words and phrases. For that reason I have provided my own translations of Greek and Latin texts. That is not to say that I have not made any errors, but only that I would rather that such errors that do exist be mine rather than someone else’s. I will claim, however, that I have never deliberately falsified a translation in order to strengthen my own argument, just as I have not consciously omitted passages from discussion that seem to contradict my own theories. Citations of Greek and Latin have been kept to a bare minimum, and what does appear is always accompanied by a translation. Classical Greek has been transliterated, except for the very few phrases that appear in the text and footnotes. All quotations from the Hebrew Bible have been taken from The Harper Collins Study Bible, edited by Wayne A. Meeks et al. (San Francisco, 1997). Various editions and translations of cuneiform texts are listed in the notes where appropriate. Finally, I have generally cited other scholars in the footnotes, rather than in the main text. This might seem to be a rhetorical device aimed at privileging my own views, but it is actually done for the ease of the general reader, whose attention can only be distracted by wading through a sea of scholarly disputation. In other words, my principal rhetorical aim has been to make the reader participate in my own fascination with the topic of the Greek seer and of Greek divination generally. I have tried to put the study of the Greek seer into context by looking at seercraft in the ancient Near East as well as by making judicious use of modern scholarship in anthropology and ethnology. Those fields have vast bibliographies and cover wide expanses of time and space; and so, rather than confound the reader with an array of detailed case studies, I have attempted to draw generalizations that shed light on Greek practice and belief. There is always a danger of oversimplification or misunderstanding when one draws on fields outside of one’s own immediate area of specialization, but the benefits strike me as far outweighing the risks. I have cited only a few items published after 2005. This book does not replicate the detailed argumentation of my 2008 article on the mantic family of the Iamidae, since that piece is meant to stand on its own. I have made every attempt to produce a narrative that will be accessible and interesting to readers who have no special training in classical studies. In particular, I am hoping that those with an interest in other religious systems, both ancient and modern, as well as in the anthropology and sociology of religion more generally, will find something of use and value in this study. Although I have tried to gloss unusual terms where appropriate, one point of confusion might be my use of the name Lacedaemonian(s) where, less accurately, most modern writers might simply refer to Spartan(s). Although these terms are
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often used synonymously, the technical difference is that a Spartan (or, more correctly, Spartiate) is a full citizen with voting rights who had passed through a very rigid system of state education, whereas the term Lacedaemonian includes both the Spartiates themselves and the second-class members of their society called perioeci (who were freeborn but lacked voting rights). These two groups together formed the “Spartan” army and were collectively known as Lacedaemonians. As someone with a special interest in Spartan history and religion, I thought it best to reflect the usage of our sources.
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ABBREVIATIONS
CAH 3
Cambridge Ancient History. 3d ed. Cambridge, 1975.
CEG
P. A. Hansen, ed. Carmina Epigraphica Graeca. Vol. 2 , Saeculi IV a.Chr.n. Berlin and New York, 1989.
CVA
Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum.
Diels-Kranz
H. Diels. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. 6th ed. Edited by W. Kranz. Berlin, 1952.
EGF
M. Davies, ed. Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Göttingen, 1988.
EGM
R. Fowler, Early Greek Mythography. Vol. 1, The Texts. Oxford, 2000.
FGrH
F. Jacoby, ed. Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Berlin and Leiden, 1923–58.
Fornara
C. W. Fornara, ed. and trans. Archaic Times to the End of the Peloponnesian War. 2d ed. Cambridge, 1983. [Cited by document number.]
GHI
P. J. Rhodes and Robin Osborne, eds. Greek Historical Inscriptions, 404–323 B .C . Oxford, 2003.
HCT
A. W. Gomme, A. Andrewes, and K. J. Dover. A Historical Commentary on Thucydides. 5 vols. Oxford, 1945–81. xvii
.
Problems, Methods, and Sources Surprising as it may seem, the oracle’s replies to questions are rarely vague. . . . But I suppose that it would be difficult for any scientific investigation either to prove or disprove conclusively the validity of his pronouncements. His Holiness the 14th the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, Freedom in Exile
One of the reasons for this neglect [by Assyriologists] is perhaps the extraordinary monotony of the treatises on divination that make up the principal pieces of the dossier. But I wonder whether the main reason is not that divination is considered, consciously or unconsciously, to be a simple superstition, trivial, outdated, and not really deserving of attention. Jean Bottéro, Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning,
and the Gods
SETTING THE STAGE When most of us think of Greek divination, the first thing that comes to mind is the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, where the Pythia, possessed by the god, delivered oracles while seated on her tripod. Yet as famous as Delphi and the Pythia may be, due in part to the large role that Delphi plays both in Greek tragedy and in the historical narrative of Herodotus, neither Delphi nor any other oracular center, nor even all such centers collectively, could have constituted the major access to divination in Greek society. At Delphi, prophecies were given only on the seventh of each month, and not at all during the three winter months when Apollo was away. Thus very few Greeks were in a position to consult Delphi, and any consultations that did occur needed to be planned out well in advance. And even if one appeared on the 1
1. Eur. Ion 93; Plut. Mor. 292d.
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right day and could afford all of the preliminary sacrifices, there was no guarantee that one would get a turn to put one’s question. This depended on the number of inquirers, some of whom may have enjoyed promanteia (the right of jumping the line). Yet, as we shall see, divination was a major system of knowledge and belief for the Greeks and was practiced in regard to every sort of important question. So if the Greeks were not constantly making hasty trips to Delphi, how did they access divine knowledge? There were many less prominent oracular sites in Boeotia; but these would have been denied to Athenians during the long periods of war between them and the Boeotians. Greeks from the Peloponnese would also have found the trek to Delphi expensive and inconvenient. The most authoritative oracle in the Peloponnese was at Olympia, and this would have seen heavy use and long lines, especially at the time of the Olympic games. The oracle of Zeus at Dodona in Epirus was located in a remote part of Greece and, moreover, was far from the sea. In any case, the individual who faced an unexpected decision or the commander in the field who wanted to know whether it was a good day to fight needed a more immediate access to divine knowledge and guidance than oracular consultation could possibly provide. This immediate access was provided by the class of individuals known as seers. The ancient Greek word for “seer” is mantis, and the plural is manteis. Rather than attempt to introduce a new word into English usage, I will use the translation “seer” throughout this book. Seers played a fundamental role in Greek culture. In fact, their presence was pervasive. We know the names of about seventy “historical” seers (as opposed to mythical/legendary ones), some of whom were individuals of considerable influence. Many more seers are left anonymous by our sources, even when their presence and contribution were crucial to the matters at hand. This anonymity contributes to the false modern sense that seers merely validated decisions that had already been made by their superiors and employers. Part of my task is to restore the seer to his, and her, appropriate place of prominence in archaic and classical Greek society. This is intended to be an innovative book, but not in the sense of promoting some outlandish thesis or advancing arguments that are based on either a misuse or a par2
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2. Most of the lead tablets from Dodona, on which inquirers wrote their questions, are written in Northwest Greek, although others are in a variety of dialects. See Parke 1967: 101 and Christidis, Dakaris, and Vokotopoulou 1999: 67–68. 3. A point well made by Parker (2005: 118– 19).
2 . P ro b l e m s , M e t h od s , a n d S o u r c e s
