Under the auspices of

Of course, to understand the phrase ‘under the auspices of’, we need to know what auspices are. No, they aren’t pieces of a horse.

In the heyday of the Roman Empire people were employed to make predictions based on the flight of birds. These characters were known as auspexes and their observations and the token of good fortune that arose from them were called auspices.

Anyone who followed a course of action based on such a premonition felt themselves to be safe in their actions and to be ‘under the auspices’ of the favourable omens.