ABSTRACT
In antiquity, the oracular-the mantic, the prophetic-was something that could scarcely be contained by civic or religious authorities. Indeed, the oracular continued to spill out and overflow whatever limits might be carefully laid around it. Channels of the prophetic and divinatory remained unpredictable in their currents and continued to challenge the authority of governing bodies from archaic Athens1 to Augustan Rome,2 Antioch in the time of Licinius,3 or again in the time of Valens,4 and beyond. Like sparks flashing across a darkened forge,5 oracular activity leapt forth in myriad insuppressible directions under the blows of institutional hammering, scattering bits of numinosity and divine presence into the daily activities of both urban and rural populations across the ancient and late ancient Mediterranean.
