Through Lavater the study of Physiognomy was thrown back on the scrutiny of human features, and the determination of a man’s character by a direct method and without recourse to comparisons with the features of animals. In thus removing, however, what had been one of the props of the study of Human Physiognomy, Lavater shook the foundation of the study itself. With the advent of modern medicine, the study of Physiognomy was dethroned from the place that it had so long occupied and was relegated to the pseudo-sciences—an interesting and in many respects a suggestive intellectual discipline, but not a science. As a recent writer tersely puts it ‘The physiognomical feeling and sensation will never die out among people, for the roots lie deep in human nature. It is erroneous, however, to attempt to construct a science out of it’[162].
The thought, however, of endeavoring to determine the character of an individual by a study of the peculiarities and striking indications of his features would never have arisen, but for the antecedent beliefs that gave to the observation of birth-omens so prominent a place among methods of divination. Corresponding to the emphasis laid upon the individual factor when Babylonian-Assyrian Astrology passed to the Greeks and which led to ‘Genethlialogy’ or the casting of the individual horoscope as the chief phase of astrology, in contradistinction to the exclusive bearing of astrology in its native haunt on the general welfare[163], the Babylonian-Assyrian system of divination through the study of birth-omens received an individualistic aspect upon passing to the Greeks and Romans, by leading to the study of human features as a means of determining the character of an individual; and with the character also the prognostication of the fate in store for him during his earthly career. In other words, the rise of the study of Human Physiognomy finds a natural explanation, if we assume that it takes its rise from a system of divination based on the observation of peculiarities noted at the time of birth. It was natural when divination methods were employed to forecast the future of the individual, that the thought should arise of a close relationship between the features of an individual and his personality, which would include the powers and qualities bestowed on him, and which determine his actions and the experiences he will encounter. The fact that in this pseudo-science of Physiognomy, the comparison between man and animals played so significant a part among Greek and Roman Physiognomists and through them among the scientists of Europe till almost to the threshold of the modern movement in science, adds an additional force to the thesis here set forth. Such a method of determining the traits possessed by an individual, and which was the keynote of Human Physiognomy till the days of Lavater, would not have maintained so strong a hold on thinkers and on the masses had it arisen in connection with the study itself. It was embodied into the study of Human Physiognomy as an integral part of it, because it represented an established tradition. The Babylonian-Assyrian birth-omens in which this very comparison between man and animals forms so important a factor furnish the natural conditions for the rise of the tradition, while the long range of time covered by the Babylonian-Assyrian birth-omens supply the second factor needed to account for the persistency of the tradition after it had passed beyond the confines within which it arose.
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.