The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

the cultural model of omens, identified in the previous section, was instantiated. To this end I
will use the Perseus project database 193 , which allows you to see the frequency of each word in
the works featured in the database. Only authors who wrote before the Common Era were
chosen, since the meaning seems to change in the principate.
There are three problems facing such an investigation. First, the words identified may actually
be other words. This happens when two different words, because of inflection, yield the same
word. The database cannot analyze which of the words the inflected form comes from, but only
which possible words they could be derived from. In all cases where there are more than one
possibility of deriving the word it gives a frequency in which all cases of doubt are counted
(maximum frequency), and another where all cases of doubt are not counted (minimum
frequency). 194 Second, the meaning of the word may not refer to an omen in all cases. This is the
case for some words, like signum and ostentum, augurium and auspicium, but not in the case of
omen or prodigium for example. There is no way to be certain that all instances mean omen.
Third, some of the words may appear together, which would make the frequency with which
omens were discussed appear larger. In order to test for this I have analyzed which words often
appear together and which don’t. Ostentum and portentum appear together relatively often,
likewise for prodigium and monstrum. Prodigium and omen rarely, if ever, appear together in
this database. This indicates that we can be certain that omen and prodigium frequencies do not
overlap. Ostentum and portentum overlap and portentum may sometimes overlap with
prodigium. We cannot, therefore, just add all the frequencies.
The word signum was excluded because it has many other meanings, and is not typically used
for omens. It would have skewed the results if it were included. Similarly, miraculum only rarely
signifies an omen. It should also be borne in mind that augurium and auspicium only rarely
means omen. In order to see whether these frequencies indicate that the Romans spent a lot of
193 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cache/perscoll_Greco-Roman.html (7 October 2006). This database has the most
frequently read Latin and Greek authors and features 5.272.848 Latin words and 7.836.556 Greek words. In most
cases only some of the works by the author in question are featured, not all. For example only the first 10 books of
Livy, and only Cicero’s speeches and letters. Further the database spans early Latin from the end of the 3rd
century BCE untill the 4th century CE. The biggest concentration of sources is around the 1st century BCE to the
1st century CE. The figures of the selected authors can be seen in appendix 4. The Perseus database is not
complete, but large and relatively representative to give an overview of Latin and Greek culture and language.
194 Results will be given in brackets with maximum number of possible instances/minimum number of possible
instances.
197