The Power of Signs. Divination, prediction, and the end of the Roman Republic

在过去的四十年里，共和国的罗马宗教一直是非常重要的研究对象，尤其是（尽管不是唯一的）英语学术研究。共和党晚期宗教在统治政治舞台的专制势力的压力下衰落的传统模式，以及希腊文化的到来所产生的怀疑主义，已被证明是错误的，并且提出了更复杂的解释，以理解这一时期的宗教变化和多元化。现在很清楚的是，在共和后期的罗马和意大利，宗教是一种多样而活跃的现象，在政治层面和当时的社会意识中保持着深刻的重要性。这不仅适用于罗马民众中的非精英阶层，也适用于政治和社会精英阶层，他们长期以来一直被认为主要是不抱幻想和愤世嫉俗的。我们需要一种更细致的方法，一种考虑到问题复杂性和各种可能解决方案的方法。在英语中没有关于罗马占卜的专著，其他语言的研究要么过时，要么在许多方面令人不满意。最重要的是，没有对罗马占卜进行全面的研究，根据最近的方法发展来分析它，并试图在罗马共和国晚期更广泛的知识生活背景下理解它。关于占卜的批判性讨论，它的潜力和职权范围，与关于未来在多大程度上可以预测和控制的辩论密不可分。简而言之，对“divinatio”（“占卜”）的理解与对“ratio”（“reason”）的探索密切相关。这些概念发展的最清晰概述的古代著作是西塞罗的哲学对话，《论占卜》，写于公元前45年至44年。本书的第一部分提供了一个全面的重新考虑这项工作：它的结构，它的预期目标，以及它在公元前一世纪中期的智力辩论中的地位。对西塞罗论述的讨论将分析导向两个方向：实践研究和概念研究。书的第二部分是罗马和意大利占卜的主要来源的历史调查：占卜，占卜，西比林书，占星术，和牧师。第三部分是对占卜和预测概念的研究（特别强调“prudence”——“预见”——和“divinatio”——“占卜”），西塞罗用非常成功的术语定义了这些概念，并被当时的其他作者讨论过。占卜和预言的关系比人们通常认为的要密切得多。历史因果关系的概念如何与对占卜的反思相结合，如何与历史因果关系的概念相结合，如何与历史因果关系的概念相结合，以及如何与衰落思想相结合，提供了一个有趣的有利位置：因此，注意力转向文学体体学，如书信学，传记学和史学，对萨洛斯特和李维的研究是这一调查的重要组成部分。当然，对共和政体衰落的反思与共和政体的政治危机有很大关系。奥古斯都开始恢复稳定和秩序，结束不仅是政治上的，而且是道德上的衰落。奥古斯都时代的文化深深关注预言和占卜的问题（维吉尔的《埃涅阿斯纪》是一个有趣的案例研究）。最重要的是，罗马皇帝对占卜在罗马政治和社会中的地位进行了重大的重新定义，将公共和私人占卜实践置于他的控制和赞助之下。

Roman religion in the Republic has been the object of very important work in the last four decades, especially (though not exclusively) in the English-speaking scholarship. The traditional model of a late Republican religion declining under the pressure of the autocratic forces that dominated the political arena and the scepticism generated by the coming of Greek culture has been proven wrong, and more sophisticated accounts have been suggested for the understanding of religious change and pluralism in this period. It is now clear that religion in late Republican Rome and Italy was a diverse and lively phenomenon, which retained deep importance at the political level and in the social conscience of the time. This is true not just for the non-elite sectors of the Roman populace, but for the political and social elite too, which has long been regarded as mainly disenchanted and cynical. A more nuanced approach is required, one that takes into account the complexity of the picture and the variety of possible solutions. There is no monograph on Roman divination in English, and the studies available in other languages are either outdated or in many respects unsatisfactory. Most importantly, there is no comprehensive study of Roman divination setting out to analyse it in light of recent methodological developments and which tries to understand it within the wider context of the intellectual life in the late Roman Republic. The critical discussion of divination, its potential and its remit, was inextricably intertwined with the debate on the extent to which the future may be predicted and controlled. To put it with a brief formula, the understanding of 'divinatio' ('divination') was closely associated to the exploration of 'ratio' ('reason').The ancient work in which these conceptual developments are outlined most clearly is a philosophical dialogue by Cicero, the 'de divinatione' ('On divination), written between 45 and 44 BC. The first part of the book offers a full reconsideration of this work: its structure, its intended aims, and its place in the intellectual debate of the mid-first century BC. The discussion of Cicero's treatise directs the analysis in two directions: the study of practices, and the study of concepts. The second section of the book is an historical survey of the main sources of divination in Rome and Italy: augury, haruspicy, the Sibylline Books, astrology, and cleromancy. The third part is a study of the concepts of divination and prediction (with special emphasis on 'prudentia' - 'foresight' - and 'divinatio' - 'divination'), which were defined in very successful terms by Cicero and were discussed by other authors at the time. Divination and prediction were much more closely related than it has often been argued. An interesting vantage point is provided by how the concept of historical causation is combined to the reflection on divination, and with that of historical causation is combined by that of divination, and with that of the ideas of decline: attention is therefore turned to literary genres like epistolography, biography, and historiography, and the study of Sallust and Livy is an important part of this investigation. The reflection on the decline of the Republic has much to do, of course, with the political crisis of the Republican regime. Augustus set out to restore stability and order, and an end to a decline which was not just political, but also moral. The culture of the Augustan age is deeply concerned with issues of prediction and divination (Virgil's 'Aeneid' is an interesting case study). Most importantly, the emperor undertook a major redefinition of the place of divination in Roman politics and society, which put public and private divinatory practices under his control and patronage.