HEPATOSCOPY, one of the oldest and most widespread methods of divining the future, both among primitive people and among several of the civilizations of antiquity, was by the reading of omens in the signs noted on the liver of the animal offered as a sacrifice to some deity. In ancient Babylonia it can be traced back to the 3rd millennium B.C. From the Etruscans it made its way to the Romans. Among the Greeks it was introduced at a very early period and persisted to a late day. It is still found in S.E. Asia, Borneo and in Africa.
The rite everywhere rests on the belief that the liver was at one time regarded as the seat of vitality. Filled with blood it was natural to regard it as the seat of the blood, which was everywhere in antiquity associated with life. It was a natural and short step to identify the liver with the soul as well as with the seat of life, and therefore as the centre of all manifestations of vitality and activity.
The theory underlying hepatoscopy consists of the belief (1) that the liver is the seat of life, or the soul of the animal; and (2) that the liver of the sacrificial animal, by virtue of its acceptance on the part of the god, took on the same character as the soul of the god to whom it was offered. If, therefore, one understood the signs noted on a particular liver, one entered, as it were, into the mind (as one of the manifestations of soul-life) of the deity who had assimilated the being of the animal to his own being. To know the mind of the god was equivalent to knowing what the god in question proposed to do. Hence, when one approached a deity with an enquiry as to the outcome of some undertaking, the reading of the signs on the liver afforded a direct means of deter mining the course of future events, which was, according to current beliefs, in the control of the gods. 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 groove separating the right lobe into two sections; the two appendixes attached to the upper lobe or lobus pyramidalis; the gallbladder; 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, the depression separating the two lower lobes from the lobus caudatus and known as the porta hepatis. Lastly, to pass over unnecessary details, the markings of various kinds 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, also had their special designations. 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 baril-priest. In the interpretation of these signs the two chief factors were associa tion of ideas and association of words. For example, 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 plunder ing 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 un favourable. Past experience constituted an important factor in establishing the interpretation of signs noted. If, for example, on a certain occasion when the liver of a sacrificial animal was ex amined, 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 sug gested 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 baru-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.