ABSTRACTS

I. Ritual construction of signs within instituted practices of divination

Jean-Jacques Glassner (pp. 29–53) From the 18th century B.C.E. onwards, Babylonian diviners under- stood omens as signs within their own writing system. In the treatises they wrote, they began by identifying simple signs, the presence or the absence of which they noted, before describing their status, appear- ance, number and position; in sum, all of their potential aspects. This constituted a primary corpus of signs from which they derived addi- tional ones, playing with their dimension, orientation, combination, whether complete or incomplete, and any additional alterations. Each of these modifications gave a new value to the sign as an omen. These procedures were precisely those that governed the making of written signs, which the diviners learned at school.

Stella Georgoudi (pp. 55–90) Considered as the most ancient Greek oracle, the chrêstêrion of Dodona in Epirus, northwest of Greece, arises questions related to its founda- tion, its oracular agents (the hupophêtai, the priestesses/ prophetesses), its methods of transferring its absolute master’s Zeus will and deci- sions. Above all, this oracle is in the center of a controversy, already formulated by some Greek authors like Strabo, and adopted by many specialists of Greek divination. It concerns the distinction between a divination “by signs and symbols”, which Zeus would use at Dodona; and a divination “by word”, his son’s Apollo modus operandi at Del- phi or at Didyma. However, in the universe of Dodona, full of sounds and voices, it is proven that Zeus expresses himself particularly by words, logoi, uttered not only by his spokespersons, but also by his holy tree, the oak, and his familiar birds, the peleiades. Thus, from the most ancient testimonies, the tree and the birds, endowed with human voice, transmit the god’s responses to whom consult the oracle. This dialogue between god and individuals or States asking Zeus’ advice, realized thanks to these human, vegetable and animal representatives, often appears in a written form, as shows a great number ofleaden oracular tablets founded in the sanctuary; which proves the impor- tance of writing in the oracular activity of this famous manteion. 578 abstracts

Dominique Jaillard (pp. 91–107) Hermes is frequently associated with divination, and especially with the production of randomizing divinatory devices, the construction and interpretation of signs or the invention of oracles based on the drawing of lots. Paradoxically, only a few oracles were actually allo- cated to him, and this feature matches the rather secondary posi- tion, in terms of oracular powers, Hermes manages to “gain” from his brother Apollo in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. As opposed to Apollo, Hermes is refused direct access to Zeus’ sovereign power of decision (boulê) and must content himself with “intermediary” ora- cles. This paper aims to establish that Hermes’ divinatory competences are consistent with his specific actions and positions within the poly- theistic game, and greatly rely on his capacity of articulating homo- geneous spaces and processes in which sign and sense can coincide. According to that view, Hermes may be said to intervene, alongside other gods, in many forms of oracular procedures. The analysis leads to the formulation of two methodological remarks: a) the functioning of Greek oracles implies a plurality of gods acting on different levels, it cannot be exclusively referred to the entitled god; b) inspired divi- nation and inductive divination by signs must not be necessarily con- sidered as opposed categories, but rather as interdependent practices. Under Hermes’ guidance, inspiration can produce an oracle operating through spatial movements. Signs inducted by a ritual space construc- tion can manifest the god’s voice.

John Scheid (pp. 109–128) Was Roman religion always formalistic, or did its rituals evolve? In this essay, we try to demonstrate how divinatory public practices have developed in the final three centuries of the Republic under the pres- sures of war and imperialism. Already before the third century B.C.E., high magistrates ceased their former practice of auspices through the observation of the flight of birds. Instead, they reduced the procedure to the observation of captive chickens, the pulli. In all likelihood, this change was due to the wars and the generals of the third and second centuries, in order to remove any obstacle to engaging war. There were three stages in the gradual adaptation of traditional practices to the necessities of the political and military reality, the three at the expense of those priests specialised in the interpretation of signs. First, the Sen- ate conferred on the generals the expedient of interpreting auspices on the field of battle, which henceforth the augurs and Senate would