Auspices
among the Romans, omens, especially those drawn from the flight or other movements of birds, or, less properly, from the occurrence of lightning or thunder in particular parts of the sky.
These were supposed to be indications of the will of heaven, and to reveal futurity.
At first only the augurs took the auspices, but after a time civil officers, discharging important functions, had the right of doing so. Two kinds of auspices, however, arose a greater and a lesse ; the former reserved to dictators, consuls, censors, prætors, or the commander-inchief in war; the latter permitted to less exalted functionaries. The glory of a successful enterprise was universally assigned to the person who took the auspices, and not to the leader of the enterprise itself; hence, the phrase arose, to the Emperor or some other high authority. carry on a war "under the auspices " of born at Stevenson, Hampshire, of which