The Aegean Way of Reading Omens

Simin Uysal

I’ve been visited by a goat in dreams since this May. I thought this was nothing special because I live in Ankara, ancient Ancyra or Angora, which is famous for its goats and their wool (mohair). 

A few months later, I was pleasantly surprised by a new business agreement in the family involving goat’s milk and I thought the dream goat was about that. However, the goat came back just before I received a message inviting me to go to İzmir or ancient Smyrna, at the Aegean coast of Turkey where I was born. The goat took me to a deserted temple where I saw a man at a distance who looked like watching the birds in the sky with great interest. I was feeling extremely curious when I woke so I decided to make some research on the goat and the Aegean coast around İzmir as the temple looked like one of those Temples of Apollo in the region. I was most excited by my findings.   

Thirty five kilometers to the south of Pergamon (Bergama) where the Asklepion – the ancient Temple of Dream Healing is, stands the ruins of an ancient city names Aigai. To the east of the ancient city, there was a temple for Apollo Chresterios, meaning the foresayer. The goat is a symbol for Aigai as a familiar pun, because goat is Greek, AIX, AIGOS and goat breeding was one of the most important economic activities of the people. We also owe the name Aegean as a sea and western coast of Anatolia to Aigai.

Divination was a central phenomenon in the lives of ancient Greeks. Anatolia is home to some of the oldest oracles in the Greek world and it was where the legendary Sibyls originated. Pausanias writes that Sibyl Herophile had been born enough ago to foretell the Trojan War.

In ancient Greece, mantike was a form of divination used to seek advice about a future action used by both individuals and states.  Aigai was famous for its temple for Apollo Chresterios and a seer named Polles. I could not find much about him except in Suda, which is a massive 10^th century Byzantine Greek historical encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world.

Suda mentions that Melampus and Polles had acquired such celebrity as diviners that there was a current proverb “It needs a Melampus or a Polles to divine it.”

The section dedicated to Polles writes that he wrote the following books:

• an alphabetical Symbolika in 2 volumes,
• Bird-augury in 8 volumes,
• Arithmetic in 2 volumes,
• Remedies in 2 volumes,
• On the bird-augury in Homer,
• On Etruscan oracles,
• Iatrosymbolika (Medical Symbols),
• On woodpeckers,
• Sacred Speech,
• 1 volume on Domestic Matters,
• Hunting
• 3 volumes of Affinities and Aversions
• On lightning and how to avoid it

·         In Suda, Polles is also mentioned under the division of the art of augury. It writes:

"Phrygians were the first to discover this art. Its divisions are:

• bird-augury; for example, when this particular bird flies, in front or behind, heading right or left, one would say what it means. Telegonus first wrote about this.
• interpreting omens in the house, when there are things that happen in the house; for example, if a weasel or snake appeared in the house, or olive oil was spilt, or honey, or wine, or water, or ashes, or there was a grating of wood, or something else, it foretells such and such. Xenocrates first wrote collecting this.
• interpreting omens on travels, as when someone explains things that happen on the way; for example, when someone carrying a particular thing meets you, that thing will happen to you. Polles wrote collecting this.
• palmistry (hand-reading), as when, through the extension of hands and palm stretched out, we say, from the lines, "You are making a baby" or something like this. Helenus wrote collecting this.
• the art of interpreting twitches is that recognized from the twitching of the body; for example, the right or left eye twitched, or shoulder, or thigh, or an itching in the foot, or there was a ringing in the ear, it means this. Posidonius wrote collecting this.      

I was curious about Melampus, too. In Greek mythology, he is a seer known for his ability to understand the language of animals. It is written that Melampus received his supernatural abilities from two snakes that he raised after their parents had been killed by his servants. While he slept, they licked his ears, an act that startled him awake and made him realize that he could understand the language of the birds flying overhead.

Melampus was also credited by Herodotus in his History with having introduced the religion of Dionysus to Greece. He is known to have written on divination by twitches (palomancy) and divination by moles.

I am certainly no Melampus or Polles but I do like watching out for the signs around me and have my own “symbol book” which is constantly developing. I wasn’t planning to write this blog post until I found a pen on the ground today while walking and thinking about Polles. The pen, for me, was such a clear sign for me which luckily did not need a Polles or Melampus to divine. So, I wrote the story and I think Polles and Melampus would like this.