The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

Although there is great imprecision with the measure of the control, that is, a possibility that
we are measuring another term, a glance through the results seem to indicate that most instances
really are of δειπνον. This would indicate that the Greeks more rarely engaged in the topic of
omens (as only τεραζ is a reliable indicator) than they did in the topic of dinner. It still may
indicate an enormous appetite, or at least appetite for discussing food, among the Greeks. To
make a direct comparison let us compare the frequency with which the Greeks used omen words
with that of the Romans. The results can be seen in figure 10.5.
Instances per
10000 words
1,40
1,20
1,00
0,80
0,60
0,40
0,20
0,00
Augurium
Auspicium
Frequency of omen words in Greek and Latin
Dirus
Omen
Monstrum
Obscenus
Ostentum
Figure 10.5. Frequency of omen words in Greek and Latin
Portentum
Prodigium
Phantasma
Phasma
Sema
Sumbolon
Minimum
Maximum
Teras
Word
From this figure it can be seen that the Romans more often engaged in communication about
omens. There is, though, the possibility that the difference might be attributable to a different
composition of the genres in the two corpora. They are not balanced. In the Greek Corpus, for
example, we find a large amount of rhetorical material. In order to asses whether the results are a
result of different genres, we can compare the two genres that most closely resemble each other,
and which most obviously engage the widest public, namely drama and rhetoric.
Since we only have Roman comedies, we can compare Roman comedy, that is, the works of
Plautus and Terrence, with Greek comedy, that is, the works of Aristophanes. It should be said
that, although they are close there are two important differences: first of all the aristophanic
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