The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

investigate the dissemination of divination by integrating the factors found in the previous
chapters. Such an application of actual epidemiological methods has not been attempted before
in the cognitive science of religion. These factors form the basis of the empirical investigation in
chapters 9 and 10.
Chapter 7 marks the beginning of the empirical analysis. In this chapter we saw how previous
research had explained Roman divination. It was argued that four general theses seem to go
through the research history. The historical thesis explained Roman divination based on
historical contingencies. It was argued that this explanation did not qualify as an explanation.
The formalist thesis stipulated that Roman divination was a mere formality which the Romans
did not take seriously and could be dispensed with at leisure. A close reading of the sources,
however, revealed that the Romans did indeed take divination very seriously. The fear thesis
explained Roman divination by recourse to fear in one way or the other. Nevertheless a
systematic examination of the sources could not support the conclusions of this thesis. The
functional thesis explained the continuing existence of Roman divination by its functionality.
The problem with this thesis was that it was difficult to test. The only case where we could test
it, we found that it did not adequately account for the results. It was therefore concluded that
previous research in Roman divination had not been especially successful in its attempts to
explain why divination pervaded Roman culture through centuries.
Chapter 8 reviewed the character of the most important sources we have for divination in
Roman culture.
Chapter 9 contained the analysis of impetrative divination. In this chapter all known
impetrative divination practices were analyzed with respect to the factors stipulated in chapter 6.
It was found that divination in all cases was motivated by the perception of actual or potential
misfortune. All practices employed ritualized action. We also found that the cases where
divination was seen as manipulation were exactly cases in which the divination practice was not
performed with ritualized action. Further we saw, contrary to the results we found in Chapter 4,
that the categories employed in the divination technique seemed to have no effect on how
credible it was deemed. It might therefore be that this factor is either specific to modern western
culture or just too insignificant to have an effect in the real world. We found that the direct
prestige had a very high correlation with the credibility value of the divination practice, as was
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