The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

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time communicating about omens or only a little, some control words were included. They were selected because they indicate things that the Romans also were interested in, such as dinner (cena) 195 and gladiator fights (gladiator). While no control words can ever be completely accurate, these two seem to indicate areas of life that the Romans found very interesting. The results can be seen on Figure 10.3 below Instances per 10000 words 1,40 1,20 1,00 0,80 0,60 0,40 0,20 0,00 Augurium Auspicium Dirus Omen Omen words in Latin Monstrum Obscenus Figure 10.3. Omen words in Latin Ostentum Portentum Prodigium Cena Minimum Maximum Gladiator Words This shows that in the corpus of Latin literature surveyed here dinner and gladiators are just about as common a subject as omens are and smaller than the auspices. If we summarize the different distinct words for omen we can see that communication about omens exceeds the control words. This could indicate that the cultural model for conceptualization of omens was 195 It could be as in the case of omens that the vocabulary is equally varied for terms denoting meals. But in Latin only cibum and epulum could come close. Cibum is a more general term, which is also used for animal fodder the frequency is therefore also higher (2,51/1,66), while epulum (0,28/0,06) is used for banquets. So cena appears to be an acceptable indicator of the topic of dinner. 198
very widespread 196 and along with it the idea that it was the gods who communicated with the Romans through signs. Using frequencies of omen words as a measure of how widespread the cultural model for omens was raises some possible objections. First, it might be that, what we are comparing to, was more widespread, but not talked about as much, that is, people might have engaged in it without speaking much about it. While this may be true, the simplest assumption is that, all else being equal allowing for great individual differences in the sources, the Romans wrote about things they were interested in and not things they found to be of irrelevant. Given the size of the sample here surveyed these individual differences should be leveled out. Second, it could be that omens were particularly apt for writing, but not speaking. This assumes a modern understanding of writing not consistent with the ancient Roman. Roman writing was read aloud. It might then be that omens were apt for certain genres. That is indeed the case, but this, can be answered as the previous objection: we must assume that the contents of the genres of the Romans with great individual differences reflected their interests. A popular genre must have been popular because it reflected topics of interest. The size of the sample should even out the individual differences. We find genres employing many omen stories, but we also find genres that hardly employ them at all. Third, it could also be argued that the sources only reflect the elite’s view on the world. That is obviously true since we have no philosophical treatises from the poor slave in the silver mines of Spain. There does not, however, seem to have been any significant differences in view on omens between the elite and the lower social classes. This can be seen from Plautus’ comedies, which were not meant for the elite, but for the masses. They frequently employed omens as part 196 It indicates that the cultural model implied by omen words was often communicated. We can try to estimate it a bit more precisely. Normal audio books in English have about 150-175 words per minute. While there probably is a difference in word length between Latin and English, it is not likely to be great since they are both more or less of the same type in this respect (not agglutinating, which would have made a difference). If we take the low estimate that the Romans spoke 150 words per minute, an average of 95 minutes of conversation would pass between the encounter of the word omen if the frequencies in the corpus used here are sufficiently representative. Add to this the other ways of signifying omen. Given this very loose and hypothetical calculation a very low estimate would have it that the average Roman spoke or heard about omens once every one or two hours. It may ofcourse also be that the sources transmitted to us are completely unrepresentative of what the Romans talked about. We simply don’t know. I have not been able to come up with any reason that this should be the case. 199
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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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Post-republican writers Verrius Fla
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M. Servius Honoratus Marius Servius
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The only full description we have o
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Page 149 and 150: All places where auspices should be
Page 151 and 152: anyhow. There is therefore no reaso
Page 153 and 154: The credibility value of the greate
Page 155 and 156: according to Cicero, the point is t
Page 157 and 158: Utility and Credibility value The a
Page 159 and 160: History Since it is mentioned in th
Page 161 and 162: Technique Let us consider public so
Page 163 and 164: Private sortition Private sortition
Page 165 and 166: shuffled the lots and drew one 149
Page 167 and 168: Extispicy is a form of divination w
Page 169 and 170: public use of extispicy are perform
Page 171 and 172: (North 1990). In Etruria these indi
Page 173 and 174: Sibylline books The Sibylline Books
Page 175 and 176: The word vates can probably be trac
Page 177 and 178: counterintuitive agent. In all the
Page 179 and 180: Howevere, there are practices in wh
Page 181 and 182: Technique Descriptives Credibility
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
Page 191 and 192: “may the gods avert (bad) omens
Page 193 and 194: excelled every race and every natio
Page 195 and 196: calf ran away and spattered many of
Page 197: the cultural model of omens, identi
Page 201 and 202: Although there is great imprecision
Page 203 and 204: 1,2 1 0,4 0,2 0 Omen words in Greek
Page 205 and 206: e distinguished: nuntiatio, relatio
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Page 209 and 210: Year BCE 218-190 189-162 160-132 13
Page 211 and 212: distinction between public and priv
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Page 215 and 216: two seem to have been used in the c
Page 217 and 218: 8) Sacrificia vetusta occultaque mi
Page 219 and 220: The actual interpretations we hear
Page 221 and 222: this type among the prodigia, where
Page 223 and 224: consideration here the cultural mod
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Page 227 and 228: action. It was argued that these re
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Page 231 and 232: practices that did not survive were
Page 233 and 234: divination. At the same time the op
Page 235 and 236: Appendix 1 The Kurabi among the Mwa
Page 237 and 238: Appendix 2 The Guzul In Central Aus
Page 239 and 240: Appendix 4 Roman Words Omen Prodigi
Page 241 and 242: Theocritus 21261 1.88 1.88 0 0 0.32
Page 243 and 244: Moon fell down Capua Goats got wool
Page 245 and 246: Note: *this is possibly not a separ
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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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