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For the werewolf caste lunar phase in Werewolf: The Apocalypse, see Auspice (World of Darkness).
A confident rider, surrounded by birds of good omen is approached by a Nike bearing victor's wreaths on this Laconian black-figured kylix, ca. 550–530 BCE
An auspice (Latin: auspicium[1] from auspex, literally "one who looks at birds")[2] is a type of omen already familiar to the king of Alasia in Cyprus who, in the Amarna correspondence (fourteenth century BCE) has need of an 'eagle diviner' to be sent from Egypt.[3] The earlier, indigenous practice of divining by bird signs, familiar in the figure of Calchas, the bird-diviner to Agamemnon, who has led the army (Iliad I.69) was largely replaced by sacrifice-divination through inspection of the sacrificial victim's liver— haruspices— during the Orientalizing period. "From Plato we learn that hepatoscopy enjoyed greater prestige than bird augury"[4] |
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