The religious institutions of the Romans form an essential part of their civil government; every public act, whether of legislation or election, was connected with certain determined forms, and thus received the sanction of a higher power.

Every public assembly was opened by the magistrate and augurs taking the auspices, or signs by which they believed that the will of the gods could be determined; and if any unfavourable omen was discovered, either then or at any subsequent time, the assembly was at once dismissed.3.The right of taking auspices was long the peculiar privilege of the patricians, and frequently afforded them pretexts for evading the demands of the plebeians; when a popular law was to be proposed, it was easy to discover some unfavourable omen which prohibited discussion; when it was evident that the centuries were about to annul some patrician privilege, the augurs readily saw or heard some signal of divine wrath, which prevented the vote from being completed.

It was on this account that the plebeians would not consent to place the comitia tributa under the sanction of the auspices.
4.

The augurs were at first only three in number, but they were in later ages increased to fifteen, and formed into a college.

Nothing of importance was transacted without their concurrence in the earlier ages of the republic, but after the second punic war, their influence was considerably diminished.[2] 5.