them in two gilded lockers under the base of the Palatine Apollo might very well imply that this was done at the time of the removal; but the inference is not a necessary one. On the other hand the numerous and pointed references to Apollo in Tibullus' poem and in particular that in the very first line' Phoebe, faue: nouus ingreditur tua templa sacerdos' coupled with the remarkable agreement in the details of the poet's description and of the well known Palatine representation of the God make it at the least not improbable that the books had been already placed in the temple when Tibullus wrote. At any rate they were in the Palatine temple from B.C. 12 onwards; for this was the year when Augustus succeeded Lepidus as Pontifex Maximus and in that capacity made the revision to which Suetonius refers. The Sibylline books were written in the Greek tongue and in hexameter verse, so far at least as the earlier collection went, and age and neglect must have made them difficult to decipher. But this is not the meaning of the significant words in Tibullus' prayer to Phoebus that the god will allow Messalinus to touch the sacred pages and to impart to him the sense of the Sibyl's verses; nor was it the reason why Roman law surrounded the consultation of the libri Sibyllini with so many restrictions and so much solemn ritual.' Sibylline Re sponses in Acrostichs. Meaning of this. The truth is that, except in a very artificial sense, the oracles published and passing as Sibylline were not the Sibyl's at all. How far this was known outside the college we cannot say; but it is shown by the fact, with which the ancients were well acquainted, that the authentic, that is to say, the official Sibylline oracles were written in acrostichs. This means that the first letters of the lines published as the Sibyl's response taken in order made a metre and sense of their own. We know this from Cic. De Diuinatione 2. § 111 and from Dionysius of Halicarnassus (4. 62 fin.) who tells us, upon the authority of Varro, that among the genuine Sibylline oracles were found spurious ones which could be detected by applying this test (ἐν οἷς εὑρίσ κονταί τινες ἐμπεποιημένοι τοῖς Σιβυλλείοις, ἐλέγχονται δὲ ταῖς καλουμέναις ἀκροστιχίσι). Cicero justly infers from the artificial character of a 'response' that it is not really the work of an inspired person: 'non esse autem illud carmen furentis cum 1 For a full description of these solemnities see Vopiscus in the passage cited below, p. 190. ipsum poema declarat (est enim magis artis et diligentiae quam incitationis et furoris), tum uero ea quae aкpooτixís dicitur cum deinceps ex primis uersus litteris aliquid conectitur.' Cicero's and Dionysius' statements are confirmed by the form of a 'genuine' Sibylline response referred to below. When now the Senate had decreed that the Sibylline books should be consulted, they were dug up out of their resting place and a few words were taken at hazard. The passage thus arrived at was next made applicable to the circumstances. Its separate letters were made the initial letters of the lines of the new response and the rest of the lines filled up in accordance with the requirements of the occasion. This it may be said was a gross deception. No doubt it seems so to us. But those who carried it out believed themselves to be at the time under the influence of divine inspiration ; and the annals of priestcraft abound with similar examples of pious and in a sense honest fraud. Regulations governing the consultation of the Books. A very large number of so-called Sibylline Oracles have been preserved; but hardly any can claim the honour of having been put forth by the sacred college as the utterances of the Sibyl to Rome. The purport and contents of the latter have to be gathered almost exclusively from the references to them in the historians. From these we learn first the occasions upon which the books were consulted and secondly what was done after the consultations. The consul tation of the books (adire Sibyllinos libros) was not allowed except for reasons of great gravity, to wit, civil strife, national disaster, and portents of a serious character1 or a disquieting frequency, which had been formally reported to the officers of state, publice nuntiata; see Dionys.. Hal. 4. 62. § 5. Livy 22. 9. § 7 sqq. and elsewhere. A resolution of the Senate was still required before the college could consult the books. The published response would contain a prediction of the calamity or prodigy and directions for its removal or expiation; and this is why the college was called X Vuiri sacris faciundis. The above remarks are borne out by the tenour of the Sibylline response (preserved by a writer on marvels, Phlegon de mirabilibus c. 10), which is said to have been given in 125 1 taetra prodigia is Livy's description. For the second class sce a place of the historian quoted on 11. 79. B.C., but which is referred by C. Alexandre to 347 B.C.1 This response consists of 70 hexameters whose initial letters make the following imperfect lines: οἱ ρ' ἀνόπισθ ̓ ὁμαφυπας εἰς τόπον ἔλθ ̓ ἵππωι ἀγαλλόμενος πάλιν αὐκον εἰσενονηξειαυτα. They clearly indicate how difficult it was to read the Sibylline writing. The first two lines and a half of this response are an assertion of the Sibyl's prophetic character. The next two and a half predict the prodigy, in this case a monstrous birth. The rest of the response gives in detail the rites and ceremonies to be instituted for the purpose of propitiating the gods. The same Phlegon in his book on long-lived persons has preserved the text of another Sibylline oracle, which seems to be genuine although apparently not satisfying the acrostich test. It was obtained before the celebration of the famous ludi saeculares which were solemnized by Augustus in B.C. 17 and for which Horace composed the Carmen Saeculare. Influence of the upon Roman It is not easy to exaggerate the importance of the Sibylline books in the early history of Rome. That they were a most potent factor in modifying the ancient Roman ritual and religion and assimilating it to the Greek, is a well-recognized fact which need not be dwelt on here. We see this even from the terms of the oracle just referred to, which prescribes in v. 16 that the sacrifice to Demeter (Ceres) is to be conducted in the Greek fashion 'Αχαιστὶ τάδ' έρδειν. Their influence seems to have declined somewhat after the time of Sulla; but it was revived by the measures of Augustus, and the books were consulted on various occasions of national danger down to the latest times. Their destruction in fact preceded by a very little the fall of the Roman empire itself. For it was between the years 404 and 408 that they were committed to the flames by the order of the emperor Honorius or of his great minister Stilicho, for what precise reason we do not know. Rutilius Namatianus accuses his enemy 1 Oracula Sibyllina II. p. 236. For the text of this response see ib. p. 242. 2 Makrob. 5, followed by the late historian Zosimus (II. 15, a passage printed in extenso in Orelli's edition of Horace). Stilicho of the crime (Sibyllinae fata cremauit opis, de reditu II. 52), but only after Stilicho's disgrace and death. One of the most noteworthy among the later occasions when their prophetic guidance was sought was during the reign of Aurelian when the Alemanni or Marcomanni had broken into Italy and were threatening Rome, 270-271. The Emperor's letter recommending the consultation of the books, the deliberations of the Senate and the ceremonies used in the consultation are given at length by his biographer Vopiscus, chaps. 18-20. Compare Gibbon Decline and Fall, (ed. Bury) I. p. 298. The various legends connected with the 'Sibyl' are a fascinating subject for inquiry; but one that lies beyond our province here. Still two or Some Legends three of the more curious may be given. Her of the Sibyl. great age was proverbial, and Σιβύλλης ἀρχαιότερος was a proverb. Ovid (Metamorphoses 14. 152 sqq.) makes the Cumaean Sibyl say she has lived 700 years, but has 300 more to live, and that at last she will pass into an ‘invisible voice,' 'nullique uidenda uoce tamen noscar: uocem mihi fata relinquent.' Trimalchio, the vulgar millionaire of Petronius, says that when he was a boy he saw with his own eyes the Sibyl suspended in a bottle (ampulla) and that when the children asked What do you want, Sibyl?' she replied 'I want to die,' àтolaveîv léλw.1 Plutarch records a saying that she was the Woman in the Moon, and prophesied in a shrill voice as she was carried round on its disk, de sera numinis uindicta, c. 22, p. 566 D. The Christian 'Sibylline Ora One of the most remarkable features in her history was her adoption by the Fathers of the Christian Church, who regarded her as truly inspired and placed her on a par with the prophetic personages of the Jewish dispensation. Hence we read in the well-known hymn: Dies irae, dies illa, Soluet saeclum in fauilla cles'. Owing to this a great mass of spurious Sibylline literature came into being, including the bulk of the so-called Sibylline oracles, fourteen books of Greek hexameters. Whether any genuine utterances of the pagan Sibyls are imbedded in the mass is a matter which is very hard to determine. 1 Petron. Sat. 48. The showman of this ancient Oboth or 'bottle imp' was no doubt a ventriloquist. APPENDIX C ON III. XIX. (IV. xIII.) In the Journal of Philology for 1880 (vol. ix. pp. 280-285) I maintained, as I then believed, for the first time the spuriousness of this poem. But I have since learned that H. Fritzsche propounded a similar view in a Halle dissertation of 1875.1 The hardy theory naturally provoked dissent : and amongst those most forward to expose the heresy may be mentioned the names of H. Magnus, F. Hennig, and H. Belling. The discovery of fresh facts and the consideration of the opposing arguments have not, it is true, removed my original impression; but they have made me feel that the previous discussion is not now an adequate presentation of the case. And for these reasons as well as because a problem in literary criticism admitting of discussion within a moderate compass is somewhat of a rarity, I take this opportunity after an interval of more than twenty years of stating anew the grounds upon which I find it hard to believe that this piece is the genuine work of Tibullus. The internal aspect of the question claims our consideration first. The most searching tests which can be applied in examining a work whose genuineness has been chal- Statistical lenged are naturally those of the statistical method inap. method. The present poem however with its plicable. 1 Quaestiones Tibullianae p. 1 'Nam non diu latere potuit carmina, quae in codicibus scripta sunt, tantum inter se discrepare ut ab uno poeta profecta esse nequeant; ac librum quidem tertium et quarti elegias 1. 8-12 nunc plerique a Tibullo abiudicant; de IV, 13. 14 alii aliter sentiunt, verisimile tamen est haec quoque carmina alii Augusteae aetatis poetae tribuenda esse.' The words which I have placed in italics seem to warrant the inference that Fritzsche was not alone in his opinion. In the report on the literature of Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius. Jahresbericht 1887 p. 359, |