For an unknown reason, the interpretation of signs seems to have been almost alien
to women, for all that they were inclined to magic and its terrible forms of know-
ledge. We know of Diotima at Mantinea, around 420 BC, represented as a priestess, a
liver in her hand, and amantis, Alcibia, of the family of the Iamids (Mantis 1990:51–2,
pl. 18;IGv.1, 141).
Inspired divination
In inspired divination a god enters into direct contact, sought for or otherwise, with a
human soul (Aeschylus,Agamemnon179–80). He can take possession of an inter-
mediary, who will reveal his will to the consultant – this is ‘‘enthusiasm’’ (which
properly means ‘‘with a god within’’) – or he can manifest himself in a dream or a
mantic vision (onar–hypar: Hanson 1980). The more the soul is detached from the
body, the more efficacious the revelation: the Pythia is dispossessed of her conscious-
ness (ekphro ̄n), and one who has a dream vision is in a state in which his soul loosens
its bonds with the body to the maximum. This is why a dying person, when his soul is
definitively separated from the body, becomes infallible. This idea opened onto a
strange variety of divination about which little is known, divination by means of
the evocation of the dead, or necromancy, practiced, for example, at Cape Tainaron
(S.I. Johnston 1999a; Ogden 2001).
Oniromancy
Oniromancy tackled the natural ambiguity of dreams, whether they were unexpected
or solicited in sanctuaries (Holowchak 2001). Dreams, which addressed the dreamer
directly without any intermediary are mentioned in a great many inscriptions. They
experienced an uninterrupted success even if an interpreter was sometimes required
(cf.IKnidos131). In logical terms, since the time of Homer (Iliad1.63) dreams
could be either apotreptic or protreptic, or again descriptive and inspirational. But
the majority of dreams transmitted in literature are, like literary oracles, bogus ones
(Le ́vy 1982).
Theophrastus’Superstitious Man (16.11) consults several specialists about the
most trivial dream: these are the people like those who facilitated the compilation
of works such asThe Interpretation of Dreamsof Artemidorus. This text’s codification
is far from simplistic. It is aware of scientific developments, and accordingly distin-
guishes truthful dreams from dreams the roots of which are to be found directly in
one’s daily preoccupations (Prologue). Only a systematic catalog of dreams could, in
Greek eyes, permit a mantic understanding of them. Even Galen decided upon
a certain operation after a dream of Asclepius (Boudon 2004). And the orator
Menander advised that one should always claim that a dream had inspired a speech
(Peri epideiktiko ̄n3.344).
Greece had incubation sanctuaries, where one slept in the hope of dreaming: they
were almost exclusively dedicated to heroes, popular from the end of the fifth century
BC until the fall of paganism, and often connected with healing. Asclepius in par-
ticular experienced a lightning expansion (Gorini and Melfi 2002; Graf 1992b).
His huge sanctuary at Epidaurus, with its famous theater, was something to incur
the envy of the Olympians. The consultant dreamed of an act of healing, sometimes at
Divination 153