VII
Now in order to justify the proposition that the study of Human Physiognomy, as developed among the Greeks and Romans and as passed on to others with its insistence on the fancied resemblance between man and animals as a leading and indeed as a fundamental factor, is to be directly carried back to the birth-omens of Babylonia and Assyria, we ought to be able to establish that among Greeks and Romans the abnormalities observed at the birth of infants and of the young of animals were really regarded as omens, and that such omens show a sufficient affinity to what we find among Babylonians and Assyrians to warrant the conclusion that, just as Hepatoscopy and Astrology came to the Greeks and Romans through influences emanating from the Euphrates Valley, so also the third large division of divination methods may be traced to the same source. Let us first take up the Romans for which the material at our disposal is so much more abundant.
Julius Obsequens, a writer whose exact date has not yet been determined, collected in his famous Liber de Prodigiis[164] all the omens that had been noted during a certain period of Roman history. He enumerates in all 72 covering the years 55 to 132 A. D. and the list itself is an instructive commentary on the attention that was paid to ‘signs’ of all kinds among the Romans as an index of the will and the intention of the gods. We find references to such phenomena as a rain of stones,—presumably hail stones—of oil, blood and milk—apparently allusions to volcanic eruptions, disguised in somewhat fanciful language—of the sun seen at night—perhaps a description of an eclipse when to a frightened populace it might appear as though night had suddenly set in—of blood appearing in rivers and of milk in lakes—no doubt a pollution of some kind due perhaps to masses of earth or to glacial deposits pouring into the river—to burning torches in the heavens—probably comets with long tails—and more the like, all indicative of the unbridled play of popular fancy and showing that among the Romans, as among Babylonians and Assyrians, all unusual occurrences were looked upon as omens—portending some unusual happenings. Now among the 72 signs of Julius Obsequens there are quite a number of actual birth-omens, the character of which is so close to what we find in the collections of the bârû priests as to show a practical identity in the points of view. So we are told of several instances of a mule (supposed to be sterile) giving birth to a young (§ 65), in one case even to triplets (§ 15), in another to a young with five feet (§ 27). For the year 83 he records among various remarkable occurrences all regarded as omens, the birth of a colt with five feet (§ 24); two years in succession a two-headed calf (§ 31-32). Very much as in the Babylonian-Assyrian collections we read (§ 14) of a sow giving birth to a young with the hands and feet of a man. Among human monstrosities, our author records the case of a boy with three feet and one hand (§ 20), with one hand (§ 52), a boy with a closed anus (§ 26, 40), with four feet, four eyes and four ears and with double genital members (§ 25). Several instances are given of androgynous infants (§ 22, 32 and 36). Twins born at Nursia in the year 100 are described as follows, ‘the girl with all parts intact, the boy with the upper part of the belly open, revealing the intestines[165], the anus closed, and speaking as he expired’ (§ 40). The talking infant is a not infrequent phenomenon[166]. In the following year the birth of a boy who said ‘ave’ is recorded (§ 41). Again, as in the collections of the bârû priests[167], we read (§ 57) of a woman giving birth to a serpent.
To these birth-omens further examples can be added from that inexhaustible storehouse of encyclopaedic knowledge, the Natural History of Pliny the Younger who, among other things, tells us (Hist. Nat. VII 3) of a woman Alcippa who gave birth to a child with the head of an elephant[168]. Valerius Maximus in his de Dictis Factisque Memorabilibus devotes a chapter to Prodigia[169] of the same miscellaneous character as the collection of Julius Obsequens—many in fact identical—among which by the side of rivers flowing with blood, talking oxen who utter words of warning[170], rain of stones, mysterious voices, we also find birth-omens such as the speaking infant and the child with an elephant’s head[171]. Suetonius[172] tells us that Caesar’s horse had human feet and that the Haruspices—the Etruscan augurs—declared it to be an omen that the world would one day belong to Caesar. We see, therefore, that among the Romans birth-omens were regarded from the same point of view as among the Babylonians and Assyrians and that the interpretation of the omens was the concern of a special class who acted as diviners. Now the question may properly be put at this juncture, whether we are in a position to trace the actual interpretation of birth-omens among the Romans back to the Babylonian-Assyrian bârû-priests? To this question, I think an affirmative answer may unhesitatingly be given. We have in the first place the testimony of Cicero[173], as well as other writers[174] that the Etruscans who are described as skilled in all kinds of divination were especially versed in the interpretation of malformations among infants and among the young of animals. Cicero emphasizes more particularly by the side of birth-omens, divination through the sacrificial animal and through phenomenen in the heavens, thus giving us the same three classes that we find among Babylonians and Assyrians. Since Hepatoscopy and Astrology among Greeks and Romans can be traced back directly to Babylonia and Assyria[175], the presumption is in favor of the thesis that the Etruscan augurs derived their birth-omens also from the same source. The character of the specimens that we have of the Etruscan interpretations of birth-omens strengthens this presumption. So, e. g., Cicero preserves the wording of such a birth-omen[176] which presents a perfect parallel to what we find in the collections of the Babylonian-Assyrian bârû priests, to wit, that if a woman gives birth to a lion, it is an indication that the state will be vanquished by an enemy. If we compare with this a statement in a Babylonian-Assyrian text dealing with birth-omens[177], vis.:
‘If a woman gives birth to a lion, that city will be taken, the king will be imprisoned’,
it will be admitted that the coincidence is too close to be accidental. The phraseology, resting upon the resemblance between man and animals, is identical. The comparison of an infant to a lion, as of a new-born lamb to a lion is characteristic of the Babylonian-Assyrian divination texts and even the form of the omen, stating that the woman actually gave birth to a lion is the same in both while the basis of interpretation—the lion pointing to an exercise of strength—is likewise identical. Ordinarily the resemblance of the feature of an infant to that of a lion points to increased power on the part of the king of the country, but in the specific case, the omen is unfavorable also in the Babylonian text. It is the enemy who will develop power, so that the agreement between the Babylonian and Etruscan omen extends even to the exceptional character of the interpretation in this particular instance.
In the same passage[178], Cicero refers to the two-fold interpretation given for the case of a girl born with two heads, one that there will be revolt among the people, the other that the marriage tie will be broken. We thus have two interpretations, one bearing on the public weal, the other on private affairs, corresponding to the frequent combination of ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ interpretations in the collections of the bârû-priests[179]. The specific interpretations are again of the same character as we find in the Babylonian-Assyrian texts, ‘revolt’[180] being in fact one of the most common, while the other corresponds to the phrase ‘no unity among man and wife’ found in the texts above discussed[181]. It so happens that in the case of the birth of a two-headed girl we have both the ‘official’ and the ‘unofficial’ interpretation, namely, ‘No union between man and wife and diminution of the land’[182]—forming a really remarkable parallel to the Etruscan omen.
Further testimony to the parallelism between Etruscan and Babylonian-Assyrian methods of divination in the case of birth-omens is born by an interesting passage in the Annals of Tacitus (XV, 47) that two-headed children or two-headed young of animals were interpreted by the Haruspices as pointing to an approaching change of dynasty and to the appearance of a weak ruler. Again, therefore, prognostications that present a complete parallel to what we find in the Babylonian-Assyrian texts[183].
Macrobius[184] preserves an Etruscan interpretation of a birth-omen relating to the color of newly born lambs. A purple or golden color of the lamb points to good luck. This ‘purple’ color corresponds to the term sâmu frequently occurring in Babylonian-Assyrian omen texts and which is generally rendered ‘dark red’[185]. In the collections of the bârû-priests, many references are found to the colors of the young animals and among these we have as a complete parallel to the statement in Macrobius the following[186]:
[If an ewe] gives birth to a young of dark-red color,—good fortune[187].
Lastly, the terms used to describe all kinds of malformations—monstra and prodigia[188], i. e., phenomena that ‘point’ to something show a parallel conception to the Babylonian-Assyrian viewpoint that abnormality in the case of the young of animals and of infants are primarily signs sent to indicate unusual events that would shortly happen.
That the Greeks also attached an importance to malformations, may be concluded from Aristotle’s protest[189] against the supposition that a woman can give birth to an infant with the features of some animal[190], or that an animal can give birth to a young with human features. Such resemblances, he asserts, are merely superficial and he endeavors to account for them as for all malformations in a scientific manner, as due to an insufficient control of the fructifying matter which prevents a normal development of the embryo. While Aristotle does not directly refer to the belief that malformations and monstrosities were looked upon by Greeks as omens, the emphatic manner in which he states that abnormalities cannot be against nature but only against the ordinary course of nature[191] indicates that he is polemicizing against a view which looked upon such anomalies as contrary to nature, and presumably regarded them, therefore, from the same point of view as did the Babylonians and Etruscans. We have a direct proof for this view however, in Valerius Maximus, who includes in his list of prodigia birth-omens recorded among the Greeks, such as a mare giving birth to a hare at the time that Xerxes was planning his invasion of Greece which was regarded as an omen of the coming event[192], or again an infant with malformation of the mouth[193]. Herodotus[194] records as another sign at the time of Xerxes’ contemplated invasion of Greece a mule giving birth to a chicken with double genital organs, male and female, which is clearly again a birth omen. A further proof is furnished in a passage in Aelian[195], which reports that an ewe in the herd of Nikippos gave birth to a lion and that this was regarded as an omen prognosticating that Nikippos, who at the time was a simple citizen, would become the ruler of the island. It will be recalled that this birth-omen—the ewe giving birth to a lion—is not only of special frequency, in the omen series of Babylonia and Assyria[196], but is part of the conventional divinatory phraseology of these texts, while the interpretation based on the association of the lion with power forms a complete and verbal parallel to the system devised by the bârû-priests. The fact that the birth-omen is reported as occurring at Cos is rather interesting, because it was there that Berosus, who brought Babylonian Astrology to the Greeks, settled and opened his school for instruction in the divinatory methods of the bârû-priests. We are, therefore, justified in looking upon this circumstance as a link connecting birth-omens among Greek settlements with influences, emanating directly from the civilization of the Euphrates Valley. As another proof of the spread of Babylonian-Assyrian divination in other parts of the ancient world, we may point to the story reported by Herodotus[197] of a concubine of King Meles of Sardis who gave birth to a lion, and of the tale found in Cicero as well as in Herodotus[198], of the speaking infant of king Croesus of Lydia which was interpreted as an omen of the coming destruction of the kingdom and of the royal house. Here, again, we find (a) the familiar phraseology resting upon the supposed resemblance between man and animals and (b) the agreement in the interpretation of the anomaly of an infant capable of speaking—a birth-omen of particularly ominous significance[199]. Bearing in mind the discovery of clay models of livers with inscriptions revealing the terminology of Babylonian-Assyrian Hepatoscopy in the Hittite centre Boghaz-Kewi[200] and which definitely establishes the spread of this division of Babylonian-Assyrian Divination to Asia Minor, it is quite in keeping with what we would have a right to expect, to come across traces of Babylonian-Assyrian birth-omens in this same general region. That the Etruscans are to be traced back to Asia Minor is a thesis that is now so generally accepted as to justify us in regarding it as definitely established[201]. Hepatoscopy and Birth-omens thus followed the same course in passing from the distant East to the West. We may sum up our thesis in the general statement that Babylonian divination made its way from Babylonia to Assyria, subsequently spread to Asia Minor and through the mediation of Hittites and Etruscans came to the Greeks and Romans[202]. The same is the case with Astrology so far as the Romans were concerned, for whom the Etruscans again represent the mediators, while the Greeks appear to have obtained their knowledge of Babylonian-Assyrian Astrology through the direct contact between Greece and Euphratean culture, leading to a mutual exchange of views and customs.