vergil draws attention to the gods' absolute power in their ability both to help and deceive mortals through augury. Ovid, on the other hand, questions the authority of the birds themselves, which may be acting independently of divine will; this in turn has implications for the sacred status of both the city and its first Emperor ### p167 poets replaced philosophers as political critiquers during the Roman Empire > Whether we call this religious debate or (subversive) play, it is apparent that poets have now replaced philosophers as the critical voice on religion in the Augustan age.