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THIRD DIVISION.

SOOTHSAYING.

CICERO has written a work upon soothsaying which contains a treasure of all things appertaining to magic. He commences it in a manner which is highly remarkable to us at the present day.

"From the heroic times there has been a universally received belief among all nations, that among men is to be found the power of soothsaying (esse divinationem),—that is, a presentiment, a knowledge of future things. Certainly a glorious gift, through which mortal nature becomes like to the gods. I am acquainted with no people, either civilized or learned, savage or ignorant, which does not believe in the prediction of future events, by a few individuals who understand and are able to foresee the future. Is it not, therefore, presumption to endeavour to overthrow things firmly fixed and venerable by age through calumny" (quæ est igitur calliditas, res vetus tale robustas calumniando velle pervertere).

Cicero speaks on this subject in such an instructive and pleasing manner, that we shall follow him in his own words somewhat farther.

"Soothsaying is of two natures,-kinds and artificial. The artificial consists of presupposition, speculation, and partly of experience; the natural is produced by the soul seizing upon anything divine whence we ought to be pure in heart (haustos, libatesque animos habeamus). Artificial soothsaying is of the following descriptions:-Firstly, from the entrails of animals; by conclusions drawn from the

lightning and storms, from the flight of birds, from the stars from lots, and from portentous signs and omens. In all these we must rather look to the fact than search for the causes: we should regard the examples of all nations, and, although we may not at once be able to account for them, we must at least not doubt facts which have really happened. If some things are false and others are true, we must not therefore consider soothsaying as fallacious,-just as little as we ought to call our eyes useless because they do not always serve us aright. God does not desire that we should understand all this, but that we should make use of it."

Some instances of predictions and lots (sortes) are very remarkable. Shortly before the battle of Leuctra the Lacedæmonians received a significant warning. In the Temple of Hercules the weapons clashed together of their own accord, and the statue of Hercules itself was covered with sweat. At the same time, according to Callisthenes, the locks and bolts in the Temple of Hercules at Thebes flew open, and the weapons which hung upon the wall were found lying on the ground. The Boeotian soothsayers announced victory to the Thebans. The reverse at Leuctra was also predicted to the Lacedæmonians in several ways; for the statues of Lysander, who was the. noblest Lacedæmonian, which stood at Delphi, were overgrown with plants, and the golden stars, which were placed on these statues after the celebrated naval victory of Lysander, fell down a short time before the battle of Leuctra. But the most significant sign of all happened at Dodona, where the Spartans inquired of Jupiter concerning the coming contest. The bag containing the lots was placed on the ground, and an ape, which was kept for amusement by the king of the Molossi, scattered them to the winds. The priests at once answered that the Lacedæmonians ought rather to consider their safety than the battle.

Such violent earthquakes preceded the defeat of Flaminius, that in Gaul and the neighbouring countries whole towns were swallowed up; the earth sunk in many places, and the sea forced back the currents of the rivers towards their sources. When the Phrygian Midas was a child, the ants carried a number of grains of wheat into his mouth while he slept, from which people predicted that he would be immensely rich; and bees settled in Plato's mouth as he slum

bered in his cradle. The nurse of Roscius saw him during the night in the folds of serpents, and, terrified at the sight, called for help. The father of Roscius carried him to the soothsayers, who replied that none would be more exalted or renowned than this boy. Many omens appeared to the Romans on the eve of the battle at Teutoburg. The heavens

showed in many ways their displeasure. The Temple of Mars at Rome was struck by lightning and burned; the statues of Victory, which looked towards Germany, were turned round by an earthquake towards Italy; Alpine mountain peaks fell in, and terrific columns of fire burst from the chasms.

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Such signs have been recorded in later times, and more particularly those connected with lots or sortes." The ancient Germans, who placed much reliance in soothsaying, were accustomed to consult these lots, and even retained their faith in them after their conversion to Christianity. They consulted the flight of birds, the crowing of cocks: from migratory birds, from the hooting of owls and the croaking of ravens, and from the elements, good and bad luck, fire, war, and death, they obtained prognostics. In Germany this description of soothsaying was so widely spread, that many laws were made on the subject. In the constitution of 1572, and the public regulations of 1661, of Kur-Saxony, capital punishment by the sword was threatened to those who dared to predict the future by the black arts, or to converse with the devil through crystals, or by any other means, and receive from him knowledge of things hidden and to come.

No one nation of antiquity was so generally convinced of the truth of soothsaying as the Greeks, not even excepting the Jews. Such an enlightened people must have devoted much attention to that which could not alone arise from priestcraft and the system of oracles. The poetic talent being expanded to such a degree with them, it was perfectly natural that they should pay some attention to the inner voice of the mind, not only in dreams, but also in presentiments they therefore were not only acquainted with natural, but also to a very great extent with artificial soothsaying, by which the soul is enabled to perceive the future, which they ascribed to the gods, from whom they supposed everything to be derived. For the gods, who know

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everything past and to come, imparted it to man from affection to him, either unsolicited or in answer to his prayers, and give him signs by which he may be guided (onuera). The Greeks had four kinds of such signs-1. birds, 2. voices (phua), 3. symbolical signs of circumstances (ouμßola), and 4. sacrificial auguries. To predict from the flight and voices of birds was one of the most ancient and universal modes of divination among the Greeks; so that from it the whole science often derives its name. As birds, through their organisation, are peculiarly sensitive to atmospheric changes and influences; as their migration depends on circumstances in connection with the revolution of the year; and as they moreover exist in the least controlled element, and are as free as it, so was the idea very natural that they were more exposed to the direct influence of the gods, and less subject to the coarser materialism of the earth. Birds were therefore from their nature as it were "The so-called divine and evil voices appear to be related to the Jewish belief of Bath Kol, and rest upon events which cannot be possibly explained or accounted for." Examples are given by Herodotus, lx. 100; Dionys. Hal. x. 5; Plut. vit. Syllæ, p. 455. Zeus, from whom, as in the latter instance, they were supposed to proceed, was also worshipped as “ πανομφαῖος. Among the symbols (ouußola) were reckoned all prophetic signs which might arise from meeting various animals, and also all extraordinary phenomena of nature, thunder and lightning, eclipses of the sun and moon, bloody rain, and every striking malformation in which it was supposed that nature showed her deep sympathy with human destiny. For that between heaven and earth there exists a bond of sympathy, is one of the oldest beliefs. (Appian, 1. c. ix. 4; Dio. Cass. xlvii. 40, e. s.; 10, 15, ex. Emp. v. 3, p. 338)

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Divination, lastly, by the entrails of animals (iɛpoμuvria, ἱεροσκοπία, μαντεία ἐκ θυσίων), which prevailed among all pagan nations of antiquity, originated in the sacrifice of . animals, which were offered in the place and as substitutes for human victims. (Lassaulx on the Pelasgian Oracle of Zeus at Dodona, Würzburg, 1840, s. 2.)

Still more firmly rooted than even the above-mentioned

methods, was the belief in natural soothsaying through the prophetic excitement of the soul, when time and place formed no barriers according to the universally received idea. The ancients generally believed the human soul to be of a divine origin, and therefore not subject to the laws of nature; they believed that it was only mixed with the earthy matter from having sinned in its pre-earthly state, by which it had lost much of its former power of penetration. (Plato, in Phædrus and Phædon; Cicero de divinitat. 130). Man has, however, not wholly lost the power of the seer, for according to its nature it is imperishable. "As the sun," says Plutarch, "does not become radiant only when it pierces the louds, but is always so though obscured by the surrounding mists; so the soul does not receive the power of looking into the future only when it passes from the body as from a cloud, but has always possessed this power, although dimmed by its mixture with the mortal part of the body." As the power of soothsaying is natural to and a portion of the soul, though latent in the usual circumstances of life, it may be aroused by a higher power, or can become active when the strength of the body is weakened. This is particularly the case in those circumstances where the soul has least in common with the body, and is not compelled to look at the material being of things. Such lucida intervalla are most frequent in sleep and dreams. Xenophon (Cyrop. viii. 7, 21) says-"The souls of men appear to be most free and divine in sleep, and in that state throw glances into the future." Josephus also says (B. J. vii. 8, 7), "In sleep, the soul, in no way disturbed by the body, enjoys the sweetest repose, holds conference with God, to whom it is related, and floats to and fro over things past and to come." That spontaneous soothsaying which appears often on the approach of death was well known in the earliest ages. In Greece the belief in the prophetic power of the dying was so universal, that Socrates expresses it in the Platonic Apology as an established fact. Cicero says the same, and to him we shall refer again; Arrianus (De exped. Alex. vii.), and Aretaus (De causis et signis morb. acut. etc.) In extacia, however, whether spontaneous or arising from convulsions, soothsaying has been a universally known phenomenon, which was said to be produced

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