SIBYL (Iffhaaa) is the name by which several prophetic women were designated, all of whom belong to the mythical ages of ancient history. But Pausaniaa (x., c. 12), who gives an account of the sibyls, applies incorrectly the same name to the female soothsayers of the historical times. (Strabo, xiv., p. 645.) It was believed that the sibyls were •maidens who were directly inspired with a knowledge of the future, and of the manner in which evils might be averted, and espe cially of the manner in which the wrath of the gods might be appeased, and that they communicated their knowledge in inspired verses. (Verso, ap Lactant.; i. 6 ; Cic., ' De Div.,' i. 2 ; Plat., ' Phsedr.; p. 244.) The number of such prophetesses appears to have been very great in ancient times, and we know of Egyptian, Hebrew, Persian, Babylonian, Greek, and Italian sibyls. Varro enumerates ten sibyls, while others only knew four. (Xliari, Vox. Hist.; xii. 35; comp. Snicks, r. Y.f0tAaa.) Varro, however, appears in some cases to make two sibyls out of two epithets belonging to the same person, while on the other hand he does not mention the Hebrew sibyl, Sabbe. (Paus., x. 12, 5.) We shall in this article only mention the most celebrated sibyls.
The most ancient sibyl was Herophile, a daughter of Zone and Lamia (Pans., x. 12, 1). The Erythraea.n sibyl was supposed to be a native of Babylonia, but some thought that she was born at Erythrae. She lived before the. Trojan war, the cause and issue of which slio was believed to have predicted. (Verso ; Pans., x. 12, 1.) The Samian sibyl was supposed to have been a priestess in the temple of Apollo Smintheus. She spent the greater part of her life in Samos, but, like most other sibyls, she is described as travelling about and communi cating to men her inspired wisdom. Thus we find her at Claros, Delos, and Delphi. She is said to have died in Troas, where a monument was erected to her in a grove sacred to Apollo Smintheus. (Pans., x. 12, 3.) Cumn in Ionia was also celebrated for its sibyl ; but the sibyl of Cumn in Campania, called Demo, has acquired more celebrity than any other. The ancient legend about her is related by Virgil (` sEn.,' iii. 441, &c.). In the reign of Tarquinius Prism's, or, according to others, in that of Tarquinius Superbus, there appeared before the king a woman, either herself a sibyl or sent by a sibyl, who offered to the king nine books for sale. The king refused to purchase them, where upon the woman burnt three of the books, and returning, asked for the remaining books the same price as she had asked for the nine. The king again declined purchasing; but when the woman, after burning three books more, returned and asked for the three remaining the same price which she had before asked for the nine, his curiosity was excited, and he purchased the books; whereupon the strange woman vanished. These three books were the Sibylline Books which
play such a prominent part in the history of Rome : they contained the " fata urbis Roma'." (Dionys., iv., p. 259 ; Varro, ap Lactant.,' i. 6; Genius, i. 19 ; Plin., Hist. Nat.,' xiii. 27.) Now who this sibyl was, is differently stated. Some of the ancients represent her as the Erythrtean sibyl, others say that she had come from Cumm in Ionia, and others that she was the sibyl of the Italian Cum:e. Modern writers are likewise divided in their opinions. The Sibylline Books, which were henceforth in the possession of the Roman state, are said to have been written on palm-leaves, partly in verse and partly in symbolical hieroglyphics. The public were never allowed to inspect them, but they were kept in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus where they were preserved in a stone chest in a subterraneous vault, and under the care of especial officers (duumviri sacrorum, interpreter, or sacerdotes sibyllm), who had been appointed by the Tarquinius who purchased the books. These officers had to consult the Sibylline Books (adire libros sibyllinos) on all occasions when the gods mani fested their wrath by inflicting calamities upon the Romans, and when human help and human wisdom were not thought capable of averting their anger. The answers which were derived from them were almost invariably of a nature, as they either commanded the intro duction of some new worship, or the institution of new ceremonies and festivals, or the repetition of old ones. But during the time of the republic, they do not seem to have ever been used, like the Greek oracles, as a means to ascertain the future, or what political measures were to be adopted in order to attain a certain political object. The manner of consulting them, as Niebuhr and others suppose, was pro bably the following :—they opened the volumes at random, and what ever passage first met their eye was thought to contain the suggestions adapted for the present case. The keepers of the Sibylline Books were at first only two, with two attendants. After the banishment of the kings, the two keepers of the Sibylline Books were appointed by the people, probably in the comitia centuriata, for life. They were exempt from all civil and military offices; and whenever they had to consult the sacred books, they were authorised by a senatus consultum, and they consulted them in the presence of their attendants. The numbers of these priests was afterwards, perhaps in the year B.C. 368, increased to ten, and half of them were to be plebeians : in the time of Sulla their number was increased to fifteen.