The divinatory liver is a bronze model of the liver of a sheep. Judging from the script, it was modelled in northern Etruria. On the concave surface there are the sedes of the gods, organized according to the ritual division of the space which is mirrored in the liver itself.
The divinatory liver. (Museo Civico, Piacenza)
The concave face of the bronze liver
The convex face of the bronze liver
According to the studies of Maggiani, the liver and the ancient sources enable a clear enough reconstruction of the structure of the partes, familiaris and hostilis, thus showing the strict cosmological nexus among the divine tetrades, the course of the Sun and the parts of the universe. The complex interaction between Greek and Oriental hepatoscopy, astrology and mantic disciplines has not yet been investigated in depth. Moreover, several divinities of the Etruscan pantheon as mentioned in the inscriptions of the Liver are obscure and/or unknown.
Calchas, priest of Apollo, (mentioned in Homer's Iliad)
examines the liver of a sacrificed sheep.
The Etruscan inscriptions reads Xalxas.
Bronze mirror (Vatican City, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco)
The Etruscan hepatoscopic doctrine finds its parallel in the interpretation of other omen-bearing signs. Seneca (n.q. II, 32 ff.) and Plinius (n.h. II, 135 ff.) report a great number of excerpta from the Etruscan Libri Fulgurales (the books for the interpretation of thunderbolt-omens). The basilar principle rests on the belief that some gods possess the manubiae, that is the ability to use thunderbolts (Serv. Aen. I,42). According to Plinius (n.h. II, 138), nine gods have this ability (probably they should be identified with the dii novensiles or novensides listed by Martianus Capella). According to the Libri Fulgurales, there are eleven different kinds of thunderbolts. Jupiter has three manubiae (Plin., n.h. II, 138; Sen. n.q. II,41) that can be distinguished by their meaning and by the fact that they can be thrown either by Jupiter alone or by Jupiter with the consilium of other gods. The first manubia belongs to Jupiter alone, the second manubia to Jupiter and the Dei Consentes, the third one to Jupiter and the Dei Involuti. The three kinds of thunderbolts can be either of a physical nature (Fest. p. 114 L; Sen. n.q. II, 40) or meaningful from a theological point of view. Some commentators (Serv. auct. Aen. VIII, 429) distinguished the following thunderbolts: ostentatorium (=ostentatory, demonstrative), peremptorium (=peremptory, decisive), presagum (=presageful, foreboding), while -- according to other interpreters (Serv. Aen. I, 230) -- the thunderbolts were to be recognized by their forms, and namely: quod tereat (=the terrifying), quod adflet (=the blowing), quod puniat (=the chastising, punishing). As far as the remaining eight gods are concerned the sources supply only very little support.
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