Prologues to the dice oracles of Asia Minor about the features of this type of mantic art

Abstract

21 inscriptions from the border regions of southwestern Asia Minor – Pisidia, Pamphylia, Phrygia, Lycia and Cilicia – show us the texts of the dice oracles. The inscriptions are dated to the 2nd – beginning the 3rd century AD. There is no evidence of this type of divination in ancient literature. The author aims to determine the place of astragalus oracles in the system of mantic art, and for that she analyzes the prologues preserved in 8 inscriptions. The analysis leads to the following conclusions. According to the beliefs of the inhabitants of that region, a tall rectangular column with the text of dice oracle carved on it and with the statue of Hermes crowning it was considered to be an open-air divination sanctuary. An oracle (μαντεῖον), believed to be the prophetic spirit of the place, which controlled the fall of the rolled astragalus, invisibly lived near that column. Therefore, the mechanism of getting responses in those sanctuaries was considered essentially the same as in the famous sanctuaries, for example, in Delphi. Hermes was the patron of the dice oracles. But here he functioned not as an autonomous deity, but as the executor of Apollo’s will, who gave him control over the divination by lot. The dice oracles of Asia Minor followed the tradition of establishing small open-air sanctuaries, known in mainland Greece.