bārū-priests as a guidance for themselves and as a basis of instruction for those in training for the priesthood that we owe our knowledge of the parts of the liver to which particular attention was directed, of the signs noted, and of the principles guiding the interpretation of the signs.
The inspection of the liver for purposes of divination led to the study of the anatomy of the liver, and there are indeed good reasons for believing that hepatoscopy represents the starting point for the study of animal anatomy in general. We find in the Babylonian-Assyrian omen-texts special designations for the three main lobes of the sheep's liver—the lobus dexter, the lobus sinister and the lobus caudatus; the first-named being called “the right wing of the liver,” the second “the left wing of the liver,” and the third “the middle of the liver.” Whether the division of the lobus dexter into two divisions—(1) lobus dexter proper and (2) lobus quadratus, as in modern anatomical nomenclature—was also assumed in Babylonian hepatoscopy, is not certain, but the groove separating the right lobe into two sections—the fossa venae umbilicalis—was recognized and distinguished by the designation of “river of the liver." The two appendixes attached to the upper lobe or lobus pyramidalis, and known in modern nomenclature as processus pyramidalis and processus papillaris, were described respectively as the “finger” of the liver and as the “offshoot.” The former of these two appendixes plays an especially important part in hepatoscopy, and, according to its shape and peculiarities, furnishes a good or bad omen. The gall-bladder, appropriately designated as “the bitter,” was regarded as a part of the liver, and the cystic duct (compared, apparently, to a “penis”) to which it is joined, as well as the hepatic duct (pictured as an “outlet”) and the ductus choleductus (described as a “yoke”), all had their special designations. The depression separating the two lower lobes from the lobus caudatus, and known as the porta hepatis, was appropriately designated as the “crucible” of the Liver. Lastly, to pass over unnecessary details, the markings of various kinds to be observed on the lobes of the livers of freshly-slaughtered animals, which are due mainly to the traces left by the subsidiary hepatic ducts and hepatic veins on the liver surface, were described as “holes,” “paths,” “clubs” and the like. The constantly varying character of these markings, no two livers being alike in this respect, furnished a particularly large field for the fancy of the bārū-priest.
In the interpretation of these signs the two chief factors were association of ideas and association of words. If, for example, the process us pyramidal is was abnormally small and the processus papillaris abnormally large, it pointed to a reversion of the natural order, to wit, that the servant should control the master or that the son would be above the father. A long cystic duct would point to a long reign of the king. If the gall-bladder was swollen, it pointed to an extension or enlargement of some kind. If the porta hepatis was torn it prognosticated a plundering of the enemy's land. As among most people, a sign on the right side was favourable, but the same sign on the left side unfavourable. If, for example, the porta hepatis was long on the right side and short on the left side, it was a good sign for the king's army, but if short on the right side and long on the left, it was unfavourable; and similarly for a whole series of phenomena connected with any one of the various subdivisions of the liver. Past experience constituted another important factor in establishing the interpretation of signs noted. If, for example, on a certain occasion when the liver of a sacrificial animal was examined, certain events of a favourable character followed, the conclusion was drawn that the signs observed were favourable, and hence the recurrence of these signs on another occasion suggested a favourable answer to the question put to the priests. With this in view, omens given in the reigns of prominent rulers were preserved with special care as guides to the priests.
In the course of time the collections of signs and their interpretation made by the bārū-priests grew in number until elaborate series were produced in which the endeavour was made to exhaust so far as possible all the varieties and modifications of the many signs, so as to furnish a complete handbook both for purposes of instruction and as a basis for the practical work of divination. Divination through the liver remained in force among the Assyrians and Babylonians down to the end of the Babylonian Empire.
Among the Greeks and Romans likewise it was the liver that continued throughout all periods to play the chief rôle in divination through the sacrificial animal. Blecher (De Extispicio Capita Tria, Giessen, 1905, pp. 3–22) has recently collected most of the references in Greek and Latin authors to animal divination, and an examination of these shows conclusively that, although the general term used for the inspection of the sacrificial animal was iera or iereia (i.e. “victims” or “sacred parts”) in Greek, and exta in Latin, when specific illustrations are introduced, the reference is almost invariably to some sign or signs on the liver; and we have an interesting statement in Pliny (Hist. Nat. xi. § 186), furnishing the date (274 B.C.) when the examination of the heart was for the first time introduced by the side of the liver as a means of divining the future, while the lungs are not mentioned till we reach the days of Cicero (de Divinatione, i. 85). We are justified in concluding, therefore, that among the Greeks and Romans likewise the examination of the liver was the basis of divination in the case of the sacrificial animal. It is well known that the Romans borrowed their methods of hepatoscopy from the Etruscans, and, apart from the direct evidence for this in Latin writings, we have, in the case of the bronze model of a liver found near Piacenza in 1877, and of Etruscan origin, the unmistakable proof that among the Etruscans the examination of the liver was the basis of animal divination. Besides this object dating from about the 3rd century B.C., according to the latest investigator, G. Körte (“Die Bronzeleber von Piacenza," in Mitt. d. K. D. Archaeol. Instituts, 1905, xx. pp. 348–379), there are other Etruscan monuments, e.g. the figure of an Etruscan augur holding a liver in his hand as his trade-mark (Körte, ib. pl. xiv.), which point in the same direction, and indicate that the model of the liver was used as an object lesson to illustrate the method of divination through the liver. For further details the reader is referred to Thulin's monograph, Die Etruskische Disciplin, II. Die Haruspicin (Gothenburg, 1906).
As for the Greeks, it is still an open question whether they perfected their method of hepatoscopy under Etruscan influence or through the Babylonians. In any case, since the Eastern origin of the Etruscans is now generally admitted, we may temporarily, at least, accept the conclusion that hepatoscopy as a method of divination owes its survival in advanced forms of culture to the elaborate system devised in the course of centuries by the Babylonian priests, and to the influence, direct and indirect, exerted by this system in the ancient world. But for this system hepatoscopy, the theoretic basis of which as above set forth falls within the sphere of ideas that belong to primitive culture, would have passed away as higher stages of civilization were reached; and as a matter of fact it plays no part in the Egyptian culture or in the civilization of India, while among the Hebrews only faint traces of the primitive idea of the liver as the seat of the soul are to be met with in the Old Testament, among which an allusion in the indirect form of a protest against the use of the sacrificial animal for purposes of divination in the ordinance (Exodus xxix. 13, 22; Leviticus iii. 4, 10, 15, &c.) to burn the processus pyramidalis of the liver, which played a particularly significant role in hepatoscopy, calls for special mention.
In modern times hepatoscopy still survives among primitive peoples in Borneo, Burma, Uganda, &c.
It but remains to call attention to the fact that the earlier view of the liver as the seat of the soul gave way among many ancient nations to the theory which, reflecting the growth of anatomical knowledge, assigned that function to the heart, while, with the further change which led to placing the seat of soul-life in the brain, an attempt was made to partition the various functions of manifestations of personality among the three organs, brain, heart and liver, the intellectual activity being assigned to the first-named; the higher emotions, as love
