In 44 BCE, the Roman statesman Cicero wrote that his brother Quintus once cast the sortes in a temple of Fortuna. The lot told him to trust no one. The advice proved useless on its own, but Quintus later claimed it saved him from a betrayal. The story survives not because the lot was wrong or right, but because Romans took the practice seriously enough to record it.
Sortes, from the Latin for “lots,” is the practice of divination by random selection, where a question is posed and the answer is determined by chance, often interpreted as the will of the gods or fate. This method of seeking guidance has appeared across cultures for millennia, from Roman temple lots to medieval Bible dipping and modern rune casting. It rests on a radical idea: that randomness is a channel for the divine.
Where Does the Practice of Casting Lots Begin?
The earliest documented sortes belong to Rome and Greece, but the principle is older. The Hebrew Bible records the casting of lots (the urim and thummim) to determine God’s will. Greek oracles used lots at Delphi and Dodona, where questions on lead tablets were answered by drawing from a jar of brass tokens. The word “cleromancy” (Greek kleros, lot) covers the broader family, but the Roman tradition gave us the name we still use.
Roman sortes were institutionalized at temples of Fortuna, especially at Praeneste. A boy would draw one of a set of inscribed oak sticks. The priest read the answer. The system was so embedded that when the Emperor Hadrian consulted the sortes Vergilianae (opening Virgil’s Aeneid at random for a line of guidance) in the second century CE, he was following a practice that had already been common for three hundred years. Alexander Severus, in the third century, is said to have used the same method daily.
Christianity initially resisted the practice. St. Augustine condemned sortilege in De Doctrina Christiana (397 CE), arguing that consulting lots was a form of trying to force God’s hand. Yet by the sixth century, the Sortes Sanctorum (Lots of the Saints) had entered monastic use, and the Sortes Apostolorum (Lots of the Apostles) circulated as a manuscript. Frankish bishops in the eighth century prohibited the practice while their own monks kept it alive. The human reality is simple: when a decision was too heavy — who to marry, whether to fight, where to settle — people handed the choice to fate. The lot gave an answer without blame.
What Did the Lot Symbolize for the Ancients?
The lot was not random in the modern sense. For the Roman, the Greek, the medieval Christian, chance was never blind. It was the surface through which fate or God spoke. The act of casting lots acknowledged that human reason had limits. The lot became a temporary oracle: a voice that bypassed bias, politics, and fear.
This is why the lot carried such weight. A general who drew “no” from the temple might cancel a campaign. A lover who drew “yes” might propose. The lot was impartial. It did not care about status or persuasion. That impartiality is the heart of its symbolism: the divine uses the one thing humans cannot control — pure accident, to communicate.
In medieval bibliomancy, the Bible became a living Oracle. The verse your finger landed on was not a coincidence. It was a message for that hour. The church condemned it, but the people did it anyway, because the impulse to hear a voice in the silence is older than any institution.
How Were the Sortes Performed?
The method varied by period and text, but the core steps repeat across cultures.
The Roman sortes (temple tradition):
- A set of inscribed wooden or bronze lots was kept in a container.
- The questioner approached the priest, often after a small offering.
- The lots were shaken, and one was drawn by the questioner or a child.
- The priest interpreted the inscription or assigned its meaning from a standard list.
The sortes Vergilianae and Homericae:
- The questioner opened a copy of Virgil’s Aeneid or Homer’s Iliad at random.
- The first line the eye caught was the answer.
- Emperors used this. Soldiers used this. There are accounts of the sortes being consulted before battle.
Medieval Christian bibliomancy (Sortes Sanctorum):
- The Bible was opened to a random page; the first verse touched by the finger became the answer.
- Some practitioners prayed before opening, asking God to direct the hand.
- The method was simple enough that it survived village use into the early modern period.
Modern adaptations:
- Rune casting uses a set of stones or sticks inscribed with symbols.
- The I Ching uses coin tosses to generate hexagrams.
- Cartomancy (fortune-telling with playing cards) shares the same principle: shuffle, draw, interpret.
We can perform a sortilege ourselves with nothing more than a list of written options and a bowl. But the old ways insisted on a sacred text, a ritual purity, and a moment of silence. The lot is not a magic trick. It is a conversation with what you believe is listening.
Sortes, Cleromancy, Bibliomancy: What Is the Difference?
These three terms overlap but are not identical.
Cleromancy is the broadest category: any divination by casting lots. Runes, dice, sticks, stones, bones, all fit under cleromancy. The word comes from Greek kleros (lot) and manteia (divination).
Sortes is a subset of cleromancy, but it traditionally implies a set of ready-made answers (a fixed text or a pre-inscribed lot). Roman sortes were not random tokens you then read like runes. They were specific lines from a poem or specific labels (“Yes,” “No,” “Wait,” “Beware of strangers”). The answer was already written. The questioner only drew it.
Bibliomancy is the practice of using a book (usually a sacred one) as the source of the answer. It is a form of sortes when the book is opened at random. But not all sortes are bibliomancy, and not all bibliomancy is sortes (a practiced medium might use a book as a focus without random opening).
The I Ching occupies a middle ground. Its coins produce random lines, but the hexagram is then looked up in a canonical text. That is closer to the Roman model than to purely interpretive cleromancy.
Common Misconceptions about Sortilege
“It is pure luck, no divination.” The ancient and medieval practitioners would reject this entirely. They believed that the outcome was guided by a higher power. The randomness was the medium, not the source.
“Any random method works.” Not traditionally. The Romans used specific lots from specific temples. Medieval bibliomancy required a sacred text. Rune casters use a set of inscribed stones that have been consecrated. The method matters because the vessel matters.
“It predicts the future.” Sortes is more often about guidance for a decision than prediction. “Should I go to war?” is not a future fact; it is a present dilemma. The lot tells you which path has divine favor.
“It is a superstitious practice that died out.” It never died. The flip of a coin, the opening of a Bible at random, the “Magic 8-Ball” toy, these are all descendants of the same impulse. The form changes. The human need does not.
FAQ
What does the word “sortes” mean? It is Latin for “lots” and refers to the objects cast (wooden sticks, clay tokens, etc.) and the practice of divination by lot.
Is sortes the same as bibliomancy? Not exactly. Bibliomancy is a specific form of sortes that uses a book (often the Bible or Virgil). Sortes can use any pre-inscribed set of answers.
Can anyone practice sortilege? Yes, but traditional practice required ritual preparation: purification, prayer, and a consecrated set of lots. Modern practitioners often adapt the method freely.
Does sortilege predict the future or guide action? Primarily it guides present decisions. The lot is consulted for a specific question, not for broad fortune-telling. A prediction may emerge, but that is a side effect, not the purpose.
The lot does not remove responsibility. It shifts the final call to a source outside the self. For the Roman consul, the medieval monk, and the modern reader, sortes is a way of saying: I cannot see everything. Let something wiser choose for me. If you wish to explore other forms of chance-based divination, our guide to cleromancy covers the broader family, and the specifics of bibliomancy show how book divination works in practice. Both belong to the full landscape of oracle systems, where randomness meets revelation.