A COLLECTION OF SUCH ANCIENT TESTIMONIES CONCERNING THE SIBYLLINE ORACLES AS ARE OMITTED BEFORE

(N.B.—The pages here are those of Opsopeus's Edition of these Oracles.)

HERACLITUS said that the Sibyl spake with the voice of one that was distracted: but that she spake things that were serious, without ornament, and without deceit; and that, by God's assistance, she continued to speak for a thousand years together.*

Upon Aristophanes's mentioning the Sibyl, his Scholiast says: "There were three Sibyls; the first of whom, as she says in her own verses, was the sister of Apollo; the second was the Erythrean; and the third was the Sardinian Sibyl." †

* Plut. Cur Pyth. non redd. Orac. p. 64.

† In Avibus, p. 103.

In Plato's Theages, Socrates and Theages are introduced speaking thus: "Soc. Tell me what name are we to give to Bacis, and the Sibyl, and our Countryman Amphilytus? Theag. Pray what name, Socrates, can we give them, but that of Poetic Prophets."

Plato, in his Phædrus, speaks thus: "We are partakers of the greatest benefits by the means of enthusiastic Fury, which is bestowed on us by the Divine bounty. For both the Prophetesses which is at Delphi, and the Priestesses at Dodona, when they were subject to that Fury, have been the instruments of a great deal of good to Greece, both publicly and privately, but when they were void of it, have done little or nothing for its advantage. And if we should make mention of the Sibyl and of all others who have had the Divine Faculty of Prophesying, and have rightly foretold a great many events to many persons, we should be too tedious and say no more than what is universally known already." †

Aristotle in his book says that at Cuma in Italy there is to be seen the subterranean Cavern of the Sibyl, who gave oracles; who, they say,

continued a Virgin to an exceeding old age. She was of Erythra, but was said by some of the Italians to be of Cuma, and by some that she was named Melanghrena.

(See another passage of his in the same page.) *

Cicero observes, that whereas the faculties of the mind are affected in two cases without reason and understanding, merely by their own free and unconfined motion, the one in an enthusiastic fury, the other in sleep, the Romans supposing that the divination of Enthusiasm was chiefly discovered in the Sibylline verses, chose ten persons out of the City, and appointed them to be their interpreters.†

And again he says: "Those act without art who are able to foretell future events, not by Reason or conjecture, drawn from signs and observations, but from an emotion of the mind, and a free and unrestrained impetus; which not seldom happens in dreams, and sometimes in such as predict futurities in our enthusiastic rage; as was the case of Bacchis of Boetia; of Epimenides of Crete, and of the Erythrean Sibyl." +

+ P. 119.

† P. 119.

* P. 59.

And again: "An influence from the Earth inspired the Prophetess at Delphi, but an influence from nature inspired the Sibyl."*

Lactantius gives us a very particular account from Varro, in these words: "M. Varro, who was not inferior in learning to any of the Latins, or indeed of the Greeks also that ever lived, when in those Books concerning Divine Matters, which he dedicated to Caius Cæsar, who was then Pontifex Maximus, he had made mention of the Quindecimviri, he says that the Sibylline Books did not belong to one Sibyl, but were therefore called by one name of Sibylline, because that all Female Prophetesses were by the Ancients named Sibyls, either from the real name of her of Delphi, or from their publishing the Directions of the Gods; for in the Æolic dialect they called the Gods not so but otherwise, and called their directions as if the word Sibyl signified the direction of the gods."†

Varro added: "Now the Sibyls were in numbers ten, and he enumerated them all in agreement with the testimonies of those Authors who wrote of them distinctly. That the first of them was a Persian, of whom mention is made by Nicanor, who wrote a History of Alexander, King of † Pp. 129, 132.

* P. 120.

Macedonia; that the second was a Libyan, of whom mention is made by Euripides in his Prologue to Lamico. That the third was of Delphi, whom Chrysippus speaks of in that book which he composed concerning Divination. That the fourth was a Cimmerian in Italy, who is named by Nevius in his Books of the Punic War, and by Piso in his Annals. That the fifth was the Erythræan; of whom Apollodorus of Erythræ affirms that she was of the same City with him; that she foretold to the Greeks, when they went to Iroz, that Iroz should be destroyed, and that Homer should write lies. That the sixth was the Samian of whom Erastosthenes wrote that he found some account of her in the ancient Annals of Samos. That the seventh was the Cuman, whose name was Amathea, but who was named Demophile, or Hierophile by others; and that she it was who brought the nine books to Tarquinius Priscus, the King, and asked three hundred Philippics for them that the King was so dissatisfied at the greatness of the price, that he laughed at the madness of the woman; that she thereupon burnt three of the books in the King's presence, and yet asked the full price for the remainder. Whereupon the King looked on her as madder

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