30] When it was a question who had violated
the taboo announced by Saul, the urim and thummim first decided that it
was not the people but the royal family; and then, as between Saul and
Jonathan, that it was the latter who was guilty.[1631] According to the
Book of Ezekiel the Chaldean King Nebuchadrezzar drew lots by arrows to
determine what road he should take in a campaign.[1632] The old Arabs
employed a species of divination by arrows, which, when thrown down, by
their position indicated the will of the gods; and in the division of
the flesh of a beast slaughtered by a clan or group, the portions to be
assigned to various persons were determined by the drawing of
arrows.[1633] Divination by lot was also largely employed by the Greeks
and the Romans.[1634] The method called "sortes vergilianae" is still in
vogue; it was and is a custom among pious persons, Christian or Moslem,
to learn the course that they are to take in an emergency by opening a
Bible or a copy of the Koran at random and accepting the first words on
which the eye falls as an indication of the divine will, the deity being
supposed to direct the eye.[1635]

+919+. One of the commonest and most important methods of divination in
antiquity was the examination of the entrails of animals
(haruspication). Of this system there are a few examples among savage
peoples,[1636] but it has attained special significance only among the
great civilized nations and especially among the Babylonians, the
Etruscans, and the Greeks and Romans. The slaughtered animal was
generally held to be itself sacred or divine, and, as it was offered to
the deity, it was a natural belief that the god would indicate his will
by the character of the inward parts, which were supposed to be
particularly connected with the life of the animal. Of these animal
parts the liver was regarded as the most important. The liver was for
the Babylonians the special seat of thought, whether from its position
or its size or from some other consideration we have no means of
knowing. The explanation of the form and appearance of the liver became
itself a separate science, and this science was developed with
extraordinary minuteness by the Babylonians. The whole structure of the
liver, together with the gall, bladder, and the ducts, was analyzed, and
to every part, every line, and every difference of appearance a separate
significance was assigned. Thus hepatoscopy, demanding long training and
influenci