1st Edition

Prophets and Profits Ancient Divination and Its Reception

Edited By Richard Evans Copyright 2018
268 Pages
by Routledge

268 Pages
by Routledge

268 Pages
by Routledge

This volume examines the ways in which divination, often through oracular utterances and other mechanisms, linked mortals with the gods, and places the practice within the ancient sociopolitical and religious environment. Whether humans sought knowledge by applying to an oracle through which the god was believed to speak or used soothsayers who interpreted specific signs such as the flight of... Read more

Chapter 1: Introduction



Daniel Ogden





Chapter 2: Was Didyma (Branchidae) a False Prophet?



Richard Evans





Chapter 3: ‘Who Wrote Greek Curse Tablets?’



Olivier Dufault





Chapter 4: A Story of Blood, Guts and Guesswork: Synthetic Reasoning in Classical Greek Divination



Ralph Anderson





Chapter 5: Value-Added Divination at Dodona



Philip Bosman





Chapter 6: Divination and Profit in the Roman World



Federico Santangelo





Chapter 7: Profiting from Prophecy: Q. Marcius Rex and the Construction of the Aqua Marcia



Alex Nice





Chapter 8: Valerius Maximus and the Language of Stars



Jeffrey Murray





Chapter 9: "Arrows Fletched from Our Own Wings": Discovering a ‘Delphi of the Mind’ in the Writings of the Early Church Fathers



Daniel Crosby





Chapter 10: Egyptian Necromancy in Heliodorus Aethiopica (6.12-15) and The Witch of Endor Narrative (1 Sam 28)



John Hilton





Chapter 11: Sosipatra: Prophetess, Philosopher and Theurgist: Reflections on Divination and Epistemology in Late Antiquity



Crystal Addey





Chapter 12: One Oracle too Many? Corippus and Procopius on Female Prophecy in North Africa



Martine de Marre





Chapter 13: Deconstructing Divination: Superstition, Anticlericalism, and Cicero’s De Divinatione in Enlightenment England



Katherine East





Chapter 14: Prophecy and Paul Kruger: Robert Grendon’s Appropriation of Greco-Roman Prophets and Prophetic Devices in his South African Epic, Paul Kruger’s Dream



Szerdi Nagy





Chapter 15: Cassandra Prophesies Back: Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Firebrand



Elke Steinmeyer

Biography

Richard Evans has taught at the Universities of South Africa and Cardiff. His research has focused on the political and military history of Greece and Rome, and the ancient topography of Sicily and Magna Graecia. He is currently an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies at the University of South Africa.