Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, lawyer, political theorist and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy family of the Roman equestrian order. According to Michael Grant, the influence of Cicero upon the history of European literature, Cicero introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary distinguishing himself as a translator and philosopher. Though he was an orator and successful lawyer, Cicero believed his political career was his most important achievement. During the chaotic latter half of the 1st century BC marked by civil wars, following Julius Caesars death, Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony in the ensuing power struggle, attacking him in a series of speeches. His severed hands and head were then, as a revenge of Mark Antony. Petrarchs rediscovery of Ciceros letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance in public affairs, according to Polish historian Tadeusz Zieliński, the Renaissance was above all things a revival of Cicero, and only after him and through him of the rest of Classical antiquity.
Cicero was born in 106 BC in Arpinum, a hill town 100 kilometers southeast of Rome and his father was a well-to-do member of the equestrian order and possessed good connections in Rome. However, being a semi-invalid, he could not enter public life, although little is known about Ciceros mother, Helvia, it was common for the wives of important Roman citizens to be responsible for the management of the household. Ciceros brother Quintus wrote in a letter that she was a thrifty housewife, Ciceros cognomen, or personal surname, comes from the Latin for chickpea, cicer. Plutarch explains that the name was given to one of Ciceros ancestors who had a cleft in the tip of his nose resembling a chickpea. However, it is likely that Ciceros ancestors prospered through the cultivation. Romans often chose down-to-earth personal surnames, the family names of Fabius and Piso come from the Latin names of beans, lentils. Plutarch writes that Cicero was urged to change this name when he entered politics. During this period in Roman history, cultured meant being able to speak both Latin and Greek, Cicero used his knowledge of Greek to translate many of the theoretical concepts of Greek philosophy into Latin, thus translating Greek philosophical works for a larger audience.
It was precisely his broad education that tied him to the traditional Roman elite, according to Plutarch, Cicero was an extremely talented student, whose learning attracted attention from all over Rome, affording him the opportunity to study Roman law under Quintus Mucius Scaevola. Ciceros fellow students were Gaius Marius Minor, Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the latter two became Ciceros friends for life, and Pomponius would become, in Ciceros own words, as a second brother, with both maintaining a lifelong correspondence. Cicero wanted to pursue a career in politics along the steps of the Cursus honorum
Max Weber
Karl Emil Maximilian Max Weber was a German sociologist, jurist, political economist and the husband of Marianne Schnitger. His ideas profoundly influenced social theory and social research, Weber is often cited, with Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as among the three founders of sociology. Unlike Durkheim, he did not believe in monocausality and rather proposed that for any outcome there can be multiple causes and he argued that it was in the basic tenets of Protestantism to boost capitalism. Thus, it can be said that the spirit of capitalism is inherent to Protestant religious values, against Marxs historical materialism, Weber emphasised the importance of cultural influences embedded in religion as a means for understanding the genesis of capitalism. In another major work, Politics as a Vocation, Weber defined the state as an entity that successfully claims a monopoly of the use of physical force within a given territory. He was the first to categorise social authority into distinct forms, which he labelled as charismatic and his analysis of bureaucracy emphasised that modern state institutions are increasingly based on rational-legal authority.
Weber made a variety of contributions in economic history, as well as economic theory. Webers analysis of modernity and rationalisation significantly influenced the theory associated with the Frankfurt School. After the First World War, Max Weber was among the founders of the liberal German Democratic Party and he ran unsuccessfully for a seat in parliament and served as advisor to the committee that drafted the ill-fated democratic Weimar Constitution of 1919. After contracting Spanish flu, he died of pneumonia in 1920, Karl Emil Maximilian Weber was born in 1864, in Erfurt, Province of Saxony, Prussia. Weber Sr. s involvement in public life immersed his home in politics and academia, as his salon welcomed many prominent scholars and public figures. The young Weber and his brother Alfred, who became a sociologist and economist. Before entering the university, he would read many other classical works, in 1882 Weber enrolled in the University of Heidelberg as a law student. After a year of service, he transferred to the University of Berlin.
Simultaneously with his studies, he worked as a junior lawyer, in 1886 Weber passed the examination for Referendar, comparable to the bar association examination in the British and American legal systems. Throughout the late 1880s, Weber continued his study of law and this work was used as part of a longer work On the History of Trading Companies in the Middle Ages, based on South-European Sources, published in the same year. Two years later, Weber completed his Habilitationsschrift, Roman Agrarian History and its Significance for Public and Private Law, having thus become a Privatdozent, Weber joined the University of Berlins faculty and consulting for the government. In the years between the completion of his dissertation and habilitation, Weber took an interest in social policy
Mos maiorum
The mos maiorum is the unwritten code from which the ancient Romans derived their social norms. It is the concept of Roman traditionalism, distinguished from. The mos maiorum was collectively the time-honoured principles, behavioural models, and social practices that affected private, the Roman family was hierarchical, as was Roman society. These hierarchies were traditional and self-perpetuating, that is, they supported and were supported by the mos maiorum, the risk and pressure of social censure if he failed to live up to expectations was a form of mos. The distinctive social relationship of ancient Rome was that between patron and client, although the obligations of this relationship were mutual, they were hierarchical. If the familia was the discrete unit underlying society, these interlocking networks countered that autonomy, patronage served as a model when conquerors or governors abroad established personal ties as patron to whole communities, ties which might be perpetuated as a family obligation.
In this sense, mos becomes less a matter of unchanging tradition than precedent, because the mos maiorum was a matter of custom, not written law, the complex norms that it embodied evolved over time. The ability to preserve a sense of identity while it adapted to changing circumstances permitted the expansionism that took Rome from city-state to world power. The preservation of the mos maiorum depended on consensus and moderation among the ruling elite whose competition for power, democratic politics, driven by the charismatic appeal of individuals to the Roman people, potentially undermined the conservative principle of the mos. Because the higher magistracies and priesthoods were originally the prerogative of the patricians, reform was accomplished by legislation, and written law replaced consensus. The plebs and their support of popular politicians continued as a threat to the mos and elite consensus into the late Republic, the auctoritas maiorum could be evoked to validate social developments in the name of tradition.
Following the collapse of the Roman Republic after the death of Julius Caesar and it was an important concept in Roman law, as oral contracts were common. The concept of fides was personified by the goddess Fides whose role in the mos maiorum is indicated by the antiquity of her cult and her temple is dated from around 254 BC and was located on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, near the Temple of Jupiter. Pietas was the Roman attitude of respect towards the gods, homeland and family. Cicero defined pietas as justice towards the gods. ”It went beyond sacrifice and correct ritual performance to inner devotion and righteousness of the individual, the use of the adjectival form Pius as a cognomen reflects its importance as an identifying trait. Like Fides, Pietas was cultivated as a goddess, with a temple vowed to her in 191 BC, related to the Latin verb religare, to bind, religio was the bond between gods and mortals, as carried out in traditional religious practices for preserving the pax deorum. Cultus was the observance and the correct performance of rituals.
Religious practice, in sense, is to be distinguished from pietas
Roman citizenship
Citizenship in ancient Rome was a privileged political and legal status afforded to free individuals with respect to laws and governance. A citizen could, under certain circumstances, be deprived of his citizenship. Roman women had a form of citizenship. Though held in high regard they were not allowed to vote or stand for civil or public office, the rich might participate in public life by funding building projects or sponsoring religious ceremonies and other events. Women had the right to own property, to engage in business, and to obtain a divorce, marriages were an important form of political alliance during the Republic. Client state citizens and allies of Rome could receive a form of Roman citizenship such as the Latin Right. Such citizens could not vote or be elected in Roman elections, slaves were considered property and lacked legal personhood. Over time, they acquired a few protections under Roman law, some slaves were freed by manumission for services rendered, or through a testamentary provision when their master died.
Once free, they faced few barriers, beyond normal social snobbery, freedmen were former slaves who had gained their freedom. They were not automatically given citizenship and lacked some privileges such as running for executive magistracies, the children of freedmen and women were born as free citizens, for example, the father of the poet Horace was a freedman. The rights available to citizens of Rome varied over time, according to their place of origin. They varied under Roman law according to the classification of the individual within the state, various legal classes were defined by the various combinations of legal rights that each class enjoyed. However, the rights available to citizens with whom Roman law addressed were, Ius suffragiorum. Ius honorum, The right to stand for civil or public office, Ius commercii, The right to make legal contracts and to hold property as a Roman citizen. The rights afforded by the ius gentium were considered to be held by all persons, Ius migrationis, The right to preserve ones level of citizenship upon relocation to a polis of comparable status.
For example, members of the cives Romani maintained their full civitas when they migrated to a Roman colony with full rights under the law, latins had this right, and maintained their ius Latii if they relocated to a different Latin state or Latin colony. The right of immunity from taxes and other legal obligations, especially local rules. The right to sue in the courts and the right to be sued, the right to have a legal trial
Second Punic War
The Second Punic War, referred to as The Hannibalic War and the War Against Hannibal, lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic and its allied Italic socii, with the crucial participation of Numidian-Berber armies and tribes on both sides. The two states three major wars with each other over the course of their existence. They are called the Punic Wars because Romes name for Carthaginians was Poeni, derived from Poenici, in the following year, Hannibals army defeated the Romans again, this time in southern Italy at Cannae. In consequence of these defeats, many Roman allies went over to Carthage, against Hannibals skill on the battlefield, the Romans deployed the Fabian strategy. A sideshow of this war was the indecisive First Macedonian War in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Second Punic War was fought between Carthage and Rome and was ignited by the dispute over the hegemony of Saguntum, a Hellenized Iberian coastal city with diplomatic contacts with Rome.
After great tension within the city government, culminating in the assassination of the supporters of Carthage, the city called for Roman aid, but the pleas fell on deaf ears. Following a prolonged siege and a struggle, in which Hannibal himself was wounded and the army practically destroyed. Many of the Saguntians chose to commit suicide rather than face subjugation by the Carthaginians, before the war and Hasdrubal the Fair had made a treaty. Livy reports that it was agreed that the Iber should be the boundary between the two empires and that the liberty of the Saguntines should be preserved, Hannibal departed with this army from New Carthage northwards along the coast in late spring of 218 BC. At the Ebro, he split the army into three columns and subdued the tribes there to the Pyrenees within weeks, but with severe losses. At the Pyrenees, he left a detachment of 11,000 Iberian troops, Hannibal reportedly entered Gaul with 50,000 infantry and 9,000 cavalry. He took his army by a route, avoiding the Roman allies along the coast.
In the meantime, a Roman fleet with a force was underway to northern Iberia. A scouting party of 300 cavalry was sent to discover the whereabouts of the enemy and these eventually defeated a Carthaginian scouting troop of 500 mounted Numidians and chased them back to their main camp. Thus, with knowledge of the location of the enemy, the Romans marched upstream, Hannibal evaded this force and by an unknown route reached the Isère or the Durance at the foot of the Alps in autumn. He received messengers from his Gallic allies in Italy that urged him to come to their aid, before setting out to cross the Alps, he was re-supplied by a native tribe, some of whose hereditary disputes he had helped solve. Their other commander, Publius Cornelius Scipio, returned to Rome, realizing the danger of an invasion of Italy where the tribes of the Boii, after 217 BC, he moved to Iberia
Constitution of the Roman Republic
The constitution of the Roman Republic was a set of guidelines and principles by which the Roman Republic was governed. The constitution evolved over time and was largely unwritten and uncodified, the constitution was shaped by the body of written Roman law. The aristocratic element took the form of the Senate, the monarchical element took the form of the term-limited consuls. The ultimate source of sovereignty in this ancient republic, as in modern republics, was the people of Rome, the Roman people gathered into legislative assemblies to pass laws and to elect executive magistrates, such as consuls. The Senate managed the affairs in Rome, while magistrates presided over the courts. Executive magistrates enforced the law and presided over the Senate and the legislative assemblies, a complex set of checks and balances developed between these three branches, so as to minimize the risk of tyranny and corruption, and to maximize the likelihood of good government. A constitutional crisis began in 133 BC as a result of the Conflict of the Orders, many years this led to the collapse of the Roman Republic and its subversion into a much more autocratic form of government, the Roman Empire.
The republican constitution evolved gradually over time, largely shaped by the Conflict of the Orders between the patricians and the plebs and this lack of evidence poses problems for the reliability of the traditional account of the republics origins. According to this account, Rome had been ruled by a succession of kings. The Romans believed that this era, that of the Roman Kingdom, began in 753 BC, after the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the Roman Republic, the people of Rome began electing two consuls each year. According to the fasti, the first consuls were chosen in 509 BC. According to historian Andrew Lintott, some doubt this traditional account. They argue that instead of being overthrown, the monarchy evolved into a government led by elected magistrates, remnants of the monarchy, were reflected in republican institutions, such as the office of rex sacrorum and the interregnum. In 501 BC, the office of dictator was first created to control popular unrest. In the year 494 BC, the plebeians seceded to the Mons Sacer, the patricians agreed, and the plebeians ended their secession.
The plebeians called these new officials plebeian tribunes and gave these tribunes two assistants, called plebeian aediles, in 449 BC, the Senate, in an effort to satisfy the plebeians, promulgated the Twelve Tables, the first and only codification of law during the republic. In 446 BC, quaestors were first elected, and the office of censor was created in 443 BC, in 367 BC, plebeians were allowed to stand for the consulship, and this implicitly opened both the censorship as well as the dictatorship to plebeians. In 366 BC, in an effort by the patricians to reassert their influence over the magisterial offices and these two offices, the praetorship and the curule aedileship, were at first open only to patricians, but within a generation they were open to plebeians as well
Ius
Ius or Jus in ancient Rome was a right to which a citizen was entitled by virtue of his citizenship. The iura were specified by laws, so ius sometimes meant law, as one went to the law courts to sue for ones rights, ius meant justice and the place where justice was sought. On the whole, the Romans valued their rights as the greatest good of Roman citizenship, as opposed to citizenship in other city-states under the jurisdiction of Rome and freedmen perforce used Roman lawyers to represent them in actions undertaken under the jurisdiction of Roman law. Representation was one of the obligations owed to the state by citizens. If they did not, they were tried and sometimes executed, violation of the iura of other citizens, whether in office or out, was a serious matter, for which the punishment might be death. Ius in ancient Roman law had two meanings, which are still reflected in French droit, German Recht, English right. Ius was defined by the jurists Publius Juventius Celsus and Julius Paulus Prudentissimus as the aequum et bonum, the just and the fair, or justice.
Jurisprudence was the art of bringing it about through application of the laws, thus ius was law in the abstract, as in the English usage of the term the law. Ius might be something less than the body of law when special fields were designated by an adjective, such as ius publicum, public law. The actual laws, or written statutes, were only the specific tools through which ius was applied, Ius as the law was generally the domain of Roman aristocrats, from whose ranks the magistrates were chosen and who often defended clients in court. On a more practical basis, the populace of Rome daily encountered the primary meaning of ius and they understood that they had rights. Furthermore, these rights could be named and enumerated in formulae beginning with the word ius followed by a phrase, most often in the genitive case. Black defines ius in the sense of a right as a power, faculty, or demand inherent in one person and this power, or potestas, was a license governing behavior between persons granted by the constitution.
It determined what one citizen or group of citizens could or could not do regarding another, i. e. potestas is to be translated as authority, which the possession of iura gave to individuals. One might act socially sui iuris, on ones own authority, asserting ones own right, or on behalf of another, alieni iuris, in response to a demand to serve his right by being under his authority. This was the principle binding soldiers in the army, the consul, or a commander of some other rank, had a right to public service of citizens in the army. Typically, the right to raise a legion from a given populace for a specified purpose under the Roman Republic had to be granted by a senatus consultum, a decree of the Senate. The cynical demands of the bad emperors and the ones of the good emperors are described at great length by the historians of the empire
Constitution of the Late Roman Empire
The Constitution of the Late Roman Empire was an unwritten set of guidelines and principles passed down mainly through precedent. The constitution of the Roman Principate, which was established by the emperor Augustus in the 1st century BC, had governed the Roman Empire for three centuries, Diocletian became emperor in 284, and his reign marked the end of the Principate and the beginning of the Dominate. The constitution of the Dominate ultimately recognized monarchy as the source of power. After Diocletian had reorganized the superstructure of the constitution, he reorganized the administrative apparatus of the government. When Diocletian abdicated the throne in 305, the Empire quickly descended back into chaos, after the chaos had subsided, much of Diocletians constitution remained in effect. His division of the Empire into west and east, with each half under the command of a separate emperor, especially Constantine the Great, and Justinian modified Diocletians constitution. Under Diocletians new constitution, power was shared between two emperors called Augusti, one Augustus was to rule the western half of the Empire, and the other Augustus was to rule the eastern half of the Empire.
Diocletian made Maximian his co-Augustus, and gave him the Western Empire, Diocletian made Nicomedia his capital, and Maximian made Milan his capital. To make the two halves symbolically appear to be one, Diocletian called his territory patres Orientis, while Maximian called his territory patres Occidentis, the Augusti were legally distinct from the old Princeps, because under the Principate, the Princeps took the place of the old republican magistrates. Under the Republic and the Principate, only the Senate and legislative assemblies were continuous institutions, under Diocletians new Dominate, the Augusti took the place of the Senate and the assemblies, and thus any decree of an Augustus remained in force even after that particular emperor left office. Such an act could only be invalidated by a future Emperor, the logical extension of this concept meant that neither a magistrate, the assemblies, nor the senate, could legally restrain the Emperor. The old republican magistrates, as well as the Princeps, both had legal status, under the Republic, the state gave the magistrates the authorization to hold their office, while under the Principate, the state gave the Princeps the legal authorization to be emperor.
Any Augusti, in contrast, did not need authorization from the state to be emperor, the higher authority of the Augusti was illustrated by their robes and the imperial diadem, as well as the elaborate ceremony required of anyone who approached them. Unlike the old Princeps, the Augusti were viewed as being more than mortal and these honors had, in the past, been reserved only for the Gods. While emperors had received honors in the past, they only received these honors after their death, and yet. In 293, Diocletian and Maximian appointed two Caesares, which resulted in an arrangement known as the Tetrarchy, the Caesares were subordinate to their Augusti, and the only authority that they had was that which had been given to them by their Augusti. Their status was so inferior to the Augusti that they received a fixed salary, the powers that were delegated to them usually included the right to hear appeals, and a set of provinces were often assigned to them so that they could supervise the governors of those provinces.
The reason why Diocletian created the office of Caesar was to create a method by which orderly successions could occur, so that when one Augustus died, when a new Caesar was appointed, his Augustus adopted him
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. Born in Staunton, Virginia, he spent his years in Augusta and Columbia. In 1910, he was the New Jersey Democratic Partys gubernatorial candidate and was elected the 34th Governor of New Jersey, while in office, Wilson reintroduced the spoken State of the Union, which had been out of use since 1801. Leading the Congress that was now in Democratic hands, he oversaw the passage of progressive legislative policies unparalleled until the New Deal in 1933. The Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, through passage of the Adamson Act that imposed an 8-hour workday for railroads, he averted a railroad strike and an ensuing economic crisis. Upon the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Wilson maintained a policy of neutrality, Wilson faced former New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes in the presidential election of 1916. By a narrow margin, he became the first Democrat since Andrew Jackson elected to two consecutive terms, Wilsons second term was dominated by American entry into World War I.
In April 1917, when Germany had resumed unrestricted submarine warfare and sent the Zimmermann Telegram, the United States conducted military operations alongside the Allies, although without a formal alliance. During the war, Wilson focused on diplomacy and financial considerations, leaving military strategy to the generals, loaning billions of dollars to Britain and other Allies, the United States aided their finance of the war effort. On the home front, he raised taxes, borrowing billions of dollars through the publics purchase of Liberty Bonds. In his 1915 State of the Union Address, Wilson asked Congress for what became the Espionage Act of 1917, the crackdown was intensified by his Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to include expulsion of non-citizen radicals during the First Red Scare of 1919–1920. Wilson staffed his government with Southern Democrats who implemented racial segregation at the Treasury, Navy and he gave department heads greater autonomy in their management. Following his return from Europe, Wilson embarked on a tour in 1919 to campaign for the treaty.
The treaty was met with concern by Senate Republicans, and Wilson rejected a compromise effort led by Henry Cabot Lodge. Due to his stroke, Wilson secluded himself in the White House, disability having diminished his power, forming a strategy for re-election, Wilson deadlocked the 1920 Democratic National Convention, but his bid for a third-term nomination was overlooked. Wilson was a devoted Presbyterian and Georgist, and he infused his views of morality into his domestic and he appointed several well known radically progressive single taxers to prominent positions in his administration. His ideology of internationalism is now referred to as Wilsonian, an activist foreign policy calling on the nation to promote global democracy and he was the third of four children of Joseph Ruggles Wilson and Jessie Janet Woodrow. Wilsons paternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from Strabane, County Tyrone and his mother was born in Carlisle, the daughter of Rev. Dr. Thomas Woodrow from Paisley and Marion Williamson from Glasgow
Satrap
Satraps were the governors of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires. The word satrap originates ultimately from Old Persian xšaçapāvan, Sanskrit kshatrapam or kshtrapa, from xšaça, in Greek, the word was rendered as satrápēs —which borrowed into Latin as satrapes—from a Western Iranian cognate xšaθrapā. In modern Persian the descendant of xšaθrapāvan is shahrbān, but the components have undergone semantic shift so the word now means town keeper. The first large use of satrapies, or provinces, originates from the conception of the First Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great. However, provincial organization originated during the Median era from at least 648 BCE, up to the time of the conquest of Media by Cyrus the Great, emperors ruled the conquered lands, through client kings and governors. The chief difference was that in Persian culture the concept of kingship was indivisible from divinity and he was responsible for the safety of the roads, and had to put down brigands and rebels.
But the satrap was allowed to have troops in his own service, the great satrapies were often divided into smaller districts, the governors of which were called satraps and hyparchs. The distribution of the great satrapies was changed repeatedly, and often two of them were given to the same man, as the provinces were the result of consecutive conquests, both primary and sub-satrapies were often defined by former states and/or ethno-religious identity. When his office became hereditary, the threat to the authority could not be ignored. Rebellions of satraps became frequent from the middle of the 5th century BCE, darius I struggled with widespread rebellions in the satrapies, and under Artaxerxes II occasionally the greater part of Asia Minor and Syria was in open rebellion. The last great rebellions were put down by Artaxerxes III and they would ultimately be replaced by conquering empires, especially the Parthians. In the Parthian Empire, the power rested on the support of noble families who ruled large estates.
City-states within the empire enjoyed a degree of self-government, and paid tribute to the king, shahrabs ruled both the city and the surrounding rural districts. Exceptionally, the East Roman Empire adopted the title satrap for the princes that governed one of its Armenian provinces. The Western Satraps or Kshatrapas were Saka rulers in the western and central part of the Sindh region of Pakistan, and it is used in modern times to refer to the loyal subservient lieutenants or clients of some powerful figure, in politics or business. In Portuguese and Spanish, the word not only carries the aforementioned ancient historical meaning. It can refer as well to living in luxurious and ostentatious conditions or to individuals who act astutely. The College of Pataphysics used the title Transcendent Satrap for certain of its members, including Marcel Duchamp, Jean Baudrillard, in the Serbian language, satrap is used to mock a person who displays servile tendencies to an authority figure
Augur
The augur was a priest and official in the classical Roman world. This was known as taking the auspices, the ceremony and function of the augur was central to any major undertaking in Roman society—public or private—including matters of war and religion. Roman augurs were part of a college of priests who shared the duties and responsibilities of the position, at the foundation of the Republic in 510 BC, the patricians held sole claim to this office, by 300 BC, the office was open to plebeian occupation as well. Senior members of the collegium put forth nominations for any vacancies, in the Regal period tradition holds that there were three augurs at a time, by the time of Sulla, they had reached fifteen in number. Augury sought the divine will regarding any proposed course of action which might affect Romes pax, political and civil actions were sanctioned by augury, historically performed by priests of the college of augurs and by haruspices on behalf of senior magistrates. The presiding magistrate at an augural rite thus held the “right of augury”, magistracies were therefore religious offices in their own right, and magistrates were directly responsible for the pax and salus of Rome and everything that was Roman.
The effectiveness of augury could only be judged retrospectively, the divinely ordained condition of peace was an outcome of successful augury and those whose actions had led to divine wrath could not have possessed a true right of augury. Of all the protagonists in the Civil War, only Octavian could have possessed it, writing during the Principate, described the recent Civil War as unnatural - a mirror to supernatural disturbances in the greater cosmos. His imagery is apt to the principles of augury and its broader interpretation by Stoic apologists of the Imperial cult. In the Stoic cosmology, pax deorum is the expression of natural order in human affairs, according to Cicero, the auctoritas of ius augurum included the right to adjourn and overturn the process of law, consular election could be - and was - rendered invalid by inaugural error. For Cicero, this made the augur the most powerful authority in the Republic, Cicero himself was co-opted into the college only late in his career. In the Republic, augury came under the supervision of the college of pontifices, the office of pontifex maximus eventually became a de facto consular prerogative.
In ancient Rome the auguria were considered to be in equilibrium with the sacra and were not the way by which the gods made their will known. The augures publici concerned themselves only with related to the state. The jus augurale was rigorously secret, therefore very little about the aspects of ceremonies. We have only the names of some auguria, e. g, the first one required the sacrifice of red dogs and took place before wheat grains were shelled but not before they had formed. Of the second we know only the name implies a ritual related to the harvest. Augurium and auspicium are terms used indifferently by the ancient, modern scholars have debated the issue at length but have failed to find a distinctive definition that may hold for all the known cases
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