bodies, as Aruspicy, the inspection of animals slain in sacrifice; Anthropomancy, the examination of a dead human being; by fire, Pyromancy, of which there were six varieties; by natural phenomena, thunder and lightning, air and winds and water; by mirrors and glasses; by letters and figures; and by direct appeals to chance. Besides these, salt, laurel, dough, meal, verses, dreams, and consulting the dead were used.
All these and many other methods were practised and held in highest reverence by many poets, philosophers, and warriors of Greece and Rome and other ancient nations. Coincidences as remarkable as any that astrologers boast followed the predictions of the diviners, and by these faith was maintained. In case of failure they quibbled and equivocated, after the manner of astrologers.
Cicero's treatise "On Divination," though written so long ago, exhausts the subject. That renowned work is frequently so misquoted as to place the authority of Cicero in favor of divination. There is an introduction, in which Cicero declares that—
In testing this opinion, he represents a discussion between his brother Quintus and himself. Quintus affirms that all nations have believed in divination. He asserts that when the statue of Plato, which stood on the top of the temple of Jupiter, was struck by lightning, and the head of the statue could not be found, the soothsayers said that it had been thrown
