Haruspex

Having given Greek words a good airing recently, it’s time to take a look at those wacky Romans. The civilization that brought us viticulture, road networks, aqueducts and underfloor heating also fostered the rise in popularity of the haruspex. I say “fostered” because the actual practise of haruspicy began with the Etruscans. The Etruscans were a people who lived in a large part of Italy and on Corsica well before 800 BC. They had their own land, culture and language, but were eventually absorbed into the Roman Empire.

The word is pronounced ha-russ-pecks, having the plural haruspices. The former part of Latin haruga (victim) and the root word spec (see) combine to form it. So, a haruspex is one who sees a victim? Not quite. The job of a haruspex was to divine the future by studying the entrails (and in particular, the livers) of sacrificed animals. The hapless animals were usually sheep, but the Romans also frequently used bulls and sometimes snakes for the same purpose. The animals (with the exception of, perhaps, the snakes) were always roasted and eaten after the ceremony. Quite a messy and complicated way of making dinner.

The Romans considered this to be such an important art, they laid out clear instructions that many boys of Etruscan families should be taught it. Claudius himself decreed that it should be reinstated when the practise fell out of favour, although history does not record what became of this decree.

Nowadays, of course, we don’t slaughter our own livestock that much. It’s such a terrible mess for the cleaner. Luckily, there is a new, improved version of the art you can try in your own home with little mess or effort. Simply substitute several hundred kilos of walking burger for an egg, and you too could practise ooscopy – the study of the “entrails” of an egg. The author cannot be held responsible for any omelette-related injuries, however. If you really, really fancy a stab at it (pun sort of intended) have a look at the ooscopy manual. Knockout stuff.

My old dad used to say “finish on a joke”, so here’s one I found on the Internet:

A sibyl, a haruspex, and a rhabdomantist walked into a bar. The sibyl said,”There’s going to be this big flood, and it’s going to be terrible.” And the haruspex was looking at this dead animal, and he said, “Yeah, it’s going to rain hard and wipe everything out, and it’s going to do all kinds of damage.”And the rhabdomantist said, “That’s terrible! Why…I’d be out of a job!”.

Oh dear, my sides are simply aching. I’ll leave you to look up rhabdomantist. Take it from me though – it doesn’t make the joke any funnier.