In the accompanying text, Montfaucon comments as follows:

"Voici deux cages pullaires, l'une donnée par M. de la Chausse, où les deux poulets paroissent mangeant le grain avec avidité: l'autre dessinée à Rome par M. le Brun. Nous avons déja parlé de leur usage, & de l'augure qu'on tiroit de la maniere que les poulets recevoient le grain qu'on leur apportoit. S'ils se jettoient avidement sur le grain, c'étoit un bon augure; si leur avidité étoit si grande, qu'en sautant & en mangeant ils répandissent une partie du grain, l'augure étoit excellent; & c'est ce qu'on appelloit tripudium solistimum: s'ils refusoient de manger, c'étoit un mauvais augure." [1]

The Roman custom of using the more or less pronounced enthusiasm with which two chickens kept especially for this purpose peck at the grains thrown to them to ascertain good or bad omens for an impending military enterprise is described in ancient textual sources, but contemporary pictorial representations of the divination act or the associated equipment are rare. [2]

Obviously, Montfaucon assumed that he would be able to show his readers two different versions of the ancient portable chicken cage, which were attested by two independent sources. Although similar in their basic design, the numerous differences, sometimes more sometimes less striking, regarding proportions and ornamentation of the cages are immediately apparent, as is the differing depiction of the two pecking chickens. Montfaucon does not discuss the actual antique models of the illustrations, which is due to the fact that his sources also remained vague in this respect.

The model for Montfaucon's second illustration is a drawing on fol. 60 r in Charles le Brun's "Livre d'anticques tirées d'après celles qui sont à Rome". In this volume, Le Brun had compiled a selection of neatly executed drawings of antiquities to dedicate and present to his patron, the “Chancellier de France” Pierre Séguier (1588–1672), after his return from his three-year stay in Rome (1642–1645). [5]

The direct comparison between the originals and their respective copies in Montfaucon makes it clear how reliable – at least in these two cases – his illustrator(s) worked. Both Bartoli's engraving and Le Brun's pen-and-wash drawing were transferred to Montfaucon's plates with great precision and obvious sensitivity.

Le Brun's page shows, in addition to the chicken cage ("Cage Pullaire"), a lituus ("Baston augural des Anciens Romains") and a ladle ("Sympulle"). All three motifs – as well as fourteen others in the third section of the book of drawings – are copies after woodcuts in Guillaume du Choul's "Discours de la religion des anciens romains", which was first published in Lyon in 1556 and which was printed in numerous further editions into the 17th century. [6] In his text, Du Choul gives a reference to the ancient monument on which his illustration was based: „[…] quelle se voit à Rome en une table de marbre, en la maison du Cardinal de Cesis, accompaignée d’un fort beau epigramme […].“ [7]

With the help of this evidence, it is possible to identify the ancient model with the monumental tomb relief of Marcus Pompeius Asper, first attested in Grottaferrata at the end of the 15th century. In the early 16th century, it came to Rome into the possession of the Cesi family and into their palace near the Vatican, before moving to the collection of Camillo Massimo in the 17th century. Since then it has been walled up in what is now Palazzo Albani-Del Drago near the Quattro Fontane. [8]

The relief has aroused the interest of numerous antiquarians, its inscription tracing the military career of M. Pompeius Asper and the detailed and quite well preserved pictorial representations of some militaria as attributes of the deceased have been welcome objects of study in the exploration of ancient material culture. The chicken cage, on the other hand, refers to Atimetus, freedman of M. Pompeius Asper and patron of the tomb relief, who held the office of a pullarius, i.e. the responsible for keeping the prophesying chickens. An engraving published by Antonio Lafreri in 1551 made the relief more widely known, but a large number of drawings have also survived. [9] If we look at the rendering of the chicken cage in particular, we notice the relatively wide range of interpretations of the antique marble, which is more heavily rubbed precisely in this area of the relief:

Above all, the design of the carrying handle varies, which is sometimes depicted abstractly with more or less curled volutes, sometimes as ending in animal protomes, as well as the decoration of the upper end of the cage. The latter, however, always remains box-shaped in profile, even the arrangement of the two pecking hens facing left is approximately the same.

The abstract handle, the rectilinear silhouette of the cage and the pair of birds facing in the same direction are also found in Du Choul's woodcut, which should confirm its derivation from the tomb relief beyond doubt. But what about the plate in La Chausse? With the figural carrying handle, it shows only one attribute that is otherwise attested in the documentation of the 16th century only by the draughtsman of the Codex Coburgensis, who is particularly reliable in terms of faithful reproduction, while the curved tongue or flute ornament of the crowning of the cage, but above all the arrangement of the chickens facing each other, suggests that this could also be a reproduction of another ancient representation of a cavea pullaria. After all, cages were probably not uniformly standardised in antiquity either.