Articles

In ancient Rome, the simplest method of conveying information or the content of your work was to deliver it – recitation (recitatio), which was certainly based on Greek symposiums (symposium). Seneca the Elder reports that a certain Asinius Pollio, who wrote during the reign of Octavian Augustus (27 BCE – 14 CE), invited guests to read his work¹. Pliny the Younger, Martial and Juvenal regret that in their time there was a really big number of people reciting their songs.

Animals played many different roles in the life of the Romans. At the outset, attention should be paid to the importance of animals in the Roman religion. Etruscan influences meant that the initially simple religious rites of the Romans became more and more complicated. They began to try to guess the intentions of the gods by reading them from natural phenomena, from the entrails of animals sacrificed, and especially from the liver, the colour and shape of which varied from one individual to another. Attempts were made to read the future from the flight and behaviour of birds (e.g. auspices). The flight of vultures or ravens and the manner in which sacrificed hens collected grain were observed.