The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

of the plot and the use and understanding does not differ from the cultural model found in the
“elite sources”.
Fourth, it might be that omen stories were nothing special for the Romans, but something
normal in their immediate cultural surroundings. In order to see whether the Romans really were
particularly strong believers in omens, we can compare with the Greeks. This is also an
interesting comparison since it has been a common assumption in previous research that Roman
culture was a bad copy of the Greek without any individuality (Feeney 1998). A similar surveyof
omen words, as the one undertaken above, in Greek gives us only one proper word for omens,
namely τεραζ. As in the Roman case, we also have several terms that are sometimes used as
meaning omen. φαντασμα and φασμα can mean omen, but it is not their primary meaning and
they are only rarely used as such. σεμα and συμβολον also have as secondary meanings omen,
but they are used even rarer in the sense of omen. They have all been included for comparison
anyway to give as full a view as possible. As control word the Greek word corresponding to
cena, δειπνον, is used. As in the case of the Latin analysis only authors writing before the
Common Era are included in the analysis. 197 The results can be seen on figure 10.4.
Instances per
10000 words
0,70
0,60
0,50
0,40
0,30
0,20
0,10
0,00
Phantasma
Omen words in Greek
Phasma
Sema
Figure 10.4. Omen words in Greek
Sumbolon
Words
197 The exact selection along with the exact figures can be seen in appendix 4
Teras
Deipnon
Minimum
Maximum
200