The Sibylline Oracles and the Last King of Rome
Never haggle with a prophetess. The story of Tarquinius Superbus and the Cumaean Sibyl, and the real history behind it.
The Legend of the Sibylline Oracles
And it happened that during the reign of Tarquin the Proud, last king of Rome, a holy woman came to the court of the king. This woman brought with her nine books of prophecy to sell. She asked an absurd price for these nine books — Tarquin refused her.
The woman then burned three of the books, and returned to Tarquin, asking the same price for six that she had previously asked for nine. Tarquin and his court thought her a fool. They mocked the holy woman for asking the same price for six books that she had been unable to get for nine.
Once again the woman burned three books, and brought the remainder before Tarquin. The same price she asked again, but for three books only. Tarquin wondered at the woman’s purpose, and sent for his augurs.
The augurs, knowing by certain signs that these books were divinely sent prophecies, declared that it would be a great misfortune to lose the last three books. And so, Tarquin relented, and paid the holy woman her original price, and so received three books of prophecy. The holy woman then vanished from the Earth, never to be seen again.
These are the Sibylline Oracles, the holiest and most treasured possession of the Roman state. In times of crisis, the Romans would consult the Oracles and receive divine guidance.
In 345 B.C., when a shower of stones rained down and darkness filled the sky during daylight, the books were consulted. A public holiday was instituted for religious festivals.
In 216 B.C., when Hannibal annihilated the Roman legions at Cannae, the books were consulted. Two Gauls and two Greeks were buried alive in the city marketplace.
In 363 A.D., when Julian the Apostate, the last pagan emperor of Rome, consulted the books about an upcoming campaign, they told him in no uncertain terms not to leave his own territories that year. He went anyway, and perished in the deserts of Persia.
And finally in 405 A.D., Stilicho, a Vandal commander of the Western Roman army, had the books burned. Five years later, the city of Rome was sacked for the first time in 800 years.
The Historicity of the Sibylline Books
Now, the Sibyl and the King of Rome makes a really good story. But is it real? In this article I want to explore the history behind the legend. Be warned! This article is much denser than usual, as I tried to use direct quotes from primary sources where available.
The Sibylline Books of Tarquinius Superbus
“Sibyl” is a generic name for a Greek-ish holy woman with the power of prophecy. This story features the Cumaean Sibyl, a priestess of Apollo at Cumae.
Now, the part of the legend about the Cumaean Sibyl burning the books and Tarquin’s two refusals is probably invented for dramatic effect, but historians agree that the Sibylline books themselves did exist, the Romans believed they were genuine prophecies, and they enacted their recommendations for almost a thousand years.
Far too many ancient historians record the use of the Sibylline prophecies to dismiss them as legend. Dionysus of Halicarnassus reports:1
[The Romans] consult them [the Books], by order of the Senate, when the state is in the grip of party strife or some great misfortune has happened to them in war, or some important prodigies and apparitions have been seen which are difficult of interpretation, as has often happened.
Livy and Phlegon of Tralles, among others, record consultation of the books by order of the Senate under the same circumstances. Consultations seem to have peaked during the Second Punic War, the famous conflict between Rome and Carthage.
The Romans also apparently had criteria for determining the authenticity of Sibylline prophecies. After the burning of the Temple of Jupiter in 83 B.C., the Roman Senate sent out an expedition of learned priests to collect genuine oracles to replace the lost Sibylline books. Tacitus records:2
When the verses of the Sibyl, or Sibyls, as the case may be, were collected … the priests being entrusted with the task of sifting out the genuine specimens, so far as should have been possible by human means.
Both Dionysus of Halicarnassus and Cicero record that the genuine prophecies were in Greek hexameter, and usually written as an acrostic, where the first letter of each line spelled out the first word of the prophecy.
Those [prophecies] which are now extant have been scraped together from many places, some from the cities of Italy, others from Erythrae in Asia (whither three envoys were sent by vote of the senate to copy them), and others were brought from other cities, transcribed by private persons. Some of these are found to be interpolations among the genuine Sibylline oracles, being recognized as such by means of the so-called acrostics.3
The Single, Genuine, Sibylline Prophecy
Despite the overwhelming consensus of the books's existence, most of the supposedly Sibylline prophecies that have come down to us are suspect. Here’s one such prophecy reprinted in Rubicon by Tom Holland, concerning the Roman civil war:
Not foreign invaders, Italy, but your own sons will rape you, a brutal, interminable gang-rape, punishing you, famous country, for all your many depravities, leaving you prostrated, stretched out among the burning ashes. Self-slaughterer! No longer the mother of upstanding men, but rather the nurse of savage, ravening beasts!
A grave prophecy indeed, but probably not genuine.
We have only one prophecy that pretty much everyone agrees is genuine, and it’s really, really weird.
Behold, the Hermaphrodite Oracle from Phlegon of Tralles's Book of Marvels:4
Since I know the Fates, and know where each man's destiny shall take him, and know the wonders and griefs Fate has in store, all these things I can reveal through the power of my <prophetic> loom, if you will meditate on these things in your heart, putting your trust in the loom's power. I tell you that a woman shall give birth to a hermaphrodite, having all the parts of males, but also those of females. I shall no longer conceal, but explain in detail, the sacrifices for Demeter and chaste Persephone. The Goddess herself is mistress of the loom, if you place your trust in these things, for the most holy Demeter and the chaste Persephone. First of all, gather together a treasure of coined money, from the cities and from yourselves as you wish, then order the making of a sacrifice for Demeter, Mother of the Maiden. Then I bid you at public expense thrice nine bulls...
<7 lines of text missing>
... sacrifice splendid <heifers>, with fine horns and white hides, the ones you judge most beautiful of all. Bid the maidens, the number I have already said, perform these by the Greek rite, calling upon the Queen Immortal with sacrifices, chastely and purely. Then after that let there be sacred gifts from your wives and let these — trusting in my loom - carry torches for the most holy Demeter. Then next, let the older women (knowing well the sacrifices) take thrice the same number of libations - wineless ones - and place them on a slender flame. And let the others (the young ones with a carefree spirit) taking as many to Persephone, Pluto's wife, let them pray to her, the most holy, the all-learned one, to remain in the fatherland while the war goes on, and pray for forgetfulness to fall upon the Greeks both of the city <Rome?> and of her <the Goddess>.5
In fact, this is not so much a prophecy as a recipe for specific rituals — in this case, when a hermaphrodite is born, sacrifice splendid heifers.
Historians believe that this is what the Sibylline books really were — an uncategorized list of ritual actions to be taken in response to specific heavenly signs, meant to ensure the pax deōrum, the peace of the gods.
On the Reality of Magic Rituals
This speaks to a fundamental difference between ancient society and our own that is often under-appreciated. In ancient societies, magic rituals and prophecy were real, usually, but not always, bound up with religion, and people saw evidence of its reality and power daily. The Romans even legislated its use.
In Roman law the antisocial use of magic was prohibited, with increasing strictness, but indifferent success, from the time of the Twelve Tables; and magic of all kinds was under continual suspicion because of its secrecy, mystery, violation of tombs, human sacrifice (ritual murder), philters, sex crimes, and foreign provenance.6
In fact, if your entire society believes that magic is real and acts accordingly, it might as well be real. Consider the effectiveness of the medieval trial by ordeal. From Wikipedia:
The ordeal of fire typically required that the accused walk a certain distance, usually 9 feet (2.7 metres) or a certain number of paces, usually three, over red-hot plowshares or holding a red-hot iron. Innocence was sometimes established by a complete lack of injury, but it was more common for the wound to be bandaged and re-examined three days later by a priest, who would pronounce that God had intervened to heal it, or that it was merely festering—in which case the suspect would be exiled or put to death.
The amazing thing about trial by ordeal is how well it worked — an article I recall reading (similar to this one, but I can’t find the one I read) claimed that since everyone in society believed that trial by ordeal was an accurate method of discerning guilt, that a guilty man about to undergo trial by ordeal would usually confess rather than be exposed by God himself. Similarly, an innocent, believing that God would save him, might walk briskly and lightly over the coals, and thus be less injured than a guilty man who ran quickly. If society is structured in such a way that acknowledges the existence of magic, then magic does, in fact, work.
Despite this, the Roman relationship with the ritual prescriptions of the Sibylline books was not one of slavish obedience. The historian Frontinus recalls an instance where the advice of the Sibyl was taken into account, debated in council, and then soundly ignored.
At that time, the decemviri [keepers of the Sibylline books]... are said to have discovered that it was not right for the Aqua Marcia... to be brought to the Capitol. It was debated in the Senate about this matter.. . and again three years later, but on both occasions the influence of Marcius Rex was victorious, and thus the water was brought to the Capitol.7
This is interesting — wouldn’t you expect people who believed that these prophecies were genuinely divine and their prescriptions accurate to simply obey them? A medieval person certainly would — conceptions of God rooted in the Abrahamic religions, where God is singular and omnipotent, does not allow for informed disobedience.
But to the Romans, the gods are not totally omnipotent, they are human-like and fallible. And apparently, even their recommendations are subject to debate at the official level. Eric Orlin, in his Temples, Religion and Politics in the Roman Republic, says:
The Sibylline Books allowed the Roman Senate to put the full weight of divine sanction and their own corporate approval behind [their] diplomatic maneuvering.
Final Thoughts
The conclusion to the question I posed, “are the Sibylline Books real?” appears to be a resounding yes. To me, in fact, the role the Sibylline books played in Roman government seems most like the role of expert opinion in modern government.
In times of crisis, today’s governments will consult inscrutable tablets written in incomprehensible prose (scientific literature), and take these recommendations into account when deciding on the appropriate magical rituals to perform. Or not, if the prescriptions conflict too heavily with the political will of the time. Now, as then, it is also critically important that our prophecies/studies come from genuine oracles/universities, and not from false oracles. Sadly, no modern policy memos are written as acrostics in Greek hexameter, but maybe that’s the solution to sifting out the good recommendations from the bad! It certainly seems to have worked for the Romans. I’m mostly joking. Mostly.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed learning about one of my favorite ancient legends, Tarquinius Superbus and the Sibylline Oracles.
Postscript: A Note on the Delphic Oracle
The Sibylline books story features the Cumaean Sibyl, but the most famous Sibyl was the Pythia at Delphi, the seeress and high priestess of Apollo gifted with prophetic visions. She is an incredibly interesting character and I wanted to share some interesting facts about her that didn’t really fit in the main article.
The ancient Greeks describe the Pythia’s prophetic visions as resulting from mystical vapors wafting up from a chasm beneath the oracular chamber. Intriguingly, they may have been exactly correct, as modern scholars have found a high concentration of ethylene gas from a fault line, known to cause hallucinations and visions (other scholars disagree).
Regardless, the Pythia/Delphic Oracle probably predates classical Greek religion, going all the way back to the Mycenaean period, and is famous for her cryptic and double-edged prophecies. One famous incident has Croesus, King of Lydia, ask both the Oracle at Delphi and at Amphiaraus if he should go to war with the Persians.
Both the oracles agreed in the tenor of their reply, which was in each case a prophecy that if Croesus attacked the Persians, he would destroy a mighty empire.
Croesus took this advice, attacked the Persian Empire, and was utterly defeated. The Persians then conquered the Lydian Empire. The prophecy of the oracle was true, but the empire he destroyed was his own!
The Delphic Oracle was a pivotal Greco-Roman-Persian-etc. institution, giving cryptic advice to all who asked for it (with a heavy emphasis on appropriate bribes) all the way up to 361 A.D., where she gave her final prophecy to Julian the Apostate, the last pagan Emperor of Rome.
ἔπατε τῷ βασιλε̃ι· χαμαὶ πέσε δαίδαλος αὐλά.
οὐκέτι Φοῖβος ἔχει καλύβαν, οὐ μάντιδα δάφνην,
οὐ παγὰν λαλέουσαν, ἀπέσβετο καὶ λάλον ὕδωρ.Tell the emperor that the Daidalic [wondrous?] hall has fallen.
No longer does Phoebus [Apollo] have his chamber, nor mantic laurel,
nor prophetic spring and the speaking water has been silenced.
Julian the Apostate is also the last person known to have consulted the Sibylline books, in an attempt to revive Roman paganism.
Dion. Hal. 4.62.5, via Temples, Religion, and Politics in the Roman Republic, by Eric M. Orlin
Tacitus. Annals, VI.12. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/Annals/6A*.html
Dion. Hal. 4.62.6, https://topostext.org/work/139
Book of Marvels, by Phlegon of Tralles. https://topostext.org/work/540.
Translation by Mary Beard, Religions of Rome, Vol. 2, A Sourcebook.
The Interdiction of Magic in Roman Law. Clyde Pharr. https://www.jstor.org/stable/283219
24 Front., de Aqua. 7, via Temples, Religion, and Politics in the Roman Republic, by Eric M. Orlin