(15) Morris Jastrow:  loc. cit., p. 122.

Hepatoscopy thus became, among the Babylonians, of extraordinary complexity, and the organ of the sheep was studied and figured as early as 3000 B.C.  In the divination rites, the lobes, the gall-bladder, the appendages of the upper lobe and the markings were all inspected with unusual care.  The earliest known anatomical model, which is here shown, is the clay model of a sheep’s liver with the divination text dating from about 2000 B.C., from which Jastrow has worked out the modern anatomical equivalents of the Babylonian terms.  To reach a decision on any point, the phenomena of the inspection of the liver were carefully recorded, and the interpretations rested on a more or less natural and original association of ideas.  Thus, if the gall-bladder were swollen on the right side, it pointed to an increase in the strength of the King’s army, and was favorable; if on the left side, it indicated rather success of the enemy, and was unfavorable.  If the bile duct was long, it pointed to a long life.  Gallstones are not infrequently mentioned in the divination texts and might be favorable, or unfavorable.  Various interpretations were gathered by the scribes in the reference note-books which serve as guides for the interpretation of the omens and for text-books of instructions in the temple schools (Jastrow).

The art of divination spread widely among the neighboring nations.  There are many references in the Bible to the practice.  The elders of Moab and Midian came to Balaam “with the rewards of divination in their hand” (Numbers xxii, 7).  Joseph’s cup of divination was found in Benjamin’s sack (Genesis xliv, 5, 12); and in Ezekiel (xxi, 21) the King of Babylon stood at the parting of the way and looked in the liver.  Hepatoscopy was also practiced by the Etruscans, and from them it passed to the Greeks and the Romans, among whom it degenerated into a more or less meaningless form.  But Jastrow states that in Babylonia and Assyria, where for several thousand years the liver was consistently employed as the sole organ of divination, there are no traces of the rite having fallen into decay, or having been abused by the priests.

In Roman times, Philostratus gives an account of the trial of Apollonius of Tyana,(16) accused of human hepatoscopy by sacrificing a boy in the practice of magic arts against the Emperor.  “The liver, which the experts say is the very tripod of their art, does not consist of pure blood; for the heart retains all the uncontaminated blood, and irrigates the whole body with it by the conduits of the arteries; whereas the gall, which is situated next the liver, is stimulated by anger and depressed by fear into the hollows of the liver.”