The Cumaean Sibyl was especially important in Roman belief. According to legend, she offered the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus (ruled 534—510 BCE), nine books of prophecy, but at a tremendous price. He refused to pay, so the Sibyl burned three of the nine books and offered him the remaining six for the same amount. When
Left: The cave of the Cumaean Sibyl near Puzzuoli, Italy, is a modern tourist attraction.
Tarquinius again refused to pay, she burned three more. At this point the king realized his error and paid for the last three books the price she had originally asked. The Sibylline texts were carefully guarded in the temple of Capitoline Jupiter in Rome. In times of national crisis, a board of specially appointed state leaders would consult the oracles, seeking advice about the correct plan of action after natural calamities such as pestilence or earthquake or to explain how an evil portent was to be appeased. The Sibylline books were not consulted, however, as a guide to the future.
When the books were accidentally burned in a temple fire in 83 BCE, senate envoys were sent to collect replacement oracular sayings from other shrines of Apollo. These new texts were moved in 12 BCE by Emperor Augustus (ruled 27 BCE—14 CE) to the Temple of Apollo, on the Palatine Hill in Rome. There they remained, safe and intact, until about 405 CE. The priests authorized to interpret the Sibylline texts had no other public duties because the job entailed considerable work. They were responsible for keeping the books safe, and for interpreting the texts whenever directed to do so by the senate.
They were also in charge of implementing any measures suggested by their reading of the texts.
In the Aeneid, the epic poem by Virgil (70—19 BCE), the Cumaean Sibyl guides the hero Aeneas on his journey to the underworld. She directs him to look in a forest for the Golden Bough, a branch that will serve as his passport to the realm of the dead. Sibyl calmed the barking of the three-headed guard dog Cerberus, and negotiated with the infernal boatman Charon for Aeneas to cross the Styx River. Sibyl led Aeneas through the murky realm of Hades, pointing out the places of torment and showing him the heroes in the Elysian Fields. She then told him how to return to the land of the living through gates of horn and ivory. The Cumaean Sibyl’s caves and the underground cavern still exist. Speaking tubes cut through the rock and skillfully arranged sounding boards make it seem as if the prophetic voice is issuing from the center of the earth and speaking from every side, just as it is described by Virgil.
This same prophetess is, in some accounts, the original Sibyl who journeyed to Cumae from Erythrae. According to Roman writer Petronius (d. 66 CE), the very first Sibyl was still hanging in a bottle during his lifetime, begging to die. Greek geographer Pausanias (143—176 CE) claims to have seen a stone jar at Cumae containing the bones of the dead Sibyl.
Sibyl at Delphi
The oracle of Apollo at Delphi is generally regarded as a Sibyl, even though she was known as the Pythia. The extent of the link is unclear, partly through lack of archaeological evidence, and partly because the rites were performed there for more than a thousand years, during which time they were described and depicted in a wide range of often conflicting ways by numerous writers and artists. The first reference to an oracle at Pytho, the older and ritual name of Delphi, is in Book Eight of the Odyssey by Homer (c. ninth-eighth century BCE).
The Delphic priestess was originally a young maiden, but in later times every holder of the office was an old woman. She presided over a ceremony of consultation on the seventh day of nine months of the year. At these times anyone could question her directly to seek an answer sent from Apollo himself through the medium of his priestess. The Pythia is generally held to have sat on a throne in the shape of a tripod in the innermost sanctuary of Apollo’s temple. From there she spoke enigmatic prophecies that were almost always considered to be accurate. If her words did not correspond to subsequent events, reconsideration of
Michelangelo’s Sibyls
Below: This detail from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel shows the Persian Sibyl consulting holy writings.
While the Sibyl and her utterances were important parts of the ancient cult of Apollo, her appeal did not cease with the end of the classical period. Sibyls can also be found in Christian art. In the fine black-and-white basilica at Siena, Italy, for instance, a series of Sibyls is represented in the floor mosaics. Five Sibyls feature on the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel, the masterwork of Italian artist Michelangelo (1475-1564):
The Cumaean, Delphic, Erythraean, Libyan, and Persian Sybils. Each one is portrayed differently. The Persian Sibyl, for example, consults an ancient text, while the Delphic Sibyl—a beautiful young woman—looks at the world with an expression of wonder and fear.
A Natural Explanation of the Delphic Oracle
Nearly all ancient accounts of the oracle at Delphi agree that the words Apollo inspired the priestess to utter were initially unintelligible, and that their prophetic significance had to be interpreted by priests. For hundreds of years it was unclear whether this was a literal or metaphorical description of what went on inside the temple. In 1998, however, geologists discovered beneath the sacred site intersecting fault lines that emitted ethylene from a chasm deep inside the earth. This sweet-smelling gas was used by doctors
Until the 1970s in general anesthesia; in mild doses it has hallucinatory power. Thus it appeared that the ancient writers' descriptions of the priestesses' behavior were factual rather than figurative. At last, 1,600 years after the oracle was closed down, we have a convincing explanation for the utterances of the Pythia: natural vapors induced the priestesses into trancelike states.
Below: The gorge at Delphi. This is where ancient peoples left offerings for Apollo in order to obtain the god’s guidance.
What she had said would invariably conclude that it was the questioner’s interpretation, rather than the divine message, that was at fault. The importance of the Delphic oracle declined during the Roman domination of Greece. Roman general Sulla (138—78 BCE) stripped it of many treasures, and Emperor Nero (ruled 54—68 CE) is said to have stolen 500 bronze statues. In 390 CE, Emperor Theodosius I (ruled 379—395 CE) closed the oracle in the name of Christianity; it never reopened.
World History
