Reading entrails
Priests and seers examined the organs of sacrificed animals for messages from the gods.
How to run a farm
Cato the Elder, On Farming (mid-second century BCE), in the edition of Georg Goetz after Heinrich Keil (Leipzig, 1922) · mid-second century BCE, late in Cato’s life
rationem cum domino crebro putet. operarium, mercennarium, politorem diutius eundem ne habeat die. nequid emisse velit insciente domino, neu quid dominum celavisse velit. parasitum nequem habeat. haruspicem, augurem, hariolum, Chaldaeum nequem consuluisse velit. segetem ne defrudet: nam id infelix est. opus rusticum omne curet uti sciat facere, et id faciat saepe, dum ne lassus fiat:
He must go over the accounts with the master often. He must not keep the same day laborer, hired hand, or cultivator for more than a day. He must not buy anything without the master’s knowledge, or hide anything from the master. He must not keep any hangers-on. He must not consult any diviner, augur, fortune-teller, or astrologer. He must not cheat the crop [of seed or care], for that brings bad luck. He must make sure he knows how to do every kind of farm work, and he must do it often, but not so much that he wears himself out.
The Plague at My Country House, and a Life for a Life
Aelius Aristides, Sacred Tales II and V · early 170s CE (plague events of the mid-160s, probably 165 or 166)
ἐδόκουν ἱερεῖόν τι τεθυκὼς ἐπισκοπεῖσθαι τόν τε δὴ θεὸν, οἶμαι, καλούμενον καὶ λυτῆρα, καί τινος τῶν μάντεων ἐπελθόντος πυνθάνεσθαι τί βούλοιτο ὁ λυτὴρ, πότερον καθάπαξ λύοι τι ἢ μικρότερον ἀντὶ μείζονος ποιοίη καὶ ἀναβολῆς εἴη σημεῖον.
I dreamed I had sacrificed an animal and was inspecting the part of it called, I think, "the god" and also "the Releaser." One of the seers came up, and I asked what the Releaser meant. Would it release something for good? Or would it take something smaller in place of something greater, as a sign of delay?
κεφάλαιον δʼ ἦν, ὡς ἐν αὐτῷ τῷ σώματι τῆς Φιλουμένης καὶ τοῖς ἐντὸς, ὥσπερ ἐν σπλάγχνοις ἱερείων, ἐγγεγραμμένου παντὸς τοῦ περὶ αὐτὴν πράγματος.
The main point was this: the whole story about her was written in Philumene's own body and in her insides, just as signs are written in the entrails of sacrificed animals.