The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

Summary
To summarize the conclusion, we have a list of factors that all seem to contribute to divination
pervading Roman culture for centuries. First, we found that the motivation is constant across
different practices and across the period considered. Second, the credibility of a practice
depended, in descending order of importance, on ritualization, the direct prestige and the indirect
prestige. Third, the spread of a practice is inversely proportional to its credibility value. Fourth, it
is possible that historical developments can explain why some practices have been adopted by
reference to their utility, because it made them useful in a new context. Fifth, divination is in all
cases, where we have sources to determine it, conceptualized as a communication with a
counterintuitive agent.
We can sketch these observations in a more formal way. The key relations between the
factors can be expressed as a series of equations. First a note on these equations: they are not
intended to signify laws in a universal sense, but are meant to highlight regularities that hold
for the period and culture under investigation here. Whether they hold more generally cannot
be decided on the basis of this singular example, but requires more research. It should also be
noticed that they are not deterministic but probabilistic. This means that one counter example
does not falsify the regularity, but if the proportion of counter examples to predicted examples
exceeds the normal limits for statistical significance it would invalidate the equation. Another
problem is whether different factors can even be compared against each other, that is, do they
even have the same currency? In economy similar equations of incommensurable factors are
frequently employed. Since this does not pose a problem in economy, it should not either be a
problem in religion (cf. Alles 2006).
1) C = aR + bDP + cIP, a>b>c
2) P(D) = 1 – C, 0