s procedure to support
his theory that the origin of such institutions is to be
found in the period of migration.

[632] That the division of the _templum_ into _regiones_
was necessary only for the _auguria caelestia_, and not
for the observation of birds, is the conclusion drawn by
Wissowa (_R.K._ 457, note 2) from the words of Cicero
(_de Legibus_, ii. 21) in his _ius divinum_: "caelique
fulgura regionibus ratis temperanto" (_i.e._ the
magistrates).

[633] Cicero expressly says that even old Cato
complained of the neglect of the auspicia by the
college: _de Div._ i. 15. 28; above, in sec. 25, he had
said the same thing of the augurs of his own day, _i.e._
including himself. We know of a work on the _auspicia_
by M. Messalla, an augur, from which Gellius, xiii. 15,
quotes a lengthy extract (cp. ch. 14). This man was
consul in 53 B.C.; Schanz, _Gesch. der roem. Lit._, ii.
492. Just at the same time Appius Claudius, Cicero's
predecessor as governor of Cilicia, wrote _libri
augurales_, to which Cicero more than once alludes in
his correspondence with Appius: _ad Fam._ iii. 9. 3 and
11. 4. It is plain that the old augural lore is now
treated only as a curiosity, of which the secrecy need
no longer be respected.

[634] P. Regell, _De augurum publicorum libris_, whose
excellent little work has never been superseded, thinks
(p. 19) that the _libri_ were the result of the neglect
of the art, _i.e._ that it was necessary to put it in
writing, because otherwise it would be forgotten. "Tota
eius vita," he says, "lenta est mors." The lore was
complete about the time of the decemvirate, but
_decreta_ must have been continually added (p. 23). The
nucleus may be represented in Cicero, _de Legibus_, ii.
20. 21, and perhaps existed in Saturnian verse (Festus,
290). The additions in the way of decree or comment
would probably range over the fourth and third centuries
B.C. like those of the pontifices. No doubt the
Hannibalic war had the effect of diminishing the
importance of the lore, as the next lecture should show.
On the whole we may put the great period of the college
between the decemvirate and the war with Hannibal.

[635] This is the opinion of Bouche-Leclercq, _op. cit._
vol. iv. p. 205 foll.; cp. Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 457.
Cicero calls the augur