“But she stood … black like an ancient citadel … as the words, which unrestrained now multiplied in her against her will, screamed and flew around her in incessant circles, while those that had returned home set darkly beneath her eyebrows’ arches,waiting calmly for the night.”

R.M. Rilke, A Sibyl, New Poems, translated by Edward Snow

Nothing certain is known about the Sibyls. Their prophecies, like autumn leaves, vanished, the original scrolls consumed by flames. It is said the Sibyls existed before the dawn of civilization, foretelling apocalyptic events of great significance throughout human history. They were known to inhabit sacred caves. All that remains are legends and haunting depictions of women clutching sacred scrolls. Despite consulting numerous sources, I have yet to unravel their enigma. My quest began with Pausanias.

Pausanias, an ancient Greek traveller and geographer, is believed to have lived during the 2nd century AD. During this period, Greece was a part of the Roman empire, and he was a Roman subject, who decided to explore the country of his ancestors. His renowned work, Description of Greece, was composed during this period as he journeyed through various regions of Greece, recording details about the landscapes, historical sites, and cultural aspects prevalent during his time. He had a special fondness for myth and legend, which he recorded with meticulous detail. He has been referred to as “the first travel writer.” A scholar John Elsner called him more aptly “a Greek pilgrim in the Roman world”:

“I examine how a single Greek, living under the Roman empire, used myths of the an Greek past and the sacred associations of pilgrimage to shield himself from the full implications of being a subject.” (1)

Here is what Pausanias had to say about the Sibyls:

“There is a projecting stone above, on which the Delphians say the first Herophile, also called the Sibyl, chanted her oracles. I found her to be most ancient, and the Greeks say she was the daughter of Zeus by Lamia the daughter of Poseidon, and that she was the first woman who chanted oracles, and that she was called Sibyl by the Libyans.” (2)  

The ancient Greeks had various interactions and connections with the Libyans, who inhabited the region of North Africa known as Libya. Greek colonization efforts extended to parts of North Africa, including Cyrenaica (present-day eastern Libya). Greek settlers established colonies in these regions, leading to the mingling of Greek and Libyan cultures. Cyrenaica, for example, became a Greek colony known for its agricultural prosperity and cultural contributions. The Libyan Sibyl was a prophetic priestess at the Oracle of Zeus-Ammon at Siwa Oasis in the desert of Libya. According to Plutarch, she was visited by Alexander the Great, whom she confirmed to be a god and the Pharaoh of Egypt.

Still, it seems very unclear, who the first Sibyl was or where she was born. Two possible places are Delphi and Libya. This is also confirmed in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, a Church Father, who was influenced by Gnosticism, Jewish philosophy and Hellenistic philosophy. In a passage from his Stromata we can read:

“Heraclitus says that, not humanly, but rather by God’s aid, the Sibyl spoke. They say, accordingly, that at Delphi a stone was shown beside the oracle, on which, it is said, sat the first Sibyl, who came from Helicon, and had been reared by the Muses. But some say that she came from Milea, being the daughter of Lamia of Sidon [modern Lebanon]. And Serapion, in his epic verses, says that the Sibyl, even when dead ceased not from divination. And he writes that, what proceeded from her into the air after her death, was what gave oracular utterances in voices and omens; and on her body being changed into earth, and the grass as natural growing out of it, whatever beasts happening to be in that place fed on it exhibited to men an accurate knowledge of futurity by their entrails. He thinks also, that the face seen in the moon is her soul.” (3)

Pausanias speaks of a number of Sibyls, not only the Delphic one, who is more ancient than the Pythia, but also the Sibyls of Samos and of Cumae. He describes the tomb of the former in this way:

“Near her tomb is a square Hermes in stone, and on the left is water running into a conduit, and some statues of the Nymphs.”

To summarize, it seems that Sibyls share a profound connection with the earth and its foundational bedrock. They speak to us from the cradle of civilization, which is Africa, or from Delphi , which was believed to be the navel of the world. Their origin connects them with the Nymphs and with Poseidon. It also seems that there is a strong connection between the Sibyls and Hermes. The famous floor mosaic in the Cathedral of Siena depicts Hermes Trismegistus and ten panels depicting Sibyls. But most importantly, their prophetic gift seems to come directly from the earth’s womb, the domain of the ancient mother goddess:

“Numinous sites of the preorganic life, which were experienced in participation mystique with the Great Mother, are mountain, cave, stone, pillar, and rock – including the childbearing rock – as throne, seat, dwelling place, and incarnation of the Great Mother. … It is no accident that stones are among the oldest symbol of the Great Mother Goddess, from Cybele and the Stone of Pessinus (moved to Rome) to the Islamic Kaaba and the stone of the temple in Jerusalem, not to mention the omphaloi, the navel stones, which we find in so many parts of the world.” (4)

Lactantius, an early Christian author, spoke of ten Sibyls, citing the Roman scholar Varro as his source. The same Varro, according to Lactantius,was the source of the most famous story associated with the Sibyl of Cumae. The story of Tarquinius and the Sibyl of Cumae is intertwined with the founding myth of Rome and the acquisition of the Sibylline Books. Tarquin the Proud, the seventh and final king of Rome, was offered nine prophetic books at an extremely high price by the Sibyl of Cumae. He mocked her and refused. She proceeded to burn three of the books and offered him the remaining six at the original price. When he refused, she burnt three more. Finally, the king consulted the priests, who urged him to buy the last three books at the original price.

The Sibylline Books were kept in a consecrated chamber beneath the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. They were solely advised in times of danger; not for prophecy but for advice how to proceed to remedy the situation. They were said to contain apocalyptic visions. The prophecies would always begin in the primeval epoch, when the prophetess presumably lived. The voice of the Sibyl came “from the dawn of human history.”(5)

In the 2nd century B.C., during the Punic War the Romans consulted the books and decided to bring the image of the Magna Mater (Cybele) to Rome from her sanctuary near Mount Ida (Pessinus) to prevent the enemy from destroying the empire. The goddess arrived in Rome in an aniconic form – as a black meteoric stone, which was placed in the Temple of Victory on the Palatine. The goddess in the form of the black celestial stone became a silent icon of mystery. (6)

The Sibyl of Cumae was also a key character in The Aeneid, Virgil’s epic about Aeneas, a Trojan hero, and his journey from the ruins of Troy to Italy, where he is destined to found the city that will become Rome. In book six of the epic, Aeneas sails to Cumae in Italy, to meet the Sibyl, who will be his guide in his descent to the underworld. Crucially, the Sibyl of Cumae expresses her prophetic vision in writing, which is a new development since the times of ancient Greece, when prophecies were oral:

“Once ashore, when you reach the city of Cumae
and Avernus’ haunted lakes and murmuring forests,
there you will see the prophetess in her frenzy,
chanting deep in her rocky cavern, charting the Fates,
committing her vision to words, to signs on leaves.
Whatever verses the seer writes down on leaves
she puts in order, sealed in her cave, left behind.
There they stay, motionless, never slip from sequence.
But the leaves are light—if the door turns on its hinge,
the slightest breath of air will scatter them all about
and she never cares to retrieve them, flitting through her cave,
or restore them to order, join them as verses with a vision.” (7)

But she also speaks, inspired by the divine presence of Apollo:

“Now carved out of the rocky flanks of Cumae
lies an enormous cavern pierced by a hundred tunnels,
a hundred mouths with as many voices rushing out,
the Sibyl’s rapt replies. They had just gained
the sacred sill when the virgin cries aloud:
“Now is the time to ask your fate to speak!
The god, look, the god!”
So she cries before
the entrance—suddenly all her features, all
her color changes, her braided hair flies loose
and her breast heaves, her heart bursts with frenzy,
she seems to rise in height, the ring of her voice no longer
human—the breath, the power of god comes closer, closer.” (8)

Virgil says that Sibyl was “breathed upon” Apollo, which means inspired by him, but not completely possessed, unlike the Delphic Pythia, who breathed in the fumes of the earth and prophesied in frenzy. (9) Parke described the Sibyls as clairvoyants and not mediums (10). The latter term could be applied to the Delphic Pythia. And yet I wonder if we should draw such clear-cut distinctions. When Sibyl of Cumae finishes delivering her prophecy to Aeneas, she, as Virgil puts it “says no more but
into the yawning cave she flings herself, possessed.” [my emphasis] Isn’t mediumship a form of possession? I would rather see Roman Sibyls as the sisters of ancient Greek Sibyls. The oral prophecy naturally evolved into the written one, but the roots of both are the same: the maternal caves of the mother goddess and her snakelike wisdom.

The exact contents of the Sibylline Books and their ultimate fate are uncertain. According to historical accounts, the original collection of books was destroyed in a fire during the sack of Rome by the Gauls in 390 BCE. Christians and Jews, inspired by Gnosticism, wanted to rewrite the lost books, which led to the creation of the Sibylline Oracles. The Christians wanted to convey that the ancient Sibyls had foretold the coming of the Messiah. In medieval times the Sibyls were portrayed as prophetesses of Christ. The Holy Chapel of the Black Madonna of Loreto showcases the statues of the Sibyls, notably this beautiful sixteenth-century sculpture of the Cumaean Sibyl by Giovanni Battista della Porta.

The Song of the Sibyl has been performed in Catalan churches since medieval times, always on Christmas Eve. I loved the Dead Can Dance version of that song from their album Aion.

Notes:

(1) Elsner, John (1992). “Pausanias: a Greek pilgrim in the Roman world”. Past and Present. 135 (1): 3–29. https://paul-in-athens.nes.lsa.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Elser-1992-22Pausanias-A-Greek-Pilgrim-in-the-Roman-World22.pdf

(2) https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/68680/pg68680-images.html

(3) https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/clement-stromata-book1.html

(4) Erich Neumann, The Great Mother

(5) H.W Parke, Sybils and Sybilline Prophecy in Classical Antiquity

(6) Lynn E. Roller, In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele 

(7) Virgil, The Aeneid, translated by Robert Fagles

(8) Ibid.

(9) https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&context=ephemeris

(10) H.W Parke, Sybils and Sybilline Prophecy in Classical Antiquity