ARC-21-The Dissemination of Divination in Roman Republican Times

308 Pages·2007·1.41 MB·English

by  Anders Lisdorf

The Dissemination of Divination in
Roman Republican Times
– A Cognitive Approach
PhD Dissertation
By Anders Lisdorf
1
List of Figures..........................................................................................................5
List of Tables............................................................................................................6
Acknowledgements..................................................................................................7
Summary of dissertation................................................................................16
Chapter 1 - History of divination as a general phenomenon..................................21
The history of divinatio prior to Cicero.............................................................21
Cicero’s De divinatione......................................................................................23
Modern treatments of divination as a general term............................................25
Chapter 2 - A History of Modern Divination Research.........................................29
Foundations - End of the 19th century start of the 20th ....................................30
The British thread ..........................................................................................30
The French thread..........................................................................................32
Edward Evans Evans-Pritchard .....................................................................33
Elaborations........................................................................................................35
Summary............................................................................................................43
Chapter 3 - Definition and typology of divination.................................................47
Chapter 4 - Impetrative Divination........................................................................53
Motivation..........................................................................................................53
Life models.....................................................................................................56
Motivation as a feedback system...................................................................57
Motivation for divination...............................................................................59
Summary........................................................................................................62
Sign production..................................................................................................64
The effect of ritualized action on the evaluation of credibility in divination.69
The effect of different types of ritual techniques...........................................75
Summary........................................................................................................79
Communicative basis.....................................................................................89
Restricted symbol system...............................................................................93
Utility.............................................................................................................94
Credibility......................................................................................................96
Summary......................................................................................................104
Chapter 6 - Cultural epidemiology.......................................................................110
Chapter 7 - Research history on Roman divination.............................................121
Chronology of research on Roman Divination................................................121
Classical philology.......................................................................................121
Anthropology...............................................................................................123
Post evolutionism.........................................................................................124
Fear and trembling.......................................................................................125
Manipulation................................................................................................126
Drawing lots- chance and ritual...................................................................127
Recent developments...................................................................................128
Summary......................................................................................................129
Four central theses in the history of Roman Divination..................................129
The historical thesis......................................................................................129
The formalist thesis ...................................................................................130
The fear thesis..............................................................................................131
The functional thesis....................................................................................135
Summary......................................................................................................137
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Chapter 8 - Sources to Roman Divination...........................................................138
Republican writers...........................................................................................138
Titus Maccius Plautus (c.250-184 BCE)......................................................138
Marcus Terrentius Varro (116-27 BCE)......................................................138
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE)..........................................................139
Dionysius Hallicarnassus (60 BCE- 7 BCE)................................................140
Titus Livius (59 BCE-17 CE)......................................................................140
Post-republican writers.....................................................................................141
Verrius Flacchus ..........................................................................................141
Aulus Gellius (130-180 CE).........................................................................141
Valerius Maximus........................................................................................141
Gaius Tranquilius Suetonius (c.70 CE - )....................................................142
Seneca (4 BCE – 65 CE)..............................................................................142
Gaius Plinius Secundus (23BCE - 79CE)....................................................142
M. Servius Honoratus ..................................................................................143
Scholia..........................................................................................................143
Material sources: inscriptions, archaeological remains...................................143
Chapter 9 - Signa impetrativa..............................................................................144
Auspices...........................................................................................................144
Augurium.....................................................................................................144
Auspicium ...................................................................................................148
Auspicium ex tripudio..................................................................................153
Other kinds of auspicium.............................................................................157
Sortition............................................................................................................160
Public sortition.............................................................................................160
Private sortition............................................................................................163
Sortition oracles...........................................................................................164
Extispicy...........................................................................................................166
Public extispicy............................................................................................167
Private extispicy...........................................................................................170
Sibylline books.................................................................................................173
Miscellaneous divination.................................................................................174
Vates.............................................................................................................174
Astrology......................................................................................................175
Conclusion........................................................................................................176
Motivation....................................................................................................176
Ritualization.................................................................................................176
Categories employed in technique...............................................................177
Direct prestige..............................................................................................178
Indirect prestige............................................................................................178
Utility...........................................................................................................179
Cultural model - reflective representation of divination..............................180
Factors in the dissemination of divination ..................................................182
History..........................................................................................................183
Summary......................................................................................................185
Chapter 10 - Signa oblativa..................................................................................190
The omen vocabulary in Latin.........................................................................190
Detection of an omen...................................................................................191
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Contents of the omen...................................................................................192
The frequency of omen words......................................................................196
Summary about omens.................................................................................203
The prodigy system..........................................................................................204
Brief sketch of acceptance procedure..........................................................204
Nuntiatio.......................................................................................................205
Relatio..........................................................................................................209
Susceptio......................................................................................................209
Responsum...................................................................................................214
Decision .....................................................................................................219
Summary about prodigies............................................................................219
Conclusion........................................................................................................220
Chapter 11 - Conclusion.......................................................................................224
............................................................................................................................234
Appendix 1...........................................................................................................235
Appendix 2...........................................................................................................237
Appendix 3...........................................................................................................238
Appendix 4 ..........................................................................................................239
Appendix 6...........................................................................................................275
Bibliography.........................................................................................................277
Primary Sources...............................................................................................277
Secondary sources............................................................................................279
Danish summary...................................................................................................300
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List of Figures
Figure 3.1. Types of knowledge acquisition
................................................................................................................................48
Figure 3.2. Communication with a Counter Intuitive Agent.................................49
Figure 4.2. Intentional action.................................................................................65
Figure 4.3. Peter eats an apple...............................................................................65
Figure 4.4. Ritualized action in divination.............................................................67
Figure 4.5. Coin flip to decide where to go............................................................68
Figure 4.6a Averages for the Kurabi story ............................................................73
Figure 4.6b Averages for the Dendrologist story...................................................73
Figure 4.6c Averages for the Banban story............................................................73
Figure 4.7 Choice of diviner based on the divination technique employed...........78
Figure 4.8. Choice of diviner based on the prestige of the god involved............103
Figure 6.1. Cognitive basis of divination.............................................................112
Figure 6.2. Web of Causation for dissemination of a given divination practice..118
Figure 6.3. Web of Causation for the dissemination and resilience of omens.....119
Figure 7.1. Relation between degree of crisis and number of prodigies..............133
Figure 7.2. Relation between expiations and degree of crisis.............................136
Figure 9.1. Relations between relevant variables for dissemination of a divination
practice.................................................................................................................182
Figure 9.2. Probability of survival of a divination practice.................................187
Figure 9.3. Survival of divination practices.........................................................188
Figure 9.4. Survival of named divination practices ............................................189
Figure 10.1. Cultural model for conceptualization of omens ..............................194
Figure 10.2. Cultural model of omens with examples.........................................196
Figure 10.3. Omen words in Latin.......................................................................198
Figure 10.4. Omen words in Greek ..................................................................200
Figure 10.5. Frequency of omen words in Greek and Latin ..............................201
Figure 10.7. Omen words in Greek and Roman Rhetoric....................................203
Figure 10.8. Correlation between number of accepted prodigies and distance...213
Figure 10.9. The cultural model of omens as seen in De Responso Haruspicum218
Figure 10.10. Dissemination of omens................................................................222
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List of Tables
Table. 1.1. Cicero’s typology of divination...........................................................24
Table 1.2. The relation of modern typologies of divination to Cicero’s................28
Table 3.1. Typology of divination components.....................................................49
Table 3.2. Examples of impetrative divination......................................................50
Table 3.3. Examples of oblative divination...........................................................52
Table 4.1. Layers of homeostatic regulations........................................................54
Table 4.2. Reasons for consultation of diviner among the Sisala..........................60
Table 4.3. Reasons for consultation of diviner among the Azande.......................61
Table 4.5. Paired t-test for Intentional vs. Ritual conditions.................................74
Table 4.6. Effect size of difference between intentional and ritual conditions......74
Table 4.7 Utility characteristics of divination practices.........................................94
Table 4.9. Overview of studies on prestige and credibility..................................101
Table 7.1. Crisis index.........................................................................................132
Table 9.1. Utility of Roman divination practices.................................................179
Tabel 9.2. Summary of factors for Roman impetrative divination......................181
Table 10.1. Distribution of types of concepts in the prodigy reports from 218-44
BCE......................................................................................................................207
Table 10.2. Distribution of counterintuitive compared to bizarre concepts in the
prodigy reports from 218-44 BCE.......................................................................208
Table 10.3 Amount of counterintuitive and bizarre prodigies per reporting year.
..............................................................................................................................209
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Acknowledgements
Certain parts of this dissertation have been published or are under publication in part or full.
Chapter 4 builds on Lisdorf 2007a, 2007b, 2007c. Chapter 5 contains parts of Lisdorf 2007d.
Part of chapter 10 builds on a translated version of Lisdorf 2004c and contains parts of
Lisdorf 2004a which is copyrighted by Brill Academic Publishers. It is reproduced with
permission from the publisher.
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Introduction
At the climax of the play Casina by the Roman playwright Plautus, there is a scene, where
the two slaves Olympio and Chalinus have to reach a decision on which of them gets to
marry the beautiful Casina. Today one might expect that the female part be heard in such a
case, but Roman times were different, so they choose to decide it like real men: by drawing
lots! But that is not all; when Olympio eventually wins the draw, he thanks the gods for the
decision. This makes, what was already a strange situation, even more puzzling to the
modern reader, since we just heard that the decision was made by the use of a random draw
of lots. This is not an isolated funny story from an obscure playwright. Quite the contrary;
Plautus was very popular in his time and following centuries and his plays were attended by
everyone from the lowest to the highest classes. The scene points to something very central
about the ancient Romans, namely that divination pervaded their culture from top to bottom.
The basic question of this thesis follows from this example “why did divination pervade
Roman culture through centuries?” I will argue that in order to answer this question a general
theoretical model of divination must first be constructed. This will be done by investigating
the cognitive basis of divination. The thesis will therefore fall in two parts of more or less
equal size, one theoretical the other empirical.
Consequently the dissertation combines two scholarly fields that are polar opposites:
history and cognitive science. It is difficult to think of any two disciplines that differ more.
Whereas cognitive science is interested in phenomena that are synchronic, isolated and
general, history is interested in diachronic, composite and particular phenomena. So before
we can even start, it is necessary with a two front apology for the project. The objections are
probably innumerable, but in order to pre-empt the most obvious ones, I have compiled a
small list of “Frequently Posed Objections” that I have encountered. First we will consider
typical objections by historians then by cognitive scientists.
“We cannot access the minds of historical persons”. That is obviously true, but that does
not mean that the minds of historical people were not important to them. Their actions were
formed by their mind just as contemporary people. It does not, therefore, follow that we
should not care about minds at all.
“Knowledge of modern minds will not help us in understanding historical minds”. This
objection assumes a fundamental difference between the mind of modern and historical
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people. It is almost unanimously agreed that no significant mutations have occurred in the
human brain since around 100.000 years ago (Mithen 1996; Tremlin 2006: 24). If there is
any difference between the minds of historical and modern people it cannot be attributed to
any biological difference in the brain. This leads to two other options: a) the mind is not
constrained by the brain. This is a dualist assumption implying a fundamental difference
between spirit and matter. As this is not consistent with the assumptions of modern science, it
is not an appropriate solution. b) A weaker version of this admits that the brain to some
degree in principle is important. In practice, though, it is the local culture and socialization
which determines the mind of a person. This is a version of the nurture view in the
nature/nurture debate of the human mind. This view assumes that the mind is a blank slate
just waiting to be filled out. Compelling arguments against this assumption has been made by
cognitive scientists and anthropologists alike (cf. Brown 1991; Pinker 2002). This is not to
say that culture is not important, just that the human mind of modern and historical people
are sufficiently similar in general cognitive function to warrant a meaningful comparison. To
put it differently, historical minds are not more different than those of other cultures in our
contemporary world. We could therefore also ask: if the psychic chasm is so great that the
minds of modern people are not in principle as those of historical people, then how is it
possible at all to say something about historical people’s actions, motivations or thoughts?
“We cannot understand historical particulars by the aid of the universal”. It actually may be
the other way around: we cannot understand anything particular without the general. Just as
Wittgenstein showed there can be no private language (Wittgenstein & Anscombe 2003),
there cannot be any “private history” consisting only of particulars. Just using language is
making use of the general (Jensen 2003: 141). In this sense, the general is a precondition for
understanding the particular historical. Maybe some would feel that there is a difference
between the general and the universal. Let us therefore look at an example of how the
universal aids our understanding of the particular. Imagine a geologist who wishes to
understand the magnitude and character of a volcanic eruption thousands of years ago. In
order to understand this particular historical eruption, he will make use of the universal laws
of chemistry and physics. There is therefore no reason to assume prima facie that universal
characteristics of the human mind will not help us understand historical particulars.
“Theories will not help in history. It merely distorts the sources”. This is a typical objection
in ancient history (Morley 2004: 1). It is, however, built on a number of controversial
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assumptions, first of all that the sources may speak for themselves. This is not a tenable
assumption. Any historical exposition is based on a theory. The only difference is whether it
is explicit. In history theories tend to be implicit and the historian bases his analysis on his
own assumptions about human motivations, social forces etc. (cf. Morley 2004). These are
not shaped by explicit, tested theories, but by folk notions and the historians own subjective
experience of the world. That is perhaps also why every generation of historians has to write
its own history. What actually distorts the material is a lack of explicit theorizing.
“There is an essential difference between history and science. Science works by reducing
phenomena to deterministic laws. This cannot account for history since human behavior
cannot be reduced to any such law”. This objection is founded on two misunderstandings of
the nature of science. a) It seems that the historian fears that scientific reduction will render
the historical discipline obsolete, because a lower level of explanation will replace the higher.
There are however no examples of such a usurpation of a higher level science by a lower
level one (McCauley 1986: 197). b) The conceptualization of law as a deterministic
statement on reality is a dated remnant of a 19th century logical positivist conception of law
which thrives in classical history (Morley 2004: 15). This kind of law applies in every case
and can be falsified if a situation arises in which it does not accurately predict an occurrence.
It is correct that we do not find this kind of law in history, but it is not sufficient to disqualify
it as a science. Contemporary views in scientific theory prefer to speak of invariance instead
of laws (e.g. Woodward 2000: 205-209). Invariance is a question of degree and may apply
locally not necessarily universally. Counterexamples are therefore not falsifications that
render the search for regularities futile.
So far so good, but we still have to deal with a number of possible objections to a cognitive
approach to history from cognitive scientists: “The results do not live up to scientific
standards of verification. The evidence is too sparse to prove anything”. To this, one could
point out that not all psychological research lives up to these standards either. Evolutionary
psychology, the branch of psychology investigating the evolutionary origins of human
cognition, typically does not adduce any evidence of the historical processes stipulated. As
for the history it is pure (informed) guesses without any direct evidence. If one would want to
dismiss a cognitive approach to history, which actually has some evidence, on the objection
that the evidence is not good enough, one would also have to dismiss evolutionary
psychology altogether. The objection that there is not enough evidence is not a valid criticism
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