Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Liver Diviner

A soothsayer (or charlatan) who predicts the future based on what can be discerned from the steaming entrails and liver of a sacrificed animal.

"While Vespasian was there offering sacrifice and pondering his secret hopes, Basilides the priest, after repeated inspections of the entrails, said to him, ‘Whatever be your purpose, Vespasian, whether you think of building a house, of enlarging your estate, or augmenting the number of your slaves, there is given you a vast habitation, boundless territory, a multitude of men.’"

Tacitus, Histories (100 AD).

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