Giới thiệu

I have opened a volume entitled Ancient Greek Divination with a look at the present and recent past in order to introduce what will be a continuing theme – that is, the very pervasiveness of divination. Even if we think we don’t believe in it personally, divination is here, and for whatever reason, as a culture we take some trouble to make the simpler forms of it readily available. Similarly, the Roman author Cicero opened his treatise on the topic with the magisterial statement “I know of no people, whether they be learned and refined or barbaric and ignorant, that does not consider that future things are indicated by signs, and that it is possible for certain people to recognize those signs and predict what will happen” (Divination 1.2). It’s likely that in antiquity, most people practiced or witnessed some form of divination at least once every few days: divination was always part of offering sacrifices to the gods, usually part of deciding whether to undertake a military maneuver, often part of puzzling out a bewildering dream, sometimes part of diagnosing and treating an illness or choosing a bride, and even, sometimes, part of understanding why your body was twitching or your child was sneezing. Walking through the ancient marketplace, you might glimpse a “bellytalker” who carried a prophetic spirit around inside of herself, an Orphic priest who could tell you what it meant if a weasel had crossed your path, or a state delegation setting out to consult the Delphic Oracle on a matter of public good.

Chủ đề: Ancient Divination

— Nguồn: Archive.org (tài liệu cho phép tải tự do). Tải/đọc tại liên kết bên dưới.