The Sortes Vergilianae (Virgilian Lots) is a form of divination by bibliomancy in which advice or predictions of the future are sought by interpreting passages from the works of the Roman poet Virgil.
The use of Virgil for divination may date to as early as the second century AD, and is part of a wider tradition that associated the poet with magic.
Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesie describes Roman beliefs about poetry and recounts a famous Sors Vergiliana by Decimus Clodius Albinus, a Roman who ruled Britain and laid claim to the Roman Empire, but was defeated in battle by Septimius Severus: Other recorded Roman instances of the practice are by In the medieval era Vergil was often thought to have magic powers or a gift of prophecy (e.g. in the works of Dante, where he is the author's guide in the underworld).
Viscount Falkland once went to a public library in Oxford with King Charles I and, being shown a finely printed and bound copy of the Aeneid, suggested to the King that he use the Sortes Virgilanae to tell his future.
Nevertheless, Falkland took his own lots, hoping to pick a passage that did not relate to him and thus stop the King from worrying about his own.