Rolling Dice for Divination, Gambling and Homeromanteia

Abstract

Everyday tools such as dice and knucklebones are associated with gambling and divinatory books founded upon the use of Homeric epics. Papyrological documents about this practice date back to Roman Imperial times. Verses drawn from Iliad and Odyssey were currently assigned to a divinely inspired wisdom. The preface to Homeromanteia shows a link with religious and divinatory ideas current at that time (hilastic invocations, hemeromancy, cledonism).