Why Did Birds Predict the Future? Reading Signs in Flight
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Observing birds to determine whether an action would succeed was a formal state procedure in Rome and appears across many cultures. The practice had rules, officials and a recognised relationship with political convenience.
What was actually observed
Roman practice distinguished several categories of sign and specified how each was to be taken. Signs from birds in flight considered direction, height, the manner of flying and which species appeared, with the observer facing a defined direction and marking out a region of sky within which signs counted. Signs from birds feeding were taken from sacred chickens, with the practitioner noting whether they ate eagerly and whether grain fell from their beaks. Signs from the calls of particular species were noted separately from those from flight. Further categories covered four-footed animals, unusual occurrences and thunder and lightning. The procedure specified who could take the signs, when, from where and on whose behalf, which made it an administrative act as much as a religious one.
How it worked in practice
The institution was embedded in Roman public life and its rules had consequences:
- •Public business could not proceed without favourable signs having been taken
- •Officials known as augurs held the authority to interpret and to declare a fault in the procedure
- •A declaration that the signs were unfavourable could stop an assembly or an election
- •The signs indicated approval or disapproval of a proposed action rather than predicting the future
- •A faulty procedure invalidated whatever had been decided, which could be raised afterwards
- •The office was held by senior political figures rather than by a separate priesthood
The political uses
Because unfavourable signs stopped business, the procedure became an instrument of obstruction and everybody involved understood that. An official empowered to observe the sky could announce that he was doing so and thereby block an assembly, a device used repeatedly in the late republic to frustrate legislation. Disputes about whether observation had been properly conducted were pursued after the fact to invalidate laws already passed. Cicero, who was himself an augur, wrote about the subject with evident scepticism about the underlying claims while defending the institution's value for public order, which is a revealing combination. A famous incident in which a commander threw the sacred chickens overboard when they refused to eat, and then lost the battle, was retold for centuries as a lesson about disregarding the procedure.
Which birds and what they meant
The associations attached to particular species are consistent enough across traditions to be worth setting out. Corvids, meaning crows and ravens, carry associations with death, battlefields and prophecy across Europe, the Near East and much of Asia, which is unsurprising given that they are intelligent, vocal, and reliably present where the dead are. Owls carry associations with death and ill fortune in many traditions and with wisdom in the Greek one, which shows the associations are not fixed. Eagles carry associations with power and with sovereignty almost universally, and were the specific bird of the chief god in several pantheons. Doves carry associations with peace and with messages. Woodpeckers, herons and various small birds appear in more localised traditions. Distinctive behaviour, distinctive voice and visibility are what these species share.
The same practice elsewhere
Bird divination is widespread and the recurrence needs explaining. Etruscan practice preceded and shaped the Roman version, with its own specialists and a written tradition. Greek practice read signs from birds informally and through recognised seers. Bird omens appear in Hittite, Mesopotamian, Norse, Celtic, Indian and Chinese sources, and in many living traditions across Africa, Asia and the Americas. The reasons for choosing birds are not mysterious, since they move between earth and sky and therefore occupy an obvious intermediary position, their appearances are unpredictable and therefore uncontrolled by the person seeking an answer, and their behaviour is varied enough to supply a rich vocabulary of possible signs while being common enough to be available whenever a question arises.
The takeaway
Roman procedure specified who took the signs, from where and by what rules, and distinguished flight, feeding and calls, with public business unable to proceed without favourable results. Because unfavourable signs stopped business, the procedure became a standard instrument of political obstruction. Birds recur across traditions because they move between earth and sky and cannot be controlled by whoever is asking.