Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-11T21:01:41.862Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 9 - Revelation and Roman Augury

from Part III - Divine Transcendence and Pragmatic Purposes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2023

By
Federico Santangelo
Edited by
Elsa Giovanna Simonetti  and
Claire Hall
Elsa Giovanna Simonetti
Affiliation:
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Claire Hall
Affiliation:
University of Durham
Get access

Summary

This paper explores the relevance of the concept of revelation in Roman augury. Although augury is often regarded, not without reason, as being preoccupied with matters of narrow import and significance, it is a craft based on the detection and interpretation of divine signs, and thus builds into its operating process the question of the extent and quality to which the gods disclose to mankind their will and their attitudes. Revelation thus proves a productive vantage point on the workings of Roman augury, and more broadly of Roman public divination.

Keywords

auguryRoman RepublicRoman religionsign avoidanceritualnegligence
Type
Chapter
Information
Divination and Revelation in Later Antiquity , pp. 179 - 190
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bremmer, Jan N. 1987. ‘Three Roman Aetiological Myths’. In Graf, Fritz (ed.), Mythos in mythenloser Gesellschaft. Leipzig: Teubner, pp. 25–43.Google Scholar
De Melo, Wolfgang D. C. 2019. Varro: De lingua Latina, 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Driediger-Murphy, Lindsay G. 2019. Roman Republican Augury: Freedom and Control. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Feldherr, Andrew. 1998. Spectacle and Society in Livy’s History. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Humm, Michel. 2012. ‘Silences et bruits autour de la prise d’auspices’. In Schettino, Maria Teresa and Pittia, Sylvie (eds.), Les Sons du pouvoir dans les mondes anciens. Besançon: Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté, pp. 275–95.Google Scholar
Humm, Michel 2022. ‘Le rituel de la prise d’auspices: les gestes et la parole’, Archimède 9, pp. 59–78.Google Scholar
Konrad, Christoph F. 2022. The Challenge to the Auspices. Studies on Magisterial Power in the Middle Roman Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Levene, David S. 2010. Livy on the Hannibalic War. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Linderski, Jerzy. 1986. ‘The Augural Law’. In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.16.3. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 2146–312.Google Scholar
Santangelo, Federico. 2013. Divination, Prediction and the End of the Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Santangelo, Federico. 2019. ‘Prodigies in the Early Principate?’ In Driediger-Murphy, Lindsay G. and Eidinow, Esther (eds.), Ancient Divination and Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 154–77.Google Scholar
Struck, Peter T. 2016. Divination and Human Nature: A Cognitive History of Intuition in Classical Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Tuck, Anthony. 2020. ‘Augury and Observation: Speculations on the Nature of an Ancient Italic Ritual Practice’, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 65, pp. 540–557.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×