Sortes Vergilianae
Ever since ancient times, it's been widely believed that it's possible to use the text of Vergil's Aeneid to foretell the future. The practice is called the sortes Vergilianae.
What you do: think of a question about future events in your life, then open the Aeneid to a random page. The first passage that catches your eye will provide the answer to your question.
Of course, the practice is little known today. Instead, we've got the Magic 8 Ball. Someone should make a version of the Magic 8 Ball that would offer up lines from Vergil.
More details from A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel:
What you do: think of a question about future events in your life, then open the Aeneid to a random page. The first passage that catches your eye will provide the answer to your question.
Of course, the practice is little known today. Instead, we've got the Magic 8 Ball. Someone should make a version of the Magic 8 Ball that would offer up lines from Vergil.
More details from A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel:
Comments
The Bible was also used in this fashion.
Posted by eddi on 11/27/24 at 04:22 AM
It''s hardly ancient, given than Vergilius was writing in post-classical Roman times.
Posted by Richard Bos on 11/30/24 at 06:51 AM
The Aeneid was written between 29 BCE and 19 BCE, which to my way of thinking qualifies as ancient. I studied the Aeneid in high school Latin class and can still recite a line or two 50+ years later (yes, I too am ancient). Arma virumque cano...
Posted by ges on 11/30/24 at 05:40 PM
According to my dictionary, ancient history is the history of the Mediterranean and near east up to the fall of the western Roman Empire in the 5th C. But yeah, the Roman empire is much less ancient than Homeric times, so a bit odd they all get lumped in together.
Posted by Alex on 12/01/24 at 11:21 AM
@Alex: not by literary historians, they don't. Ancient Roman literature is sparse, but it's things like Plautus, Cato the Elder, and the Sibylline books. Aeneas - and Cicero, and Caesar, and that scoundrel Catullus - wrote during the Classical period, and the difference between those groups is quite markable. After that the transitions get less clear, but let's call it Imperial Roman literature, or post-Classical. After that, it's Mediæval, and let's just say that whether we count Chaucer's beloved Boece as late Imperial or the first of the Mediæval writers is arguable either way.
Similarly in Greece, no historian lumps Homer in with Lucian of Samosata. In fact, even Classical Greek authors considered Homer to be ancient - and they were right: he, and Sappho, and Hesiod and Alkman, wrote in a very different style than the likes of Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Herodotos.
It's almost like lumping the Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare and even Samuel Pepys together under the name of "Ye Olde Englisshe". Which the random public, I'm sorry to say, does, but nobody in the know does. Beowulf *is* Old English - or Anglo-Saxon, take your pick - and it is indeed impossible to read without serious study. Chaucer? I'm not a native speaker, but helped by a bit of Dutch and a dictionary every now and then, I can read Middle English with very little problem and a very great deal of enjoyment. The difference is *quite* noticeable. Shakespeare is Modern English! Early Modern English, but essentially - in grammar, if you ignore the poetic license, and in most of the vocabulary - modern English. And Pepys? If anyone thinks Pepys didn't write in Modern English, I invite you over to https://www.pepysdiary.com/ and have a look for yourself.
And so it is with Latin, and Greek, and I presume Persian and Chinese and so forth.
#ges... Laviniaque venit littora. And that's where I stopped memorising.
Similarly in Greece, no historian lumps Homer in with Lucian of Samosata. In fact, even Classical Greek authors considered Homer to be ancient - and they were right: he, and Sappho, and Hesiod and Alkman, wrote in a very different style than the likes of Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Herodotos.
It's almost like lumping the Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare and even Samuel Pepys together under the name of "Ye Olde Englisshe". Which the random public, I'm sorry to say, does, but nobody in the know does. Beowulf *is* Old English - or Anglo-Saxon, take your pick - and it is indeed impossible to read without serious study. Chaucer? I'm not a native speaker, but helped by a bit of Dutch and a dictionary every now and then, I can read Middle English with very little problem and a very great deal of enjoyment. The difference is *quite* noticeable. Shakespeare is Modern English! Early Modern English, but essentially - in grammar, if you ignore the poetic license, and in most of the vocabulary - modern English. And Pepys? If anyone thinks Pepys didn't write in Modern English, I invite you over to https://www.pepysdiary.com/ and have a look for yourself.
And so it is with Latin, and Greek, and I presume Persian and Chinese and so forth.
#ges... Laviniaque venit littora. And that's where I stopped memorising.
Posted by Richard Bos on 12/07/24 at 07:54 AM
#Richard Bos:
(1) Woahhh.
(2) ... Laviniaque venit littora, multum ille et terris jactatus et alto vi superum, saevae memorem Junonis ob iram. Multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem, inferretque deos Latio. Genus unde Latinum, AL BA NI que PATRES, atque AL TAE MOE nia ROOOOO MAEEEEE! *Gasp*
(1) Woahhh.
(2) ... Laviniaque venit littora, multum ille et terris jactatus et alto vi superum, saevae memorem Junonis ob iram. Multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem, inferretque deos Latio. Genus unde Latinum, AL BA NI que PATRES, atque AL TAE MOE nia ROOOOO MAEEEEE! *Gasp*
Posted by Dr. Fian on 12/11/24 at 09:53 AM
Category: Predictions | Ancient Times