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The Sibylline Books (Latin: Libri Sibyllini) were a collection of oracular utterances, set out in Greek hexameter verses, that, according to tradition, were purchased from a sibyl by the last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, and consulted at momentous crises through the history of the Roman Republic and the Empire.
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.
The oldest collection of written Sibylline Books appears to have been made about the time of Solon and Cyrus at Gergis on Mount Ida in the Troad. The sibyl, who was born near there, at Marpessus, and whose tomb was later marked by the temple of Apollo built upon the archaic site, appears on the coins of Gergis, c. 400–350 BCE.
The books were thereafter kept in the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, Rome, to be consulted only in emergencies. The temple burned down in the 80s BC, and the books with it, necessitating a re-collection of Sibylline prophecies from all parts of the empire (Tacitus 6.12).
Vegoia (Etruscan: Vecu) is a sibyl, prophet, or nymph within the Etruscan religious framework who is identified as the author of parts of their large and complex set of sacred books, detailing the religiously correct methods of founding cities and shrines, draining fields, formulating laws and ordinances, measuring space and dividing time; she initiated the Etruscan people to the arts, as ...
[2] [3] When Augustus assumed the office of pontifex maximus, he moved the Sibylline Books from the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus to the Palatine Apollo. [4] Gaius Julius Hyginus, a freedman of Augustus and accomplished grammarian, was the director of the library. [5] Exclusion from the library definitively signaled an author’s rejection. [6]
The Sibylline Books were a collection of oracular sayings. According to myth, [35] the Cumaean sibyl offered Lucius Tarquinius Superbus the books for a high price, and when he refused, burned three. When he refused to buy the remaining six at the same price, she again burned three, finally forcing him to buy the last three at the original price.
An apocalyptic pseudo-prophecy exists among the Sibylline Oracles, which was attributed to the Tiburtine Sibyl. Its earliest version may date from the fourth century, but in the form that it survives today it was written in the early eleventh century, and has been influenced by the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius . [ 4 ]