What is "sortes homericae"

Sors \Sors\, n.; pl. Sortes. [L.] A lot; also, a kind of divination by means of lots.

Sortes Homeric[ae] or Sortes Virgilian[ae] [L., Homeric or Virgilian lots], a form of divination anciently practiced, which consisted in taking the first passage on which the eye fell, upon opening a volume of Homer or Virgil, or a passage drawn from an urn which several were deposited, as indicating future events, or the proper course to be pursued. In later times the Bible was used for the same purpose by Christians.

The Sortes Homericae (Latin for "Homeric lots") was the practice of drawing a random sentence or line from the works of Homer (usually the Iliad) to answer a question or predict the future. Socrates is recorded as doing so in prison to determine the day of his execution, and the practice even occurred in the Renaissance era. In the Roman world it co-existed with the various forms of the sortes, such as the Sortes Virgilianae and their Christian successor the Sortes Sanctorum.

Brutus used this practice, which informed him Pompey would lose the battle of Pharsalus. The emperor Marcus Opellius Macrinus is also known to have used it, drawing Iliad 8, 102-3, informing him he would not last long on the imperial throne.