a "bird": "On us you depend," sings his chorus of Birds,

"On us you depend, and to us you repair
For counsel and aid, when a marriage is made,
A purchase, a bargain, a venture in trade;
Unlucky or lucky, whatever has struck ye,
An ox or an ass, that may happen to pass,
A voice in the street, or a slave that you meet,
A name or a word by chance overheard,
You deem it an omen, and call it a Bird."
[Footnote: Aristoph. "Birds" 717.--Frere's translation.]

Aristophanes, of course, is jesting; but how serious and important this
art of divination must have appeared even to the most cultivated
Athenians may be gathered from a passage of the tragedian Aeschylus,
where he mentions it as one of the benefits conferred by Prometheus on
mankind, and puts it on a level with the arts of building, metal-making,
sailing, and the like, and the sciences of arithmetic and astronomy.

And if anyone were dissatisfied with this method of interpretation by
signs, he had a directer means of approaching the gods. He could visit
one of the oracles and consult the deity at first hand about his most
trivial and personal family affairs. Some of the questions put to the
oracle at Dodona have been preserved to us, [Footnote: See Percy
Gardner, "New Chapters in Greek History."] and very curious they are.
"Who stole my cushions and pillow?" asks one bereaved householder.
Another wants to know whether it will pay him to buy a certain house and
farm; another whether sheep-farming is a good investment. Clearly, the
god was not above being consulted on the meanest affairs; and his easy
accessibility must have been some compensation for his probable caprice.