The Magisterial Auspices in Late Republican Rome

Few institutions more clearly reveal the entanglement of religion and law at Rome than public auspices. Republican magistrates were expected to seek Jupiter’s assent through a formal divinatory rite of auspicatio each time they acted on behalf of the Roman people. Failure to do so could carry grave consequences: laws and decrees could be voided, elections declared defective, and commanders rendered liable to criminal prosecution. This book provides the first systematic study of auspicial practice among late-Republican magistrates (c. 133–44/43 BCE). It reconstructs the terminology, categories of signs, and procedures governing the rite, continually testing textual interpretations against the practical constraints of ritual performance. Treating the augural law as an evolving practice rather than a stable body of rules, it traces the formation of new auspicial norms and the pressures that shaped their application. A series of case studies demonstrates how disputes over auspices reshaped the political process at Rome, contributing to the paralysis – and eventual collapse – of the Republican regime.