Vol. 1, No. 1, Fall 2002

In Stoic philosophy at the time of Augustus, the meanings of human events were believed to be discernible through knowledge of the rules that governed nature and the cosmos. "Because [the rational spirit] was present in all creatures," Ogilvie writes "there was a common understanding between the different parts of the universe which caused one event to be reflected in another. Hence there was nothing implausible about supposing 'that the divine providence could be reproduced in a sheep's liver or the flight of birds.'"(20) Entrails, in particular, were an important resource to haruspices who sought to divine the state of the cosmos.

Divisions of the liver corresponded to divisions of the heavens, and all related to cosmic and terrestrial order.(22)

[page 65] A navigation through philosophical accounts of other writers at the time of Seneca also yields a network of statements that indicate the presence and legitimacy of divination practices in the Roman Republic and Empire. Marcus Tullius Cicero's The Nature of the Gods (which predates Seneca's work by a half-century) contains a dialogue between Cotta, Velleius, Lucilius, and Balbus on matters concerning religion and the deities.(23) While it should not be treated as an unproblematic window into Seneca's thought, Cicero's text does include Stoic discourse in the voice of Balbus. This is particularly the case in the four characters' discussion of divination, which Cotta designates as one of the two categories of religion.(24) Whereas Velleius maintains that Epicurus has rid Romans of such superstition,(25) Balbus, argues that the gods created and gave birds and other animals to humans for the purpose of omens and signs of things to come. They are meant for man and only man can unlock the significance of the signs. The gift of prophecy is the best example of "proof that divine providence concerns itself with the welfare of man."(26) Cotta, held to be the closest in sentiment to Cicero himself, answers Balbus directly:

Though Cotta will not directly reject divination as a sign of the existence of the gods, he will not subscribe to it until he determines its origins.(28) Furthermore, Cicero argues that human error will always remain a factor in divination, so the practice may only be as reliable as medical diagnoses, or (elsewhere) nautical predictions.

The stoic position as put forth by Balbus in Cicero's dialogue, then, is that divination is the means by which humans may interpret the signs given to them by the gods. This is then undercut by Cotta's emphasis on human error and ultimate unreliability of the interpretation of signs from the gods. Cicero cites a somewhat different Stoic viewpoint on divination by entrails, however, in book I, chapter lii, of his de divinatione: "The Stoics will not allow that the Deity can be interested in each cleft in entrails, or in the chirping of birds. They affirm that such interference is altogether indecorous, unworthy of the majesty of the gods and an incredible impossibility."(29) Here Cicero's text conflicts with both Balbus' words, and Ogilvie's assertion that Stoics held divination of entrails in high regard. Whereas Ogilvie states that the Stoics believed the liver could be examined as a microcosm of the universe, the statement in Cicero denies that entrails merit the notice of the gods.

Despite disparate accounts on the Stoic's regard for animal entrails and their relative adequacy as receptacles for divine messages, the presence of statements on this facet of divination in the writings of Cicero and others indicates that the practice was a prominent part of Roman religion. Furthermore, there is a suggestion in the opening of Cicero's de devinatione that the author holds Roman divination practices to be more rational and advanced than that of [page 67] the Greeks. Cicero contrasts the etymology of the Roman word for the practice, stemming from Divis, having to do with gods, while the Greek word comes form the word for madness. He separates divination as ritualistic art and divination by mere observation of nature or visions. The former, he writes, is more reliable, as it is based on observation and reason. The latter is more concerned with frenzy and dreams. Perceived in this light, it is possible to suggest that Seneca's selection of divination practices for dramatic treatment in Oedipus exemplified the Roman improvement of Greek practices. In other words, Seneca was one-upping the Greeks by making Tiresias a rational, observant augur, rather than a frenzied prophet who gets his answers from birds.

However, as far as Seneca's own views on the matter of divination by entrails, the author is reticent in all writings but his tragedies. As a Stoic philosopher, Seneca may have located the order of animals' livers and entrails within the correspondent levels of the cosmos as outlined in a general Stoic cosmology. Such a general cosmology, though, cannot be taken for granted, given the range of interpretations of the Stoic position, even within the writings of a single author like Cicero.

While Seneca's views on divination specifically by the examination of animal entrails are not to be found, the author does consider divination by natural phenomenon in his Naturales quaestiones:

According to Thomas G. Rosenmeyer, Stoics in first century Rome believed errors in divination were due to the misinterpretation of signs, rather than their unreliability. Seneca's reluctance to place total trust in divination suggests a suspicion of humanity's ability to read the future by [page 68] examination of natural phenomena.(31) If the account of the divination ritual in Oedipus was informed by the notion of human fallibility, perhaps Seneca was foregrounding error or unreliability in the scene. Tiresias' blindness and necessary intervention by Manto add further degrees of separation from a divine message in its unmediated form. Thus, Tiresias is denied access to the identity of Laius' killer not because the signs are inadequate, but because the prophet lacks the necessary facilities to interpret them. Therefore, the scene functions structurally within a narrative of the unraveling of a mystery–giving clues, but not revealing the solution. As philosophical or religious commentary, Seneca may have been registering his own sentiments concerning divination by entrails, possibly vis-à-vis those of Cicero. The practice is legitimate in discerning information or the will of the gods, but may only be trusted as far as human ability.

One may argue that the description of the disordered entrails of the bull and heifer in Act II is only one of many gruesome scenes in Oedipus, which similarly seem at first glance to exist solely for shock value. For example, there is Creon's account of the oracle in the grove scene in which a ghastly Laius, still bleeding from his wounds rises to condemn his son. Jocasta commits suicide on stage by stabbing herself in the womb in revulsion for giving birth to her own "grandchildren." Oedipus, after blinding himself, continues to claw at the empty sockets, tearing away "the last remaining shreds/Left of the raggedly uprooted eyes."(32) Why, then, does the divination scene merit separate analysis from the other the bloody sequences? My argument does not concern whether Seneca had a "fascination" with the macabre or the grotesque. What I hope to have shown is that dismissal of such scenes as mere horror, or naïve treatment of what was later to receive fullest enunciation in Shakespeare, is not a responsible scholarly act. Neither the trajectory of evolution toward Shakespeare nor degeneration of the Greeks do Seneca's work justice. Each makes the Roman text speak with a twentieth century sensitivity and nostalgia–either for the more perfect Greek model, or for the catalyst that prompted Shakespeare's emergence after a dry spell in the history of dramatic literature. By relegating Oedipus and the other Senecan tragedies to these categories, they are left to function only as a link in a chain of degeneration or primitive origin. I propose, instead, a reexamination of these [page 69] scenes, through continual resituation within the context of Seneca's world and society, which was inseparably wrapped up in the religion of the time.

The divination scene in Act II of Oedipus is a moment that voices the language of intelligibility of first-century Rome. By appropriating the Greek myth and inserting a scene concerning Roman divination practices, Seneca engaged in a strategy to stabilize a belief system. The scene indicates to what extent divination was a very real way to show that the order in the cosmos was in flux and could be measured by practitioners like Tiresias and Manto in order to maintain stability. Furthermore, as philosopher, Seneca turns a critical eye upon the particular divination practices in circulation at the time of his dramatic activity. In Oedipus, he examines the role of Tiresias as haruspex, and tempers the position that divination was a legitimate means for understanding the cosmos with a cautionary element of human fallibility and weakness. The inability of Tiresias and Manto to discern the identity of Laius' killer is not evidence for the scene's lack of contribution to the development of the plot. Rather, the scene's inclusion posits that the disorder of nature was directly proportionate to the disorder in the moral laws and stability of the people, especially kings. In the face of such profound disarray, the characters determine that the cosmic order had been upset by something far worse than the killing of the king. It would appear, then, that the divination scene is about more than mere spectacle. It therefore merits more historiographically responsible treatment than relegation to comparative analysis with Greek or Elizabethan tragedy. Oedipus and Seneca, both, deserve another look.

Endnotes