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HARUSPICES, or ARUSPICES (perhaps " e...
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See also:HARUSPICES, or ARUSPICES (perhaps " entrail observers," cf. Skt. Kira, Gr. xopSit) , a class of soothsayers in See also:Rome. Their See also:art (disciplina) consisted especially in deducing the will of the gods from the See also:appearance presented by the entrails of the slain victim. They also interpreted all portents or unusual phenomena of nature, especially See also:thunder and See also:lightning, and prescribed the expiatory ceremonies after such events. To please the See also:god, the victim must be without spot or blemish, and the practice of observing whether the entrails presented any abnormal appearance, and thence deducing the will of See also:heaven, was also very important in See also:Greek See also:religion. This art, however, appears not to have been, as some other modes of ascertaining the will of the gods undoubtedly were, of genuine See also:Aryan growth. It is See also:foreign to the Homeric poems, and must have been introduced into See also:Greece after their See also:composition. In like manner, as the See also:Romans themselves believed, the art was not indigenous in Rome, but derived from See also:Etruria.' The Etruscans were said to have learned it from a being named See also:Tages, See also:grandson of See also:Jupiter, who had suddenly sprung from the ground near See also:Tarquinii. Instructions were contained in certain books called libri haruspicini, fulgurales, rituales. The art was practised in Rome chiefly by Etruscans, occasionally by native-See also:born Romans who had studied in the priestly See also:schools of Etruria. From the See also:regal See also:period to the end of the See also:republic, haruspices were summoned from Etruria to See also:deal with prodigies not mentioned in the pontifical and Sibylline books, and the See also:Roman priests carried out their instructions as to the offering necessary to appease the anger of the deity concerned. Though the art was of See also:great importance under the See also:early republic, it never became a See also:part of the See also:state religion. In this respect the haruspices ranked See also:lower than the See also:augurs, as is shown by the fact that they received a See also:salary; the augurs were a more See also:ancient and purely Roman institution, and were a most important See also:element in the See also:political organization of the See also:city. In later times the art See also:fell into disrepute, and the saying of See also:Cato the See also:Censor is well known, that he wondered how one haruspex could look another in the See also:face without laughing (Cie. De div. ii. 24). Under the See also:empire, however, we hear of a See also:regular collegium of sixty haruspices; and See also:Claudius is said to have tried to restore the art and put it under the See also:control of the pontifices. This collegium continued to exist till the See also:time of See also:Alaric. See A. Bouch6-Leclercq, Histoire de la See also:divination dans l'antiquite (1879—1881); See also:Marquardt, Romische Staatsverwaltung, iii. (1885), pp. 410-415; G. Schmeisser, See also:Die etruskische Disciplin vom Bundesgenossenkriege bis zum Untergang See also:des Heidentums (1881), and Quaestionum de Etrusca disciplina particula (1872); P. Clairin, De haruspicibus apud See also:Romanos (1880). Also See also:OMEN. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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