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| Chapter XXXVII.—Of the Sibyl.
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Chapter XXXVII.—Of the Sibyl.2589
| 2589 [In Grabe’s edition consult notes of Lang and
Kortholt, ii. p. 45.]
|
And you may in part
easily learn the right religion from the ancient Sibyl, who by some kind
of potent inspiration teaches you, through her oracular predictions,
truths which seem to be much akin to the teaching of the prophets. She,
they say, was of Babylonian extraction, being the daughter of Berosus,
who wrote the Chaldæan History; and when she had crossed over (how, I
know not) into the region of Campania, she there uttered her oracular
sayings in a city called Cumæ, six miles from Baiæ, where the hot
springs of Campania are found. And being in that city, we saw also a
certain place, in which we were shown a very large basilica2590
cut out of one stone; a vast affair, and
worthy of all admiration. And they who had heard it from their fathers as
part of their country’s tradition, told us that it was
here she used to publish her oracles. And in the middle of the
basilica they showed us three receptacles cut out of one stone, in which,
when filled with water, they said that she washed, and having put on her
robe again, retires into the inmost chamber of the basilica, which is
still a part of the one stone; and sitting in the middle of the chamber
on a high rostrum and throne, thus proclaims her oracles. And both by
many other writers has the Sibyl been mentioned as a prophetess, and also
by Plato in his Phædrus. And Plato seems to me to have counted
prophets divinely inspired when he read her prophecies. For he saw that
what she had long ago predicted was accomplished; and on this account he
expresses in the Dialogue with Meno his wonder at and admiration of
prophets in the following terms: “Those whom we now call prophetic
persons we should rightly name divine. And not least would we say that
they are divine, and are raised to the prophetic ecstasy by the
inspiration and possession of God, when they correctly speak of many and
important matters, and yet know nothing of what they are saying,”
—plainly and manifestly referring to the prophecies of the Sibyl.
For, unlike the poets who, after their poems are penned, have power to
correct and polish, specially in the way of increasing the accuracy of
their verse, she was filled indeed with prophecy at the time of the
inspiration, but as soon as the inspiration ceased, there ceased also the
remembrance of all she had said. And this indeed was the cause why some
only, and not all, the metres of the verses of the Sibyl were preserved.
For we ourselves, when in that city, ascertained from our
cicerone, who showed us the places in which she used to prophesy,
that there was a certain coffer made of brass in which they said that her
remains were preserved. And besides all else which they told us as they
had heard it from their fathers, they said also that they who then took
down her prophecies, being illiterate persons, often went quite astray
from the accuracy of the metres; and this, they said, was the cause of
the want of metre in some of the verses, the prophetess having no
remembrance of what she had said, after the possession and inspiration
ceased, and the reporters having, through their lack of education, failed
to record the metres with accuracy. And on this account, it is manifest
that Plato had an eye to the prophecies of the Sibyl when he said this
about prophets, for he said, “When they correctly speak of many and
important matters, and yet know nothing of what they are saying.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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