The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

played a big part in it, and there are many stories about proper and improper religious
behavior. This gives us a good indication of how divination was conceptualized in the early
principate, but also earlier since some of the sources that Valerius Maximus builds on are
republican. When we are able to test his use of these earlier sources he seems to follow them
relatively closely, although he is not as detailed and technical in his account (Mueller 2002:
111). Therefore some potentially useful information can be extracted from Valerius
Maximus’ work.
Gaius Tranquilius Suetonius (c.70 CE - )
While Suetonius is much distrusted in some circles and regarded as primarily drawn towards
gossip, he does, however, have one great advantage: he had access to imperial archives,
which would have had all relevant historical records. Therefore, in certain cases Suetonius
can throw light on some historical events, not known from other sources.
Seneca (4 BCE – 65 CE)
Seneca was educated in Rome and most famous as the tutor of Nero. He is used mainly as a
source for knowledge of haruspicy. In his play Oedipus, he describes a haruspex inspecting
the entrails of a sacrificial victim. In this source we can see what sort of things would be
understood by the audience, that is, what a Roman audience in general would know about
extispicy. While this is later than republican times, extispicy was one of the divination
practices that seem to have remained unchanged from the republic to the principate.
Gaius Plinius Secundus (23BCE - 79CE)
Although Pliny mostly used secondary sources and his work seems to be organized according
to inconsistent principles, it can sometimes be useful (Köves-Zulauf 1978: 227). He often
includes valuable information on details of Roman religion based on scholars such as, Varro,
Valerius Flacchus and annalistic sources that are not otherwise known to us (Köves-Zulauf
1978: 229-243). He is also known to have used commentarii on omens by one C. Epidius
(Plin.Nat.17.243) and a work on Etruscan divination by Umbricius Melior (Plin.Nat.10.19),
who was the chief haruspex of the emperor Galba (Köves-Zulauf 1978: 245f). Pliny therefore
is likely to be able to supply important technical details of republican divination.
142