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Sortes Homericae
The ''Sortes Homericae'' (Latin for "Homeric lots"), a type of divination by bibliomancy, involved drawing a random sentence or line from the works of Homer (usually the ''Iliad'') to answer a question or to predict the future. In the Roman world it co-existed with the various forms of the Sortes (ancient Rome), ''sortes'', such as the ''Sortes Virgilianae'' and their Christian successor the ''Sortes Sanctorum''. There are numerous examples of lines from the ''Iliad'' being premonitions of things to come. Socrates reportedly dreamed of a certain verse from the ''Iliad'', and interpreted it as foretelling the day of his execution. Before the Battle of Pharsalus, a verse of Homer occurred to Marcus Junius Brutus, Brutus which suggested that Pompey would be defeated. The emperor Macrinus , Marcus Opellius Macrinus () is known to have used ''sortes Homericae'' properly speaking, where a verse was chosen by lot that supposedly foretold his fate that he would not last long on the imper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divination
Divination () is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice. Using various methods throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact or interaction with supernatural agencies such as ghost, spirits, gods, god-like-beings or the "will of the universe". Divination can be seen as an attempt to organize what appears to be random so that it provides insight into a problem or issue at hand. Some instruments or practices of divination include Tarot card reading, Tarot-card reading, Runic magic, rune casting, Tasseography, tea-leaf reading, automatic writing, water scrying, and psychedelics like psilocybin mushrooms and DMT. If a distinction is made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a more formal or ritualistic element and often contains a more social character, usually in a religion, religious context, as se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcus Junius Brutus
Marcus Junius Brutus (; ; 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC) was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, which was retained as his legal name. He is often referred to simply as Brutus. Early in his political career, Brutus opposed Pompey, who was responsible for Brutus' father's death. He also was close to Caesar. However, Caesar's attempts to evade accountability in the law courts put him at greater odds with his opponents in the Roman elite and the senate. Brutus eventually came to oppose Caesar and sided with Pompey against Caesar's forces during the ensuing civil war (49–45 BC). Pompey was defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48, after which Brutus surrendered to Caesar, who granted him amnesty. With Caesar's increasingly monarchical and autocratic behaviour after the civil war, several senators who later called themselves ''liberatores'' (liber ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gargantua And Pantagruel
''The Five Books of the Lives and Deeds of Gargantua and Pantagruel'' (), often shortened to ''Gargantua and Pantagruel'' or the (''Five Books''), is a pentalogy of novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais. It tells the adventures of two giants, Gargantua ( ; ) and his son Pantagruel ( ; ). The work is written in an amusing, extravagant, and satirical vein, features much erudition, vulgarity, and wordplay, and is regularly compared with the works of William Shakespeare and James Joyce. Rabelais was a polyglot, and the work introduced "a great number of new and difficult words ... into the French language". The work was stigmatised as obscene by the censors of the . In a social climate of increasing religious oppression in the lead up to the French Wars of Religion, contemporaries treated it with suspicion and avoided mentioning it.Le Cadet, Nicolas (2009). , Accessed 22 November 2010. It is the origin of the word " pantagruelism," meaning "burlesque co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxyrhynchus Papyri
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a group of manuscripts discovered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by papyrology, papyrologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient Landfill, rubbish dump near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt (, modern ''el-Bahnasa''). The manuscripts date from the time of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, Ptolemaic (3rd century BC) and Roman Empire, Roman periods of Egyptian history (from Final War of the Roman Republic, 32 BC to the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 640 AD). Only an estimated 10% are literary in nature. Most of the papyri found seem to consist mainly of public and private documents: codes, edicts, civil registration, registers, official correspondence, census-returns, tax-assessments, petitions, court of record, court-records, sales, leases, last will and testament, wills, bill (law), bills, Account (bookkeeping), accounts, inventories, horoscopes, and private letters. Although most of the papyri were written in Greek language, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macrinus
Marcus Opellius Macrinus (; – June 218) was a Roman emperor who reigned from April 217 to June 218, jointly with his young son Diadumenianus. Born in Caesarea (now called Cherchell, in modern Algeria), in the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis to an equestrian family of Berber origins, he became the first emperor who did not hail from the senatorial class and also the first emperor who never visited Rome during his reign. Before becoming emperor, Macrinus served under Emperor Caracalla as a praetorian prefect and dealt with Rome's civil affairs. He later conspired against Caracalla and had him murdered in a bid to protect his own life and succeeded Caracalla as emperor. Macrinus was proclaimed emperor of Rome by 11 April 217 while in the eastern provinces of the empire and was subsequently confirmed as such by the Senate; however, for the duration of his reign, he never had the opportunity to return to Rome. His predecessor's policies had left Rome's coffers empty and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo
Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, music and dance, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, the Sun and light, poetry, and more. One of the most important and complex of the Greek gods, he is the son of Zeus and Leto, and the twin brother of Artemis, goddess of the hunt. He is considered to be the most beautiful god and is represented as the ideal of the ''kouros'' (ephebe, or a beardless, athletic youth). Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as ''Apulu''. As the patron deity of Delphi (''Apollo Pythios''), Apollo is an oracular god—the prophetic deity of the Pythia, Delphic Oracle and also the deity of ritual purification. His oracles were often consulted for guidance in various matters. He was in general seen as the god who affords help and wards off e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latona
In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Leto (; ) is a childhood goddess, the daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, the sister of Asteria, and the mother of Apollo and Artemis.Hesiod, ''Theogony'404–409/ref> In the Olympian scheme, the king of gods Zeus is the father of her twins, Apollo and Artemis, whom Leto conceived after her hidden beauty accidentally caught the eye of Zeus. During her pregnancy, Leto sought for a place where she could give birth to Apollo and Artemis, since Hera, the wife of Zeus, in her jealousy, ordered all lands to shun her and deny her shelter. Hera is also the one to have sent the monstrous serpent Python and the giant Tityos against Leto to pursue and harm her. Leto eventually found an island, Delos, that was not joined to the mainland or attached to the ocean floor, therefore it was not considered land or island and she could give birth. In some stories, Hera further tormented Leto by delaying her labour, leaving Leto in agony for days bef ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey ( ) or Pompey the Great, was a Roman general and statesman who was prominent in the last decades of the Roman Republic. As a young man, he was a partisan and protégé of the dictator Sulla, after whose death he achieved much military and political success himself. He was an ally and a rival of Julius Caesar, and died in civil war with him. A member of the senatorial nobility, Pompey entered into a military career while still young. He rose to prominence serving Sulla as a commander in the civil war of 83–81 BC. Pompey's success as a general while young enabled him to advance directly to his first consulship without following the traditional '' cursus honorum'' (the required steps to advance in a political career). He was elected as consul on three occasions (70, 55, 52 BC). He celebrated three triumphs, served as a commander in the Sertorian War, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Pharsalus
The Battle of Pharsalus was the decisive battle of Caesar's Civil War fought on 9 August 48 BC near Pharsalus in Central Greece. Julius Caesar and his allies formed up opposite the army of the Roman Republic under the command of Pompey. Pompey had the backing of a majority of Roman senators and his army significantly outnumbered the veteran Caesarian legions. Pressured by his officers, Pompey reluctantly engaged in battle and suffered an overwhelming defeat, ultimately fleeing the camp and his men, disguised as an ordinary citizen. Eventually making his way to Egypt, he was assassinated upon his arrival at the order of Ptolemy XIII. Prelude Following the start of the Civil War, Caesar had captured Rome, forced Pompey and his allies to withdraw from Italy, and defeated Pompey's legates in Spain. In the campaign season for 48 BC, Caesar crossed the Adriatic and advanced on Dyrrachium. There, he besieged it, but was defeated. Caesar then withdrew east into Thess ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bibliomancy
Bibliomancy is the use of books in divination. The use of sacred books (especially specific words and verses) for "magical medicine", for removing negative entities, or for divination is widespread in many religions of the world. Terminology According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', the word ''bibliomancy'' (etymologically from and ) "divination by books, or by verses of the Bible" was first recorded in 1753 (''Chambers' Cyclopædia''). Sometimes this term is used synonymously with ''stichomancy'' (from ) "divination by lines of verse in books taken at hazard", which was first recorded (Thomas Urquhart, Urquhart's ''François Rabelais, Rabelais''). ''Bibliomancy'' compares with ''rhapsodomancy'' (from ) "divination by reading a random passage from a poem". A historical precedent was the ancient Roman practice of Sortes (ancient Rome), sortes ('cleromancy, sortilege, divination by drawing lots') which specialized into ''sortes Homericae'', ''sortes Virgilianae'', and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phthia
Phthia (; or Φθίη ''Phthía, Phthíē'') was a city or district in ancient Thessaly according to Greek mythology. In Literature It is frequently mentioned in Homer's ''Iliad'' as the home of the Myrmidons, the contingent led by Achilles in the Trojan War. It was founded by Aeacus, grandfather of Achilles, and was the home of Achilles' father Peleus, mother Thetis (a sea nymph), and son Neoptolemus (who reigned as king after the Trojan War). Phthia is referenced in Plato's '' Crito'', where Socrates, in jail and awaiting his execution, relates a dream he has had (43d–44b): "I thought that a beautiful and comely woman dressed in white approached me. She called me and said: 'Socrates, may you arrive at fertile Phthia on the third day. The reference is to Homer's ''Iliad'' (ix.363), when Achilles, upset at having his war-prize, Briseis, taken by Agamemnon, rejects Agamemnon's conciliatory presents and threatens to set sail in the morning; he says that with good weathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
