The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

practices that did not survive were exactly those with low credibility value and low
dissemination. It is, to my knowledge, the first time that a model based on insights from
cognitive science has been used to interpret historical material to that amount of detail. Still, the
sources are very fragmentary and we have only considered 13 different practices.
Chapter 10 dealt with oblative divination. It showed that omens in general were conceptualized
according to one basic cultural model. This model specified the omen as a sign from the gods
about future success or misfortune. All omen words implicated this basic model although they
each had different nuances. Based on an analysis of the frequency with which omen words
occurred in republican Latin texts, it was argued that the cultural model was frequently
communicated and very widespread in Roman culture. This could have produced a “cultural
priming” effect like the real priming effect referred to in the experiment in chapter 5. Since an
omen depends on a salient event to be identified, we investigated how this took place. We found
evidence of all three ways of identifying omens. The omen type typically denoted by the Latin
term omen was found to be largely of the first type, where an event achieves salience based on a
relation to the current concerns of the agent. Some omina were found to belong to the second
type, the catalogue type. They could be traced to the augural discipline and were therefore
ultimately based on a written record. Another type represented in this group was some of the
prodigia. They had likewise been recorded in writing. The third type, the unexpected type,
accounted for the prodigia. The more unexpected or attention demanding they were the more
likely they were to be identified as prodigia. Based on the insights derived from the theoretical
model it was also possible to distinguish one single principle that would account for which
prodigies became accepted and rejected. This is an advance on earlier research, which has
stipulated two principles and even for these two principles exceptions could be found. Further,
we found evidence that the same direct prestige effect, as we found in impetrative divination,
was detectable for oblative divination. Omens interpreted by prestigious persons were more
credible than those interpreted by less prestigious persons.
We can therefore conclude that the theoretical model of divination proposed here provides a
possible explanation for why divination pervaded Roman culture through centuries. At the same
time it provides a couple of advantages compared to previous research.
231