SUPERSTITIOUS GREEKS
black figure eye cup with a mask of Dionysus
The Greeks were very superstitious. Steve Coates wrote in the New York Times, “The Greeks don’t deserve their reputation as rationalists. Religion and ritual permeated the world of the city-states. The scholar Joan Breton Connelly noted “there was no area of life that lacked a religious aspect,” citing one estimate that 2,000 cults operated during the classical period in the territory of Athens alone.
In the “ Characters” Theophrastus describes a man who "won't go out for the day without washing hands...and putting a piece of laurel leaf from a temple in his mouth. If a cat crosses the road he won't go any further until someone else passes or he has thrown three stones across the road. If he sees a snake in his house, he calls on Sabazius, if it is one of the red variety; if its one of the sacred sort he builds a shrine on the spot...If he hear an owl hoot while he's out walking he is much shaken and won't go past without muttering 'All power is Athene's." ["World Religions" edited by Geoffrey Parrinder, Facts on File Publications, New York]
"Every month on the forth and seventh he gives instructions for wine to be mulled for his family...Every time he has a dream he rushes to the dream experts...If ever he sees one of the figures of Hecate...with a wreath of garlic, he rushes straight home to wash his head, and sends for a priestesses, and tells them to purify him by carrying around a puppy." [Ibid]
Socrates feared the evil eye. Alexander the Great used fortunetellers used haruspicy (searching for omens in the entrails of animals) to predict the future. The Athenian leader Pericles once lost two armies because two medicine men told him he should not move his army until "thrice nine" days after lunar eclipse. Plutarch once wrote that superstitious "word and gestures, sorcery and magic, running backwards and forward" drove reasonable men to atheism.
Greeks believed in the magic spells of the sorceress Medea. Chance was a Greek goddess. Pliny said "We are much at the mercy of Chance that Chance is our god." The sphinx represented prophecy.
Websites on Ancient Greece: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; ; Gutenberg.org gutenberg.org; British Museum ancientgreece.co.uk; Illustrated Greek History, Dr. Janice Siegel, Hampden–Sydney College hsc.edu/drjclassics ; Cambridge Classics External Gateway to Humanities Resources web.archive.org/web; Ancient Greek Sites on the Web from Medea showgate.com/medea ; Greek History Course from Reed web.archive.org; Classics FAQ MIT classics.mit.edu
Ancient Greek Superstitions and Fortunetellers
The superstition that spilling salt is bad luck and the custom of throwing salt over one's shoulder could cancel bad luck was practiced by the ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Assyrians and later the Romans and Greeks. The custom is believed to have been practiced since 3500 B.C. Knocking on wood is said to date back to ancient Greece
cult bird phallus
“ Triskaidekaphobia” , the fear of the number 13, is named after the first man to be recorded of having a fear of that number, Triskaideskaphodes. According to ancient numerology 12 was the perfect number where everything was in balance. There were 12 months, 12 hours in the day, 12 signs on the zodiac, 12 gods at Olympus, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 Apostles of Jesus, 12 days of Christmas, and 12 gods at Olympus. The number "13" upset the balance of the number "12" and therefor was viewed as unlucky and evil. Friday the 13th became an especially unlucky day because Jesus was crucified on a Friday and some say Eve gave Adam the apple on a Friday. In 1969 a 13-year-old Eton school boy named S.R. Baxter proved that the "13th of the month is more likely to be a Friday than any other day."
Greeks believed that any person who intentionally or accidently ate the meat from a human mixed with blood or flesh of a sacrificed animal would turn into a werewolf. The werewolf cult of Zeus Lykaios was strong in Peloponnesian Arcadia. Plato wrote: "Begging priests soothsayers go to the doors of the wealthy and convince them that if they want to harm an enemy, at very little expense, whether he deserves it or not, they will persuade the gods through charms and binding spells to do their bidding." Plato advocated ending the practice by executing curse writers and imposing heavy fines on their clients.
Ancient Greek Divination
Divination was employed in ancient Greece to discover the will of the gods through interpretation of signs. Although prayer was called for from all men — from labourer as well as from priest — and sacrifices, though usually offered by priests, could also be performed by others, the interpretation of omens was an art which depended on ancient traditions and knowledge of ritual, and was almost entirely confined to the priests, though, in the nature of things, it could be undertaken by anyone. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]
This mode of prophecy had existed in various forms since the most ancient times. The commonest, though unknown in the time of Homer, was the examination of the entrails, in which the structure, that is, colour, form, and integrity of the inner parts of the victim, especially the liver, gall, etc., were regarded as of fortunate or unfortunate omen. Some anatomical knowledge of the inner parts of animals was therefore indispensable, and in consequence it is natural that this branch of knowledge was kept in the hands of the priests.
The older kind of prophecy described in Homer was of a different nature, since it depended on all manner of phenomena appearing during the sacrifice; whether the flame attacked the victim quickly or slowly, whether it burnt clearly, whether it rose upwards, whether it was not put out until the whole animal was consumed, whether the wood crackled loudly, what shape was assumed by the ashes of the victim and of the wood, etc.
Organ Divination Among the Greeks and Romans
Liver divination was very big among Mesopotamians and was also practiced by the Etruscans. Greeks and Romans took it a step further by bringing in other organs. Morris Jastrow said: Liver divination in “passing to the Greeks and Romans, underwent an important modification which was destined eventually to bring the practice into disrepute. It will be recalled that the entire system of hepatoscopy rested on the belief that the liver was the seat of the soul, and that this theoretical basis was consistently maintained in Babylonia and Assyria throughout all periods of the history of these two states. ...The existence of an elaborate system of divination...acted, with the Babylonians, as a firm bulwark against the introduction of any rival theory. Not so, however, among the Romans, whose augurs took what seemed an innocent and logical step, in order to bring the system of divination into accord with more advanced anatomy, by adding to the examination of the liver that of the heart, as being likewise an organ through which an insight could be obtained into the soul of the animal, and hence into that of the god to whom it was sacrificed. Pliny has an interesting passage in his Natural History in which he specifies the occasion when, for the first time, the heart in addition to the liver of the sacrificial animal was inspected to secure an omen. The implication in the passage of Pliny is that prior to this date, which corresponds to c. 274 B.C., the liver alone was used. [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911]
sheep liver
“Liver and heart continued to be, from this time on, the chief organs inspected, but occasionally the lungs also were examined, and even the spleen and the kidneys. Owing to the growing habit of inspecting other organs beside the liver, it became customary to speak of consulting the exta —a term which included all these organs. Similarly, we may conclude from the use of the terms splangchna (“entrails”) and hiera (“sacred parts”) in Greek writers, when referring to divination through the sacrificial animal, that among the Greeks also, who as little as the Romans were restrained by any force of ancient tradition, the basis on which hepatoscopy rested was shifted, in deference to a more scientific theory of anatomy which dethroned the liver from its position in primitive and non-scientific beliefs. This step, though apparently progressive, was fatal to the rite, for in abandoning the belief that the liver was sole seat of the soul, the necessity for inspecting it in order to divine the future was lost. There could be but one claimant as the legitimate organ of divination. If the soul were not in the liver but in the heart, then the heart should have been inspected, but to take both the liver and the heart, and to add to these even the lungs and other organs was to convert the entire rite into a groundless superstition—a survival in practice, based on an outgrown belief.
“It is significant that this step was not taken by the Babylonians or Assyrians nor, so far as we know, by the ancient Etruscans, but only by the Romans and the Greeks. That they did so may be taken as an additional indication that hepatoscopy among them was an importation, and not an indigenous growth. As a borrowed practice, the Greeks and Romans felt no pressure of tradition which in Babylonia kept the system of liver interpretation intact down to the latest days. A borrowed rite is always more liable to modification than one that is indigenous, as it were, and attached to the very soil; thus it happens that, under foreign influences, divination through the liver, resting upon deductions from a primitive belief persistently maintained, degenerates into a foolish superstition without reason. It is also an observation that has many parallels in the history of religion:—a borrowed rite is always more liable to abuse. It is not, therefore, surprising to find that the “inspection” of an animal for purposes of divination degenerated still further among Greeks and Romans into wilful deceit and trickery.
“Frontinus and Polyaenus tell us of the way in which the “inspectors” of later days had recourse to base tricks to deceive the masses. They tell, for instance, of a certain augur, who, desirous of obtaining an omen that would encourage the army in a battle near at hand, wrote the words, “victory of the king,” backwards on the palm of his hand, and then, having pressed the smooth surface of the sacrificial liver against his palm, held aloft to the astonished gaze of the multitude the organ bearing the miraculous omen. The augur’s name is given as Soudinos “the Chaldean,” but this epithet had become at this time, for reasons to be set forth in the next lecture, generic for soothsayers and tricksters, indiscriminately, without any implied reference to nationality. Hence Soudinos , who may very well have been a Greek, is called “the Chaldean.”
“Whatever the deficiencies of the Babylonian-Assyrian “inspectors” may have been, it must be allowed, from the knowledge transmitted to us, that down to the end of the neo-Babylonian empire they acted fairly, honestly, and conscientiously. The collections of omens and the official reports show that they by no means flattered their royal masters by favourable omens. It would have been, indeed, hazardous to do so; but whatever their motives, the fact remains that in the recorded liver examinations we find unfavourable conclusions quite as frequently as favourable. In a large number of reports delivered by the priests there seems nothing, so long as the religion itself held sway, to warrant a suspicion of trickery or fraud of any kind. At most, we may possibly here and there detect a not unnatural eagerness on the part of a diviner to justify his conclusion, or to tone down a highly inauspicious prognostication.”
Etruscans and Greek Sacrifices and Roman Liver Divination
Etruscan liver divination tool
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.
Omens and the Interpretations of Them in Ancient Greece
Of no less importance than the modes of prophecy already mentioned are those which may be called professional, and which did not depend on a direct revelation of the will of the god, so much as on the observation and interpretation of certain apparently fortuitous signs, which were, however, supposed to proceed from the divinity. The interpreters of prophecy and signs, whether belonging to the class of priests or laymen, naturally represented their art as coming direct from the gods, and loved to envelop it in the veil of mystery, though in other respects Greek religion aimed at publicity and universal comprehension. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]
Of course, many oracles were very closely connected with these professional prophecies. Here, too, we may distinguish several different kinds. In the first place, there is interpretation of signs which appear though unsought for. The number of these is, of course, countless, since the whole realm of nature and life affords scope for them. Signs of the sky, atmospheric phenomena, change in the course of rivers, earthquakes, clefts in the ground, abnormal births, all which are frequently mentioned in ancient history, may be included in this class, as also the flight of birds, to which particular attention was given, though the proceedings of other animals were also watched, or the mere fact of their appearance was supposed to announce good or evil fortune. Then there were phenomena relating to human beings, such as sneezing, singing in the ears, words spoken by chance, etc., and the place where these things occur is of great importance, as, for instance, whether on the right or the left hand.
The second class of professional prophecy is that in which man seeks for the signs and calls upon the god to grant him a token of his presence and will. In this class we may include prophecy from sacrifice and also some of the oracles, but in particular the private oracles — if we may use this expression — by means of which individuals procured signs by any means whatever, and either interpreted them themselves or got some skilled prophet to do it for them. This closely resembles our modern fashion of telling fortunes from cards, and in these cases it was not usually a priest, but some cheat or conjurer who interpreted the prophecy; thus dice and sieves were used for prophesying, and fortunes were told from physiognomy, or the lines of the hand, as they still are at the present day.
Bad Omen for Alexander the Great
Good omen before the Battle of Gaugamela: an eagle flew over Alexander's head
Describing Alexander the Great a few weeks before his death, Plutarch wrote: “As he was upon his way to Babylon, Nearchus, who had sailed back out of the ocean up the mouth of the river Euphrates, came to tell him he had met with some Chaldæan diviners, who had warned him against Alexander’s going thither. Alexander, however, took no thought of it, and went on, and when he came near the walls of the place, he saw a great many crows fighting with one another, some of whom fell down just by him. After this, being privately informed that Apollodorus, the governor of Babylon, had sacrificed, to know what would become of him, he sent for Pythagoras, the soothsayer, and on his admitting the thing, asked him, in what condition he found the victim; and when he told him the liver was defective in its lobe, “A great presage indeed!” said Alexander. However, he offered Pythagoras no injury, but was sorry that he had neglected Nearchus’s advice, and stayed for the most part outside the town, removing his tent from place to place, and sailing up and down the Euphrates. Besides this, he was disturbed by many other prodigies. A tame ass fell upon the biggest and handsomest lion that he kept, and killed him by a kick. [Source: Plutarch (A.D. 45-127), “Life of Alexander”, A.D. 75 translated by John Dryden, 1906, MIT, Online Library of Liberty, oll.libertyfund.org ]
“And one day after he had undressed himself to be anointed, and was playing at ball, just as they were going to bring his clothes again, the young men who played with him perceived a man clad in the king’s robes, with a diadem upon his head, sitting silently upon his throne. They asked him who he was, to which he gave no answer a good while, till at last coming to himself, he told them his name was Dionysius, that he was of Messenia, that for some crime of which he was accused, he was brought thither from the sea-side, and had been kept long in prison, that Serapis appeared to him, had freed him from his chains, conducted him to that place, and commanded him to put on the king’s robe and diadem, and to sit where they found him, and to say nothing. Alexander, when he heard this, by the direction of his soothsayers, put the fellow to death, but he lost his spirits, and grew diffident of the protection and assistance of the gods, and suspicious of his friends. His greatest apprehension was of Antipater and his sons, one of whom, Iolaus, was his chief cupbearer; and Cassander, who had lately arrived, and had been bred up in Greek manners, the first time he saw some of the barbarians adore the king, could not forbear laughing at it aloud, which so incensed Alexander, that he took him by the hair with both hands, and dashed his head against the wall.
astrological birth chart for Alexander the Great
Another time, Cassander would have said something in defence of Antipater to those who accused him, but Alexander interrupting him, said, “What is it you say? Do you think people, if they had received no injury, would come such a journey only to calumniate your father?” To which when Cassander replied, that their coming so far from the evidence was a great proof of the falseness of their charges, Alexander smiled, and said those were some of Aristotle’s sophisms, which would serve equally on both sides; and added, that both he and his father should be severely punished, if they were found guilty of the least injustice towards those who complained. All which made such a deep impression of terror in Cassander’s mind, that long after, when he was king of Macedonia, and master of Greece, as he was walking up and down at Delphi, and looking at the statues, at the sight of that of Alexander he was suddenly struck with alarm, and shook all over, his eyes rolled, his head grew dizzy, and it was long before he recovered himself.
“When once Alexander had given way to fears of super natural influence, his mind grew so disturbed and so easily alarmed, that if the least unusual or extraordinary thing happened, he thought it a prodigy or a presage, and his court was thronged with diviners and priests whose business was to sacrifice and purify and foretell the future. So miserable a thing is incredulity and contempt of divine power on the one hand, and so miserable, also, superstition on the other, which like water, where the level has been lowered, flowing in and never stopping, fills the mind with slavish fears and follies, as now in Alexander’s case. But upon some answers which were brought him from the oracle concerning Hephæstion, he laid aside his sorrow, and fell again to sacrificing and drinking; and having given Nearchus a splendid entertainment, after he had bathed, as was his custom, just as he was going to bed, at Medius’s request he went to supper with him.”
Omens of Alexander’s Approaching Death
Arrian wrote: “Having thus proved the falsity of the prophecy of the Chaldaeans, by not having experienced any unpleasant fortune in Babylon, as they had predicted, but having marched out of that city without suffering any mishap, be grew confident in spirit and sailed again through the marshes, having Babylon on his left hand. Here a part of his fleet lost its way in the narrow branches of the river through want of a pilot, until he sent a man to pilot it and lead it back into the channel of the river. The following story is told. Most of the tombs of the Assyrian kings had been built among the pools and marshes. [Source: Arrian the Nicomedian (A.D. 92-175), “Anabasis of Alexander”, translated, by E. J. Chinnock, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1884, gutenberg.org]
a bad omen before Alexander's death: a flock of crows
“When Alexander was sailing through these marshes, and, as the story goes, was himself steering the trireme, a strong gust of wind fell upon his broad-brimmed Macedonian hat, and the fillet which encircled it. The hat, being heavy, fell into the water; but the fillet, being carried along by the wind, was caught by one of the reeds growing near the tomb of one of the ancient kings. This incident itself was an omen of what was about to occur, and so was the fact that one of the sailors swam off towards the fillet and snatched it from the reed. But he did not carry it in his hands, because it would have been wetted while he was swimming; he therefore put it round his own head and thus conveyed it to the king.
“Most of the biographers of Alexander say that the king presented him with a talent as a reward for his zeal, and then ordered his head to be cut off; as the prophets had directed him not to permit that head to be safe which had worn the royal fillet. However, Aristobulus says that the man received a talent; but afterwards also received a scourging for placing the fillet round his head. The same author says that it was one of the Phoenician sailors who fetched the fillet for Alexander; but there are some who say it was Seleucus, and that this was an omen to Alexander of his death and to Seleucus of his great kingdom. For that of all those who succeeded to the sovereignty after Alexander, Seleucus became the greatest king, was the most kingly in mind, and ruled over the greatest extent of land after Alexander himself, does not seem to me to admit of question.”
“But Alexander’s own end was now near. Aristobulus says that the following occurrence was a prognostication of what was about to happen. He was distributing the army which came with Peucestas from Persia, and that which came with Philoxenus and Menander from the sea, among the Macedonian lines, and becoming thirsty he retired from his seat and thus left the royal throne empty. On each side of the throne were couches with silver feet, upon which his personal Companions were sitting. A certain man of obscure condition (some say that he was even one of the men kept under guard without being in chains), seeing the throne and the couches empty, and the eunuchs standing round the throne (for the Companions also rose up from their seats with the king when he retired), walked through the line of eunuchs, ascended the throne, and sat down upon it. According to a Persian law, they did not make him rise from the throne; but rent their garments and beat their breasts and faces as if on account of a great evil. [Source: Arrian the Nicomedian (A.D. 92-175), “Anabasis of Alexander”, translated, by E. J. Chinnock, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1884, gutenberg.org]
“When Alexander was informed of this, he ordered the man who had sat upon his throne to be put to the torture, with the view of discovering whether he had done this according to a plan concerted by a conspiracy. But the man confessed nothing, except that it came into his mind at the time to act thus. Even more for this reason the diviners explained that this occurrence boded no good to him. A few days after this, after offering to the gods the customary sacrifices for good success, and certain others also for the purpose of divination, he was feasting with his friends, and was drinking far into the night. He is also said to have distributed the sacrificial victims as well as a quantity of wine to the army throughout the companies and centuries. There are some who have recorded that he wished to retire after the drinking party to his bed-chamber; but Medius, at that time the most influential of the Companions, met him and begged him to join a party of revellers at his residence, saying that the revel would be a pleasant one.”
zodiac
Ancient Greek Astrology
The Egyptians refined the Babylonian system of astrology and the Greeks shaped it into its modern form. The Ancient Greeks were skeptical about astrology. They wondered, for example, why twins born under the same astrological conditions had different fortunes, and why animals weren't ruled by the same cosmic powers as humans. [Source: "The Discoverers" by Daniel Boorstin,∞]
Astrology as we know it originated in Babylon. It developed out of the belief that since the Gods in the heavens ruled man's fate, the stars could reveal fortunes and the notion that the motions of the stars and planets control the fate of people on earth. The motions of the stars and planets are mainly the result of the earth’s movement around the sun, which causes: 1) the sun to move eastward against the background of the constellations; 2) the planets and moon to shift around the sky; and 3) causes different constellations to rise from the horizon at sunset different times of the year.
In ancient times astrology and astronomy were the same thing. The Babylonians were the first people to apply myths to constellations and astrology and describe the 12 signs of the zodiac. The Egyptians refined the Babylonian system of astrology and the Greeks shaped it into its modern form. The Greeks and Romans borrowed some of their myths from the Babylonians and invented their own. The word astrology (and astronomy) are derived from the Greek word for "star."
The names and shapes of many the constellations are believed to date to Sumerian times because the animals and figures chosen held a prominent place in their lives. It is thought that if the constellations originated with the the Egyptians were would ibises, jackals, crocodiles and hippos — animals in their environment — rather than goats and bulls. If they came from India why isn’t there a tiger or a monkey. To the Assyrians the constellation Capricorn was “ munaxa” (the goat fish).
The Greeks added names of heroes to the constellations. The Romans took these and gave them the Latin names we use today. Ptolemy listed 48 constellations. His list included ones in the southern hemisphere, which he and the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans couldn’t see.
Book: “ Astrology: A History” by Peter Whitfield (Abrams, 2001).
Ptolemy zodiac
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum
Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History, Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT Classics Online classics.mit.edu ; Gutenberg.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Live Science, Discover magazine, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Discoverers" and "The Creators" by Daniel Boorstin. "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP and various books and other publications.
Last updated September 2024