Divination
Reading the will of the gods — in entrails, the flight of birds, dreams, and the cryptic verses of oracles like Delphi.
Divination (mantikē) was the family of practices for discerning what the gods intended, woven through Greek life from Homer onward (8th century BCE) and central to both Greek and Roman religion. It divided broadly into 'inspired' divination, in which a god-possessed prophet such as the Pythia at Delphi spoke for the deity, and 'technical' divination by reading signs — sacrificial entrails, the flight of birds, thunder, or dreams. It was taken seriously enough to spark philosophical debate: the Stoics defended it as proof of cosmic sympathy and providence, while Cicero's On Divination (44 BCE) and the Epicureans attacked it as superstition. The theme matters as the ancient world's main bridge between human decision-making and a presumed divine order.
How it traveled
- OdysseyIos · -700explains
- IliadIos · -700explains
- HistoriesThurii (Magna Graecia) · -425explains
- History of the Peloponnesian WarAthens · -400explains
- AnabasisAthens · -354explains
- CyropaediaAthens · -354explains
- HellenicaAthens · -354explains
- MemorabiliaAthens · -354explains
- Ab urbe conditaPadua · -27explains
- AeneidRome · -19explains
- MetamorphosesTomis (Constanța) · 8explains
- GeographyAmaseia · 24explains
- AlexanderChaeronea · 120explains
- De Pythiae oraculisChaeronea · 120explains
- De Defectu OraculorumChaeronea · 120explains
- Quaestiones RomanaeChaeronea · 120explains
- SullaChaeronea · 120explains
- Civil WarsAlexandria · 165explains
- Description of Greece— · 180explains
- AlexanderSamosata · 180explains
- DeipnosophistaeNaucratis · 230explains
- Vitae philosophorum— · 240explains
- Res GestaeRome · 400explains
- Sefer HaIkkarimSoria · 1425
- Abarbanel on TorahNaples · 1505
- Historical LibrarySyracuse (Sicily)explains
- Historia RomanaRomeexplains
- Jewish Antiquities—explains
- Antiquitates RomanaeRomeexplains
- Ἀλεξάνδρου ἈνάβασιςNicomediaexplains
- Library—explains
- Praeparatio Evangelica—explains
- Facta et Dicta MemorabiliaRomeexplains
- De MysteriisApameaexplains
- ΟνειροκριτικάEphesusexplains
- Fragmenta Logica et PhysicaAthensexplains
- Suidae lexicon—explains
- De BellisConstantinople (Istanbul)explains
- Scholia in Iliadem—explains
- Contra Celsum—explains
Key passages(20)
Sefer HaMitzvot · Moses ben Maimon (Rambam) · 1167 CE
שהזהירנו מנחש, כמאמר הריקים כבר חזרתי מן הדרך לא ישלם לי צרכי, והיום יום ראשון מה שראיתי בו מן הדבר פלוני לא ארויח דבר, וזה האופן רב מאד אצל ההמון העניים בדעת הסכלים, וכל מי שיעשה מעשה על פי הנחש לוק
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Malbim on Leviticus · Meir Leibush Weisser (Malbim) · 1844 CE
לא תנחשו: פירש הרלב"ג הוא שישפט בדבר טוב או רע מפני דבר אחר בלתי מעיד עליו כלל כמו שיאמר שלא אעשה דבר פלוני שידעתי לעשות שאם אעשנו לא אשיג בו רצוני והעד על זה שהרי נפלה פתי מפי. ואמרו חז"ל (סנהדרין סה
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And when Mopsus asked Calchas concerning a pregnant sow, “ How many pigs has she in her womb, and when will she farrow?” Calchas answered, “ Eight.” But Mopsus smiled and said,“ The divination of Calc
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Now there was among the Thebans a soothsayer, Tiresias, son of Everes and a nymph Chariclo, of the family of Udaeus, the Spartan, and he had lost the sight of his eyes. Different stories are told abou
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Both of them despised the prodigies relating to themselves, but they did not deal harshly with the sooth-sayers who predicted their death; for more than once the very same prodigies confronted both, p
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Civil Wars · Appian of Alexandria
CONCERNING THE DIVINATION OF THE ARABS FROM THE SAME [APPIAN says, at the end of his twenty-fourth book:] While I was once fleeing from the Jews, during the war that occurred in Egypt, and was passing
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And what important services do not the birds render to mortals! First of all, they mark the seasons for them, springtime, winter, and autumn. Does the screaming crane migrate to Libya,--it warns the h
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Deipnosophistae · Athenaeus of Naucratis
Nor will I pass over in silence the men who prophesy from fish in Lycia, concerning whom Polycharmus speaks, in the second book of his Affairs of Lycia; writing in this manner:—For when they have come
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Fragmenta Logica et Physica · Chrysippus
Fragmenta Logica et Physica · Chrysippus
Fragmenta Logica et Physica · Chrysippus
Divination Book I There is an ancient belief, handed down to us even from mythical times and firmly established by the general agreement of the Roman people and of all nations, that divination of some
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