i9o8.] IN BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. 665 



more striking is the analogy offered by the usage in Greek where 

 the word for bird, opvts or otwvos, has acquired the force of 

 " omen."'*^ The planets, accordingly, were called " sheep " because 

 the purpose for which they were observed was to serve as " omens," 

 and this view is confirmed by a statement of Diodorus (Bibl. Hist. 

 II., 30) that the Babylonians (or " Chaldeans " as he calls them) 

 called the planets rip/j-eveLs, " interpreters," because " they reveal (or 

 " interpret) the intention of the gods to men." The term used by 

 Diodorus accurately reproduces the force of Lu-Bat in the sense of 

 an " omen " or *' interpretation " of the will and purpose of the gods. 

 If this explanation be admitted, we would thus have a direct evidence 

 of the dependence of astrology upon hepatoscopy, in accord with 

 the reasonable assumption on a priori grounds of the rise of astrology 

 subsequent to hepatoscopy. The justification for thus assuming a 

 bond uniting astrology and hepatoscopy is furnished by the evidence 

 for an analogous condition among the Etruscans whose method of 

 hepatoscopy has many points in common with the Babylonian- 

 Assyrian rite.**^ On the famous bronze model of a liver found near 

 Piacenza*' and which, dating from about the third century B. C, 

 was used as an object lesson for instruction in hepatoscopy, precisely 

 as the clay model of a liver dating from the Hammurabi period was 

 used in a Babylonian temple school,** we find the edge of the liver 

 divided into sixteen regions with the names of the deities inhabiting 

 them, corresponding to divisions of the heavens in which the gods 

 have their seats, while on the reverse side there is a line dividing 



" See the passage in the Birds of Aristophanes 11. 719-22 to which my 

 colleague Prof. Lamberton directed my attention and Xenophon, Anabasis, 

 III., 2, 9, which Dr. R. G. Kent, of the University of Pennsylvania, kindly 

 pointed out to me. 



^^See Thulin, " Die Etruskische Disciplin," I. (Goteborg, 1905), p. xii, seq. 



" It is suflficient for our purposes to refer to two recent treatises on 

 this remarkable object (a) Thulin, "die Gotter des Martianus Capella und der 

 Bronzeleber von Piacenza " (Giessen, 1906), and Korte, "die Bronzeleber von 

 Piacenza," in Mitt. d. Kais. Deutsch. Arch. Instituts (Romische Abteilung), 

 XX.. pp. 349-379- 



** Published in " Cun. Texts," VI., Pis. i and 2 (with photograph). 

 See Boissier's first attempt at an interpretation, " Note sur un Monument 

 babylonien se rapportant a I'Extispicine " (Geneve, 1899). I hope ere long 

 to publish the results of my study of the inscription on this object. 



" See Korte, /. c, p. 356. 



PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC. XLVII. I90 QQ, PRINTED FEBRUARY 8, I909. 



