and others again with dice, the rolling of which referred to pre-established sentences
in a list of predictions (Brixhe and Hodot 1988:134–64; Donnay 1984).
Hieroscopy, the examination ofhiera, consisted of inspecting the signs left in
the entrails of sacrificed animals. Although absent from Homer, it was widespread
from the archaic period. Sacrifice was omnipresent, and hieroscopy made its impact
upon daily life and on politics (Brisson 1974; Burkert 1992:46–53; Lissarrague
1990a:55–69). The liver was the chief part, and every irregularity in it was significant.
In EuripidesElectra(826–33), Aegisthus is terrified: ‘‘A lobe was missing from the
liver: the portal vein and the adjacent vessels of the gall bladder displayed projections
of doom.’’ It is imminent death that is announced to him, a topos of Greek literature,
found in Plutarch’sLivesof Cimon, Alexander and Marcellus. Ordinary men would
usually turn to a specialist seer, but they could sometimes know about omens from
their own experience. The speed of the procedure was ideal during battle. Many tales,
some of them historical, show diviners repeatedly sacrificing until they obtain a
favorable sign (Jameson 1991).
Empyromancy, the method employed by the oracle of Zeus at Olympia, consisted of
observing the fashion in which the sacrificial parts were consumed on the altar (Parke
1967:164–93). One could practice it after each sacrifice, and literature is packed with
examples: ‘‘The diviners ... observed the flames of the fire, splitting and flickering
against each other, and the point of the flame where the double omen of victory or
defeat was determined,’’ says Euripides (Phoenician Women1254–8). The accumu-
lation of bad omens in the tragedies should not make us forget the current and
less dramatic practice, presented by Xenophon or Plutarch and on ancient vases. The
animal’s tail could also straighten out in the fire and furnish a favorable omen (Van
Straten 1995:118–41).
The methods of inductive divination were very varied. We may also cite hydro-
mancy, which looked at the way water moved, or the floating of objects or liquids
poured onto its surface, and catoptromancy, which exploited the properties of reflect-
ing surfaces (Delatte 1932). A chapter could be devoted to astrology and magical
varieties of divination, but there is no room for this here (see Chapter 23).
The diviner who uses the inductive method is themantis, an elusive term. In myth
Tiresias, Melampous, Calchas, Iamos, and Amphiaraos are not reduced merely to the
interpretation of signs. That they access a kind of inspiration is undeniable (cf. Pindar,
Olympic Odes6.12–17; Luraghi 1997). To varying degrees, they are also doctors and
purifiers, and they are often associated with mystery cults. Historical diviners offer less
of the marvelous: the oldest, Manticles, is known from a statuette of around 700 BC
from Thebes (Boston MFA 03.997¼LIMCApollon 40). Famous is Megistias, who
remained with Leonidas at Thermopylae after having forecast their defeat (Simonides,
Epigrams6Campbell¼Herodotus 7.228: is this prophecy authentic?). Lampon, an
ally of Pericles, was a great public personage. Sthorys, who came from a Thasian
family, received Athenian citizenship for his services in the battle of Cnidus (IGii^2
17). However, there was no shortage of peculiar figures in Greece to confuse the
categories. Empedocles presented himself as an itinerant ‘‘mage,’’ an inspired poet and
thaumaturge capable of entering and returning from Hell, in short a diviner in the great
mythic tradition (Kingsley 1995). Finally, like many other ‘‘professional bodies,’’
diviners constituted themselves into clans (which conferred upon them a knowledge
that was partly innate), as in the case of the Iamids and the Clytiads at Olympia.
152 Pierre Bonnechere