The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

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dissemination of the catalogue in the culture, whether or not it is confined to writing. It can be seen that it is not dependent on the current concerns of the person identifying the omen. 3) The event is attention demanding in itself to a degree where a natural explanation is not sufficient and is supplied with an intentional one. But what makes an occurrence attention demanding? Research in the cognitive sciences seems to indicate that there are different degrees. The most attention demanding are counterintuitive concepts. They are defined according to a theory of human knowledge organization which stipulates that knowledge is organized in distinct domains (Atran 1990; Hirschfeld 1996; Keil 1979; Sperber, Premack, & Premack 1995). Each concept belongs to an ontological category which is connected to the domains of either physics (objects), biology (plants and animals), or psychology (humans). The former domains are embedded in the latter. Consequently, a concept which falls into the biology domain also falls into the physics domain, but not vice versa. According to Pascal Boyer, one or two violations of knowledge associated with a concept at the domain level make a concept counterintuitive and optimally attention demanding (Boyer 2000; Boyer & Ramble 2001). A violation is either a breach of expectations from a knowledge domain connected to a given category, or a transfer from another domain of knowledge. Boyer proposed a list of five primary ontological categories (Person, Animal, Plant, Natural Object & Artifact) and three domains of knowledge attached to these (psychological, biological and physical). This yields 15 different possibilities for violation at the category level (cf. Boyer & Ramble 2001) Justin Barrett and Melanie Nyhof demonstrated the existence of an intermediate category between counterintuitive and normal, which was termed “bizarre” (Barrett & Nyhof 2001). Bizarre concepts were defined thus: “bizarre items possessed a highly unusual feature that violates no category-level assumptions but may violate basic-level regularities (e.g., a living thing that weighs 5000 kilograms may be unusual for a dog, but weighing 5000 kilograms does not violate assumptions about living things in general)” (Barrett & Nyhof 2001: 78). Bizarre concepts can therefore be seen as violations of kind-level expectations, where counterintuitive concepts are violations of category level expectations (Lisdorf 2004a). A bizarre feature is consequently a feature which is highly unusual/irregular for any given kind. 86 Consider an example of bizarreness from the Roman prodigies: A wolf has been seen 86 For research along these lines see (Boyer, Bedoin, & Honore 2000), which stipulates the same inferential divide between domain and kind level expectations. What is here called bizarre seems to correspond to what they call strange. 108
in the city. To most modern people they might be slightly irregular occurrences but not quite bizarre. However, a wolf seen in the city was to the ancient Romans a highly bizarre feature, as this animal was part of a group of animals which were seen as the antithesis of civilization. 87 The Romans did not have a theory that animals in general couldn’t be in the city, lots were indeed, but this specific animal was incompatible with city life; there was a kind-level expectation that this kind lives in and roams the countryside, not the city. This is not an expectation for the entire category of animals. Recent research has nuanced the picture somewhat (Alles 2006; Atran & Norenzayan 2004; Norenzayan et al. 2006a), but it seems clear that for concepts that are minimally counterintuitive concepts presented with a context, such as a narrative or event, are the most attention demanding (Gonze et al. 2006: 544). It therefore seems safe to say that counterintuitiveness and bizarreness is a good index of how attention demanding some occurrence is. All forms of omens are interpreted as intentional signs from counterintuitive agents. The identification depends on two primary factors: a wide dissemination of a cultural model which functions like priming in heightening the population’s general sensitivity to the communicative potential of salient events. Events become salient in one of three ways: either by the context of the current concern of a person, by the recognition of an event as one from a pre-existing catalogue of omens, or by the event being unexpected or attention demanding in itself. The basic motivation and the interpretation is the same as in impetrative divination. 87 Wolves are the most prominent non domesticated animal and predator, featured in the mythology of Rome’s origins (e.g. Ovid´s Fasti (Ov.Fast.2. 267-452); (cf. Wiseman 1995) for myths surrounding the origins of Rome). The “anti-civilizedness” can also be seen in the character of the celebration Lupercalia (the wolfish celebration) on February 15. Here half naked young boys ran around wildly and hit bystanders with a thong inside the sacred perimeters of Rome (cf. Scullard 1981: 76). 109
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The Dissemination of Divination in
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Chapter 8 - Sources to Roman Divina
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List of Figures Figure 3.1. Types o
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Acknowledgements Certain parts of t
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people. It is almost unanimously ag
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that precludes the investigation fr
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asic cognitive functions could acco
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Lienard & Feeney 2006), prayer (Bar
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“the making clear of something”
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In chapter 5 it is argued that obla
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Chapter 1 - History of divination a
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with *-eu appears in two forms. One
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involving the Korinthian Polyidos.
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The 15 th edition of the Encyclopae
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Chapter 2 - A History of Modern Div
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and games of chance a secondary dev
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causes. This is also the case conce
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Evans-Pritchard also uses a lot of
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through casting the decision “upo
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transformed and new relations are g
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Somewhat between the great currents
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efutations. With this article Zeitl
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the function of divination. Special
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Chapter 3 - Definition and typology
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means signs obtained from the gods
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producer. In this case we see that
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Chapter 4 - Impetrative Divination
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ontogenetic histories. Some feeling
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Page 65 and 66: Figure 4.2. Intentional action It i
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Page 69 and 70: was the counterintuitive agent who
Page 71 and 72: education. 43 These problems requir
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Page 75 and 76: Clairvoyant, and Astrologist. There
Page 77 and 78: Materials A booklet similar to the
Page 79 and 80: Summary The thesis of this chapter
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Page 85 and 86: 1963). Michotte had subjects watch
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Page 91 and 92: Sperber and Wilson programmatically
Page 93 and 94: humans communicate by producing sig
Page 95 and 96: Let us consider some examples of th
Page 97 and 98: Henrich and Gil-White supply precis
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Page 107: her life”. 85 In the example the
Page 111 and 112: answer. In oblative divination the
Page 113 and 114: Figure 6.1. brings together the obs
Page 115 and 116: questions on how much disease there
Page 117 and 118: While many good and detailed models
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Page 123 and 124: assumption is that divination, espe
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Page 129 and 130: vastly different views on what legi
Page 131 and 132: & Scheid 1994; Linder & Scheid 1993
Page 133 and 134: the observation. If the fear thesis
Page 135 and 136: Based on the evidence available to
Page 137 and 138: linear regression analysis was made
Page 139 and 140: criticism of it. His antiquarian cu
Page 141 and 142: Post-republican writers Verrius Fla
Page 143 and 144: M. Servius Honoratus Marius Servius
Page 145 and 146: The only full description we have o
Page 147 and 148: called interpretes Iovi, interprete
Page 149 and 150: All places where auspices should be
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History Since it is mentioned in th
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Technique Let us consider public so
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Private sortition Private sortition
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shuffled the lots and drew one 149
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Extispicy is a form of divination w
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public use of extispicy are perform
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(North 1990). In Etruria these indi
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Sibylline books The Sibylline Books
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The word vates can probably be trac
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counterintuitive agent. In all the
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Howevere, there are practices in wh
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Technique Descriptives Credibility
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History Let us see how these observ
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Summary To summarize the conclusion
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as specified in equation 3, but it
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Dissemination Private sortition Pub
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“may the gods avert (bad) omens
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excelled every race and every natio
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calf ran away and spattered many of
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the cultural model of omens, identi
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very widespread 196 and along with
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Although there is great imprecision
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1,2 1 0,4 0,2 0 Omen words in Greek
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e distinguished: nuntiatio, relatio
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ating whether a prodigy involved a
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Year BCE 218-190 189-162 160-132 13
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distinction between public and priv
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140,00 120,00 100,00 80,00 60,00 40
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two seem to have been used in the c
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8) Sacrificia vetusta occultaque mi
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The actual interpretations we hear
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this type among the prodigia, where
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consideration here the cultural mod
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encounter of people using it to a g
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action. It was argued that these re
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investigate the dissemination of di
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practices that did not survive were
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divination. At the same time the op
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Appendix 1 The Kurabi among the Mwa
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Appendix 2 The Guzul In Central Aus
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Appendix 4 Roman Words Omen Prodigi
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Theocritus 21261 1.88 1.88 0 0 0.32
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Moon fell down Capua Goats got wool
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Note: *this is possibly not a separ
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Temple of Ceres struck by lightning
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Sheep with two heads born Suessa Pi
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12 year old hermaphrodite discovere
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Cows were talking Campania Bronze c
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*This prodigy may be the same as th
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156 Storm destroys sacred places on
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* Since the Graecostasis was right
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An owl was seen on the Capitol Roma
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* Rasmussen counts as two (Rasmusse
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Sun formed a disc like a shield at
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Two calfs were found in the entrail
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Fire in the sky Note: While this pr
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Tornado ripped of roofs Bridge coll
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Doors to the temple of Fortuna open
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Appendix 6 Examples of counterintui
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Bibliography Primary Sources 220 La
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Secondary sources Abbink, J. 1993:
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Bering, J. M. and Johnson, D. P. 20
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Callaway, H. 1970: The Religious Sy
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Dumezil, G. 1970: Archaic Roman Rel
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Guillaumont, F. 1984: Philosophe et
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Koenig, M. A., Clement, F., and Har
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Luterbacher, F. 1967: Der Prodigien
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Patton, L. L. 2000: "The Magic in M
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Schilling, R. 1979: "A propos des "
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Taylor, L. R. 1949: Party Politics
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Woodward, J. 2000: "Explanation and
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Oprindeligt blev divination forklar
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menneskelig perception eller ræson
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I kapitel 6 sammenlignes observatio
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Den sidste ligning udtrykker, at sa
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