's rendering of the
Erythraean Sibyl receives the
Sibylline Books (1912 illustration) of
Marcus Aurelius sacrificing at the fourth temple of Jupiter 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. From Gergis the collection passed to
Erythrae, where it became famous as the oracles of the
Erythraean Sibyl. It would appear to have been this very collection that found its way to
Cumae (see the
Cumaean Sibyl) and from Cumae to Rome. (Amalthea) burning some of the Sibylline books while Tarquin (confused with
Lucius Tarquinius Priscus) watches. The story of the acquisition of the
Sibylline Books by the seventh and last king of Rome,
Lucius Tarquinius Superbus ("Tarquinius", ruled 534 to 509 B.C., d. 495 B.C.), is one of the famous
legendary elements of Roman history. An old woman, possibly a
Cumaean Sibyl, offered to Tarquinius nine books of these prophecies at an exorbitant price; when the king declined to purchase them, she burned three and offered the remaining six to Tarquinius at the same price, which he again refused. Thereupon, she burned three more and repeated her offer, maintaining the same price. Tarquinius then consulted the
Augurs whose importance in Roman history is averred by
Livy. The Augurs deplored the loss of the six books and urged purchase of the remaining three. Tarquinius then purchased the last three at the full original price, and had them preserved in a sacred vault beneath the
Capitoline temple of Jupiter. The story is alluded to in
Varro's lost books quoted in
Lactantius Institutiones Divinae (I: 6) and by
Origen, and told by
Aulus Gellius (
Noctes Atticae 1, 19). The
Roman Senate kept tight control over the
Sibylline Books, and entrusted them to the care of two
patricians. In 367 BC, the number of custodians was increased to ten, five patricians and five
plebeians, who were called the
decemviri sacris faciundis. Subsequently, probably in the time of
Sulla, their number was increased to fifteen, the
quindecimviri sacris faciundis. They were usually ex-consuls or ex-
praetors. They held office for life, and were exempt from all other public duties. They had the responsibility of keeping the books in safety and secrecy. The 15 individuals were custodians of the Sibylline Books that were kept on the Palatine. These officials, at the command of the Senate, consulted the
Sibylline Books in order to discover not exact predictions of definite future events in the form of
prophecy, but the religious observances necessary to avert extraordinary calamities and to expiate ominous prodigies (comets and earthquakes, showers of stones, plague, and the like). It was only the rites of expiation prescribed by the
Sibylline Books, according to the interpretation of the oracle that were communicated to the public, and not the oracles themselves, which left ample opportunity for abuses. In particular, the keepers of the
Sibylline Books had the superintendence of the worship of
Apollo, of the "Great Mother"
Cybele or Magna Mater, and of
Ceres, which had been introduced upon recommendations as interpreted from the
Sibylline Books. The
Sibylline Books motivated the construction of eight temples in ancient Rome, aside from those cults that have been interpreted as mediated by the
Sibylline Books simply by the Greek nature of the deity. Thus, one important effect of the
Sibylline Books was their influence on applying Greek cult practice and Greek conceptions of deities to indigenous Roman religion, which was already indirectly influenced through
Etruscan religion. As the
Sibylline Books had been collected in
Anatolia, in the neighborhood of
Troy, they recognized the gods and goddesses and the rites observed there and helped introduce them into Roman state worship, a
syncretic amalgamation of national deities with the corresponding deities of Greece, and a general modification of the Roman religion. Since they were written in
hexameter verse and in Greek, the college of curators was always assisted by two Greek interpreters. When the
Temple of Jupiter on the
Capitol temple burned in 83 BC, the original books were lost. The Roman Senate sent envoys in 76 BC to replace them with a collection of similar oracular sayings, in particular collected from
Ilium, Erythrae,
Samos, Sicily, and Africa. This new Sibylline collection was deposited in the restored temple, together with similar sayings of native origin, e.g. those of the Sibyl at
Tibur (the '
Tiburtine Sibyl') of the brothers Marcius, and others, which had been circulating in private hands but which were called in, to be delivered to the Urban Praetor, private ownership of such works being declared illicit, and to be evaluated by the Quindecimviri, who then sorted them, retaining only those that appeared true to them. From the Capitol they were transferred by Augustus as
pontifex maximus in 12 BC, to the
Temple of Apollo Palatinus, after they had been examined and copied; there they remained until about AD 405. According to the poet
Rutilius Claudius Namatianus, the general
Flavius Stilicho (died AD 408) burned them, as they were being used to attack his government. The last known consultation was in 363 CE. Some supposedly genuine Sibylline verses are preserved in the
Book of Marvels or
Memorabilia of
Phlegon of Tralles (2nd century AD). These represent an oracle, or a combination of two oracles, of seventy hexameters in all. They report the birth of an
androgyne, and prescribe a long list of rituals and offerings to the gods. Their authenticity has been questioned.
Relationship with the Sibylline Oracles The
Sibylline Oracles were quoted by the Roman-Jewish historian
Josephus (late 1st century) as well as by numerous Christian writers of the second century, including
Athenagoras of Athens who, in a letter addressed to
Marcus Aurelius in ca. AD 176, quoted
verbatim a section of the extant
Oracles, in the midst of a lengthy series of other classical and pagan references such as
Homer and
Hesiod, stating several times that all these works should already be familiar to the Roman Emperor. Copies of the actual
Sibylline Books (as reconstituted in 76 BC) were still in the Roman Temple at this time. The
Oracles are nevertheless thought by modern scholars to be anonymous compilations that assumed their final form in the fifth century, after the
Sibylline Books perished. They are a miscellaneous collection of Jewish and Christian portents of future disasters, that may illustrate the confusions about sibyls that were accumulating among Christians of
late antiquity. ==Consultations of the Books cited in history==