Auspices in the context of "Jupiter (god)"

In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Jupiter (Latin: Iūpiter or Iuppiter, from Proto-Italic *djous "day, sky" + *patēr "father", thus "sky father" Greek: Δίας or Ζεύς), also known as Jove (nom. and gen. Iovis [ˈjɔwɪs]), is the god of the sky and thunder, and king of the gods. Jupiter was the chief deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as offering, or sacrifice.

Jupiter is thought to have originated as a sky god. His identifying implement is the thunderbolt and his primary sacred animal is the eagle, which held precedence over other birds in the taking of auspices and became one of the most common symbols of the Roman army (see Aquila). The two emblems were often combined to represent the god in the form of an eagle holding in its claws a thunderbolt, frequently seen on Greek and Roman coins. As the sky god, he was a divine witness to oaths, the sacred trust on which justice and good government depend. Many of his functions were focused on the Capitoline Hill, where the citadel was located. In the Capitoline Triad, he was the central guardian of the state with Juno and Minerva. His sacred tree was the oak.

The curiate assembly (Latin: comitia curiata) was the oldest of the popular assemblies of Rome. It was organised on the basis of curiae and is said to have been the main legislative and electoral assembly of the regal and early republican periods. Little concrete is known of its origins and early operation.

By the late republic, the curiae only met for limited pro forma purposes related to public religion; the historical thirty curiae were each represented by a single lictor rather than actual groups of citizens. The foremost of these purposes was the lex curiata de imperio, passed as a matter of course in the presence of three augurs, which related to the quality of a curule magistrate's auspices. When it met under the presidency of the pontifex maximus, the assembly was instead called the comitia calata to deal with matters relating to wills and selection of priests.