In both the Greek and the Roman worlds the study of divination has generated a substantial body of scholarship. In recent years one of the most innovative developments in the history of religions has been the Cognitive Science of Religion, which has also been applied to divinatory practices (see e.g. P.T. Struck, Divination and Human Nature. A Cognitive History of Intuition in Classical Antiquity [2016]; G. Frigerio, A Cognitive Analysis of the Main Apolline Divinatory Practices [2023]). It is within this framework that the two volumes under discussion should be situated. Both aim to reassess aspects of Greek divination and prophecy by adopting perspectives that account for the human tendency to seek reassurance and meaning in situations of uncertainty, as well as to attribute hidden – often supernatural – agency to complex phenomena.

One of the volumes is further distinguished by its engagement with Disaster Studies, a field only recently applied to the ancient world (a current whose key contributions include J. Jouanna, J. Leclant and M. Zink [edd], L’homme face aux calamités naturelles dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Âge [2006]). The effort to bring these two disciplines together is especially commendable, as it avoids treating the two approaches as oppositional and instead explores their interrelation within a growing line of inquiry.

Although both volumes concern the Greek world, they differ significantly in structure. Divination and Prophecy in the Ancient Greek World, edited by Woodard, is a collective volume consisting of an introduction, ten chapters and a conclusion, originating from a 2016 symposium in New York. The introduction provides a useful overview of the contributions, allowing the volume to be read either as a whole or consulted selectively. A fuller discussion of the overall approach in the introduction would have been welcome, particularly regarding the distinction between divination and prophecy. The bibliography for the entire volume appears at the end, followed by an index.

By contrast, Divining Disaster: Signs of Catastrophe in Ancient Greek Culture by van Veldhuizen is a monograph with a substantial introduction outlining its aims, methods and structure. The book is organised into five parts, each introduced thematically, for a total of sixteen chapters, followed by a conclusion, a bibliography and an index. A potential issue arises from the title: the terms ‘disaster’ and ‘catastrophe’, reinforced by the cover image of Vesuvius, may suggest a primary focus on natural events. In practice, the treatment is broader and more fluid, with less clearly defined boundaries than the title might imply.

The volume edited by Woodard brings together closely interconnected contributions, with a clear thematic thread running through Chapters 2 to 8. These chapters address key historiographical issues, particularly the role of Herodotus and the interpretation of the oracles he reports, while reassessing the uncritical acceptance that has long shaped scholarship. This contrasts with van Veldhuizen’s approach, where Herodotus remains central but is examined primarily for what his narrative techniques reveal about Greek mentality, with less emphasis on contextualisation and critical reassessment.

Woodard’s volume follows a broadly chronological structure combined with a coherent thematic progression. Several chapters build on shared premises or address complementary issues, and cross-references enhance the overall cohesion, resulting in a level of consistency not always found in edited volumes. In the first chapter Woodard examines the role of intellect in divination through etymological and lexical analysis. He traces the origins of the relevant vocabulary to Indo-European cult practices later transmitted into Greek oracular traditions, thereby revealing underlying cognitive structures. In Chapter 2 C. Calame, starting from an analysis of Prometheus Bound, argues that divination is a technique that relies on reason and judgement for the identification and interpretation of signs, thus constituting a form of practical knowledge. He accordingly places divination among the semiotic arts, similarly to van Veldhuizen’s approach. In Chapter 3 R. Parker explores the relationship between oracles and their clients. By drawing on ethnographic comparison with African divinatory practices, he challenges the idea that responses simply reflect clients’ expectations, and emphasises the importance of oral tradition; his notion of ‘fixed sites’ offers a useful alternative to ‘oracular sites’.

Chapters 4–8 further develop complementary perspectives. E. Eidinow applies cognitive dissonance theory, showing how individuals seek coherence and meaning even in the face of contradiction. G. Nagy focuses on oral composition and transmission. Drawing on the concept of mouvance, he compares this dynamic with the recomposition-in-performance of Provençal bards. M. Giangiulio addresses the issue of Herodotean accounts of post eventum oracles, demonstrating that these narratives were reshaped by local popular traditions. As such, they would lose their meaning outside their narrative context and function as forms of identity construction. N. Luraghi argues that the literal texts of oracles are integral to their narratives and the oral tradition; though possibly inspired by real ones, they become tradition only through transmission, while writing alters their form and conceptualisation. Finally, M.A. Flower draws on psychological models, such as hyperactive agency detection, to explain the perception of signs and portents, highlighting their role in providing a sense of control – an idea that also represents a key point of convergence with van Veldhuizen’s work.

Some of Flower’s observations are particularly noteworthy: he emphasises that even fictional narratives reveal essential aspects of Greek thought – an insight often neglected in religious studies –, and cautions against projecting post-Enlightenment assumptions that diminish the importance of divine communication. A minor criticism concerns the imprecise use of the term ‘Italian polytheism’ (p. 195), which would be better rendered as ‘Roman’, ‘Latin’ or ‘Italic’.

The final two chapters are somewhat disconnected from the main body of the volume. F.S. Naiden examines four divinatory methods – extispicy, teratology, oneiromancy and oracles – during the Macedonian period, focusing on Aristander of Telmessus and the influence of Alexander’s cult. D. Fields, by contrast, analyses the second-century ce emergence of the charismatic holy man – both revered and fraudulent –, highlighting issues of false prophecy and the construction of authority.

In the afterword the editor synthesises the volume’s main arguments, draws connections between the contributions and further develops key points. Additional Indo-European comparisons help clarify certain issues, leading to a comprehensive interpretation of Greek divination. The result is a valuable volume that approaches the status of a handbook: while it presupposes some prior knowledge, it offers clear and effective guidance through the field.

Van Veldhuizen’s monograph starts from the premise that earlier approaches to religion were often reductive, treating it as a primitive stage of thought preceding science. Against this background, his aim is to explore the experience of disaster and the conditions through which it is mediated by signs. The notion of ‘divining disaster’ is central and is proposed as a semiotic model for analysing both the discourse surrounding disasters and the strategies of meaning-making, with particular attention to collective responses. It is understood as a form of hermeneutic disaster management operating on three levels: interpreting divine signs, producing meaning and conceiving the text as a system of signs. From this perspective, disasters are ‘managed’ by integrating them into a semiotic framework that reduces uncertainty. To this end, the author mobilises concepts such as agency, vulnerability, resilience and uncertainty to explain why individuals actively seek signs in the face of disruption.

The first part aims to conceptualise divination. Chapter 1 outlines the cognitive premises linking disaster and divination, arguing that divine communication operates through signs that humans can perceive and elicit, with uncertainty as their key point of convergence. Chapter 2 proposes a classification of divinatory systems and defines the mentality of ‘divining disaster’ as a semiotic practice rooted in shared cognitive patterns. This practice structures relationships between events and signs, allowing meaningful events to be distinguished from random occurrences. Divination is thus conceived as a system linking signs and events. Chapter 3 focuses on the terminology of signs, particularly teras and tekmar. The former denotes a portent or extraordinary sign associated with the divine, while the latter refers to proof or evidence indicating divine agency. Chapter 4 introduces abductive reasoning, derived from C.S. Peirce, as a central analytical tool: it allows disasters to be interpreted by identifying the most plausible explanatory hypothesis.

In the second part van Veldhuizen develops the concept of disaster. In Chapter 5 he introduces the notions of disaster-as-sign, disaster-as-event and disaster-as-condition, placing authors such as Plutarch, Shakespeare and Derrida in dialogue. Chapter 6 examines the lexicon of disaster, highlighting both its etymology and the range of terms used in antiquity, as well as the influence of classical literature on modern understandings. Chapter 7 deepens the discussion through Euripides’ Heracles and Polybius’ Histories, arguing that disasters function as anchors of memory. Drawing in particular on Thucydides, van Veldhuizen adopts an emic perspective in which natural and human-made disasters are conceptualised within the same framework.

The third part turns to the agents behind disasters. In Chapter 8, focusing on the earthquake of Helike, van Veldhuizen argues that ‘divining disaster’ functions as a form of hermeneutic disaster management. Drawing on memory studies, he shows how disasters generate a continuum of memory linking past and present. A key idea is that signs may precede disasters, while disasters can also function as signs. By attributing agency and intentionality, religious explanations restore disasters to a sphere of interpretability and control, enabling meaning-making, anticipation and mitigation. Chapter 9 examines metaphors of divine anger, comparing Helike with the modern earthquake of San Francisco, and shows how narrative operates as a coping mechanism. Chapter 10 analyses the figure of Poseidon as the god of natural disasters, extending the discussion into mythological discourse. This shift from sign to symbol allows the author to explore the role of symbolic language in structuring interpretations of disaster within human thought and narrative.

In the fourth part van Veldhuizen develops the notion of uncertainty. Chapter 11 examines how disaster is represented in visual media and introduces the concept of the ‘geographicalness’ of disaster: a tekmar that anchors place, person or object within a spatial order restores meaning, whereas the absence of semiotic markers produces disorientation and hinders recovery. This idea is further developed in Chapter 12 through the example of the Argonauts, where uncertainty corresponds to a lack of tekmar, and ‘out-of-placeness’ emerges as a key element in the phenomenology of disaster. Chapter 13 turns to cosmological disasters, particularly the Titanomachy and the Typhonomachy in the Theogony, interpreted as a ‘textual product of divining disaster’. In this framework chaos is defined by the absence of signs, while disaster is understood as a state of geographical disorientation that requires the re-establishment of spatial reference points. ‘Divining disaster’ thus functions as a process that reorients a disrupted landscape through signs, with narrative and myth producing meaning through textual organisation. Chapter 14 applies these ideas to mythological cases such as Prometheus, who acts as a deviner by mapping invisible spaces, reducing uncertainty and restoring order – for instance, in the case of Io’s wanderings. The analysis includes the wandering island of Delos, which becomes a tekmar and spatial marker once its mobility ceases, possibly recalling seismic activity.

Part 5 focuses on vulnerability and plague. Drawing partly on reflections linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, van Veldhuizen situates plague within the ancient triad of plague, famine and war. In Chapter 15 plague is analysed both as a divine sign and as a teras, a portent of disorder. Conceived as a ‘semiotic monster’, it may precede, coincide with or follow the loimos, thus functioning as sign, disaster or remedy. This is explored through Hesiod, Virgil and the figure of the Minotaur. The final chapter examines plague in Herodotus, Josephus and Thucydides, showing how historical narrative domesticates disaster by embedding it within discourse. Oracles are interpreted as tools for managing uncertainty by assigning meaning and position within a system of signs. The conclusion synthesises the main arguments of the book.

Van Veldhuizen’s book is clearly aimed at a specialist audience, already familiar with classical texts and basic issues in the study of divination. It is not an introductory work, but it offers valuable support for readers interested in the complexity of divinatory practices in antiquity and in the hermeneutic potential of an approach at the intersection of semiotics and cognitive psychology, using comparison to reveal networks of meaning often invisible in more traditional readings.

However, several critical points should be mentioned. The use of comparison is at times rather unrestrained, with parallels drawn across distant geographical and chronological contexts without sufficient critical caveats. This method risks flattening divination and reducing its complexity and diversity. Moreover, although the use of multiple theoretical tools is essential to the book’s aims, their application is not always transparent. This results both from a sometimes convoluted style and from the internal organisation of the chapters. The volume is very dense and would have benefited from a clearer and more structured presentation across its sixteen chapters. As it stands, key concepts are often dispersed within chapters rather than developed along a clearly articulated line of argument, and the overall exposition tends towards parataxis, with a limited hierarchy of ideas. Another limitation is the near-exclusive reliance on anglophone scholarship; the discussion would benefit from broader engagement.Footnote ¹ A further issue concerns the notion of ‘morality’, which is insufficiently contextualised: offences are directed against the gods (e.g. ritual failures) and do not correspond to moral transgressions in the human sense. Divine punishment thus concerns sacrilege rather than ethics, since the gods are not primarily conceived as guarantors of human morality. Similarly, the term ‘theological’ is not clearly defined, and its polysemic and potentially anachronistic character is not sufficiently addressed. Finally, the frequent use of quotations in place of section titles also affects readability: in such a dense work, clarity should take precedence over stylistic considerations.

Finally, both books offer valuable insights for deepening and updating the understanding of Greek divination, while also introducing readers to methodological approaches that are increasingly central to the study of ancient religion. Their stated aim is to move closer to an understanding of the Greek mentality – an aspiration that can be seen as central to research that seeks to go beyond purely descriptive analysis. In this respect the authors demonstrate how an alternative, multidisciplinary approach can significantly enhance our understanding of religious phenomena.

Taken together, these two books suggest that the perceived distance from antiquity is sometimes more a matter of inherited historiographical assumptions than of objective difference and that the underlying structures of religious phenomena – of which divination is one aspect – respond to enduring social and cognitive needs that persist across historical contexts.