h character, such
belief, had become by the second century B.C. entirely paralysed and
destroyed. But the history of the augurate is much more difficult to
follow than that of the pontificate. The work of the pontifices touched
the life of every day, public and private, at many points, with the
result that their secrets ceased to be secrets by the end of the fourth
century B.C. The work of the augurs was occasional, and more technical
than that of the other college; it can hardly be said to have affected
the religion of family life, nor did it continually bear upon public
life, as did the pontifical knowledge of the _ius divinum_ and the
calendar. Hence the augural lore was never published, under pressure of
public opinion, and neither ancient nor modern scholars have had to
waste their time in investigating it. Books were indeed written about it
in later times by one or two curious students, but in the time of
Cicero, who was himself an augur, the neglect of it was general, even by
members of the college.[633]

This mysterious augural lore was preserved in books, like that of the
pontifices; and in all probability these books were put together in the
same period as the latter, viz., the two centuries immediately following
the abolition of the kingship.[634] I think there is a strong
probability that the augurate emerged from the age of Etruscan rule
which marks the latter part of the kingly period, with increased
importance and fresh activity, the result of immediate contact with
Etruscan methods of divination.[635] It is likely that they began in
this way to cultivate the art of divination by lightning, which was
peculiarly Etruscan, and to divide their _templum_ into _regiones_,
which, as I said just now, were not apparently needed for the
observation of omens from birds. How far they carried this art we cannot
tell, owing to the loss of their books and the commentaries upon them;
but about the Etruscan discipline we do know something. Those who wish
to have a glimpse of it may consult the first chapter of the fourth
volume of Bouche-Leclercq's _History of Divination_, as a more
intelligible account than any known to me.[636] But all I need to insist
on now is the likelihood that the augurs began the Republican period
with a power of interpretation which was the more important because the
art was changed; it is now the depository not only of the old bird lore,
but of the new lightning lore. And as this last became th