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Alexander the Great visited the Delphic Oracle wishing to hear a prophecy that he would soon conquer the entire ancient world. To his surprise the oracle refused a direct comment and asked him to come later. Furious, Alexander dragged Pythia by the hair out of the chamber until she screamed "You are invincible, my son!"
The word oracle comes from the Latin verb ōrāre, "to speak" and properly refers to the priest or priestess uttering the prediction. In extended use, oracle may also refer to the site of the oracle, and the oracular utterances themselves, are called khrēsmoí (χρησμοί) in Greek.
In the Spanish Golden Age theater play Life is a Dream by Calderon de la Barca, an oracle drives the plot.A prophecy reveals that king's infant son, Segismundo, will disgrace Poland and one day kill his father, but the king grants his son a chance to prove the oracle wrong.
The Sibylline Oracles in their existing form are a chaotic medley. They consist of 12 books (or 14) of various authorship, date, and religious conception. The final arrangement, thought to be due to an unknown editor of the 6th century AD (Alexandre), does not determine identity of authorship, time, or religious belief; many of the books are merely arbitrary groupings of unrelated fragments.
This double meaning is true in ancient Greek and Latin also. [7] The Greeks and Romans did not have a standard word that would apply in all cases. Manteion (μαντεῖον), Psychomanteion (ψυχομαντεῖον) and chresterion (χρηστήριον) were common in Greek. A prophecy might be referenced by the name of the god: "Apollo ...
Oneiromancy (from Greek όνειροϛ 'dream' and μαντεία (manteia) 'prophecy') is a form of divination based upon dreams, and also uses dreams to predict the future. Oneirogen plants may also be used to produce or enhance dream-like states of consciousness. Occasionally, the dreamer feels as if they are transported to another time or ...
The Sortes Vergilianae (Virgilian Lots) is a form of divination by bibliomancy in which advice or predictions of the future are sought by interpreting passages from the works of the Roman poet Virgil.
The Persian Sibyl – also known as the Babylonian, Chaldaean, Hebrew or Egyptian Sibyl – was the prophetic priestess presiding over the Apollonian oracle. The word "Sibyl" comes (via Latin ) from the ancient Greek word sibylla , meaning " prophetess ".