Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2024 July 8

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July 8

Haruspex

The earlier discussion here about auguries from intestines brought back a vague memory of a haruspex finding an appalling sign (deformity/wormy) but the people pressing ahead with the significant project nonetheless, only to end in disaster. I've been Googling for it without luck, probably because I can't remember if it's the Romans or some other ancient people, and I can't remember if it was for a battle or something else. Does this ring a bell with anyone? It's also entirely possible I read it in fiction! --Dweller (talk) Old fashioned is the new thing! 10:49, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

This book [1] seems to have a few pointers in that general direction (p. 112), maybe your episode is covered there? Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:57, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

We have articles on Omen (ancient Rome), Augury, and Augur, but only a relatively generic article on Haruspex. -- AnonMoos (talk) 16:24, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Sounds like Marcus Licinius Crassus and the Battle of Carrhae. There were said to be numerous omens against the undertaking; see Plutarch's Parallel Lives on Crassus [2]. A couple of examples:

• The seers, also, quietly let it become known that the omens for Crassus which came from their sacrifices were always bad and inauspicious. But Crassus paid no heed to them, nor to those who advised anything else except to press forward.
• And finally, when he p375 was making the customary sacrifice of purification for the army, and the seer placed the viscera in his hands, he let them fall to the ground; then, seeing that the bystanders were beyond measure distressed at the occurrence, he smiled and said: "Such is old age; but no weapon, you may be sure, shall fall from its hands."

There's also Publius Claudius Pulcher (consul 249 BC) throwing the sacred chickens into the sea, which is a memorable episode although it's not the one you're looking for. --Amble (talk) 16:39, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Amble that's terrific and interesting, but I'm looking for an occasion when the entrails were disgusting in some way and plainly foretold disaster to everyone who saw them, rather than a procedural glitch like that. I might need to go backwards, looking at notable Roman calamities like the Varus disaster. --Dweller (talk) Old fashioned is the new thing! 07:28, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

You're probably thinking of the death of Marcus Claudius Marcellus, as recounted in Life of Marcellus 29: "[Marcellus] summoned his diviner and offered sacrifice, and when the first victim had been slain, the diviner showed him that the liver had no head. But on his sacrifi­cing for the second time, the head of the liver was of extraordinary size and the other tokens appeared to be wonder­fully propitious, and the fear which the first had inspired seemed to be dissipated. But the diviners declared that they were all the more afraid of these and troubled by them; for when very propitious omens succeeded those which were most inauspicious and threatening, the strangeness of the change was ground for suspicion. [...] Such a disaster as this had never happened to the Romans before: both their consuls were killed in a single action." --Quuxplusone (talk) 20:26, 27 August 2024 (UTC)