The general rule that the auspices should be taken for an act on the very spot on which the magistrate intended to perform the act applied to the comitial auspices. For meetings on the Capitoline Hill they probably used the temple of Jupiter, dedicated for all time;[643] for assemblies in the comitium the rostra, also a templum;[644] and for the comitia centuriata the president’s platform in the Campus Martius.[645] Not only patrician magistrates but also tribunes of the plebs occupied templa in transacting business with the people.[646] Between midnight and morning[647] on the day of assembly the magistrate repaired to the templum.[648] There, placing himself on a solid[649] seat at the door, usually facing eastward, he watched the heavens (spectio). Meanwhile he first asked the attendant, who always sat near,[650] whether there was silence.[651] If the answer was affirmative, he prayed Jupiter for a sign, which he described in a formula termed legum dictio,[652] whereupon the attendant declared he saw it.[653] In case of non-appearance of the sign or of a disturbance of the observation, the auspication was deferred to another morning.[654] Before the time of Cicero, however, the ceremony had been so reduced to a pretence as practically to eliminate the possibility of failure.[655] Both curiate[656] and centuriate[657] assemblies were auspicated. Although for the tribal assemblies the question is more difficult, it seems reasonably certain that whereas a patrician magistrate took the auspices for the comitia tributa,[658] plebeian magistrates (tribunes and aediles of the plebs) did not.[659] As to whether contiones were auspicated we are not clearly informed. The question concerns those only which were held by patrician magistrates. The auspication of comitia necessarily extended to the contio immediately preceding.[660] It is known, too, that the censors auspicated the lustral gathering of the centuries,[661] hence we may infer that magistrates and sacerdotes were accustomed to take auspices for formal religious assemblies.[662] With these exceptions contiones were doubtless held without auspices by patrician as well as by plebeian magistrates. III. _Auspicia Publica Oblativa_