At about the same period other and more important measures were adopted for infusing into the service of the State some of that intellectual vigour which is to be found most abundantly in the main body of the people. The pontiffs and the augurs had been hitherto chosen from the patricians alone, when by the Ogulnian law, passed in the tribuneship of Q. and Cn. Ogulnius, it was enacted that four pontiffs out of eight, and five augurs out of nine--at which the numbers were then fixed--should be plebeians. The science of augury certainly required no particular talent; but, as its professors were held in very high repute, the introduction of the plebeian element into the body, was a triumph for popular principles. The divining rod in an age of superstition was also a very powerful rod in the hands of those who held it; and the privilege of reading or rather interpreting the signs of the times according to the wish of the interpreter, was a source of so much influence among a people guided by omens, that the admission of the plebeians to the exercise of these functions was equivalent to allowing them an important share in the government.
The science of augury is intimately connected with the history of the Romans, for they never took a step of a private or a public nature without consulting the soothsayers, who were, in fact, the fortune-tellers of antiquity. That a nation should place its destinies in such doubtful hands, seems in the present day as absurd as if the Prime Minister, before arranging his measures for a session, were to take counsel with Dr. Francis Moore, and the Opposition were to frame their tactics on the advice of Zadkiel. A glimpse at the nature of the art of augury will demonstrate to the student the ease with which the seer could see exactly the thing he wanted. The subjects of his observation were, first, the clouds, which afforded ample opportunity for obscurity; secondly, the birds, which, when seen to the right, meant exactly opposite to that which they indicated when seen on the left--thus allowing for a good deal to be said on both sides; thirdly, the chickens, who were supposed to give a favourable omen if they ate abundantly--a theory which gave rise to many a tremendous cram; fourthly, the quadrupeds, from which the augurs could easily draw a deduction at all fours with their own wishes; and, fifthly, and last, a miscellaneous class of signs, or incidents, comprising a sneeze, which enabled the augur to lead the sneezer by the nose, or a casualty, such as a tumble, which, in the absence of any other more important sign, the soothsayer was always willing to fall back upon.