Les haruspices dans le monde romain

The irony of someone like Cato surprised that a haruspex does not laugh when he meets another haruspex conceals the importance and the diversity of Roman recourse to officials who could tell the feelings of the gods through the interpretation of thunders, entrails of the victims of sacrifices and prodigies.

This book deals with the divination of Etruscan origin being used and applied in the Roman world, from the beginning to the sixth century A.D. It attempts to show when how and why the Romans have integrated the haruspices in their private and public religion. It describes the historical modes, the social consequences and the religious implications of integrating such divination, which came originally from abroad.