The flashback that introduces the main action in Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano is triggered when Laruelle does a parody of this activity using Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this activity popular in ancient Rome, in which people would attempt to determine their future by flipping to a random page of a certain Roman author’s work and reading the first line they saw.
ANSWER: sortes Vergilianae [or Virgilian Lots; prompt on answers involving predicting the future from reading Virgil; reject “Sortes Homericae”]
[10e] People who employed the sortes Vergilianae most commonly drew from this epic of his, which begins, “I sing of arms and the man.”
ANSWER: The Aeneid
[10m] An emperor known by this name used a line from the Aeneid to determine that his brother Quintillus should not succeed him. The “pumpkinification” of another emperor of this name is described in Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis.
ANSWER: Claudius [accept Claudius Gothicus or Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus] (Quintillus did in fact succeed Claudius Gothicus via coup, reigned for 17 days, and was assassinated by his soldiers.)
<HG, European Literature>