#Everyone should have their Apollo hold a sheep liver at least once. For enrichment
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gingermintpepper · 2 months ago
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I was reading the Orphic Argonautica last night and the author has mentioned the various methods of divination Apollo knows and guess what? One of them is prophesying by studying the entrails of organisms. As soon as I read that I was reminded of your headcanon of Apollo being into hepatoscopy for divination and I giggled.
Awww 😳😳It's so nice of you to think of me!
Hehe, so fun fact, the overall practice of divination by studying the entrails of animals (including blood, lungs, intestines and so forth) is extispicy while hepatoscopy is specifically using the liver in prophecy and divination readings.
If, like magic in old text exactly like the sort Medea is described as using, the types of divination spoken about in the texts are reflections of the popular divination cultures of the time, I much rather prefer ascribing those to Apollo than I do some vague, somewhat mysterious power which he uses to see the will of the fates, especially since it's mentioned a few times that he'll teach his sons the language of the birds and how to read their signs and so on and so forth.
In short: HEPATOSCOPY APOLLO IS COOL!! HE'S SO NEAT!! Apollo at the altar who predicts the coming droughts and famines from the entrails of his flock!! It's just such a neat little image (to me)!
Also the Orphic Argonautica bangs, genuinely I hope you enjoy it! Orpheus is an insane man and I do not think him along with the collective subspecies of mythical man known as 'sons of Apollo' get enough credit for how truly unhinged they are at any given point in time.
#ginger answers asks#It's so sweet of you to think of me uuuu#If we treat Apollo's prophecy the same we treat say Aphrodite's rituals in the Iliad#Where in Book 14 I think? Hera asks for her help in creating something that will ultimately help her seduce Zeus#And how that reflects on the very big enchantment and amuletting culture where people would use#cosmetics necklaces belts even knots that they hid in their pockets#together with words of affirmation and some ritualistic method like saying a spell three/seven times#in order to inflict some kind of effect on themselves or their betters#then I think it's entirely fair to ascribe the divination rituals of the day to Apollo in place of mystical visions that don't usually#follow any kind of process to induce despite the process of the Oracle itself being highly regimented#Or course the natural rebuttal is 'well Apollo is the god of prophecy why would he have to do any rituals to use his power'#and my answer to that is Apollo is the god of orating fate but he doesn't create Fate itself that's the work of his father and the Fates#So long as Apollo is appealling to powers older than himself the natural course of action is to pray and be supplicant imo#And well Apollo is nothing if not a filial son#Anyway it's still just a personal headcanon of mine I'm really glad <33#I would gladly be known as That one guy on tumblr that really likes making Apollo hold sheep livers#Everyone should have their Apollo hold a sheep liver at least once. For enrichment#greek mythology#apollo
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