The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

understand primitive thought. What we can do is try to understand the origin. He tries to
isolate the more primitive omens, which he calls "presage figurative" from those of a more
developed religion, which he calls "signe divin" (Bayet 1971: 55). It can be seen that he, like
Krauss, works from a basically evolutionistic assumption, in which divination belongs to the
primitive stage. Thus divination is explained as a survival from an earlier stage of culture.
Post evolutionism
After the optimism of comparative anthropological explanations had faded, the historical
philological tradition came into power again. A French monograph on the subject of
prodigies in general appeared in 1963. In Raymond Bloch's book Les prodiges dans
l'antiquité classique the overall thesis is that Roman divination is developed under influence
of its two great neighboring civilizations: the Greek and the Etruscan (Bloch 1963).
Ultimately he wants to trace it to the Babylonians (Bloch 1963: 80). Bloch wanted to explain
prodigies as being caused by fear caused in turn by crises (Bloch 1963: 6, 94, 124). The
expiations performed in response to the prodigies calmed the fear. With the coming of Greek
philosophy in the 2 nd century BCE, the Romans became more skeptical and turned the
prodigy system into an instrument for the privileged classes (Bloch 1963: 137-138). This way
fear could be exploited politically through prodigies (Bloch 1963: 139). On the one hand
Bloch explains prodigies as a product of historical influences, something the Romans had
from the Greeks and Etruscans, and on the other hand as something caused by fear and crises,
amenable as an instrument of manipulation.
In Kurt Latte's influential general account of Roman religion, Religion der Römer, an
historical approach was taken to the general study of Roman religion. The influence of
Greece on Rome was of central importance for Latte. According to Latte a scheme could be
made for the development of Roman religion. Before 500 BCE the Romans believed in
Dynamism. This is an idea inspired by the concept of mana from evolutionistic anthropology.
Around 500 BCE the belief in anthropomorphic gods began. Around 300 BCE the decay of
Roman religion set in with the introduction of Greek philosophy. This can be seen in the
works of Plautus or Ennius. Eventually, around the time of Cicero and Varro, divination was
a mere instrument of manipulation in the political process (Latte 1960).
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