signs said to foretell the future. Many omens are favorable signs; negative omens
were never expiated by the res publica. While prodigies might actually have occurred
in one way or another, omens were definitely constructed. The first Roman senator
regarded as having direct contact with the gods was Publius Cornelius Scipio
Africanus, who defeated Hannibal at Zama (202bc) in the Second Punic War and
who used to sit in the temple on the Capitoline hill. He neither confirmed nor denied
rumors that he conversed with Iuppiter (Livy 26.19.5). During the lifetime of Scipio,
the consensus within the senate was still strong: Scipio, the most famous man and
therefore the politically most dangerous man of his time, spent the last decades of
his life in exile outside Rome.
Although divinatory practices had great importance in the Roman republic, abuse
can scarcely be diagnosed. Obstruction as a means of political struggle was used only
in the late republic. Even then only elections, not laws, were blocked. Generally,
obstruction was not used to influence the masses, but to control the members of
the senatorial elite. Since the priests dealing with the signs came from the Roman
nobility, their interpretation expressed the consensus within the Roman elite.
Obstruction was a means of delaying a decision, not completely revoking it. Thus,
premature decisions were avoided (Rüpke 2005a: 1450).
Negative signs were constructed in order to display the unlawfulness of a polit-
ical adversary and to demonstrate that the gods were his enemies. One of the first
death omens (omen mortis) concerns the politician Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus,
who had made many enemies by his attempt to enforce agrarian reforms. On the
day he was killed, he hurt his foot severely on leaving his house; ravens threw a stone
in his way (Plut. Gracchus17). These signs gave the clear message that it would be
better for Gracchus to stay at home. Our sources are too scant to decide if the signs
were constructed by the enemies of Gracchus in order to show that he was doomed
or if his supporters adorned his last day with divine signs. Another sign, this time
concerning his brother Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, is clearer. In 121bc, a pack of
wolves was said to have scattered the boundary stones which had been set up dur-
ing the division of properties by Gaius Gracchus (Obsequens 33): an unequivocal
hint from the gods that they were not pleased with the division of land planned by
Gracchus. Finally, Gaius Gracchus was slain and the division of land abandoned.
A particular case of the uses of interpretation for personal advantage can be studied
in Cicero’s speech De haruspicum responsoof 56bc. During Cicero’s exile (59–56bc),
his personal enemy, P. Clodius Pulcher, ensured that Cicero’s house in Rome was
demolished and the site was dedicated to the goddess Liberty. On his return from
exile, the site of his house was given back to Cicero, who planned to rebuild it.
In the same year, the senate declared a strange rumbling noise outside Rome a
prodigiumand asked the haruspicesto interpret it. According to the haruspices, divine
anger was provoked because, inter alia, games had been celebrated without enough
care and thereby polluted, envoys had been slain against all faith and right, and sacred
and holy places had been profaned (Cic. Har. resp.9). This untypical answer, which
goes far beyond the usual advice of the ritual for restoring the peace with the gods,
seems to have been evoked by the critical political situation. And the answer was
used by both sides: while Clodius referred the response of the haruspicesto Cicero’s
Republican Nobiles 301