THE LORE OF THUNDER AND LIGHTNING
Women might practice divination, as in the story of Tanaquil’s prediction of her husband Tarquin’s future kingship in Rome, when she observed an eagle snatch and return his hat (Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities 3.47.3-4; Livy 1.34.8-9).
Vegoia’s teachings were more extensive than the fragment preserved, and included libri fulgurates for the interpretation and expiation of lightning omens (Servius On the Aeneid 6.72). The Etruscans were said to excel at divination by such natural phenomena (Diodorus Siculus 5.40.2; Cicero On Divination 1.41.92). Lightning strikes on humans, structures or sites prompted the quarantine of the area and special burial rites. Seneca (Natural Questions 2.39) describes the three types of lightning analysed in the works of Aulus Caecina: advising, confirming and conditional. In response to prayers, the first would dissuade or encourage some human action; the second followed an action, confirming its good or bad outcome; and the third would threaten or warn the unexpecting. The gods responsible, the Di Consentes (“Counselling Gods”) and the Di Superiores et Involuti (“Superior and Shrouded Gods”), seem to represent a different level of the Etruscan pantheon, a set of gods not depicted in art and morally above the anthropomorphic behaviour of the Olympians.[Etruscans] say that lightning bolts are sent by Jupiter and they attribute to him three manubiae. The first, as they say, warns and is gentle and is sent by the decision of Jupiter himself. The second Jupiter also sends, but following the advice of a council, for he summons twelve gods; this lightning bolt sometimes accomplishes some good, but even then it also brings damage; it does not help without harming. The third manubia Jupiter also sends, but he summons to council the gods whom the Etruscans call the Superior, or Veiled Gods (DU Superiores et Involuti), because the lightning destroys whatever it strikes and everywhere alters the state of private or public affairs that it encounters, for fire allows nothing to remain as it was.
(Seneca Natural Questions 2.41)
More on the topic THE LORE OF THUNDER AND LIGHTNING:
- Bredholt Christensen Lisbeth, Hammer Olav, Warburton David. The Handbook of Religions in Ancient Europe. Acumen,2013. — 456 p., 2013
- The Validation of Signs
- 7 Life and Death in Reichskommissariat Ukraine