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The sibyls [n 1] were prophetesses or oracles in Ancient Greece. [1] [2] Statue in the Temple of Zeus at Aizanoi, believed to depict a sibyl. The sibyls prophesied at holy sites. [3] A sibyl at Delphi has been dated to as early as the eleventh century BC by Pausanias [4] when he described local traditions in his writings from the second century ...
The word sibyl comes (via Latin) from the ancient Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. There were many sibyls throughout the ancient world. Because of the importance of the Cumaean Sibyl in the legends of early Rome as codified in Virgil's Aeneid VI, and because of her proximity to Rome, the Cumaean Sibyl became the most famous among the Romans.
There were many sibyls in the ancient world (e.g., Samian, Cumaean), but the Cimmerian Sibyl was venerated by the pre-Hellenic native populations. The Cimmerian Sibyl may have been a doublet for the Cumaean since the designation Cimmerian refers to priestesses who lived underground near Lake Avernus.
The Tiburtine Sibyl or Albunea [1] was a Roman sibyl, whose seat was the ancient Etruscan town of Tibur (modern Tivoli). The mythic meeting of Augustus with the Sibyl, of whom he inquired whether he should be worshiped as a god, was often depicted by artists from the late Middle Ages onwards.
Delphi was well known in these ancient times and was a location at which the Sibyls were venerated. [3] Pausanias claimed that this Sibyl was "born between man and goddess, daughter of sea monsters and an immortal nymph". [4]
The Sibylline Oracles in their existing form are a chaotic medley. They consist of 12 books (or 14) of various authorship, date, and religious conception. The final arrangement, thought to be due to an unknown editor of the 6th century AD (Alexandre), does not determine identity of authorship, time, or religious belief; many of the books are merely arbitrary groupings of unrelated fragments.
Phrygian Sibyl from Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum Raphael's rendering of the Phrygian Sibyl. In the extended complement of sibyls of the Gothic and Renaissance imagination, the Phrygian Sibyl was the priestess presiding over an Apollonian oracle at Phrygia, a historical kingdom in the west central part of the Anatolian highlands.
Michelangelo's rendering of the Erythraean Sibyl Tarquin the Proud receives the Sibylline books (1912 illustration). According to the Roman tradition, the oldest collection of Sibylline books appears to have been made about the time of Solon and Cyrus at Gergis on Mount Ida in the Troad; it was attributed to the Hellespontine Sibyl and was preserved in the temple of Apollo at Gergis.