appeared Numa was declared king. Precedence Since the observation was complex, conflict among signs was common. A hierarchy among signs was devised: e.g. a sign from the eagle would prevail on that from the woodpecker and the ossifragae (parra). During the last centuries of the republic the auspices ex caelo and ex tripudiis supplanted other types, as the other forms could be easily used in a fraudulent way, i.e. bent to suit the desire of the asking person. Cicero condemned the fraudulent use and denounced the decline in the level of knowledge of the doctrine by the augurs of his time, but in fact the abuse developed from the evasion of negative signs, described in the next subsection. Evasion The interpretation of signs was vast and complex, and magistrates devised protective tricks to avoid being paralysed by negative signs. Against the negative auspicia oblativa the admitted procedures included: actively avoiding seeing them repudiare – refuse them through an interpretative sleight of hand non observare – by assuming one had not paid attention to them declaring something that in fact had not appeared tempestas – choosing the time of the observation at one's will renuntiatio – making a distinction between observation and formulation vitia – resorting to acknowledging the presence of mistakes repeating the whole procedure. Attus Navius Contrary to other divinatory practices present in Rome (e.g. haruspicina, consultation of the libri Sibyllini) Roman augury appears to be autochthonous and pre-historical, originally Latin or Italic, and attested in the Iguvine Tables (avif aseria) and among other Latin tribes. The very story or legend of the foundation of Rome is based on augury. the ascertaining of the will of gods through observation of the sky and of birds. Romulus and Remus indeed acted as augurs and Romulus was considered a great augur throughout the course of his life. The character that best represented and portrayed the art however was Attus Navius. His story is related by Cicero:He was born into a very poor family. One day he lost one of his pigs. He then promised the gods that if he found it, he would offer them the biggest grapes growing in his vineyard. After recovering his pig he stood right at the middle of his grape yard facing South. He divided the sky into four sections and observed birds: when they appeared he walked in that direction and found an extraordinary large