Ancient Greek Divination and Embodied Cognition

Chapter 29 A Feeling for the Future: Ancient Greek Divination and Embodied Cognition

Esther Eidinow

Introduction: a Cognitive Turn

This chapter was developed during the course of three workshops on the theme of cognitive approaches to ancient religious experience (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council [AHRC] research-networking scheme), which I ran with Armin during 2015–17.1 The workshops brought together scholars of, on the one hand, ancient religion, and, on the other, the cognitive science of religion, with the intention of developing a new agenda for interdisciplinary research: Could cognitive approaches to religious study be tested with evidence from the ancient world? Could scholars of ancient reli- gions use cognitive theories to develop insights into evidence for ancient religious phenomena? As a way of pursuing the Humanities, this “cognitive turn” is perhaps not so startling (see for example the burgeoning field of cognitive literary studies), but it offers a novel direction for conducting research into ancient cultures, and, as Armin has observed (2004, 355), it may be of particular use for exploration of the “academic construction called ‘religion’,” and the as- sociated “ideas and assumptions [which] often turn on the nature of human beings, their origins, cognition and psychology, their cultural and social needs, and so on.” In this chapter, I have attempted to bring to bear research in the field of embodied cognition, specifically theories of embodied simulation, on the evidence and assumptions about ancient Greek divination, specifically the consultation of oracles. In particular, this essay is concerned with the questions of how and why divination may have seemed useful, even powerful, to ancient

1 I first met Armin when Thomas Harrison and I approached him – out of the blue – to join a project (funded by the British Academy) that brought together historians and cognitive scientists to make a first exploration of theoretical approaches to ancient religion. Armin could not have been more enthusiastic about our ideas. He was a key participant in that first project, and then accepted the role of co-investigator for the AHRC workshops. I am tremendously grateful for all his support.

Greek men and women. Functionalist theories, and reflections on the roles of “culture” or “belief” offer significant insights for broad, social explanations of divinatory practise – a meso-historical level, as it were (see Sørensen 2011, 194). Building on these aspects, this essay aims to add a micro-historical level of analysis, turning to cognitive research to explore the role of the imagination of individuals, both when they were consultants at oracles themselves, and when they heard and told stories about oracular consultations. The chapter compris- es two halves: the first provides a brief overview of ancient Greek divinatory practice and the specific questions that engage scholars about the nature of oracular consultation; the second half explores how theories of embodied cognition, specifically embodied simulation, may offer some insight into individ- ual experiences of oracular consultation, and offers a suggestion for refining explanations which aim to show that the ancients “believed” in oracles.

Divination in the Ancient World

Scholars have long been puzzled by the power and reach of the practice of divination in cultures across the ancient Greek world. It took many forms: at oracular sanctuaries it was possible to consult a particular god, or hero, or even the dead (Curnow 2004 provides a comprehensive overview of the oracle sites of the ancient world). But someone unable to travel to an oracular sanctuary might instead consult an itinerant diviner, such as a mantis or chresmologos (Dillery 2005).2 Current explanations of this widespread phenomenon of divination tend to the functionalist, identifying possible social or political purposes. For example, it has been argued that oracular sanctuaries such as Delphi were centres for sharing useful information, in particular data that was important for plan- ning and preparing new settlements; people who gathered there would talk about “their enterprises, their range, and probably their products while at the same time they updated their databases regarding prospective lands, ‘markets’, and business” (Papalexandrou 2005, 62; see Forrest 1957). Another, or concomi- tant, interpretation sees the process of divination, more broadly, and oracular consultation in particular, as “a tool to eliminate disorder and to establish a

2 The precise distinction between these two categories is much debated by modern scholars, but it seems likely that the former were more likely to have used various techniques of divination, such as reading the entrails of sacrificed animals, while the latter offered readings from collections of oracles, which could be consulted using some randomizing device, such as dice.