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The Roman story attests the Mesopotamian concept that while the diviner depends on the stars for eliciting reliable predictions, practitioners of other divination techniques depend on the haruspex to interpret and confirm the ominous signs obtained through other media, primarily from celestial phenomena.
Pliny the Younger, Epistulae 2.20.1-6:
Give me a penny, and I will tell you a story “worth gold,” or, rather, you shall hear two or three; for one brings to my mind another. It makes no difference with which I begin. Verania, the widow of Piso, the Piso, I mean, whom Galba adopted, lay extremely ill, and Regulus paid her a visit. By the way, mark the assurance of the man, visiting a lady who detested him herself, and to whose husband he was a declared enemy! Even barely to enter her house would have been bad enough, but he actually went and seated himself by her bedside and began enquiring on what day and hour she was born. Being informed of these important particulars, he composes his countenance, fixes his eyes, mutters something to himself, counts upon his fingers, and all this merely to keep the poor sick lady in suspense. When he had finished, “You are,” he says, “in one of your climacterics; however, you will get over it. But for your greater satisfaction, I will consult with a certain haruspex, whose skill I have frequently experienced.” Accordingly off he goes, performs a sacrifice, and returns with the strongest assurances that the omens confirmed what he had promised on the part of the stars. Upon this the good woman, whose danger made her credulous, calls for her will and gives Regulus a legacy. She grew worse shortly after this; and in her last moments exclaimed against this wicked, treacherous, and worse than perjured wretch, who had sworn falsely to her by his own son’s life. But imprecations of this sort are as common with Regulus as they are impious; and he continually devotes that unhappy youth to the curses of those gods whose vengeance his own frauds every day provoke.
Source (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Pliny the Younger, Epistulae 2.20.1-6
Bibliography
| Reiner 1995, 74 | Reiner, Erica. “Astral Magic in Babylonia.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 85.4 (1995) 1-150. [JSTOR (requires subscription)] |
Amar Annus
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