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Earthquake in Sparta (1)

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05 Scientific knowledge and scholarly lore



 		Keywords
divination
presocratics
Period
1st century BCE
Roman Empire 		Channel
Roman philosophers and scholars

Text
Anaximander possibly used Babylonian omens to predict an earthquake and volcanic eruption in Sparta.

Cicero, De Divinatione 1.112:
There are many things foreseen by physicians, pilots, and also by farmers, but I do not call the predictions of any of them divination. I do not even call that a case of divination when Anaximander, the natural philosopher, warned the Spartans to leave the city and their homes and to sleep in the fields under arms, because an earthquake was at hand. Then the whole city fell down in ruins and the extremity of Mount Taygetus was torn away like the stern of a ship in a storm. Not even Pherecydes, the famous teacher of Pythagoras, will be considered a prophet rather than a natural philosopher, because he predicted an earthquake from the appearance of some water drawn from an unfailing well.

Source (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Cicero, De Divinatione 1.112

Bibliography

Falconer 1964, 344-345Falconer, W. A. Cicero, De senectute, De amicitia, De divinatione. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, London: Heinemann 1964.
Pingree 1998, 130Pingree, David. “Legacies in Astronomy and Celestial Omens.” In: S. Dalley (ed.). The Legacy of Mesopotamia. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998, 125-137.

Amar Annus


URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000172.php

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