ABSTRACT
In ancient Greece and Rome, a number of methods were used to predict meteorological phenomena. The variety of works conveying information about meteorological prediction is striking, and includes writings in several literary forms. There are prose treatises which discuss meteorological prediction, but two other genres are particularly important here: astrometeorological calendrical texts and didactic poems.1 Some of our sources are entirely devoted to the topic, for example the work known as On Weather Signs, discussed below. In other cases, works which focus on different subjects nevertheless incorporate information about predictive techniques which were used; this is the case with many of the didactic poems, which list various sorts of ‘signs’ useful for predicting weather. As we shall see, many of the authors of the texts that deal with weather prediction expressly make reference to earlier writers. Furthermore, there are certain texts which are clearly central to Greek and Roman ideas on weather prediction. In particular, the Hesiodic poem Works and Days (especially the ‘calendar’ or ‘almanac’ at the end of the work) and the treatise On Weather Signs appear to provide a foundation for later writers interested in meteorological prediction. As David Sider has pointed out, the relevant section in the Works and Days focuses primarily on regularly occurring seasonal weather, which can be set out on an annual basis; On Weather Signs is chiefly concerned with indications of weather changes which appear relatively shortly before the weather events happen, even if those events typically occur in a particular season.2 The Works and Days stands at the head of a long tradition of texts concerned with weather prediction, but it must be acknowledged that prognostication was not a key
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While it would be wrong to give the impression that all ancient weather predictions were based on correlating astronomical phenomena with weather events, nevertheless, such correlations are part of an important and long-lived technique, practised in several cultures. For example, Babylonian scribes of the second millennium BCE were responsible for the great omen series known as Enu¯ma Anu Enlil, representing a vast collection of celestial omens, regarded as signs from the gods. Such omens were important in political, military and agricultural affairs, and were consulted by advisers to the Assyrian kings. About 7,000 omens were collected in seventy cuneiform tablets; these include lunar, solar and meteorological, as well as stellar (and planetary) omens. The omens took the following form: ‘If Jupiter stands in Pisces: the Tigris and the Euphrates will be filled with silt’; ‘If the moon is surrounded by a halo and the Bow star stands in it: men will rage, and robberies will become numerous in the land.’3
