ancient rome

[pantolady]

religious official whose duty was to interpret natural signs in order to foretell whether the gods were pleased or displeased by a proposed course of action?

[andy-hughes]

Soothsayer?

[shaneystar2]

I think we have answered this for you before .... Augur.

[shaneystar2]

Although there is also a .. Haruspex..could that be what you are looking for? They divined by looking at the entrails of animals.

[BigMac]

I'd go with augur:

One of a group of ancient Roman religious officials who foretold events by observing and interpreting signs and omens.

[mike b]

augur prob from avis, ie interpreting flight of birds, whereas haruspex, etymology unknown, dealt with disembowelling, entrails etc ugh. Anyway, I seem to remember the original posting specified 5 letters...

[Peter Pedant]

Haruspex

Cicero wrote a book about this

de divinatione

[etiam haruspex erat Cicero] - that's Latin for he was one too,

and in it, you will find, i can hardly meet another augur without bursting out laughing

ho humn he took his duties serioiusly..

[Tatty Rollox]

..... who's for a lobster .......

[shaneystar2]

I do wish pantolady would get back to us and say whether or not someone has given her the correct answer.After all this question was posted twice.Loads of help and no answer was the sad reply !
With apologies to dear Tatty here is an Augur
http://www.stanmcdaniel.com/pubs/ys/images/augur.jpg
and here is the Haruspex
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/anamnesis/HARUS PEX.GIF

[Tatty Rollox]

Crikey, shaney, did you bring the three of them back from Norway with you?

[mike b]

This is Feb Quizmail q9 already, so stand by for more...

[pantolady]

Pantolady would like to thank all persons for taking the trouble to answer her question. (ANCIENT ROME)She regrets the passing of time before she acknowledge correct answer as augur but unfortunately she did not have access to her computer in I.C.U.. !!!!!(D.V.T.)

[shaneystar2]

Sorry to hear that you have been unwell. ..do hope you are feeling better now.
Didn't mean to be unkind but sometimes you give people a whole researched answer and they never get back to you.
Good luck with your quiz.