Diviners and Divination in the Roman Empire

FAIN: FA-52711-06

William E. Klingshirn
Catholic University of America (Washington, DC 20064-0001)

This project is designed to complete a monograph on diviners and divination in the Roman empire. It studies interactions between diviners and clients; links between divination and empire; the historiography of divination; attacks on divination; and changes in divinatory practice. The book begins in the 1st century BCE with Cicero's "De Divinatione." Chapters 1-5 cover the following three centuries, when a wide range of specialized diviners practiced across the empire. Chapters 6-8 examine changes in late antiquity that led to the marginalization of diviners, Christian adaptations of divination, and the continuation of traditional specialties where remnants of the empire persisted. A prosopography of diviners will be included as an appendix.