¶ Mercurio gallum attribuit Fulgentius[1], ob mercatorum videlicet vigilantiam, Gyraldus[2]. Gallinaceus Ἑρμοῦ παρέδρος memoratur in Somnio Luciani. In arce Eleorum Pallados galeae insidet gallus, ex pugnacis naturae argumento. Sed, inquit Pausanias (in Eliacis[3],) Minervae sacram arbitrari, (existimari posse,) quam ἐργάνην vocant, possumus avem hanc, Caelius. forte quod ad erga, id est opera, gallus excitet. ¶ Nocti deae (inquit Gyraldus) gallus sacrificabatur, et nocturno tempore. Nocte deae {noctis} <Nocti> cristatus caeditur ales, | Quod tepidum vigili {provocat) <provocet> ore diem, Ovidius in Fastis [4]. ¶ Sacri sunt Soli, cui venienti assurgunt, quo cum eunt dormitum, Textor. Soli et Lunae sacrum esse gallum, supra etiam scripsimus in Symbolo Gallum nutrias, etc.[5] Scribunt Laertius et Suidas gallum album non attingendum, inter symbola esse: hoc est ἀλεκτρυόνος μὴ ἅπτεσθαι λευκοῦ: quod Iovi, inquit, sacer est et Lunae, atque horarum nuncius et diei. Meminit et Plutarchus quarto Symposiacon, sed causam non adfert, Gyraldus. Gallum album mensi sacrum, utpote horarum nuncium credidit Pythagoras, (quare et abstinere eo iussit, Laertius,) Gyraldus. ¶ Volucris Titania, pro gallinaceo, apud Textorem. ¶ Ludovicus Romanus author est cacodaemonis sacerdotes sanguine gallinacei, cultello argenteo iugulati, carbonibus ignitis aspersi, ei sacrum peragere.

¶ Fulgentius entrusted a rooster to Mercury, obviously so that the merchants are watchful, Giraldi. In The dream or the rooster of Lucian the rooster is mentioned as Hermoû parédros, the collaborator of Hermes. On the acropolis of the inhabitants of Elis a rooster stands on the helmet of Athena, for reasons  bound up with his fighting character. But Pausanias in Elis says that we can consider this bird (that he can be regarded) sacred to Minerva called by them ergánën, the industrious one, Lodovico Ricchieri. Perhaps because the rooster is spurring on erga, that is, on activities. ¶ Giraldi says: The rooster was sacrificed to the goddess Nyx, and by night. At night the bird endowed with comb is immolated to the goddess Nyx, | since with his vigilant voice recalls the lukewarm day, Ovid in Fasti. ¶ They are sacred to the Sun, in front of which they get up when it is arriving, and with it they go to sleep, Jean Tixier. Also previously - page 408 - I wrote that the rooster is sacred to Sun and Moon when speaking of the symbol of faith Nourish the rooster, etc.. Diogenes Laërtius and the lexicon Suidas write that among the symbols of faith there is that the white rooster must not to be touched: that is, alektryónos më háptesthai leukoû: since, he says, it is sacred to Jupiter and Moon, and it is herald of hours and day. Also Plutarch in Symposiakà problëmata remembers this, but doesn't put forward the reason, Giraldi. Pythagoras believed that the white rooster was sacred to the month since it was the messenger of the hours, (that's why he also bade to abstain from it, Diogenes Laërtius), Giraldi. ¶ In Jean Tixier we find bird descendant from Titans in place of rooster. ¶ Ludovico de Varthema tells that the priests of a bad demon perform in his honor a sacred ceremony with the blood of a throat cut rooster by a silver knife and sprinkled with ardent carbons.

¶ Auguria. Inter divinationum genera aliqui etiam alectryomantiam numerant, Gyraldus. Praeposteros aut vespertinos gallorum cantus optimi eventus multi notavere. Themistocli pridie quam Xerxem duceret, auditus gallorum cantus, victoriae mox futurae praenuncium fecit: idque ideo, quod victus nequaquam canit: victor vero obstrepit et murmurat. contra vero gallinarum. nam diri aliquid imminere, aut futurum incommodum illarum cantus designavit, Alexander ab Alex. Cecinere galli nocte tota qua magnus Matthaeus vicecomes primum suscepit filium: unde Galleacio nomen inditum, portento quodam magnae successionis, Volaterranus.  Gallinaceorum sunt tripudia solistima. hi magistratus nostros quotidie regunt, domosque ipsis suas claudunt aut reserant. Hi fasces Romanos impellunt aut retinent: iubent acies aut prohibent, victoriarum omnium toto orbe partarum auspices. Hi maxime terrarum imperio imperant, extis etiam fibrisque haud aliter quam op{t}imae victimae diis {gratae} <grati>. Habent ostenta et praeposteri eorum vespertini<que> cantus. Nanque totis noctibus canendo Boeotiis nobilem illam adversus Lacedaemonios praesagivere victoriam, ita coniecta interpretatione, quoniam victa ales illa non caneret, Plinius[6]. Puls potissimum dabatur pullis in auspiciis, quia ex ea necesse erat aliquid decidere, quod tripudium faceret: id est terripuvium. puvire[7] enim ferire est. Bonum enim augurium esse putabant, si pulli per quos auspicabantur, comedissent: praesertim si eis edentibus aliquid ab ore decidisset. Sin autem omnino non edissent, arbitrabantur periculum imminere, Festus. Moris fuit Romanis ducibus pugnam inituris advocare pullarium, ut offas gallis obijceret ad augurium captandum. si vescerentur, ratum erat auspicium, cum aliquid ore excidisset, terripudium dicebatur solistimum, mox tripudium dictum, quoniam scilicet esca in solo cadebat, Grapaldus. Cum terripudio Flaminius auspicaretur, pullarius diem praelii committendi differebat, M. Tullius lib. 1. de Divinat.[8]

¶ Omens. Some among the various kinds of prophecies list also the alettriotellering, Giraldi. Quite a lot of people have signaled as indicative of a very good event the songs of the roosters out of time either at evening. For Themistocles, to have heard the song of the roosters the day before of giving battle to Xerxes I, represented the omen of a soon occurring victory: and thence comes the fact that he who is defeated doesn't sing at all: and the winner makes din and noise: on the contrary of hens. In fact the hens' song forecasted that something deadly was impending or that a misfortune was happening, Alessandro Alessandri. The roosters sung the whole night when the first child was born to Matteo Visconti I the Great: hence the name Galeazzo was given him, in a certain sense as omen of an illustrious descendant, Raffaelo Maffei. To the roosters are due the solemn ritual dances - the favorable omens. They daily manage our magistrates and shut or open their houses. They restrain or incite the lictorian Roman fasces - they restrain or incite to high offices: they order or forbid troops marshalling, auspices of all victories gained all over the world. They especially rule the sway of the world, welcome to gods concerning entrails and guts, not otherwise than fat victims are. They believe as announcements of extraordinary facts also their songs out of time and at evening. In fact, by crowing for entire nights, they foretold to Boeotians that famous victory against Lacedaemonians, and the conjectured interpretation is as follows: since that bird if conquered doesn't would crow, Pliny. Most usually during omens they gave mash to chickens, because it was necessary that something was falling to the ground, since from this a good omen would come out, that is, the earth would have been struck. For puvire means to strike. For they thought of good omen if the chickens had eaten by intervention of those by whom they were bidden foretell: above all if, while they were eating, something had fallen from mouth. But if they had not eaten at all, they believed that a danger was impending, Festus. It has been a habit of the Roman leaders when about to begin a battle to summon the poultry pen's keeper so that he threw morsels to the roosters in order to be able in drawing an omen: if they had eaten them, the omen was suitable, and if something were fallen from mouth, it was said to strike the earth of good omen, then said solemn ritual dance - the favorable omen, that is, since the morsel was falling to the ground, Francesco Mario Grapaldi. Since Caius Flaminius looked for omens through the striking of the ground, the poultry pen's keeper was deferring the day to giving battle, Cicero in the 1^st book of De divinatione.

Non solum augures Romani ad auspicia primum pararunt pullos, sed etiam patres familiae rure, Varro[9]. Pullarius dicitur qui pullorum curam habet, et qui e pastu pullorum captat auspicia, Ciceroni ad Plancum lib. 10.[10] et Livio 8. ab Urbe[11]. Attulit in cavea pullos, is qui ex eo <ipso> nominatur pullarius, Cicero 2. de Divinat.[12] P. Claudius bello Punico primo cum praelium navale committere vellet, auspiciaque more maiorum petiisset, et pullarius non exire pullos cavea nunciasset, abiici eos in mare iussit, dicens: Quia esse nolunt, bibant, Val. Maxim.[13]

Not only the Roman augurs have been the first ones in training the chickens for omens, but also householders in country, Varro. Is said pullarius he who takes care of the chickens and draws the omens from the manner of eating of chickens, in Cicero in 10^th book Ad familiares to Plancus, and Livy in 8^th book Ab urbe condita. Has put in the cage the chickens he who, just for this, is called pullarius, Cicero in 2^nd book De divinatione. Claudius Publius Pulcher during the first Punic war wanting to join a naval battle and having requested the omens according to the custom of ancestors, and having the keeper announced that the chickens didn't go out of the cage, bade to throw them in sea saying: Since they don't want to eat, they drink, Valerius Maximus.

¶ Invenitur in annalibus, in Ariminensi agro M. Lepido, Q. Catulo coss. in villa Galerii locutum gallinaceum, semel quod equidem sciam, Plinius[14]. ¶ Galenus alicubi in Commentario in primum Epidemiorum, insomnii de cristis gallinaceorum meminit.

¶ In the annals we find that in Rimini's region during the consulate of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Quintus Catulus - 78 BC - in the farm of Galerius a rooster spoke, only once, as far as I am aware, Pliny. ¶ Galen in a point of In Hippocratis epidemiorum librum I commentarii makes mention of a vision having as subject the combs of the roosters.

¶ Proverbia. Gallo albo abstineas, ἀλεκτρυόνος μὴ ἅπτεσθαι λευκοῦ: id est Candido gallo ne manum admoliaris, quod mensi sacer sit, utpote horarum nuncius, Erasmus in Chiliadibus inter Symbola Pythagorica[15]. Gallo albo abstinendum, id est saluti cuiusque purissime favendum, (mihi haec interpretatio non satisfacit,) Plutarchus in Symbolis Pythag. interprete Gyraldo. Pythagoram ferunt gallum album adeo amasse, ut si quando videret, fratris germani loco salutaret, et apud se haberet, Gyraldus.

¶ Sayings. You have to abstain from the white rooster, alektryónos më háptesthai leukoû: that is, don't grab a white rooster because it is sacred to the month since it is the herald of the hours, Erasmus from Rotterdam in Adagia among the Pythagorean symbols of faith. It is needed to abstain from a white rooster, that is, it is needed to favor the health of whoever in the most correct possible way, (this translation doesn't satisfy me), Plutarch translated by Giraldi in Symbolorum Pythagorae Interpretatio. They report that Pythagoras loved the white rooster to such an extent that if by chance he saw him greeted him as being a brother born from the same parents, and he held him with himself, Giraldi.

¶ Tolle calcar, Αἶρε πλῆκτρον ἀμυντήριον. id est Tolle calcar ultorium. extat adagium in Aristophanis Avibus, Αἶρε πλῆκτρον εἰ μάχῃ, Tolle calcar si pugnas. In eum dici solitum, qui iam ultionem parat. Mutuo sumpta metaphora a gallis pugnam inituris, quibus ferrei stimuli quidam alligari solent, quo se tueantur inter certandum, Erasmus ex Suida et Scholiaste Aristophanis. Proverbia, Galli cantus ante victoriam, et, Priusquam gallus iterum cecinerit, memorata sunt supra in H. c. Tollere cristas, (ut, Tollere cornua,) pro eo quod est animo efferri. Iuvenalis[16], Quid apertius? Et tamen illi | Surgebant cristae. id est, Sibi placebat. Translatum ab avibus cristatis, in quibus cristae erectiores alacritatis atque animorum indicia sunt: nisi ad militum cristas referre malumus, quo sane hominum genere nihil nec insolentius, nec stolidius. In hanc sententiam Aristophanes in Pace dixit, detrahere cristas, ἥπερ ἡμῶν τοὺς λόφους ἀφεῖλε. Id est, quae nobis cristas detraxit: videlicet reddita pace. Contra submittere fasces dicuntur, qui de iure suo concedunt, ac legitimam potestatem ultro ad privatam mediocritatem demittunt, etc. Erasmus.

¶ Wear the spur, Aîre plêktron amyntërion. That is, Wear the avenger spur. In Birds of Aristophanes there is an adage, Aîre plêktron ei máchëi, Wear the spur if you fight. It is usually said to whom already preparing a revenge. It is a metaphor borrowed from the roosters when they are about to begin a fight, to which are usually tied iron spurs so that they can defend themselves during the fight, Erasmus from Rotterdam gathered this from lexicon Suidas and from the expounder of Aristophanes. The proverbs The song of the rooster before the victory and Before the rooster has sung again have been previously remembered in H. c.. To lift the combs (equivalent to To lift the horns) with the meaning of boasting. Juvenal: What clearer is there? And nevertheless in him | the combs were straightening. That is, He was flattering himself. Metaphorical from the birds endowed with combs, in which the combs as far as are upright are a mark of alacrity and arrogance: unless we prefer to make reference to the crest of soldiers, being that in this kind of men nothing is more insolent and foolish. Against this attitude Aristophanes in Peace said lower the combs, hëper hëmôn toùs lóphous apheîle. That is, she who took off our combs: that is, with the coming back of the peace. On the contrary are said that are lowering the fasces those withdrawing from their rights and in addition submitting the legalized power to the mediocrity of private persons etc., Erasmus.