The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

criticism of it. His antiquarian curiosity and his knowledge of religion make him a good
source for details about the history of divination.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE)
One of the absolute central sources for Roman divination is Cicero. Cicero became an augur
in 53 or 52 (Linderski 1995: 13). The augurs were the central authorities on Roman
divination in general and they produced authoritative rulings on questions of divination
(Linderski 1986: 2154-2189). They therefore had a large body of commentaries and books on
divination to which Cicero had access. Cicero was nominated augur late in his life. This is the
reason why the technical details of divination can only be found in his late authorship. Other
parts of Cicero’s authorship are equally important, although in a different way. His speeches
are good indications of how people thought at his time because they were public orations
meant to convince a living audience of something (Guillaumont 1984: 38f). Only through
working from very common assumptions is it possible to convince someone. They can
therefore give good clues to implicit assumptions about divination and omens.
A special note should be made concerning the De divinatione. This is probably the most
central single source for divination. It is staged as a dialogue between Cicero’s brother,
Quintus, who produces a stoic argument for the efficacy of divination in book one and
himself, Marcus, who responds by giving a skeptical refutation of the argument of Quintus in
book two 106 (Beard 1986; Guillaumont 1984: 9; Schofield 1986). The first book is a
reasonably good exposition of common attitudes among the educated Roman elite. The
second book does not prove that Cicero did not believe in divination, as most scholars have
maintained. It is an exercise in counter-argument, characteristic of the Academic school of
philosophy (Beard 1986: 34), and an argument against a rival augural theory current at the
time of Cicero (Linderski 1982: 31). Cicero’s own attitude to divination can more clearly be
seen in De legibus, in which he admits the necessity of public forms of divination
(Cic.Leg.2.31). According to Cicero divination assured that the laws of the Roman Republic
were in accordance with nature (Linderski 1982)
Cicero is consequently an authoritative source for technical augural details in the late part
of his authorship, and also a good source for general attitudes towards divination and omens.
106 From a letter to his brother from 54 BCE it can be seen that Cicero originally wanted to stage the dialogue
in 129 BCE as taking place between Scipio and Laelius (Beard 1986: 39).
139