Kitap 6
41.4
thing. Questions of dignity, however, only concern men; what shall I say about the duties of religion and the auspices, the contempt and profanation of which specially concern the gods? Who is there who knows not that it was under auspices that this City was founded, that only after auspices have been taken is anything done in war or peace, at home or in the
41.5
field? Who have the right to take the auspices in accordance with the usage of our fathers? The patricians, surely, for not a single plebeian magistrate is elected under
41.6
auspices. So exclusively do the auspices belong to us that not only do the people when electing patrician magistrates elect them only when the auspices are favourable, but even we, when, independently of the people, we are choosing an interrex, only do so after the auspices have been taken: we as private citizens have the auspices which your order does not possess even as
41.7
magistrates. What else is the man doing who by the creation of plebeian consuls takes away the auspices from the patricians who alone can possess them —what else, I ask, is he doing but depriving the State of the auspices? Now, men are at liberty to mock at our religious
