Haruspice

A haruspice or haruspex (of the Etruscan haru , entrails and spicio , I look at), transcribes haruspex in Latin, was a Etruscan Devin which examined the entrails of an animal sacrificed to draw some from predict as for the future.

Haruspices of Étrurie were consulted into private during all the duration of the Roman Empire. The Roman Sénat held the “Etruscan discipline” in great consideration and consulted the haruspices before making a decision. The emperor Claude studied the Etruscan Langue, learned how to read it, and created a “College” of 60 haruspices which existed until in 408. Those offered their services to Pompéianus, Préfet of Rome, to save the city of the attack of the Goths; the Innocent Christian bishop, although reticent, accepted this proposal, provided that the rites remain secret. As one knows, their practice hardly had effect on the invasions. It however lasted throughout the 6th century after J. - C.

In the Antiquity, the haruspice interpreted the divine will while reading in the entrails of a sacrificed animal. The animal was ritually cut down; the haruspice could then examine the size, the form, the color, the distinguishing marks of certain bodies, generally the liver, which one found bronze models of didactic use of this type of divination, such that of Plaisance in Étrurie, but there exists also a specimen hittite coming from Boghazkoi, and a Babylonian version . Lastly, when the animal had been cut down, the meat roast and was divided between the participants in the ceremony during a Banquet. The body divided into four parts corresponding to the four cardinal points, each one among it represented the residence of certain divinities, called upon, which the officiant asked for the intercession in the human businesses.

It seems that there never were women in the college of the haruspices, nor to have ever exerted this function. There were on the other hand Stryge S, i.e. Sorcière S; those, as to it the Metamorphoses testify to Apulée, particularly many, and were considered, in Thessalie. Certain magicians, such Circé or Médée, or the Pythie of Delphes remained famous. One of the most known soothsayers of Antiquity was Calchas, being reproduced here on the illustration whose original is exposed to the museum of Vulci. Tirésias, quoted by Homère, was one also.

They were perceived like charlatans as of the republican time; Caton said of it that “ two haruspices cannot be looked without laughing ”.

The various practices having remained until our days using the marc of coffee and other processes similar are not other than one survival, having lost its original significance, of a whole of rites probably going back to the Préhistoire, and been dependant on a chamanic practical .

See too

Etruscan Mythology
Etruscan Civilization

Dominique Briquel , Remarks on the Etruscan sacrifice in the Festival - the meeting of the gods and the men, coll Kubaba, ED. Harmattan, 2000.

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