Les sens du signe: l'herméneutique divinatoire dans l'historiographie latine d'époque impériale

Whoever deals with double-entendre in antic divination seems to refer exclusively to the topos of enigmatic oracular answers. But however famous, the oracular tradition represents only a small part of divination literature, and oracular ambiguity is only a particular instance of the use of polysemy in divination practice and discourse. By focusing on the interpretation and the pragmatics of interpretation in imperial Latin historiography – Suetonius especially, but also Quintus Curtius, Tacitus, and Ammianus – I want to highlight three things. First, that a sign is a compound of three distinct levels of meaning, which correspond to three distinct cognitive operations – description, identification, and interpretation. Second, that in the meantime, the abundance of analogical meanings is an obstacle to establish the genuine meaning of an omen. Third, that an interpreter nevertheless builds up a convincing interpretation precisely by handling numerous levels of meaning. From this point of view the exegesis of signs – whose very purpose is to decipher the future – is, under the appearance of learned, playful speculation, an actual rhetoric of power.