augurium

Augury comes from Latin augurium, the observation and interpretation of bird behavior as a form of divination. The word's root is disputed — ancient Romans connected it to avis (bird) and garrire (to chatter) or to the verb augere (to increase, to prosper), suggesting the augur was one who made things flourish. Modern etymologists favor a pre-Latin root connected to the Proto-Indo-European *h₂ewg-, to increase. Whatever the etymology, the practice was unambiguous: the flight patterns, calls, feeding behavior, and landing positions of certain birds — especially eagles, ravens, and chickens — told the augur whether the gods approved of a proposed action.

The Roman college of augurs was not a group of mystics but a body of senior statesmen appointed for life. Augurs did not predict the future; they read the divine will regarding a specific proposed action in the present. Before any major undertaking — a battle, an election, the founding of a colony, the consecration of a temple — augurs performed the auspicatio, the formal observation of birds. An unfavorable omen did not mean disaster was inevitable; it meant the gods had not consented, and the action should be postponed or reformulated. This gave the augurs enormous political power: they could, in theory, invalidate an election or prevent a war simply by announcing that the birds had not been favorable.

The practice entered Rome through Etruscan influence — the Etruscans had an elaborate divinatory tradition called the disciplina etrusca that included haruspicy (reading entrails), augury, and lightning interpretation. When Rome absorbed Etruscan culture in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, it absorbed these techniques as well, institutionalizing them into official state practice. The sacred chickens kept by Roman armies were a field adaptation: if the chickens fed eagerly before battle, the omen was good; if they refused to eat, the omen was bad. The general Publius Claudius Pulcher, who threw the sacred chickens into the sea in 249 BCE when they refused to eat before the battle of Drepana, lost the battle catastrophically — vindicating the birds in retrospect.

Augury survived in English long after the Roman practice died. The word now means any omen or sign of things to come, and 'auspicious' — from auspicium, the formal augural observation — has become a common adjective for favorable beginnings. Every time someone calls a project launch 'auspicious,' they are remembering, however faintly, the Roman official standing in a specially marked field, watching which direction the eagle flew across the templum — the sacred rectangle of sky he had drawn with his curved staff.