w, what
he dreamed, what happened to him, what appeared in his house or among
the members of his household was of significance to him. To know what
every phenomenon portended was essential to his welfare; and we may feel
certain that the relations of the individual to the priests, so far as
these existed, consisted largely in obtaining from the latter the
interpretation of the omens that he encountered. On the other hand, the
power of the priests over the populace was due to the popular belief in
portents, and the attention given by the theologians to the collection
of exhaustive omen series is a proof that the priests knew how to use
their power.

These "Dream Books" must have been very numerous. The success of the
priests here depended even more than in other branches of the omen
literature upon exhausting, so far as possible, all contingencies. No
doubt they were guided here also by two factors: association of ideas,
and past experience through making of a single coincidence between a
dream and some occurrence, a principle of general application. Some of
the omens from dreams, however, appear to have themselves formed part of
a larger series dealing in general with

Omens From Individual Experiences.

If one may judge from the specimens furnished by Dr. Bezold in his
catalogue, this series was unusually extensive, embracing a large number
of subjects connected with human activity,--a man's work in the field,
his actions in commercial affairs, incidents of travel on sea or land,
his relations to his kindred--the dead as well as the living--disease
and death, down to such apparent trifles as the conditions of the walls
of his house. Cracks in the wall were an omen; meeting a snake in the
highway was an omen. A fall was an omen; dropping an instrument was an
omen; in short, it is difficult to say what was not an omen. The
character of the omens in this series does not differ in any essential
particulars from those of other series. The important feature of the
series is that it affords another and perhaps the most striking
illustration of that phase of the omen literature which concerns the
individual directly, and, it seems safe to add, exclusively.

Take, for example, omens connected with symptoms occurring in certain
diseases. We are told that

If the right breast is brown, it is a fatal (?) sign.

If both breasts are brown, there will be no recovery.

If the left breast is green, the sickness wi