Pausanias, Phocis

CHAPTER XII.

There is a projecting stone above, on which the Delphians say the first Herophile, also called the Sibyl, chanted her oracles. 1 I found her to he most ancient, and the Greeks say she was the danghter 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. The second Herophile was younger than her, but was herself clearly earlier than the Trojan War, for she foretold in her oracles that Helen would be reared in Sparta to the ruin of Asia Minor and Europe, and that Ilium would be taken by the Greeks owing to her. The Delians
make mention of her Hymn to Apollo. And she calls herself in her verses not only Herophile but also Artemis, and says she was Apollo's wedded wife and sister and daughter. This she must have written when possessed by the god. And elsewhere in her oracles she says her father

1 The text L somewhat uncertain here. I have tried to extract the
best sense.


was a mortal but lier mother one of tlie Nymphs of Mount Ida. Here are lier lines,

" I was the child of a mortal sire and goddess mother, she was a Nymph and Immortal while he eat bread. By my mother I am connected with Mount Ida, and my native place is red Marpessus (sacred to my mother), and the river Aidoneus."

There are still in Trojan Ida ruins of Marpessus, and a population o about 60 inhabitants. The soil all about Marpessns is red and terribly dry. Why in fact the river Aidoneus soaks into the earth, and on its emerging 1 sinks into the ground again, and is eventually altogether lost in it, is I think the thin and porous soil of Mount Ida. Marpessus is 240 stades distant from Alexandria in the Troad. The inhabitants of Alexandria say that Herophile was the Sacristan of Sminthian Apollo, and that she fore told by dream to Hecuba what we know really came about. This Sibyl lived most of her life at Samos, but visited Claras in Colophonia, Delos, and Delphi, and wherever she went chanted standing on. the stone we have already mentioned. Death came upon her in the Troad, her tomb is in the grove of Sminthian Apollo, and the inscription, on the pillar is as follows.

" Here hidden by stone sepulchre I lie, Apollo's fate-pronouncing Sibyl I, a vocal maiden once but now for ever dumb, here placed by all-powerful fate, and I lie near the JKymphs and Hermes, in this part of Apollo's realm."

Near her tomb is a square Hermes in stone, and on the left is water running into a conduit, and some statues of the ETymphs. The people of Erythrse, who are most zealous of all the Greeks in claiming Herophile as theirs, show the mountain called Oorycus and the cavern in it in which they say Herophile was born, and they say that she was the daughter of Theodoras (a local shepherd) and a INymphj and that she was called Idsea for no other reason than that well-wooded places were called by people at that time Idas. And the line about Marpessns and the river Aidoneus they do not include in the oracles.

Hyperochus, a native of CumjB, has recorded that a wnrnan called Demo, of Cu/nas in the Opican district, delivered oracles after Herophile and in a similar manner.

The people of Cumse do not produce any oracle of Demo's, but they shew a small stone urn in the temple of Apollo, wherein they say are her remains. After Demo the Hebrews beyond Palestine had a prophetess called Sabbe, whose father they say was Berosus and mother Erymanthe, but some say she was a Babylonian Sibyl, others an Egyptian. Phaeiinis, (the daughter of the king of the Chaones), and the Peleae at Dodona, also prophesied by divine inspiration, but were not called Sibyls. As to the age and oracles of Phaennis, one will find upon inquiry that she was a con temporary of Antiochus, who seized the kingdom after taking Demetrius prisoner. As to the Peleades, they were they say earlier than Phemonoe, and were the first women that sang the following lines.

" Zeus was, Zeus Is, Zeus shall be. O great Zeus!
Earth yields us fruits, let us then call her Mother."

Prophetical men, as Buclus the Cyprian, and the Athenian Musasus the son of Antiophemus, and Lycus the son of Pandion, as well as Bacis the Boeotian, were they say inspired by lymphs. All their oracular utterances except those of Lycus I have read.

Such are the women and men who up to my time have been said to have been prophetically inspired : and as time goes on there will perhaps be other similar cases. 1

1 Qui hoc et simlia putant dicuatque Pausaniam opposuisse Christianis, hos velim explicare causam, cur Pausanias tecte cantum in illos invadere, neque usquam quidquam aperte contra eos dicere ausus sit" Siebelis*