Ecology, Epistemology, and Divination in Cicero De Divinatione 1.90–94

In 249 bce, when the outcome of the First Punic War was still in the balance, a Roman consul misbehaved in a spectacularly memorable—and revealing—fashion. After leading a naval force towards the harbor of Drepana in an effort to surprise the Carthaginian fleet moored there, Publius Claudius Pulcher sought the approval of the gods prior to battle. The sacred chickens kept on board for auspice taking were let out of their cages and feed was sprinkled before them. They did not peck, an emphatic, “Do not proceed,” from the gods to P. Claudius Pulcher, but the commander, itching for battle, chose not only to ignore the omen but to have the chickens tossed overboard. The ensuing battle was a calamity: of the more than one hundred Roman ships at the encounter, only thirty escaped; the remainder were captured or sunk. Beating a quick return back to Rome, P. Claudius Pulcher was forced to appoint a dictator by the senate and narrowly escaped conviction on a malfeasance charge. In the exemplary discourses of the late Roman republic and early empire, the incident became a byword for the temerity and foolishness of mocking and disregarding the auspices.1