The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

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The first type is by far the most common. Let us look at a paradigmatic example. It can be read in Cicero’s De divinatione (Cic.Div.1.103) and it is also one of the stories selected for illustration of omens by Valerius Maximus (V.Max.1.5.ext 3). 187 When Lucius Paulus was elected consul for the second time (in 168 BCE), he received the command of the war against Perses by lot. The same day he came home and kissed his daughter Terentia. He noticed that she was sad and asked what was wrong. She said that Persa was dead. Persa was her puppy. He took that as an omen signifying that he would conquer Perses. We can see that the occurrence is nothing out of the ordinary in itself, but in the context of the current concerns of Lucius Paulus it becomes salient and is identified as an omen. This type is very typical for omens. The second category also most often occurs in relation to a specific concern of the agent, but they can in principle be identified by themselves. Examples are observation of an owl (bubo) (Ov.Met.5.549f) or volucres (a special kind of birds) (Ov.Ep.13.49; Cic.Planc.23.57). They were bad signs. The observation of a thunderclap to the left is an example of a good sign (Cic.Div.2.74). They are so in virtue of the augural discipline, which has encoded a body of knowledge into their practice. This type of signs often depends on a group of specialists or a written codification to maintain them. It is therefore probably not by chance that we only find omens with fixed meaning among signs used in the augural discipline. Examples of the third type are very hard to find among the omina, one example is: Caesar’s door to his sleeping room closed by it self the night before he was murdered (Suet.Jul.81). This type is much more common among prodigies as we will see. Contents of the omen The contents of omens were not just predictions of the future, although that is a central component. There is more information in them. In order to understand this, it is necessary to step back a bit and look at some very general characteristics of Roman religion, and how this is related to fortune and misfortune. A well known quote from Cicero describes the basis of Roman religion very well: ”but in piety [pietas], in devotion to religion [religio] and in that special wisdom which consists in the recognition of the truth that the world is swayed and directed by divine proposal, we have 187 The story is also related in Plut.Aem.10 192
excelled every race and every nation”. 188 According to Cicero, the Romans exceed everyone else in pietas and religio. These two concepts have been the focus of many investigations.Still, diverging opinions about what their exact meaning exist. There does, however, seem to be common agreement that they refer to something essential in Roman religion, namely the regulated religious practice according to prescribed rules (Latte 1960: 212; Liebeschuetz 1979: 1; Wissowa 1912: 380). Pietas is described by the Latin-English dictionary of Lewis and Short as “dutiful conduct towards the gods, one’s parents, relatives, benefactors, country etc.” This points to something central, namely acting in accordance with obligations in a social exchange system. The Roman society was pervaded by dependence through exchange relations of the cliens – patronus type. The same was the case in relation to the gods. Like dutiful conduct brought fortune in the form of help from a patron or superior friend, pietas in relation to the gods brought good fortune in the form of help from the gods. Whereas proper behavior towards a patronus might entail offering gifts or political support, proper behavior towards the gods meant to perform rites properly and to observe the correct religious prescriptions down to the smallest detail (Latte 1960: 40f; Liebeschuetz 1979: 9; Linderski 1995: 487; Wissowa 1912: 390). This adumbrates the contours of a basic model where proper religious behavior is the cause of fortune and neglect the cause of misfortune. The purpose of the pious Roman was therefore in the words of Wissowa “Fernhaltung alles Bösen und herbeifürung alles guten” (Wissowa 1912: 381). The problem for the Roman was that the many and frequently obscure rules could easily be forgotten. Therefore every Roman could unknowingly have neglected proper religious conduct and be heading towards misfortune. Fortunately the gods could then be trusted to give a sign that this was the case. This is where omens come in to the picture. Omens are indications of whether the person, to whom the omen is directed, has behaved in accordance with religious duty or not. Sometimes there was an indication of what could be done in order to re-establish the proper relation to the gods. This is the basic cultural model for conceptualizing omens. It is possible to sketch a figure of this cultural model with the most common terms to describe the various aspects. The gods are above everything as exchange partners and giving the signs. For illustration see figure 10.1. 188 “pietate ac religione atque hac una sapientia, quod deorum numine omnia regi gubernarique perspeximus, omnis gentis nationesque superavimus” (Cic.Har.19). Similar thoughts are expressed in Cic.N.D.2.3. This impression was also persistent among foreign observers of Roman culture (cf. Polyb.6.56.6, Sall.Cat.12) 193
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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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direct people in their life. It can
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or potential misfortune or lack of
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Before making blood-brotherhood Bef
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It was argued that emotion was cent
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Figure 4.2. Intentional action It i
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Figure 4.4. Ritualized action in di
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was the counterintuitive agent who
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education. 43 These problems requir
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Credibility 4,5 4 3,5 3 2,5 2 1,5 1
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Clairvoyant, and Astrologist. There
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Materials A booklet similar to the
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Summary The thesis of this chapter
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present existence, as the slogan go
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Let us presently consider how hyper
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1963). Michotte had subjects watch
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another that they were playing agai
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monkeys. There is evidence that in
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Sperber and Wilson programmatically
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humans communicate by producing sig
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Let us consider some examples of th
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Henrich and Gil-White supply precis
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communicator (T.S. Elliot) or a mil
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professors are not routinely attrib
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thought it most likely the main cha
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Chapter 5 - Oblative divination 82
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her life”. 85 In the example the
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in the city. To most modern people
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answer. In oblative divination the
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Figure 6.1. brings together the obs
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questions on how much disease there
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While many good and detailed models
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Unexpected event Figure 6.3. Web of
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Chapter 7 - Research history on Rom
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assumption is that divination, espe
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It can be seen that Latte's as well
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oth shared the same attitude toward
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vastly different views on what legi
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& Scheid 1994; Linder & Scheid 1993
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the observation. If the fear thesis
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Based on the evidence available to
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linear regression analysis was made
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criticism of it. His antiquarian cu
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Page 183 and 184: History Let us see how these observ
Page 185 and 186: Summary To summarize the conclusion
Page 187 and 188: as specified in equation 3, but it
Page 189 and 190: Dissemination Private sortition Pub
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Page 203 and 204: 1,2 1 0,4 0,2 0 Omen words in Greek
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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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The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

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