Sibyl
The sibyls (αἱ Σῐ́βυλλαι, singular Σῐ́βυλλᾰ) were prophetesses or
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 AD. At first, there appears to have been only a single sibyl. By the fourth century BC, there appear to have been at least three more,
History
The English word sibyl (/ˈsɪbəl/ or /ˈsɪbɪl/) is from Middle English, via the Old French sibile and the Latin sibylla from the ancient Greek Σίβυλλα (Sibylla).[5]
The first known Greek writer to mention a sibyl is (based on the testimony of Plutarch) Heraclitus (fl. 500 BC):
The Sibyl, with frenzied mouth uttering things not to be laughed at, unadorned and unperfumed, yet reaches to a thousand years with her voice by aid of the god.[10]
Walter Burkert observes that "frenzied women from whose lips the god speaks" are recorded very much earlier in the Near East, as in Mari in the second millennium and in Assyria in the first millennium".[11]
Until the literary elaborations of Roman writers, sibyls were not identified by a personal name, but by names that refer to the location of their temenos, or shrine.
In
The second sibyl referred to by Pausanias, and named "Herophile", seems to have been based ultimately in
Like Heraclitus,
Specific sibyls
Cimmerian Sibyl
Evander, the son of Sibyl, founded in
Cumaean Sibyl
The sibyl who most concerned the Romans was the
Delphic Sibyl
The Delphic Sibyl was a woman who prophesied before the Trojan Wars (c. eleventh century BC). She was noted by Pausanias[4] in his writing during the second century AD about local traditions in Greece. This earliest documented Delphic Sibyl would have predated by hundreds of years priestess of Apollo active at the oracle from around the eighth century BC who was known as Pythia.[20] As Greek religion passed through transitions to the pantheon of the Classical Greeks that is most familiar to modern readers, Apollo had become the deity represented by Pythia and those who then officiated at the already ancient oracle.
Erythraean Sibyl
The Erythraean Sibyl was sited at Erythrae, a town in Ionia opposite Chios.
Apollodorus of Erythrae affirms the Erythraean Sibyl to have been his own countrywoman and to have predicted the Trojan War and prophesied to the Greeks who were moving against Ilium both that Troy would be destroyed and that Homer would write falsehoods.
The word acrostic was first applied to the prophecies of the Erythraean Sibyl, which were written on leaves and arranged so that the initial letters of the leaves always formed a word.
Hellespontine Sibyl
The Hellespontine, or Trojan Sibyl, presided over the Apollonian oracle at Dardania.
The Hellespontian Sibyl was born in the village of
Libyan Sibyl
The so-called Libyan Sibyl was identified with prophetic priestesses presiding over the ancient Zeus-Amon (Zeus represented with the horns of Amon) oracle at the Siwa Oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt. The oracle here was consulted by Alexander after his conquest of Egypt. The mother of the Libyan Sibyl was Lamia, the daughter of Poseidon. Euripides mentions the Libyan Sibyl in the prologue to his tragedy Lamia.
Persian Sibyl
The Persian Sibyl was said to be a prophetic priestess presiding over the Apollonian Oracle; although her location remained vague enough so that she might be called the "Babylonian Sibyl", the Persian Sibyl is said to have foretold the exploits of Alexander the Great.[21] Also named Sambethe, she was reported to be of the family of Noah.[21] The second-century AD traveller Pausanias, pausing at Delphi to enumerate four sibyls, mentions the "Hebrew Sibyl" who was
brought up in Israel named Sabbe, whose father was Berosus and her mother Erymanthe. Some say she was a Babylonian, while others call her an Egyptian Sibyl.[22][23][24]
The medieval Byzantine encyclopedia, the
Phrygian Sibyl
The Phrygian Sibyl is most well known for being conflated with Cassandra, Priam's daughter in Homer's Iliad.[25] The Phrygian Sibyl appears to be a doublet of the Hellespontine Sibyl.
Samian Sibyl
The Samian sibyl's oracular site was at
Tiburtine Sibyl
To the classical sibyls of the Greeks, the Romans added a tenth, the Tiburtine Sibyl, whose seat was the ancient
The Tiburtine Sibyl, by name Albunea, is worshiped at Tibur as a goddess, near the banks of the
Anio, in which stream her image is said to have been found, holding a book in her hand. Her oracularresponses the Senate transferred into the capitol. (Divine Institutes I.vi)
An apocalyptic pseudo-prophecy exists, attributed to the Tiburtine Sibyl, written c. AD 380, but with revisions and interpolations added at later dates.
In Renaissance art and literature
-
Filippino Lippi, Five Sibyls Seated in Niches: the Samian, Cumean, Hellespontic, Phrygian and Tiburtine, ca. 1465-1470, Christ Church, Oxford.
In Medieval Latin, sibylla simply became the term for "prophetess". It became used commonly in Late Gothic and Renaissance art to depict female Sibyllae alongside male prophets. [27]
The number of sibyls so depicted could vary, sometimes they were twelve (See, for example, the
The best known depiction is that of Michelangelo who shows five sibyls in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel ceiling; the Delphic Sibyl, Libyan Sibyl, Persian Sibyl, Cumaean Sibyl, and the Erythraean Sibyl. The library of
A collection of twelve
-
Filippino Lippi, Five Sibyls Seated in Niches: The Persian, Libyan, Delphic, Cimmerian and Erythraean, ca. 1465-1470, Christ Church, Oxford.
Sibylline books
The sayings of sibyls and oracles were notoriously open to interpretation (compare Nostradamus) and were constantly used for both civil and cult propaganda. These sayings and sibyls should not be confused with the extant sixth-century collection of Sibylline Oracles, which typically predict disasters rather than prescribe solutions.
Some genuine Sibylline verses are preserved in the second-century Book of Marvels of Phlegon of Tralles. The oldest collection of written Sibylline Books appears to have been made about the time of
See also
- Pythia, the Oracle of Delphi
- Temple of the Sibyl: 18th-century fanciful naming
- The Golden Bough (mythology)
Notes
- ^ Sibyls at Encyclopedia.com. [Accessed 6 Jan 2021].
- ^ Sibyl at the Encyclopædia Britannica [Accessed 6 Jan 2021].
- ^ Burkert 1985 p. 117
- ^ a b Pausanias 10.12.1
- ^ "Sibyl". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.) Harper, Douglas. "sibyl". Online Etymology Dictionary.
- ^ Tim Denecker, Ideas on Language in Early Latin Christianity (2017), p. 305.
- ^ Cf. Frisk, Griechische eymologisches Wörterbuch, vol. 2, p. 700; Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, 2009, p. 966.
- ^ "Rheinisches Museum" 1 ([year needed]), 110f.
- ^ Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Sibyl". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. "Since Lactantius expressly says (l.c. ["Divinarum Institutionum," i. 6]) that the sibyl is a native of Babylon, the name is probably Semitic in origin. The word may be resolved into the two components "sib" + "il," thus denoting "the ancient of god" (Krauss, in 'Byzantinische Zeit.' xi. 122)"
- ^ Heraclitus, fragment 92, ed. Charles H. Kahn, (1981), p. 125.
- ^ Burkert 1985, p. 116
- ^ James Frazer, 1913 edition. Cf. v. 5, p. 288. Also see Pausanias, 10.12.1at the Perseus Project.
- ^ Frazer quotes Ernst Maass, De Sibyllarum Indicibus (Berlin, 1879).
- ^ Heraclides Ponticus, On Oracles.
- Frazer, James, translation and commentary on Pausanias, Description of Greece, v. 5, p. 288, commentary and notes on Book X, Ch. 12, line 1, "Herophile surnamed Sibyl":
Prof. E. Maass (op cit., p.56) holds that two only of the Greek sibyls were historical, namely Herophile of Erythrae and Phyto of Samos; the former he thinks lived in the eighth century BC, the latter somewhat later
Frazer goes on:
At first, the Greeks seemed to have known only one sibyl. (Heraclitus, cited by Plutarch, De Pythiae Oraculis 6; Aristophanes, Peace 1095, 1116; Plato, Phaedrus, p. 244b). The first writer who is known to have distinguished several sibyls is Heraclides Ponticus in his book On Oracles, in which he appears to have enumerated at least three, namely the Phrygian, the Erythraean, and the Hellespontine.
- ^ David Stone Potter, Prophecy and history in the crisis of the Roman Empire: a historical commentary on the Thirteenth Sibylline Oracle, Cf. Chapter 3, p. 106.
- ISBN 0-226-65371-4. Cf. p. 64
- ISBN 0-87413-595-8. Cf. p. 223.
- ^ Eliot, T. S.; Rainey, Lawrence S., The Annotated Waste Land with Eliot's Contemporary Prose: Second Edition, Yale University Press, 2006
ISBN 0-300-11994-1. Cf. p. 75
- ISBN 0-521-53081-4. Cf. p. 14. "They may learn about the mysterious Delphic Sibyl, a mythical prophetess unrelated to the traditions of the oracle itself."
- ^ a b Fragments of the Sibylline Oracles. sacred-texts.com. Retrieved on June 20, 2008.
- ^ Pausanias, x.12
- ISBN 9780415003438. Retrieved 2013-06-26.
- ISBN 9780391041103. Retrieved 2013-06-26.
- ISBN 0814323529.
- ^ The Latin Tiburtine Sibyl Archived 2005-04-07 at the Wayback Machine. History 3850 Readings. Retrieved on June 20, 2008.
- ^ see e.g. "Sibyls" - Lancaster University, UK. (archived 2005)
- ^ Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1897 Archived 2005-04-05 at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 9781136961076.
- ^ Herodotus iv: 122
- ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus i. 55
Sources
- Beyer, Jürgen, 'Sibyllen', "Enzyklopädie des Märchens. Handwörterbuch zur historischen und vergleichenden Erzählforschung", vol. 12 (Berlin & New York, Walter de Gruyter 2007), coll. 625–30
- Bouché-Leclercq, Auguste, Histoire de la divination dans l'Antiquité, I–IV volumes, Paris, 1879–1882.
- Broad, William J., The Oracle: the Lost Secrets and Hidden Message of Ancient Delphi (Penguin Press, 2006).
- Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion (Harvard University Press, 1985) esp. pp. 116–18.
- Delcourt, M. L'oracle de Delphes, 1955.
- Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911.
- Fischer, Jens, Folia ventis turbata – Sibyllinische Orakel und der Gott Apollon zwischen später Republik und augusteischem Principat (Studien zur Alten Geschichte 33), Göttingen 2022.
- Fox, Robin Lane, Alexander the Great 1973. Chapter 14 gives the best modern account of Alexander's visit to the oasis at Siwah, with some background material on the Greek conception of Sibyls.
- Goodrich, Norma Lorre, Priestesses, 1990.
- Hale, John R. and others (2003). Questioning the Delphic Oracle. Retrieved Jan. 7, 2005.
- Hindrew, Vivian, The Sibyls: The First Prophetess of Mami (Wata) MWHS, 2007
- Jeanmaire, H. La Sibylle et la retour de l'âge d'or, 1939.
- Lanciani, Rofolfo, Pagan and Christian Rome, 1896, ch. 1 on-line
- Lactantius, Divine Institutions Book I, ch. vi (e-text, in English)
- Maass, E., De Sibyllarum Indicibus, Berlin, 1879.
- Parke, Herbert William, History of the Delphic Oracle, 1939.
- Parke, Herbert William, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy, 1988.
- Pausanias, Description of Greece, ed. and translated by Sir James Frazer, 1913 edition. Cf. v. 5
- Peck, Harry Thurston, Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquity, 1898. [1]
- Pitt-Kethley, Fiona, Journeys to the Underworld, 1988
- Potter, David Stone, [2], Prophecy and history in the crisis of the Roman Empire: a historical commentary on the Thirteenth Sibylline Oracle, 1990. Cf. Chapter 3. review of book Archived 1999-04-27 at the Wayback Machine
- Potter, David Stone, Prophets and Emperors. Human and Divine Authority from Augustus to Theodosius, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. review of book
- Reyniers, Jeroen, The Iconography of Emperor Augustus with the Tiburtine Sibyl in the Low Countries. An Overview, in: Marco Cavalieri, Pierre Assenmaker, Mattia Cavagna, David Engels (ed.), Augustus Through the Ages: Receptions, Readings and Appropriations of the Historical Figure of the First Roman Emperor, Collection Latomus, Brussels, 2022, p. 209-236. [3]
- Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1870, article on Sibylla, [4]
- West, Martin Litchfield, The Orphic Poems, Oxford, 1983.
External links
Classic sibyls
- John Burnet Early Greek Philosophy, 63., 64. brief analysis, 65. the fragments
- Jewish Encyclopedia: Sibyl.
Music
- El Cant de la Sibil-la / Mallorca / València (1400–1560) – Montserrat Figueras, Jordi Savall – La Capella Reial de Catalunya – Alia Vox 9806
- El Cant de la Sibil-la / Catalunya – Montserrat Figueras, Jordi Savall – La Capella Reial de Catalunya – Alia Vox AVSA9879
- The Song of the Sybil – Track 4 – 3:45 – Aion (1990) – Dead Can Dance Archived 2015-10-27 at the Wayback Machine
Medieval Christianizing sibyls
Modern sibyl imagery
- A sardonic sequence of 'Twelve Sibyls', accompanied by the artist Leonard Baskin's woodcuts, revisits Sibyls and Others (1980). Ruth Fainlight has written dozens of poems about these ambiguous figures, bridging religion, classical and Biblical settings, femininity and modernity. One of them concludes: 'I am no more conscious of the prophecies / than I can understand the language of birds /…let the simple folk praise you, / keep you safe as a caged bird, / and call you a sibyl'.
- Pjetër Bogdani, "The Songs of the Ten Sibyls" modern poetry, translated from Albanian
- T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land is prefaced by a quote from Petronius' Satyricon (1st century AD) The passage translates roughly as "I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a jar, and when the boys said to her 'Sibyl, what do you want?' that one replied 'I want to die'.
- The SIBYLS beamline at the Advanced Light Source in Berkeley, CA.