Ancient Roman Superstitions, Divination and Astrology | Early European History And Religion

SUPERSTITIONS IN ANCIENT ROME

magic hand

Like the Greeks, the Romans were very superstitious. Headaches they believed could be cured by taking an herb found growing near the heads of statues and wrapping them around one's neck. Inscribed tablets of lead and clay were buried to bring gamblers good luck at the hippodrome and lovers success in their pursuits. Caesar feared dreams. Parents hung penis-shaped amulets around the necks of their children to ward off the evil eye. Grit left in wine goblets was read for fortunes. The word "fortune” comes from the Latin word fortuna. Fortuna was the goddess of wisdom, prophecy and the dead. She was also known as Lady Luck.

Famed Greek oracles like the one in Delphi were still very active the Roman era. On fortunetellers, Pliny the Elder wrote: "this most fraudulent of arts has held complete sway throughout the world for many years. Nobody should be surprised at the greatness of its influence . . . There is no one who does not fear being spellbound by curse tablets.” Shakespeare's famous warning by a soothsayer to Julius Caesar of his assassination — "Beware the ides of March" — is still used today, even many people don’t what it means. The "ides" were the middle day of a month — March 15, in the case of Caesar's murder in 44 B.C.)

Jerome Carcopino wrote in Tacitus does not venture formally to deny the truth of the "prodigies" which he records as scrupulously as did his predecessors, and he confesses that he dare not omit or treat as fables "facts established by tradition." Most of his peers and contemporaries were harassed by the same preoccupations. Suetonius had a dream which upset him to such a point that he feared he was already losing a case in which he was engaged. Regulus, the odious rival of Pliny the Younger at the bar, made use of horoscopes and the haruspex to increase his reputation and obtain legacies by undue influence. [Source: “Daily Life in Ancient Rome: the People and the City at the Height the Empire” By Jerome Carcopino, Director of the Ecole Franchise De Rome Member of the Institute of France, Routledge 1936]

As for Pliny himself, he was inclined to reject the puerilities of dream interpretation, quoting Homer to hold that: "Without a sign, his sword the brave man draws, And asks no omen but his country's cause." At the same time he did not hesitate to write to the consul Licinius Sura, who to his fame as a warrior added the reputation of being a storehouse of science, asking what he ought to think about ghosts and apparitions, and minutely detailing a series of experiences which had led him hitherto to incline to believe in them. Pliny's letters on this subject ought to put us on our guard against Juvenal's passionate attacks. Reading this tissue of childish credulity, we are suddenly filled with tolerance toward the Stoic attempt at least to legitimatise divination by assuming the immanent action of Providence, and toward the occultism and magic mongering which the oriental religions at least employed for the uplift of souls.

Websites on Ancient Rome: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history; Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; Lacus Curtius penelope.uchicago.edu; The Internet Classics Archive classics.mit.edu ; Bryn Mawr Classical Review bmcr.brynmawr.edu; Cambridge Classics External Gateway to Humanities Resources web.archive.org; Ancient Rome resources for students from the Courtenay Middle School Library web.archive.org ; History of ancient Rome OpenCourseWare from the University of Notre Dame web.archive.org ; United Nations of Roma Victrix (UNRV) History unrv.com

Modern Superstitions and Customs That Have Ancient Roman Origins

The tradition of carrying the bride across the threshold began with the Romans. The groom first went into the house to light the hearth while the bride smeared oil and grease around the doorway as a sign of good luck. To ensure that the bride wouldn't do anything like stumble, bringing bad luck to the house by angering household spirits that protected homes such as "penates", she was carried into the house left foot first. The only difference between the way the Roman's did it and the way we do it today is that slaves carried her into the house not her husband.

magic items

The custom of breaking a wishbone (the Y-shaped clavicle of a fowl) with a secret wish going to person with the bigger piece has been dated to Etruria in 400 B.C. The Etruscans believed that chickens were soothsayers because they foretold the laying of an egg with a squawk. When the sacred hen died, its bones were dried and the clavicle was stroked before making a wish and thus became known as the wishbone. The clavicle was selected over other bones because its Y-shape had some symbolic meaning. The customs of breaking it for a wish developed in Roman times partly as the result of to many people fighting over one bone.

The expression “getting up on the wrong side of the bed” supposedly evolved from getting up on the "right side”, which in turn grew out the Roman belief that the left side was evil. The the Latin word for "left" is “sinister” and first "footmen" were hired by Roman nobles to makes sure guests entered their houses right foot first. (See Left Hand Superstitions Below) According to some sources, breaking a mirror was considered bad luck as early as the A.D. first century in Rome, where Romans believed that mirrors could be used to tell fortunes and breaking them brought the bad luck, which lasted for seven years because that was how long it took for the body to rejuvenate. [People's Almanac]

Left Hand Superstitions in Ancient Rome

In ancient Rome left-handed people were considered unlucky and untrustworthy and there was a belief that the left-hand side was evil, while the right-hand side was good. The word “sinister” comes from the Latin word for “left-side”. Oddly enough, left-handed gladiators were sought after as left-handed people used different fighting styles, so it made the fighting more interesting. [Source: Andrew Handley, Listverse, February 8, 2013]

Tom Metcalfe wrote in Live Science: A possible origin for this belief among the Romans may lie in the earlier belief among the Indo-Europeans, who arrived in Europe between 9,000 and 6,000 years ago and are believed to have been the ancestors of the Romans. According to author Anatoly Liberman, the Indo-Europeans believed prayers should be addressed to the sun as it rose in the east. That would have placed the left hand at the north while making a prayer; and the direction north represented evil because it was thought to be the location of the Indo-European underworld, or "kingdom of the dead." Over time the left-hand side came to be seen as evil, rather than the direction north. The Romans shared their superstitious mistrust of the left-hand side with other descendants of the Indo-Europeans, including the ancient Greeks, Germans and Celts. [Source Tom Metcalfe Live Science, August 23, 2022]

Whatever the origin of the superstition, it became part of Romans belief. The Latin word "sinister" was used in Roman augury, where the Greek practice of considering the left to be unlucky resulted in an unfavorable omen if birds flew to the left — and so "sinister" came to mean "harmful" or "adverse." Left-handed people were considered untrustworthy, and the Roman superstition may be the origin of the idea of "waking on the wrong side of the bed" (the left side). It's also said that noble Romans employed "footmen" to enter a house before them using their right feet.

Supernatural Phenomena in Ancient Rome

In the 1st-century A.D Roman work of fiction Satyricon by Petronius, Trimalchio listens openmouthed to tales of vampires and werewolves, and finally when he hears the cock crow in the midst of his midnight boozing, he trembles at the evil omen.

One of the first recorded examples of a UFO actually came from Rome, although most people tend to think of them as a modern phenomena. In 218 B.C., a written account reports that a fleet of gleaming ships appeared to be floating in the sky of Rome. That wasn’t the only one, either—in A.D. 150 a report from an area right outside of Rome described “a beast like a piece of pottery about one hundred feet in size, multicolored on top and shooting out fiery rays, landed in a dust cloud.

Marianne Bonz wrote for PBS’s Frontline: “In Matthew's gospel, Jesus' birth is heralded by the heavenly portent of a star rising in the East....In all of the gospels Jesus performs numerous healings, and on several occasions he even brings the dead back to life...Although all of these religious claims seem remarkable to the modern reader, none of them would have astounded the average citizen of the early Roman empire. Stories of heavenly portents, miraculous healings, mystical visions, and even resurrections were told about a number of demi-gods or heroes. In fact, a number of supernatural phenomena were even attributed to certain philosophers and emperors.” [Source: Marianne Bonz, Frontline, PBS, April 1998. Bonz was managing editor of Harvard Theological Review. She received a doctorate from Harvard Divinity School, with a dissertation on Luke-Acts as a literary challenge to the propaganda of imperial Rome. ]

Ancient Roman Astrology

The Romans believed that each of the twelve Zodiac sign controlled a different part of the body. The planets Mars and Venus were given the character of the gods they were named after.

When he hosts his grand banquet the upstart former-slave Trimalchio in Satyricon sets his guests to dine round a table whose centre-piece represents the zodiac. He boasts to them that he was born under "the sign of Cancer, the Crab," a sign so favourable that he needs only to stand firm on his two feet "to possess property on land and sea." [Source: “Daily Life in Ancient Rome: the People and the City at the Height the Empire” By Jerome Carcopino, Director of the Ecole Franchise De Rome Member of the Institute of France, Routledge 1936]

The 1st-century AD Roman work of fiction Satyricon by Petronius. “Trimalchio interrupted these pleasant reminiscences..."Look now, these here heavens, as there are twelve gods living in 'em, changes into that many shapes.
"First it becomes the Ram. So whoever is born under that sign has a lot of herds, a lot of wool, a hard head as well, a brassy front and a sharp horn. Most scholars are born under this sign, and most muttonheads as well."
We applauded the wit of our astrologer and he went on:
"Then the whole heavens turns into the little old Bull. So bullheaded folk are born then, and cow-herds and those who find their own feed. [Source Gaius Petronius Arbiter (d. A.D. 66), The Satyricon, The Dinner of Trimalchio”]

Augustus birth star chart

"Under the Heavenly Twins on the other hand pairs-in-hand, yokes of oxen, people with big ballocks and people who do it both ways.
"I was born under the Crab, so I have a lot of legs to stand on and a lot of property on land and sea, because the Crab takes both in his stride. And that's why I put nothing over him earlier, so as not to upset my horoscope.
"Under Leo are born greedy and bossy people.
"Under the Virgin, effeminates, runaways and candidates for the chain-gang.
"Under the Scales, butchers, perfume-sellers and anyone who weighs things up.
"Under Scorpio poisoners and murderers.

"Under Sagittarius are born cross-eyed people who look at the vegetables and take the bacon.
"Under Capricorn, people in trouble who sprout horns through their worries.
"Under the Water-Carrier, bartenders and jugheads.
"Under the fishes, fish-fryers and people who spout in public.
"So the starry sky turns round like a millstone, always bringing some trouble, and men being born or dying."

Omens and Prodigies in Ancient Rome

"Prodigies" in ancient Rome were things like unusual weather events or strange animal births that seen as messages from the divine. The Roman Senate often convened to address prodigies to determine if they required public sacrifices or other rituals to appease any perceived offenses against the gods. Tom Metcalfe wrote in Live Science: Many ancient Romans were devout believers in what they saw as signs from the gods, especially unusual natural occurrences. Roman historians such as Livy and Suetonius, for example, relate such "prodigies" matter-of-factly in their writings, including untimely famines; eclipses of the sun and moon; the birth of deformed animals, such as a foal with five legs; an unborn child who cried "triumph" from his mother's womb; and "blood" rain in distant cities. [Source Tom Metcalfe Live Science, August 23, 2022]

Marianne Bonz wrote for PBS’s Frontline: “Roman historians such as Suetonius and Tacitus frequently reported the occurrence of miraculous omens or portents regarding the emperors, particularly at the beginning or end of their reigns. Because Rome placed its rulers at the summit of human society, it was believed that they served as mediators for the will of the gods on earth. Accordingly, the appearance of omens, for good or ill, was the means by which the gods could signal the working of their will in human affairs. [Source: Marianne Bonz, Frontline, PBS, April 1998. Bonz was managing editor of Harvard Theological Review. She received a doctorate from Harvard Divinity School, with a dissertation on Luke-Acts as a literary challenge to the propaganda of imperial Rome.]

Suetonius wrote: “His death, too, of which I shall speak next, and his deification after death, were known in advance by unmistakable signs. As he was bringing the lustrum to an end in the Campus Martius before a great throng of people, an eagle flew several times about him and then going across to the temple hard by, perched above the first letter of Agrippa's name. On noticing this, Augustus bade his colleague Tiberius recite the vows which it is usual to offer for the next five years; for although he had them prepared and written out on a tablet, he declared that he would not be responsible for vows which he should never pay.

lightning was considered an omen sent directly from the gods

At about the same time the first letter of his name was melted from the inscription on one of his statues by a flash of lightning; this was interpreted to mean that he would live only a hundred days from that time, the number indicated by the letter C, and that he would be numbered with the gods, since aesar (that is, the part of the name Caesar which was left) is the word for god in the Etruscan tongue. Then, too, when he was on the point of sending Tiberius to Illyricum and was proposing to escort him as far as Beneventum, and litigants detained him on the judgment seat by bringing forward case after case, he cried out that he would stay no longer in Rome, even if everything conspired to delay him---and this too was afterwards looked upon as one of the omens of his death. When he had begun the journey, he went on as far as Astura and from there, contrary to his custom, took ship by night since it chanced that there was a favourable breeze, and thus contracted an illness beginning with a diarrhea. [Source: Suetonius (c.69-after 122 A.D.): “De Vita Caesarum--Divus Augustus” (“The Lives of the Caesars--The Deified Augustus”), written A.D. c. 110, “Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum,” 2 Vols., trans. J. C. Rolfe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1920), pp. 123-287]

“Then after skirting the coast of Campania and the neighbouring islands, he spent four more days at his villa in Capreae, where he gave himself up wholly to rest and social diversions. As he sailed by the gulf of Puteoli it happened that from an Alexandrian ship which had just arrived there, the passengers and crew, clad in white, crowned with garlands, and burning incense, lavished upon him good wishes and the highest praise, saying that it was through him they lived, through him that they sailed the seas, and through him that they enjoyed their liberty and their fortunes. Exceedingly pleased at this, he gave forty gold pieces to each of his companions, exacting from every one of them a pledge under oath not to spend the sum that had been given them in any other way than in buying wares from Alexandria. More than that, for the several remaining days of his stay, among little presents of various kinds, he distributed togas and cloaks as well, stipulating that the Romans should use the Greek dress and language and the Greeks the Roman...

“Noticing from his dining-room that the tomb of this Masgaba, who had died the year before, was visited by a large crowd with many torches, he uttered aloud this verse, composed offhand: "I see the founder's tomb alight with fire"; and turning to Thrasyllus, one of the suite of Tiberius who was reclining opposite him and knew nothing about the matter, he asked of what poet he thought it was the work. When Thrasyllus hesitated, he added another verse: "See you with lights Masgaba honoured now?" and asked his opinion of this one also. When Thrasyllus could say nothing except that they were very good, whoever made them, he burst into a laugh and fell a joking about it. Presently he crossed over to Naples, although his bowels were still weak from intermittent attacks. In spite of this he witnessed and then started with Tiberius for his destination [Beneventum]. But as he was returning his illness increased and he at last took to his bed at Nola, calling back Tiberius, who was on his way to Illyricum, and keeping him for a long time in private conversation, after which he gave attention to no business of importance.”

Omens Associated with The Deaths of Roman Emperors

“After the death of Julius Caesar, Suetonius (Lives of the Caesars: Julius 88) reports that at the funeral games held in his honor "a comet shone for seven successive days, rising about the eleventh hour, and was believed to be the soul of Caesar, which had been taken into heaven." But it was Julius Caesar's adopted son, the immensely popular and widely-revered emperor Augustus, who generated the most stories of this type.

the direction birds flew could be a good or bad pmen

According to one story, Augustus's mother was worshipping in the temple of Apollo when she fell asleep and was impregnated by the god (Suetonius Lives of the Caesars: Augustus 94). Another story also attested to Augustus's unusually close relationship to Apollo, the god of prophecy, by crediting the emperor with having divined beforehand the outcome of all of his wars (Suetonius Lives of the Caesars: Augustus 96).

On Emperor Claudius I (10 B.C.- A.D. 54), Suetonius wrote: ““The principal omens of his death were the following: the rise of a long-haired star, commonly called a comet, the striking of his father Drusus' tomb by lightning; and the fact that many magistrates of all ranks had died that same year. There are, besides, some indications that he himself was not unaware of his approaching end, and that he made no secret of it; for when he was appointing the consuls, he made no appointment beyond the month when he died, and on his last appearance in the Senate, after earnestly exhorting his children to harmony, he begged the members to watch over the tender years of both; and in his last sitting on the tribunal he declared more than once that he had reached the end of a mortal career, although all who heard him prayed that the omen might be averted [The formula was "Di meliora diunt!" or "May the Gods grant better things!", i.e., "The Gods Forbid!"]. [Source: Suetonius (c.69-after 122 A.D.) : “De Vita Caesarum:Claudius” (“The Lives of the Caesars: Claudius”), written in A.D. 110, 2 Vols., translated by J. C. Rolfe, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, and London: William Henemann, 1920), Vol. I, pp. 405-497, modernized by J. S. Arkenberg, Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton]

On events before Emperor Hadrian’s death, Aelius Spartianus wrote: ““About this time there came a certain woman, who said that she had been warned in a dream to coax Hadrian to refrain from killing himself, for he was destined to recover entirely, but that she had failed to do this and had become blind; she had nevertheless been ordered a second time to give the same message to Hadrian and to kiss his knees, and was assured of the recovery of her sight if she did so. The woman then carried out the command of the dream, and reeived her sight after she had bathed her eyes with the water in the temple from which she had come. Also a blind old man from Pannonia came to Hadrian when he was ill with fever, and touched him; whereupon the man received his sight, and the fever left Hadrian. All these things, however, Marius Maximus declares were done as a hoax.” [Source: Aelius Spartianus: Life of Hadrian,” (r. 117-138 CE.),William Stearns Davis, ed., “Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources,” 2 Vols. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912-13), Vol. II: Rome and the West]

Divination in Ancient Rome

According to the Encyclopedia of Religion: Divination had been central to republican politics and to the traditional religion of the Roman state. For example, before engagement in battle or before any meeting of an assembly the "auspices" were taken — in other words, the heavens were observed for any signs (such as the particular pattern of a flight of birds) that the gods gave or withheld their assent to the project in hand. These forms of divination changed in Rome under the principate. [Source: Arnaldo Momigliano (1987), Simon Price (2005), Encyclopedia of Religion, Encyclopedia.com]

The traditional systematic reporting of prodigies, for example, disappeared in the Augustan period: these seemingly random intrusions of divine displeasure must have appeared incongruous in a system where divine favor flowed through the emperor; such prodigies as were noted generally centered on the births and deaths of emperors. There were many other forms of divination. Some of them (such as astrology) involved specific foretelling of the future. Some (such as dream interpretation) were a private, rather than a public, affair. Some could even be practiced as a weapon against the current political order — as when casting an emperor's horoscope foretold his imminent death.

The practitioners of divination were as varied as its functions. They ranged from the senior magistrates (who observed the heavens before an assembly) and the state priests (such as the augures who advised the magistrates on heavenly signs) to the potentially dangerous astrologers and soothsayers. These people were periodically expelled from the city of Rome and under the principate were subject to control by provincial governors. The jurist Ulpian included in his treatise on the duties of provincial governors a section explaining the regulation of astrologers and soothsayers; a papyrus document survives from Roman Egypt, with a copy of a general ban on divination issued by a governor of the province in the late second century ce (on the grounds that it led people astray and brought danger); and at the end of the third century ce the emperor Diocletian issued a general ban on astrology. Consultation of diviners that threatened the stability of private families or the life of the emperor himself were obvious targets for punishment.

Augury in Ancient Rome

Augury

Tom Metcalfe wrote in Live Science: Augury was the practice of divining the future by studying the behavior of birds, such as the direction they flew or how many there were. Many Romans took augury very seriously, and it featured prominently in the affairs of the Roman state, especially before important events such as battles or setting out to war. According to some ancient sources, one such incident occurred during the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage. Before the naval Battle of Drepana in 249 B.C., one of the consuls (highest elected position in the Republic), Publius Claudius Pulcher, consulted the sacred chickens. [Source Tom Metcalfe Live Science, August 23, 2022]

The belief was that if the chickens ate the grain fed them, the result of the battle would be favorable. However, when given the grain before Drepana, they did not eat it. Claudius Pulcher, not to be deterred from fighting and to allay the fears of his crews, threw the sacred chickens overboard, saying that if they did not wish to eat, they could drink. The Romans lost the battle and Claudius Pulcher was subsequently exiled from Rome.

The first-century A.D. Roman natural philosopher Pliny the Elder attributed the invention of augury to a mythological Greek king, but historians note that the ancient Egyptians had a similar practice. Augury was performed by specialist priests called "augurs." The idea was that the behavior of birds reflected the will of the gods manifested in the natural world, so the will of the gods could therefore be determined by carefully watching the behavior of birds, according to Pliny.

A myth written down by the second-century A.D. Greek and Roman historian Plutarch tells that Romulus — the legendary founder of Rome — and his twin brother Remus resolved an argument over where to site the city by observing the flight of birds. Remus saw six vultures, but Romulus saw 12 — so the city was built where Romulus wanted, around the Palatine Hill. Augury was integrated into the official religion of pagan Rome, and the "auspices" of augury were consulted at times of national crises and war. An 18th-century French history based on classical sources records that Roman priests kept a flock of sacred chickens, which supposedly reflected the will of the gods by feeding on the grain given to them: If the sacred chickens ate it heartily while stamping their feet, then the augury was favorable; but if they refused to eat it, the augury was bad. The history notes that if a positive augury was sought, the sacred chickens might not be fed for a while first.

Etruscan Bird and Chicken Folk Beliefs

priest practicing augury

The Etruscans believed that the will of the gods was manifested through signs in the natural world. The patterns made by flying bird were read for auspicious signs. The word auspicious was originally used to describe a favorable flight of birds. Lightning and thunder were read for symbols of good and bad luck. The future was divined by observing the direction of thunderbolts. Roman leaders called on Etruscan soothsayers to direct lighting bolts at the Visigoths.

When the sacred hen died, its bones were dried and the clavicle was stroked before making a wish and thus became known as the wishbone. The clavicle was selected over other bones because its Y-shape had some symbolic meaning. The customs of breaking it for a wish developed in Roman times partly as the result of to many people fighting over one bone.

According to the Etruscan a "hen oracle," a circle was drawn on the ground with 20 parts, corresponding to letters in the Etruscan alphabet, with pieces of grain in each sector. A sacred chicken was placed in the middle and foretold the future by forming the letters for words by pecking at the grain in the letter's sector.

Haruspicy in Ancient Rome

Haruspicy, the study of a the liver of a sacrificed animal, was widely practiced in Rome. The liver was mapped out and read like a palm. Tom Metcalfe wrote in Live Science: If ancient Romans really wanted to know what was going to happen, they might turn to haruspicy — the divination of the future by examining the entrails of animals — which was considered much more accurate than augury. The ancient Romans attributed haruspicy to the Etruscans. A specialist in haruspicy was called a "haruspex," and Etruscan haruspices were considered especially adept. [Source Tom Metcalfe Live Science, August 23, 2022]

The idea behind haruspicy was that the internal organs of animals — usually sheep or poultry, but sometimes oxen — that had been sacrificed to the gods could be a medium for their messages. The liver of a sacrificed animal was the most important organ because it was considered the site of the soul, but the animal's heart, lungs, kidneys, spleen and intestines were also examined. Each organ was assessed for its general condition, such as "shiny and full" or "rough and shrunken," while great importance was placed on whether the liver had a bump called the "head of the liver," or"caput iocineris." Not having this feature meant the divination was especially unfavorable, but only a skilled haruspex could find any meaning in the entrails. Models of livers were also made, presumably for reference, that showed what the various sections of the organ might portend; the most famous of these is the bronze Liver of Piacenza, an Etruscan artifact from about 400 B.C. discovered in northern Italy in 1877.

Liver Divination Among the Etruscans

The Etruscans used haruspicy (searching for omens in the entrails of animals) to predict the future. Etruscan fortunetellers were famed for their liver reading skills. After a sacrifice the body was opened up and the liver was examined. The liver was divided into region which correspond with the constellations in the sky. The right side denoted good luck and the left side, bad luck. A bronze liver unearthed by archaeologists at Piacenza was divided into forty regions, each marked with name of a different god. ["World Religions" edited by Geoffrey Parrinder, Facts on File Publications, New York]

Etruscan liver divining tool
A 2nd century B.C. bronze model of a sheep's liver, divided into 16 regions corresponding to sections of the heavens and names of deities, found near Piacenza in 1877. It shows the chief parts of the liver and is covered with Etruscan characters, which furnish for the most part names of deities. The model was probably used for purposes of instruction in the Etruscan system of hepatoscopy—just like a similar Babylonian model.

Historian Morris Jastrow said: “Among the Etruscans we...find liver divination not only occupying an important position in the official cult, but becoming a part of it. As a companion piece to the Babylonian model of a sheep’s liver, we have a bronze model, found” in 1877 “near Piacenza in Italy, which, covered with Etruscan characters, shows almost the same general design as the Babylonian model. This Etruscan model, dating probably from the third century B.C., but taking us back to a prototype that may be considerably older, served precisely the same purpose as its Babylonian counterpart: namely, to explain liver divination to the young haruspices of Etruria. The importance of this form of divination is illustrated by other Etruscan antiquities, such as the tomb of an haruspex, who holds in his left hand a liver as the sign-manual of his profession. [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911 ]

Etruscans and Greek Sacrifices and Roman Liver Divination

The Etruscans, like the ancient Babylonians, practiced liver divination and they are believed to have passed on the practice to the Romans and influenced ritual practices of the Greeks. Historian Morris Jastrow said: ““Through the Etruscans hepatoscopy came to the Romans, and it is significant that down through the days of the Roman Republic the official augurs were generally Etruscans, as Cicero and other writers expressly tell us.The references to liver divination are numerous in Latin writers, and although the term used by them is a more general one, exta ,—usually rendered “entrails,”—when we come to examine the passages, we find, in almost all cases, the omen specified is a sign noted on the liver of a sacrificial animal. So Livy, Valerius Maximus, Pliny, and Plutarch unite in recording that when the omens were taken shortly before the death of Marcellus, during the war against Hannibal, the liver of the sacrificial animal had no processus pyramidalis, which was regarded as an unfavourable sign, presaging the death of the Roman general. Pliny specifies a large number of historical occasions when forecasts were made by the augurs, and almost all his illustrations are concerned with signs observed on the liver. [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911 ]

“The same is the case with the numerous references to divination through sacrificial animals found in Greek writers; for the Greeks and Romans alike resorted to this form of divination on all occasions. In Greek, too, the term applied to such divination is a general one, hiera or hiereia , the “sacred parts,” but the specific examples in every instance deal with signs on the liver. Thus, e.g., in the Electra of Euripides, Ægisthos, when surprised by Orestes, is represented in the act of examining the liver of an ox sacrificed on a festive occasion.

Holding the liver in his hand, Ægisthos observes that “there was no lobe,and that the gate and the gall-bladder portended evil.” While Ægisthos is thus occupied, Orestes steals upon him from behind and deals the fatal blow. Æschylus, in the eloquent passage in which the Chorus describes the many benefits conferred on mankind by the unhappy Prometheus, ascribes to the Titan the art also of divination, but while using the general term, the liver is specified: ‘The smoothness of the entrails, and what the colour is, whether portending good fortune, and the multi-coloured well-formed gallbladder.’

“Whether or not the Greeks adopted this system of hepatoscopy through the influence likewise of the Etruscans, or whether or not it was due to more direct contact with Babylonian-Assyrian culture is an open question. The eastern origin of the Etruscans is now generally admitted, and it may well be that in the course of their migration westward they came in contact with settlements in Greece; but on the other hand, the close affiliation between Greece and Asia Minor furnishes a stronger presumption in favour of the more direct contact with the Babylonian system through its spread among Hittite settlements.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) ; “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932); BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history/ ; Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org ; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Live Science, Discover magazine, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, The New Yorker, Wikipedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia.com and various other books, websites and publications.

Last updated October 2024