The Future of the Ancient World by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2022-12-24T05:05:21+00:00

Extispicy was practiced in Etruria (modern Tuscany) prior to its introduction to Rome and was, in the eyes of the Romans, an Etruscan speciality. Although liver divination was introduced to Rome during the sixth century BC, when Rome was ruled by the Etruscan dynasty of the Tarquins, its subsequent role was extremely limited, if not nonexistent, because it was an Etruscan art and because the Romans had almost zero confidence in the loyalty of the Etruscans. It was not until the Second Punic War, toward the end of the third century, that the Etruscans proved beyond doubt their loyalty to Rome, and from this date onward the activity of haruspices markedly increased.⁴¹ It is to this period that the famous bronze model of a liver from Piacenza belongs (fig. 9.6). It shows a radical departure from the Mesopotamian tradition and presumably represents an alternative tradition within—or perhaps as a deeper level of—Etruscan hepatoscopy. The liver is now divided into sixteen regions around the periphery, corresponding to the sixteen regions of the sky. Upon the left lobe is inscribed a “wheel” with six “spokes,” each defining a triangle within which is inscribed the name of a god or goddess; and upon the right lobe and gallbladder there is a grid with thirteen names within the rectangles of which the grid is formed. These two figures of the wheel and the grid of rectangles have led some commentators to detect the influence of Vedic symbolism, in which the round wheel represents the present world and the square represents the celestial world.⁴² This interpretation gains support from the fact that the deities inscribed on the regions of the left lobe are the gods of earth and vegetation, the goddess of fate and four boundary gods, while on the right lobe are four gods of heaven and light, along with the gods of water and fate, one (possibly two) goddesses of love, and two protective boundary gods.⁴³ Between the gallbladder and the wheel on the left lobe, martial gods predominate; but there would appear to be no grounds for interpreting the opposition between the left and right lobes in the traditional way, as respectively pars hostilis or unfavorable, and pars familiaris or favorable.⁴⁴

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