Includes bibliographical references (p. 231-236) and indexes.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- 1 Historiography -- 2 Defining Divination -- 3 Comparison -- 4 T he Homo Divinans: Layman and Expert -- 5 Significance of Signs -- 6 Playing by the Book? Use of a Textual Framework -- 7 T ime and Divination—Divination and Time -- 8 Dealing with Uncertainty -- Conclusion -- Select Bibliography -- Index of Modern Authors -- Index of Subjects.

Available to subscribing member institutions only.

Worlds Full of Signs compares Greek divination to divinatory practices in Neo-Assyrian Mesopotamia and Republican Rome. It argues that the character of Greek divination differed fundamentally from that of the two comparanda. Ample attention is given to background and method at first. Subsequent chapters discuss the divinatory elements – sign, homo divinans , and text, relating divination to time and uncertainty. This book brings together sources originating from various times and places, questioning these to consider both generalities of ancient divination and specifics of Greek divination. Greek divination was inherently flexible on many levels: these findings should be connected to Greek views on time and the future as well as the relatively low level of divinatory institutionalization.