#as the emperor would've been able to decide on a whim whether or not to go to war | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

theofficialpeanutgallery · 3 months ago

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My dad's been reading a book about pseudo-science that kinda goes into the sociology and history behind it, but today he informed me that Rome used prophetic chickens to make decisions on when to make attacks. Basically, if the chickens rushed out of their coop to gobble down their feed, it was an auspicious omen from the gods, indicating their favor for the planned decision.

Naturally, I had to find more sources- not because I thought he or the author of the book were lying, but because it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard and I need to know more.

I was not let down. Generals and Senators consulted their chicken priests, and often a priest would be brought along with his flock on campaigns, according to Livy.

I am 100% going to be searching for academic articles about this subject later

#this is the funniest thing i've ever heard of in my LIFE #sacred chickens that prophesy either fortune or disaster #nothing I've looked at so far really specified but I have a feeling this was really only a thing during the republic #as the emperor would've been able to decide on a whim whether or not to go to war #but considering both the continued existence of the Senate and the many wars Rome would wage in the future #(about half of them within the empire XD)#the prophetic chickens may have continued to be consulted well into the A.D.'s #finally #chickens getting the respect they deserve #I need OSP to do a history hijinks on this STAT #Rome was a really really freaking WEIRD place #and this is by far my favorite fact about it now #we should bring this back but like. actually consult the chickens themselves #every presidential candidate/prime minister candidate has to be able to hold a chicken without the chicken attacking them or fleeing #and as a general rule these should be well-socialized chickens who are friendly with strangers and cuddly #apparently part of the justification was that chickens were too dumb to have anything blocking a deity's orders #which is completely untrue. chickens are very smart. they might not be able to like. write a book. but they're good at problem solving #and doing things they probably shouldn't #chickens #ancient rome #history

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