HARUSPICES, or ARUSPICES (perhaps " entrail observers," cf. Skt. Kira, Gr. xopSit)

This article appears in Volume V13, Page 38 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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HARUSPICES, or ARUSPICES (perhaps " entrail observers," cf. Skt. Kira, Gr. xopSit) , a class of soothsayers in Rome. Their art (disciplina) consisted especially in deducing the will of the gods from the

appearance

APPEARANCE (from Lat. apparere, to appear)

presented by the entrails of the slain victim. They also interpreted all portents or unusual phenomena of nature, especially thunder and lightning, and prescribed the expiatory ceremonies after such events. To please the god, the victim must be without spot or blemish, and the practice of observing whether the entrails presented any abnormal

appearance

APPEARANCE (from Lat. apparere, to appear)

,
and thence deducing the will of heaven, was also very important in Greek religion. This art, however, appears not to have been, as some other modes of ascertaining the will of the gods undoubtedly were, of genuine Aryan growth. It is foreign to the Homeric poems, and must have been introduced into

Greece

GREECE

after their composition. In like manner, as the Romans themselves believed, the art was not indigenous in Rome, but derived from Etruria.' The Etruscans were said to have learned it from a being named

Tages

TAGES (Tages)

, grandson of Jupiter, who had suddenly sprung from the ground near Tarquinii. Instructions were contained in certain books called libri haruspicini, fulgurales, rituales. The art was practised in Rome chiefly by Etruscans, occasionally by native-born Romans who had studied in the priestly schools of Etruria. From the regal period to the end of the republic, haruspices were summoned from Etruria to deal with prodigies not mentioned in the pontifical and Sibylline books, and the Roman priests carried out their instructions as to the offering necessary to appease the anger of the deity concerned. Though the art was of

great

GREAT

importance under the early republic, it never became a

part

PART

of the state religion. In this respect the haruspices ranked lower than the augurs, as is shown by the fact that they received a salary; the augurs were a more ancient and purely Roman institution, and were a most important

element

ELEMENT (Lat. elementum)

in the political organization of the city. In later times the art fell into disrepute, and the saying of Cato the Censor is well known, that he wondered how one haruspex could look another in the face without laughing (Cie. De div. ii. 24). Under the empire, however, we hear of a

regular

REGULAR

collegium of sixty haruspices; and

Claudius

CLAUDIUS
CLAUDIUS [TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS DRUSUS NERO GERMANICUS]
CLAUDIUS, MARCUS AURELIUS
CLAUDIUS,
MATTHIAS
- MATTHIAS
- MATTHIAS (1557-1619)
(174o-1815)

is said to have tried to restore the art and put it under the

control

CONTROL (Fr. contrdle, older form contre rolle, from Med. Lat. contra-rotulus, a counter roll or copy of a document used to check the original; there is no instance in English of the use of " control " in this, its literal, meaning)

of the pontifices. This collegium continued to exist till the time of Alaric.
See A. Bouch6-Leclercq, Histoire de la divination dans l'antiquite (18791881); Marquardt, Romische Staatsverwaltung, iii. (1885), pp. 410-415; G. Schmeisser, Die etruskische Disciplin vom Bundesgenossenkriege bis zum Untergang des Heidentums (1881), and Quaestionum de Etrusca disciplina particula (1872); P. Clairin, De haruspicibus apud Romanos (1880). Also OMEN.

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