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From Sibylline Oracles, Translated from the Greek into English Blank Verse by Milton S. Terry; New York: Hunt & Eaton, Cincinatti: Cranston & Stowe’s, 1890; pp. 111-124.
BOOK IV.
[112]CONTENTS OF BOOK II.
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HEAR, people of proud Asia, Europe too,
How many things by great loud-sounding mouth,
All true and of my own, I prophesy.
No oracle of false Apollo this,
5
Whom vain men called a god, though he deceived;
But of the mighy God, whom human hands
Shaped not, like speechless idols cut in stone.
For his house is no dedicated stone
Set for a temple, wholly deaf and dumb,
10
A great and sore dishonor to mankind;
For he, not formed by mortal hands, from earth
May not be seen, nor measured by men’s eyes.
He looks on all, himself by no one seen.
His are the murky night, and day, and sun,
15
And stars, and moon, and seas that swarm with fish,
And land, and rivers, and perennial fountains,
Creatures designed for life, and rains that serve
To bring forth fruit, and tree, and wine, and oil.
The same has moved me in my inmost soul
20
As with a whip, how many and great things
Now and hereafter shall befall mankind
This book appears to be of Jewish origin, and, for the reason stated in the Introduction, was probably written about A. D. 80.
Line 4. Apollo. — In the Greek Phœbus. Sometimes the two names are written together, Phœbus Apollo. He was the god of archery, prophecy, and music, and had temples at Delos, Delphi, Patara, Claros, Miletus, Grynium, and other places, in all of which he gave forth oracles of the future. His oracles were, according to Herodotus (i, 66, 75), often ambiguous and misleading.
Lines 4-7. Cited by Clem. Alex., Cohort. ad Græcos, iv {G., 8., 141].
From the first generation to the eleventh,
Truly to tell. For all things he hath spoken
Who himself bringeth all things to an end.
25
But thou, O people, hear the Sibyl’s words,
Who pours from hallowed mouth a truthful strain.
Blessed of men shall they be on the earth
As many as shall love the mighty God,
Giving him praise before they eat and drink,
30
Trusting in piety. Such, when they see
Temples and altars, copies of dumb stones
Without worth, and polluted with the blood
Of living things and sacrifice of beasts,
Reject them all; but they shall look upon
35
One God’s great glory, having not committed
Atrocious murder, nor acquired vast gain
By stealing, which things are most horrible;
Nor shameful longing for another’s bed
Had they, nor vile and hateful lust of males.
40
Such mode of life and customs other men
Shall never imitate, as if they longed
For shamelessness; but children without sense
With just and laughter ridiculing them —
Presumptuous deeds and vile — shall lie to them
45
In as many things as they themselves shall do;
For hard to trust is the whole race of men.
Line 22. Eleventh. — Or tenth? Comp. lines 55 and 106. The reckoning begins with the first generation after the flood. Comp. lines 60 and 61. By generation the author evidently means a long period, an age, but its duration is left indefinite.
Lines 27-35. Cited by Justin Martyr, Cohort. ad Græcos, xvi [G., 6., 273]; also by Clem. Alex., Cohort. ad Græcos, iv [G., 8., 161].
Lines 38, 39. Cited by Clem. Alex., Pæd., ii, 10 [G., 8., 516].
Line 44. Comp. Lactantius, Div. Inst., vii, 26 [L., 6., 816].
Lines 46-53. Cited with verbal variations by Lactantius, Div. Inst., vii, 23 [L., 6., 807].
But when the final judgment of the world
And mortals comes, which God himself shall bring,
Judging at once the impious and the just,
50
The ungodly under darkness he will send,
And they shall know what wickedness they wrought;
But in a fruitful land the just shall dwell,
God giving them breath, life, and sustenance.
But all these things shall surely come to pass
55
In the tenth generation; and what things
From the first generation shall occur
I now declare. First shall the Assyrians rule
Over all men, and wield authority
During six generations of the world,
60
From the time when, the God of heaven being wroth,
Sea covered earth and cities and all men,
A whelming flood of waters breaking in.
The Medes shall overcome them, and exult
Two generations only on the throne,
65
At which time these events shall come to pass:
Dark night shall be at the mid-hour of day,
And from the heaven the stars and circling moon
Shall disappear, and earthquakes shake the land,
And many cities and works of men
Line 53. Comp. Acts xvii, 25.
Line 57. First . . . Assyrians. — Comp. Gen. x, 11.
Lines 60-62. Cited by Lactantius, de Ira Dei, xxiii [L., 7., 144].
Line 63. Medes shall overcome. — Comp. Herod., i, 95: “When the Assyrians had ruled over upper Asia five hundred and twenty years, first the Medes began to revolt from them, . . . and, having thrown off their slavery, became free.”
Line 66. Night . . . day. — Probably to be understood of a notable eclipse of the sun. (Herodotus i, 74) relates that during the wars of the Medes and Lydians it happened that in the heat of battle the day was suddenly turned into night. This event, he observes, Thales had foretold, designating beforehand the very year in which it actually occurred.
70
Hurl to the dust; and then out of the deep
The islands of the sea shall peer aloft.
But when the great Euphrates overflows
With blood, then also both among the Medes
And Persians shall arise the direful noise
75
Of battle, and the Medes, discomfited
And falling underneath the Persian spears,
Shall flee beyond the mighty Tigris’ waves.
The Persian power shall be of all the world
The mightiest, and unto them shall be
80
One generation of most prosperous rule.
But such foul deeds as men seek to avert —
Battle-cries, murders, quarrels, banishments,
Ruin of towers, and rising up of cities —
Shall take place when proud, boasting Hellas sails
85
O’er the broad Hellespont, and carries doom
To Phrygia and to Asia. But to Egypt,
The land of many furrows and much wheat,
Shall come a blasting famine twenty years,
What time the Nile, corn-nourisher, shall hide
90
Somewhere beneath the earth his sable wave.
Line 71. Islands . . . peer. — The Greeks had a tradition that Delos and Rhodes were the first islands to emerge from the sea. Pliny His. Nat., ii, 89) mentions several islands that had appeared within historical times.
Lines 72-77. This statement of the fall of the Medes is not in strict accord with the best accredited history.
Line 83. Rising up of cities. — That is, in uproar and rebellion.
Lines 84-86. Reference to the Trojan War according to most critics, but according to Badt (Das vierte Buch d. Sibyl. Orakel, p. 10) to the beginning of the Persian War by the revolt of south-western Asia Minor, and the attack on Sardis by the Greeks.
Line 88. Famine twenty years. — Perhaps some allusion to the famine of seven years, as mentioned in Gen. xli, 27, was intended; but the statement has no historical verification.
Line 89. Nile . . . hide. — Comp. Horace, Carm., iv, 14, 45; Tibellus, i, 7; Herod., ii, 19.
To Hellas there shall come a mighty king
From Asia, with innumerable ships,
Lifting his spear on high, and he shall walk
The wet paths of the deep, and sail alone
95
Where others tread on foot; him, fugitive
From battle, fearful Asia shall receive.
And Sicily the wretched shall a stream
Of powerful fire destroy, while Etna’s flame
Breaks forth, and down into the molten stream
100
Shall Croton, great and powerful city, fall.
And strife shall be in Hellas; they shall rage
Against each other, and hurl to the dust
Numerous cities, and kill many men
Wrangling; but equal is the strife for both.
105
But when at length the course of time shall come
To the tenth generation of mankind,
Then shall there be a slavish yoke and fear
Upon the Persians. And when Macedon
Shall boast the scepter, there shall come to Thebes
110
A terrible destruction; and the Carians
Shall dwell in Tyre, and Tyrians be destroyed.
And sand shall hide all Samos under shore;
Delos shall be no longer visible;
Lines 91-96. Reference to Xerxes’s invasion of Greece.
Line 100. Croton. — No city of this name is known to have existed in Sicily, and the well-known Croton, or Croto, in southern Italy, cannot be thought of as perishing by lava streams of Etna. Another reading (βροτῶν) is, "the great city of men."
Lines 101-104. Reference to the Peloponnesian War.
Lines 105-118. Reference to the Macedonian power, which, under Alexander the Great, subdued the Persian Empire, and spread Greek colonies over its broad territory. The allusions are to be understood poetically, and were probably not designed to be altogether strict statements of fact.
Line 109. Thebes, in Bœtia, which was razed to the ground by Alexander before his expedition into Asia.
Lines 112, 113. Samos . . . Delos. — Comp. book iii, 429, and viii, 208, 209.
And Babylon, magnificent to see,
115
But small to fight, shall stand with vain hopes walled.
Macedonians shall dwell in Bactria,
And those of Bactria and Susa all
Shall flee away into the land of Greece.
These things shall come to pass when Pyramus,
120
Pouring his silvery eddies on the shore,
Shall reach afar unto a sacred isle.
And Sybaris shall fall, and Cyzicus,
When earthquakes shake the land, and cities perish.
To Rhodes shall come the last but greatest woe.
125
Nor shall the Macedonians always rule;
But from the West a great Italian war
Shall blossom out, and under it the world,
Bearing a slavish yoke, shall subject be
To the Italians. Thou, O Carchedon,
130
Thy tower shall also to the ground be hurled.
Wretched Laodicea, thee some day
Shall earthquakes damage, leveling to the dust;
But a city of broad streets shall rise again.
Line 116. Bactria. — The north-eastern extreme of the Persian Empire, bordering on northern India.
Line 117. Susa. — The biblical Shushan, one of the capital cities of the Persian Empire.
Line 119. Pyramus. — A river of Cilicia flowing southward from Mount Taurus and emptying into the Mediterranean. Strabo (book i, chap. iii, 7) describes it and quotes these lines of the Sibyl as an ancient oracle.
Line 121. Sacred Isle. — Referring probably to Cyprus, which word Strabo here reads.
Line 122. Sybaris. — Celebrated city of southern Italy, founded by Achæan colonists about B. C. 720, and totally destroyed by the army of the rural city Croton about B. C. 510. On Cyzicus and Rhodes see book iii, 516 and 525.
Lines 125-129. Rise, growth, and triumph of the Roman power.
Line 129. Carchedon. — Greek name for Carthage, which was destroyed by the Romans under Scipio, B. C. 146.
Line 131. Laodicea. — See book iii, 559.
And also thou, O wretched Corinth, shalt
135
Some day behold thy utter overthrow.
O Lycian Myra, who art beautiful,
Thee also some time shall the heaving land
Hurl to the dust, and falling prone to earth,
Amid the din of battle thou shalt pray
140
To flee, an alien, to another land.
Then on the godless ones of Patara,
Along with thunders and with earthquake shocks
Another shall pour out a dark sea flood.
Also for thee, Armenia, there remains
145
A slavish fate, and then shall also come
To Solyma an evil blast of war,
From Italy, and God’s great temple spoil.
But when they, trusting folly, shall forget
Piety, and foul murder consummate
150
Around the temple, then from Italy
A mighty king, even like a star, shall flee
Unseen, unknown, beyond Euphrates’ ford.
Then shall he expiate the bloody crime
Of matricide, and many other deeds
Line 134. Corinth. — Destroyed by Romans the same year as Carthage, B. C. 146.
Line 136. Myra. — Chief city of Lycia, on the southern coast, about a league from the sea. Its ruins witness to its ancient wealth and beauty.
Line 141. Patara. — See book iii, 522.
Line 144. Armenia. — There was Armenia Major, the vast territory south of the Caucasus Mountains and between the Euxine and Caspian Seas; and Armenia Minor, a small section on the west of Armenia Major, and east of Cappadocia. All these lands were subject to Alexander, then to the Syrian princes, and were made a Roman province under Trajan.
Line 146. Solyma. — That is, Jerusalem.
Line 151. Mighty king. — Nero, whose murder of his mother is notorious, and whose flight beyond the Euphrates and expected return as anti-christ was a superstitious tradition long maintained. Comp. book v, 38. Instead of like a star, other copies read, like a fugitive.
155
Which he with wicked hands will have performed.
And many about Rome’s sacred plain shall bleed,
While he escapes beyond the fatherland.
But into Syria Rome’s great chief shall come
And burn with fire the temple, and with spear
160
Shall slaughter many men of Solyma,
And spoil the great broad country of the Jews.
And then, too, shall an earthquake overthrow
Both Salamis and Paphos, and dark floods
Shall wildly dash on wave-washed Cyprus’ shore.
165
But when from deep clefts of the Italian land
Fire shall come whirling into the broad heaven
And many cities burn and men destroy,
And a vast mass of heated ashes shall fill
The expanse of air, and the small drops of rain
170
Shall fall like a red mildew out of heaven,
Then know the anger of the heavenly God,
Because they slew the blameless godly race.
And thereupon into the West shall come
The wrangle of a newly wakened war,
175
And bearing a huge spear, Rome’s fugitive
Shall cross Euphrates with many myriads.
Line 156. Many . . . bleed. — By reason of the struggles for the imperial power.
Lines 158-161. This evidently refers to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and the subjugation of all Palestine by the Romans under Vespasian and Titus.
Line 163. Salamis and Paphos. — Famous cities, one at the east and the other at the west end of Cyprus. “How often,” says Seneca (Epist. 91), “has this calamity (earthquake) laid Cyprus waste? How often has Paphos fallen into ruin?”
Lines 165-172. The great eruption of Vesuvius, which destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum, A. D. 79, is construed by the Sibyl as a sign of God’s anger against the Romans for the slaughter of the Jews.
Line 175. Rome’s fugitive. — Nero, referred to in lines 151-155.
O hapless Antioch, thee they shall call
No more a city, when thou fallest down
Through want of understanding round thy spears.
180
Then also famine and war’s horrid din
Shall ruin Cyprus. Woe, wretched Cyprus, woe!
Thou shalt be hidden by the sea’s broad wave,
Which by the wintry blasts is tossed on high.
But into Asia there shall come great wealth,
185
Which Rome herself, once plundering, put away
In her luxurious homes; and twice as much
Of other things shall she to Asia give;
And then there shall be an excess of war.
And Carian cities by Mæander’s wave,
190
Which have been beautifully fenced with towers,
Shall by bitter famine be destroyed,
When the Mæander his dark water hides.
But when from men shall perish piety,
And faith and righteousness, and they shall live
195
In recklessness profane, and insolence
Presumptuous, and full many other sins,
And of the pious no one makes account,
But from a want of understanding all
Like children utterly destroy themselves,
200
In violence exulting, and in blood
Holding their hands, then will it be discerned
That God is mild no longer, but surcharged
Lines 177-188. These lines depict a ruin which the Sibyl imagines will follow the return of Nero.
Line 186. Twice as much. — Comp. book iii, 413-419.
Line 189. Mæander. — This stream, having its sources in Phrygia, ran westward between Caria and Lydia, and was famous for its many windings. Comp. Ovid, Metam., viii, 162-166.
With fury, and by a great conflagration
Will utterly destroy the race of men.
205
Ah, miserable mortals, change these things,
Nor tempt the mighty God to wrath extreme;
But letting go swords, wailings, homicides,
And insolence, wash in the flowing stream
The whole body, and with hands stretched out
to heaven,
210
Seek pardon for the former deeds, and heal
Bitter impiety with piety,
And God will give repentance, not destroy.
And he will stay his wrath, if ye will all
Observe in your hearts precious piety.
215
But if, ill-minded, ye obey me not,
But loving wickedness, receive these things
With a base hearing, over all the world
Fire shall be, and the greatest omens, swords,
And trumpets, at the rising of the sun;
220
All earth the mighty roaring sound shall hear.
The whole land he will burn, and the whole race
Of men shall perish, and he will consume
All cities, with the rivers and the seas;
These all shall be reduced to smoky dust.
225
But when all things become an ashy pile,
God will put out the fire unspeakable
Which he once kindled, and the bones and ashes
Of men will God himself again transform,
Line 203. See lines 218-224, and comp. 2 Pet. iii, 7; Cicero, de Natura Deorum, ii, 49; Ovid, Metam., i, 256-258. Justin Martyr refers to this passage in his first Apology, chap. xx.
Line 208. Wash. — Reference to Christian baptism.
Lines 225-239. This picture of resurrection, judgment, and awarding of punishments and rewards embodies the substance of familiar Christian doctrine. This passage is quoted in the Apostolical Constitutions, book v, 7 [G., 1, 844].
And raise up mortals as they were before.
230
And then will be the judgment; God himself
Will sit as judge, and judge the world again.
As many as committed impious sins
Shall Stygian Gehenna’s depths conceal
’Neath molten earth and dismal Tartarus.
235
But the pious shall again live on the earth,
And God will give them spirit, life, and means
Of nourishment, and all shall see themselves,
Beholding the sun’s sweet and cheerful light.
O happiest man, who at that time shall live!
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