Ancient Greek futures: Diminishing uncertainties by means of

divination
Kim Beerden*
Institute for History, Leiden University, The Netherlands
1. Introduction [1]
Ancient Greece is regularly referred to in the eld of Futures Studies. The important forecasting method called Delphi is
an implicit way of referring to one of the most famous oracles of ancient Greece. However, the ancient world is also referred
to in a more explicit way: as a counterpoint to the modern world. The most recent major publication dealing with (among
other subjects) the future in the past by Barbara Adamand Chris Groves [2] devotes a reasonable amount of space to ancient
futures. Lucian Ho lscher uses Augustine to argue that ancient futures were thought of as individual futures, while the
modern future appears to focus on the collective [3, p. 20]. Anthony Giddens [4] and Peter Bernstein [5] draw a contrast
between the modern world and anything which came before by characterizing us as living in a risk-society, in which we
constantly assess and manage uncertainties of the future, while stating that the ancient Greeks did not do this in the way we
do and were less interested in the future.
Yet, the fact that ancient Greeks did not think and deal with the future by means of risk-assessment, does not mean they
were not interested in the uncertainties of the future. They, too, wanted to knowwhat their options were and what could be
done to inuence what was to come. Instead of using scenarios and risk analysis to diminish uncertainties about the future,
they had a different tool: divination (sign-reading), which served to gain information about past, present and future from
the supernatural. This article discusses ancient Greek divination and the ways in which it was used to consider the future
(from around 800 BC until the beginning of the Common Era). Ultimately, this article aims to stimulate further comparative
use of the ancient Greek world in the eld of Futures Studies.
Futures xxx (2014) xxxxxx
A R T I C L E I N F O
Article history:
Available online xxx
A B S T R A C T
This paper analyzes forecasting in the ancient Greek world. Forecasting was practiced by
the use of a particular method: that of divination. Divination was the interpretation of
signs perceived to have been sent by the supernatural. This practice can be seen as an
ancient alternative to risk assessment/analysis and to scenario studies. The study of
divination shows that ancient Greeks believed there were multiple futures and not one
predetermined future fromwhich man attempted to select the best, aided by the exible
tool that divination appears to be. The Greek future is, perhaps, more like our own than it
may previously have been assumed. Ideas about how this future should be come to terms
with, however, differ signicantly. The absence of concepts of risk and probability are one
difference, the use of the supernatural to assess uncertainties is another.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
* Correspondence to: Institute for History, Leiden University, PO Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands. Tel.: +31 0715272651.
E-mail address: [email protected]
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2. Divination
Ancient individuals used divination to gain some information about possible futures. They perceived occurrences (signs)
in the world around them, which were thought to be sent by the supernatural, and interpreted these, hoping to obtain
reliable information. Divinationoccurred very regularly and in all kinds of situations: it served to address bothindividual and
collective questions and concerns. Its use was also very widespread: everyone in the ancient world rich or poor, slave or
free, man or woman was a potential user of divination.
Those studying cognitive religion explain that every human brain is wired in such a way to discern causal connections,
even if there are none. So, when an occurrence which cannot easily be explained takes place, the Homo sapiens thinks there
should be someone or something causing the occurrence: anything to prove things do not occur just randomly. If there is no
such visible agent around, the Homo sapiens in the ancient world is prone to ascribe the occurrence to a supernatural agent
which tries to communicate some piece of information [6].
Signs from the supernatural could, then, appear spontaneously: the supernatural was thought to have provided them
without having been asked to do so or they could be asked for by means of a prayer or a sacrice. The supernatural was
perceived to be able to place these signs anywhere in the world around the ancient Greek. Supernatural signs could appear in
a person who would speak as a medium. Yet, a mediumcould also be an animal making particular movements or an object to
which something remarkable occurred. There were, then, many different kinds of signs and these differences had to be taken
account during their interpretation: this is why there is a great number of divinatory methods. One of these methods was the
inspection of the entrails of a sacricial animal:
Aegisthus took the entrails in his hands and inspected them. Nowthe liver had no lobe, while the portal vein and near-
by gall-bladder revealed threatening approaches to the one who was observing it.
([Euripides, Electra 826829] Translation: E.P. Coleridge, Loeb Classical Library)
Other divinatory methods include: interpreting the fact that a mouse had gnawed through a bag (Theophrastus, Characters
16); interpretingsuddenoccurrences suchas thebirthof anhermaphroditeor theoutbreakof aplague, as inthefamous passage
from the Iliad where the plague rages in the Greek camp at Troy. The famous divinatory expert called Calchas tells the Greeks
that the god Apollo has been offended, why this is so and what should be done to appease him (Homer, Iliad 1.93-99).
Oracles were another divinatory method and the oracle site at Delphi is probably the most famous Greek divinatory site. A
female mediumwas thought to speak the words of the supernatural while being in a state of possession by the god Apollo. It
is very unclear howexactly this possession, if any, was caused. At Delphi, the Pythia was supposed to inhale vapours which
induced it, or perhaps she drank special waters or chewed on laurel for this purposeor perhaps she feigned to be possessed
[7]. While there are attestations in the sources of what the Pythia was deemed to have said, the exact way this oracle
functioned remains shrouded in uncertainty. Yet, the Pythia certainly produced results for her clients. She spoke and her
words were, presumably, interpreted by priests at the oracle. The following text is, according to the historian Herodotus
7.141.3-4, an oracle from Delphi warning the Athenians for the arrival of the Persians:
Yet a wood-built wall will by Zeus all-seeing be granted
To the Trito-born, a stronghold for you and your children.
Await not the host of horse and foot coming from Asia,
Nor be still, but turn your back and withdraw from the foe.
Truly a day will come when you will meet him face to face.
Divine Salamis, you will bring death to womens sons
When the corn is scattered, or the harvest gathered in.
(Translation: A.D. Godley, Loeb Classical Library)
A second important Greek oracle, after Delphi, was that at Dodona. Here, we know even less about how the oracular
procedure worked: the signs were perhaps given through the cooing of doves or the rustling of leaves in a particular oak-tree.
What makes Dodona interesting to modern researchers is the fact that many small lead tablets which played a practical role
in the divinatory process have been found at the site. The published Dodonaic materials nowconsist of around two hundred
questions; more should be published in the future.
Questions to the supernatural have been written on the tablets by the clients of the oracle:
Whether it will be better for me if I go to Sybaris and if I do these things?
Will it be better for Agelochos (from Ergetion) if he sets out to be a farmer?
God. Good fortune. About the price of a slave.
God. Luck. Leontios asks about his sonLeon, whether hewill behealthyand(cured) of thediseasewhichhas grippedhim?
(All translations: E. Eidinow [8, pp. 75; 96; 103; 105])
Answers were only occasionally written down on the reverse of the tablets:
Side A: God . . . Good Luck. About possessions and about a place to live: whether (it would be) better for him and his
children and his wife in Kroton?
Side B (probably the response to A): In Kroton.
(Translation: E. Eidinow [8, p. 76])
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The tablets were folded and perhaps laid down in a special place for the supernatural and after the client had gained his
answer they were discarded on the site. The information gained from these tablets will be discussed in what follows.
Whichever kind of sign was interpreted and whichever divinatory method was used, an individual rst had to perceive an
occurrence as being a sign coming fromthe supernatural. If one had received a sign at an oracle site this was naturally easier
then when a sign occurred spontaneously without the person knowing what he should look for. Then, the individual needed
to read and interpret the sign, or he might have called on an expert to do so. Only at this point the sign became imbued with
meaning and could it start to signify something. Thus, divination was essentially a human process and does, in this sense, not
differ from methods of forecasting we use today. The main difference is that ancient man thought the source of the data
available for interpretation was the supernatural, whereas modern forecasters do not.
3. Employing an expert [1, pp. 5763]
If a Greek thought he was capable of interpreting the sign for himself, he was free to do so. There are plenty of sources
showing that divine-it-yourself indeed happened regularly: Aegisthus, in the example above [2, Divination], is a king and a
warrior but he is nowhere known as a divinatory expert. A passage fromXenophons Anabasis suggests that the leader of the
army, in this case Xenophon, could learn about divination by means of observation, although he was not an expert himself.
Xenophon has been present at sacrices to the supernatural, where the intestines of animals were inspected to for signs:
Now Silanus, the divinatory expert, answered me in respect to the main issue that the omens were favourable (for he
knewwell enough that I was not unacquainted with divination, frombeing always present at the sacrices); but he said
that there appeared in the omens a kind of fraud and plot against me, manifestly because he knew that he was himself
plotting to traduce me before you. ([Xenophon, Anabasis 5.6.29.1-7] Translation: C.L. Brownson, Loeb Classical Library)
A better informed elite-layman will have had more expertise than the average Greek-on-the-street. However, the most
important thing was that an individual felt he had enough knowledge to interpret a divinatory sign. Whether an expert
should be consulted order to secure a correct interpretation of a sign was, then, a subjective matter.
While ancient sources are not denitive about why people would want to consult an expert, anthropologists do see
advantages. An expert is presumed to have the skill, expertise and tools to perform a certain method of divination. On
account of these claims, the expert is someone who can [. . .] remove the agency and responsibility for a decision from the
actor himself [9, p. 197]. The expert can also mediate between men in situations in which tensions might be present an
outsider can resolve such tensions in a seemingly unbiased manner. It could be considered dangerous however to have a
member of local society, who might have knowledge of a clients family and affairs, perform the divination.
Greek experts were predominantly male, could belong to a clan of divinatory experts and worked on a free-lance basis
while travelling around. The education of experts was on an oral basis and most probably took place within a masterpupil
relationship, where pupil was a member of the clan of his master. Experts were not normally structurally employed for life.
They could work for an employer for a longer time, but the basis on which they were employed remained changeable. This is
reected in examples showing a lack of loyalty between client and expert. The expert Hegesistratus, for example, worked for
the Spartans who were dissatised with himand put himin prison. Obviously desperate to escape, Hegesistratus managed to
free himself by cutting off his foot, after which he began working for the Persian enemy (Herodotus 9.37-41).
Could these men be trusted in providing the correct interpretation? This theme occurs regularly in the sources, reecting
worries about experts divining according to their own interests or without the necessary knowledge. However, as most of the
divinatory knowledge was passed from one expert to the other on an oral basis, there was no mantic orthodoxy. Then how
could an expert be proved wrong? In practice, this was not possible. Still, this was something people worried aboutthe
reliability of the expert is still a familiar theme in the modern world.
4. What were people concerned about?
About which themes did ancient Greeks want, and thought they could get, information by means of divination? Ancient
individuals were uncertain about all sorts of issues but it appears one could not turn to the supernatural to ask obvious
questions, the answers to which could be gained in other ways. Joseph Fontenroses simple distinction of the kinds of
questions that were asked is into three categories: res divinae (cult foundation, sacrices and religious laws), res publicae
(rulership, legislation, interstate relations and war), res domesticae et profanae (birth, marriage, death, careers, actions,
etcetera) [10, pp. 438440].
However, this categorization emphasizes communal concerns and concerns of leaders. Eric Lhotes has provided an
edition of the divinatory tablets from Dodona. This edition is helpful when taking individual concerns into account [11]. The
following categories of uncertainties can be deducted:
1
rst, those of a socio-economic nature. Issues are a good harvest,
whether bills should be paid, about goods and possessions, which job to choose and whether the person will be successful in
1
A number of questions need to be omitted here: Lhote 1, 2, 3, 5, 6b, 7, 8b, 9, 11, 14 because they are asked by communities (their topics are questions
about safety for the community, general prosperity, a good harvest, maintenance of the temple and the possessions of the community). There are also a
number of questions that are too fragmentary to use here: 4, 12, 24, 31, 40, 42, 61A, 70, 79, 113?, 140, 142, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 155, 156,
161, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167.
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that job, about buying and selling.
2
Second, and connected to the rst category, is happiness/success. Individuals ask how
they should achieve success, whether they will be happy, if it is a good idea to do something, which road a person should
choose, how to gain results, whether an individual should spend energy resolving an issue.
3
A, third, related category is the
question of where to settle and live: whether a person should stay or move, or should travel.
4
Fourth, on love, marriage and
children: issues are the good of the family, begetting children, whether the person will be happy in marriage with his wife,
whether the person should nd another wife, about arranging marriages of his children.
5
Fifth, dealing with rules and
institutions: asking for justice, about requesting civil rights.
6
Sixth, religion: whether to use a necromancer, to request
another oracle, and so forth.
7
Seventh, on matters of health.
8
Eight, matters of warfare/military.
9
While all the previous
categories are concerned with the future, there is a last category concerned with nding out the truth about past and
present [1, pp. 204205].
10
5. Getting to know ancient futures
11
Up to this point, I have used the term information to describe what the ancient Greeks hoped to gain from there
supernatural. This, however, is a broad term which may include predictions, advice, commands, and so on.
It is a common assumption that divination always served to get to know the Greek future: that it was predictive. The
implications hereof are that ancient futures would be predestined and that chance, also personied as Tyche in the Greek
world, would have played a very small role (otherwise how could the future be predicted?). This assumption is based on
Greek literary sources which have gained prominence. One example is the following: Homer (Odyssey 19.535-540) relates
Penelopes spontaneous dream which was interpreted in such a way that it applied to her situation. This dream was
interpreted as signalling the imminent homecoming of her husband Odysseus:
But come now, hear this dreamof mine, and interpret it for me. Twenty geese I have in the house that come forth from
the water and eat wheat, and my heart warms with joy as I watch them. But forth from the mountain there came a
great eagle with crooked beak and broke all their necks and killed them; and they lay strewn in a heap in the halls,
while he was borne aloft to the bright sky. (Translation: A.T. Murray, Loeb Classical Library)
However, Greek predictive divination did in practice not occur as regularly as the literary sources suggest I suspect that,
in literary sources such as these, it was a very good rhetorical device for telling a story. In Greece, chance/Tyche was a central
concept, in the Classical but especially in the Hellenistic period [1, pp. 207208; 12, pp. 39, 4552].
The starting point of my investigation of actual practice lies in the oracular questions and sayings, especially those
contained in (parts of) the sources from Delphi and Dodona because these texts have been recorded during, or shortly after,
the divinatory process itself. In what follows, I quantify categories of questions. Although no conclusive statistics can be
drawn from such a small amount of source materials, quantication still has its purpose because it shows the relationship
between the different kinds of questions asked.
Of the around two hundred questions that have been published, 35 cannot be assigned to any category because the texts
are incomplete and can therefore not be understood.
12
Moving on, the rst category of questions is illustrated by the
following Dodonaic example:
Good fortune. Whether I would do better travelling to where it seems good to me, and doing business there, if it seems
good, and at the same time practicing this craft. (Translation: E. Eidinow [8, p. 97])
Will it be better for the questioner if he performs a particular actionor makes a particular choice? This question asks for an
answer of an advisory nature: the purpose is to ask the supernatural information with which the individual is guided to a
particular choice in a decision which needs to be made (rather than to reveal the future to him). This kind of question is asked
in 73 questions in total (39%).
13
2
A good harvest: 77, 78. Which job to do: 74, 75, 76, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 89Aa, 90, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96A, 97?, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 105, 106A, 106B, 111,
141 Bb. Gaining results: 17. Should the bill be paid: 96b. Goods and possessions: 28A, 28b, 58B, 65, 115, 116, 117, 118. Buying and selling: 101, 109, 110.
3
Spend energy resolving an issue: 112. Gaining happiness/success: 10b, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22a, 23, 33b, 35a, 37, 49bis, 65, 67, 81, 107A, 108. Unhappiness:
158. Is it good to do something? 163.
4
Where to settle or live? 6b, 46Bb, 50B, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58A, 59, 60?, 62, 63, 64, 68B, 92, 130, 131, 132, 133, 157, 160. To travel: 86. Which road to
choose: 154.
5
The good of the family: 8a. Begetting children: 15, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46a, 47, 48, 49, 50Aa, 51, 52, 140, 141A. Being happy in marriage with their wife: 22 Bb,
22ba, 25, 26, 27, 36A, 52, 53Aa?, 53Bb. Seeking another wife? 29, 30, 32, 33a, 34, 35b, 36Bb. Arranging marriages of children 38, 39, 53Ac.
6
Requesting civil rights: 61B. Justice: 16, 141bis, 159.
7
10a, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 141B, 143, 144.
8
46Ba, 50Ab, 65, 66, 68A, 69, 71, 72, 73.
9
127, 128, 129.
10
107B, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 125bis, 126.
11
This passage is drawn from chapter 8 of [1].
12
Lhote 4; 12; 15; 21; 23?; 24; 32; 40; 42; 59; 70; 76; 79; 99; 104; 113?; 136a; 142; 145; 146; 147; 148; 149; 150; 151; 152; 153; 155; 156; 161; 162;
164; 165; 166; 167.
13
Lhote 6B; 8B; 9; 10A; 11; 16; 22Ba; 25; 27; 28A; 29; 30; 31; 33A; 34; 46Bb; 50Ab; 50B; 53Aa; 53Ac; 54; 56; 57; 58B; 60; 61B; 62?; 64?; 68B?; 69; 71?;
74; 75; 77?; 78?; 80; 81; 85; 86; 89; 90; 91; 92; 93; 95; 96A; 97; 98; 100; 103; 105; 106A; 106B; 108?; 111; 112; 114; 115?; 117; 127; 128; 129; 130; 133;
134?; 137; 139; 144; 154; 158; 159; 160; 163.
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The second category to be found in the Dodonaic materials is that of the instructive questions in which the oracle is asked
to supply the enquirer with such replies as to which god he should offer or which other specic actions he should perform.
These questions differ from the advisory ones in the sense that the supernatural is perceived to give a specic command
about what to do. An example of an instructive question is Which god should I sacrice to? Instructions are given on 31
tablets (16.5%).
Apart fromthese advisory and instructive questions, there are also other kinds of questions, such as Shall I be happy? and
Shall I have children? These questions are concerned with issues about which the individual feels powerless (such as
happiness or begetting children). They contain a predictive element but the supernatural is not specically asked to look into
the future: the question is general and the timeframe vague. I therefore categorize these questions as indicative. Two tablets
combine indicative and instructive questions (1.1%).
14
The category of indicative counts 35 tablets in total (18.7%).
15
The last category in these Greek oracular materials consists of requests for information about the truth in both past and
present: Who were the parents? and What is the truth about X? are examples of such questions. Their purpose is to obtain
knowledge. There are eleven of such questions found in the Dodonaic tablets (5.9%).
16
Pertinently, it should be noted that
these questions are not about the future: where the Greek past and present are concerned, knowledge is asked for, whereas
the more future-oriented questions tend to seek advice and instruction.
Do the Delphic materials reveal the same pattern? The percentages for Delphi are as follows: Fontenrose has dealt with
seventy-ve historical oracles. Of these, 33 are of an advisory nature (44%).
17
Thirty-one are instructive (41.3%).
18
Only ve
are indicative (6.6%).
19
Only two ask for information about both past and present (2.6%),
20
leaving another four (5.3%) which
could not be assigned to these categories).
21
Advice appears as the most important way in which uncertainties were diminished at oracles. Evidence relating to the
outcome of extispicies (inspections of the liver) conrms this: although we are still rather in the dark about how his
questions were phrased, Xenophons extispicies normally seem to indicate (un)favourability. This is exemplied by the
following passage (Xenophon, Anabasis 6.21.2-3): [. . .] our sacricial victims were favourable, the bird-omens auspicious,
the omens of the sacrice most favourable; let us advance upon the enemy [. . .]. (Translation: C.L. Brownson, Loeb Classical
Library). The supernatural does not predict or say that Xenophon will win this battle: it merely advises that it is favourable to
advance now. Everything else, including the outcome of battle, is still dependent on other factors, such as chance/Tyche, the
supernatural and human skill.
Divination was a tool for individuals to gain a perceived grip on their futures by means of gaining information from the
supernatural, mainly in the shape of advice. This has implications for our ideas on the issue how Greeks perceived their
future. The divinatory materials showthat there appear to have been multiple possible futures originating froma crossroads.
Man had to attempt to choose the best direction by means of advice from the supernatural, taking into account that chance/
Tyche would still play its part. There was no certain prediction to be gained through divination. Fears about the future were
turned into hope by means of divination: man could hope to have made the right choice in a world in which nothing was
sure. Greek divination appears as a tool by which to discover a relatively exible future which appears to have been open-
but-not-empty [13, pp. 5354].
6. Ancient futures
22
The above [5, Getting to know ancient futures] has implications for the way the ancient world has sometimes been
depicted as a place whose inhabitants considered themselves to be in the grip of inescapable fate [4, pp. 4041; 2, p. 4].
After all, the only way in which one can divine what the future holds is for the future to be predetermined. Yet, once one
knows what is predetermined in ones future, then there exists the possibility of avoiding or changing it [14, p. 79]. It has also
been stated that ancient futures could be changed as an attempt to change pre-existing destiny [2, p. 11].
However, to judge fromthe totality of Greek divinatory materials, the ancient man-on-the-street had more kaleidoscopic
ideas about what the future looked like and how it could and should be considered and managed. Ideas about fate were
undoubtedly present, but the evidence from Delphi and Dodona allows the conclusion that ancient people were in this
respect not so very different from us as it has sometimes been claimed they were [2, p. 18]. The future seems to have been
exible: the supernatural could provide advice about what would be the best decisions, while chance/Tyche remained an
important factor.
14
Lhote 48; 52.
15
Lhote 5; 6A; 10B; 13?; 18; 21; 22Bb; 26; 28B; 33B; 35A; 36A; 37; 39; 43; 44; 45; 46A; 51; 53Bb; 55; 58A; 63; 73; 82; 83; 84; 87; 88; 94; 109?; 118; 131;
140; 141.
16
Requests for truth and so on. Lhote 14; 49; 107B; 119; 120; 121; 123; 124; 125; 125bis; 126.
17
Fontenrose [9] H 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 13, 17, 19, 20, 21, 25, 27, 29, 32, 33, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 49, 55, 59, 61, 62, 64, 66, 74.
18
H 7, 8, 9, 10?, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16?, 23, 24, 26, 28, 30, 31, 35, 37, 44, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 60, 67, 68, 71.
19
H 4, 18?, 34?, 70, 75.
20
H 65, 69.
21
H 3, 22, 63, 73.
22
The following passages are drawn from chapter 8 of [1].
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On top of this, individuals could also attempt to inuence futures if the information received was not to their liking.
Religious rituals such as prayer, cursing and sacricing were important ways to persuade or force the gods to inuence the
course of things.
It follows that Giddens cannot be right in stating that ancient man was focused on the past [4, pp. 4041]. The prevalence
of future-oriented religious phenomena such as divination, as well as the existence of prayers, curses and sacrice strongly
suggests that the ancient future was thought about intensively, as Adam and Groves have already argued [2, pp. 4647, 61
64; 15, pp. 111114].
It has also appeared, however, that the ancient individual did not think about the future in the terms that we do: there are
no discernable traces of the idea that is central to us when considering the future risk. Anthony Giddens, among others, says
it is the embrace of risk which has created and indeed enabled the modern world the way man thinks about himself, the
globalization of the world and the widespread presence of capitalism [16, pp. 109143]. Ulrich Beck and Giddens consider
modern society one in which the main aim is to minimize risk [17, p. 45]. I agree: the risk society in which we attempt to
minimize uncertainty by quantifying it is something which is particular to the modern world. The modern use of risk,
which is deeply rooted in probabilistic thought, contrasts markedly with experiences in the ancient world. Ancient risk-
vocabulary is non-existent, not are quantications of uncertainty and application of risk-thinking. In the Greek sources, all
that can be found are, some elementary reections of a probabilistic kind:
To succeed in many things, or many times, is difcult; for instance, to repeat the same throwten thousand times with
the dice would be impossible, whereas to make it once or twice is comparatively easy. ([Aristotle, On the heavens
292a28-30] Translation: W.K.C. Guthrie, Loeb Classical Library)
Risk is so ingrained in the probabilistic thinking of modern Western man that, almost by default, he projects this kind of
thinking onto the ancient world. A much better concept is the overarching concept uncertainty, closely related to risk [18,
pp. 205226], but which provides a more useful tool for exploration of the ancient world. Esther Eidinow, in her important
work on oracles and curses [8, especially pp. 1025] argues that risk is a useful concept when discussing the ancient world.
However, I see this differently: what risk assessment does for modern man was what divination did for ancient man: both
risk assessment and divination are different ways to reduce uncertainty.
7. To conclude
Isnt the future what it used to be? The Greek future is, perhaps, more like our own than it may previously have been
assumed. Ideas about how this future should be come to terms with, however, differ signicantly. The absence of risk and
probability are one difference, the use of divination to assess uncertainties with chance/Tyche playing its part is another.
While I have focused on Greece in the centuries before the Common Era, it should be stated here that, with increasing
inuences from the Near East, a growing belief in fate in general can be discerned in the rst centuries of the Common Era.
Both in Romanized Greece and in Rome proper a rise in the use of astrology and horoscopes can be detected.
In the above, a number of issues about Greek ways of dealing with their future(s) have been claried. It may appear that I
am stimulating caution in referring to the Greek world as a point of contrast. This is true. Still, I do not aim to discourage
anyone: on the contrary, this article will hopefully stimulate comparison, however brief, by providing knowledge on which
basis such a comparison could take place. The historical comparison is an extremely valuable tool which aids to understand
past, present and perhaps future developments in the eld of Futures Studies.
Acknowledgements
I thank Prof. Dr. Ir. M.B.A. van Asselt for stimulating me to write this paper and the two anonymous referees of Futures for
their helpful comments.
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G Model
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Futures (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2014.03.002