[33]
Moreover, according to
tradition, the whetstone and razor were buried in
the comitium and a stone curbing placed over them.
"Let us declare this story wholly false; let us
burn the chronicles that contain it; let us call it a
myth and admit almost anything you please rather
than the fact that the gods have any concern in
human affairs. But look at this: does not the story
about Tiberius Gracchus found in your own writings1
acknowledge that augury and soothsaying are arts?
[p. 263]
He, having placed his tabernaculum,2 unwittingly
violated augural law by crossing the pomerium before
completing the auspices; nevertheless he held the
consular election.3 The fact is well known to you
since you have recorded it. Besides, Tiberius
Gracchus, who was himself an augur, confirmed the
authority of auspices by confessing his error; and
the soothsayers, too, greatly enhanced the reputation of their calling, when brought into the Senate
immediately after the election, by declaring
that the election supervisor had acted without
authority.
1 Cf. Cic. De nat. d. ii. 4.
2 The tabernaculum was the tent placed in the centre of the station on which the augur made his observation. The pomerium was the sacred boundary of the city, and in it the tabernaculum was placed. If the celebrant crossed the pomerium before completing the auspices he must choose a new station and take the auspices again.
3 An alternative translation is: “He having made a technical error in placing his tabernaculum, without realizing what he had done—he crossed the pomerium before completing the auspices—held the consular election.”
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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