Grammer, writing, education, Seshat.... The plot thickens. Litterally. The "gromatic writers" were technical writers who codified their techniques of surveying. The groma, was the surveyors cross.
finitores mentioned in the early writers,[2][3] who in the later periods were called mensores and agrimensores. The business of a finitor could only be done by a free man, and the honorable nature of his office is indicated by the rule that there was no bargain for his services, but he received his pay in the form of a gift. These finitores appear also to have acted as judices, under the name of arbitri (sing. arbiter), in those disputes about boundaries which were purely of a technical, not a legal, character. The first professional surveyor mentioned is Lucius Decidius Saxa, who was employed by Mark Antony in the measurement of camps
Rider with birds and a winged figure, perhaps Nike (Victory). Lakonian black-figured kylix, ca. 550–530 BC.
An auspice is one who divines through the study of birds and its movements. In Greece the practice was familiar to the king of Alasia in Cyprus who has need of an 'eagle diviner' to be sent from Egypt.
According to unanimous testimony from ancient sources the use of auspices as a means to decipher the will of the Gods was more ancient than Rome itself. The use of the word is usually associated with Latins as well as the earliest Roman citizens.
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