(Sortilegium), a species of divination performed by means of sortes or lots. The sortes Prænestinae, famous in antiquity, consisted in putting a number of letters, or even whole words, into an urn; and then, after shaking them together, they were thrown on the ground; and whatever sentences could be made out of them constituted the answer of the oracle. To this method of divination succeeded that which has been called the sortes Homericæ and sortes Virgilianæ; a mode of inquiring into futurity which undoubtedly took its rise from a general custom of the oracular priests of delivering their answers in verse. It subsisted a long time among the Greeks and Romans, and being from them adopted by the Christians, it was not till after a long succession of centuries that it became exploded. Among the Romans it consisted in opening some celebrated poet at random, and among the Christians the Scriptures, and drawing, from the first passage which presented itself to the eye, a prognostic of what would befall one's self or others, or direction for conduct when under any exigency. There is good evidence that this was none of the vulgar errors; the greatest persons, philosophers of the best repute, admitted this superstition. Socrates, when in prison, hearing this line of Homer,

Within three days I Phthia's shore shall see, immediately said, within three days I shall be out of the world; gathering it from the double meaning of the word Phthia, which in Greek is both the name of a country and signifies corruption or death.