The Sibylline Oracles, translated from the Greek into English Blank Verse by Milton S. Terry, Professor in Garrett Biblical Institute. New edition revised after the text for Ruch. New York: Eaton & Mains; Cincinnati: Curts & Jennings. 1899. ====== The Sibylline Oracles: Book 12 ====== ===== BOOK XII ===== CONTENTS OF BOOK XII. Introduction, 1, 2. The first Cæsars, 3-46. The mighty warrior, 47-61. The guileful king 62-87. The king of wide sway, 88-100. The dreadful and contemptible king, 101-125. The three kings, 126-130. The royal destroyer of pious men, 131-153. The princes famed for filial devotion, 154-161. The peaceful king, 162-183. The venerable king, 184-189. Another warrior king, 190-204. The Celtic warrior, 205-210. The king with the name of a sea, 211-227. The three rulers, 228-242. The wise and pious king, 243-270. The king that sought to rival Hercules, 271-289. Period of Roman dominion, 290-303. The twentieth king, 303-314. The short-lived king, 315-320. The ruler from the East, 321-328. The wily ruler from the West, 329-344. The youthful Cæsar, 345-354. A time of woes, 356-368. Only those who honor God attain happiness, 369-373. The Sibyl's prayer, 374-382. BUT come now, hear of me the mournful time\\ Of sons of Latium; and first of all\\ After the kings of Egypt were destroyed,\\ And the like earth had downwards borne them all,\\ 5 And after Pella's townsman, under whom\\ The whole East and the rich West were cast down,\\ Whom Babylon dishonored, and stretched out\\ For Philip a dead body (not of Zeus,\\ Of Ammon not true things were prophesied),\\ 10 And after that one of the race and blood\\ Of king Assaracus, who came from Troy,\\ Even he who cleft the violence of fire,\\ And after many lords, and after men\\ To Ares dear, and after the young babes,\\ 15 The children of the beast that feeds on sheep,\\ And after the passing of six hundred years\\ And decades two of Rome's dictatorship,\\ The very first lord, from the western sea,\\ Shall be of Rome the ruler, very strong\\ 20 And warlike, the initial of whose name\\ Begins the letters, and fast binding thee,\\ O thou of goodly fruit, he shall be full\\ Of man-destroying Ares; thou shalt pay\\ [1. This book is in great part a reproduction of the material of the fifth book, and in portions, as, for example, the first fifteen lines, a direct appropriation of the language found at the beginning of that book. 16. Six hundred.--Comp. book xi, 360. 18. The very first.--This differs from book v, 16-18, in making Augustus rather than Julius Cæsar the first imperial ruler.] (1-17.) The outrage which thou willing didst force on;\\ For he, great soul, shall be the best in wars;\\ 25 Before him Thrace and Sicily shall crouch,\\ With Memphis, Memphis cast headlong to earth\\ By reason of the wickedness of rulers\\ And of a woman unenslaved who falls\\ Under the spear. And laws will he ordain\\ 30 For peoples and put all things under him;\\ Having great fame he shall wield scepter long;\\ For no short time shall he last nor shall ever\\ Be other greater scepter-bearing king\\ 35 Than this one, o'er the Romans, not one hour,\\ For God did lavish all things upon him,\\ And also in the noble earth he showed\\ Great marvelous seasons, and with them showed signs.\\ But when a radiant star all like the sun\\ 40 Shall shine forth out of heaven in the mid days,\\ Then shall the secret Word of the Most High\\ Come clothed in flesh like mortals; but with him\\ The might of Rome and of the illustrious Latins\\ Shall increase. But the mighty king himself\\ 45 Shall under his appointed lot expire,\\ Transmitting to another royal power.\\ But after him a man, a warrior strong,\\ Wearing the purple mantle on his shoulders,\\ Shall bear rule, and with his initial be\\ 50 Numbers three hundred, and he shall destroy\\ The Medes and arrow-hurling Parthians;\\ And he himself by his power shall subvert\\ [25-30. Identical with book v, 22-27, excepting the word spear in line 29. 39. Star.--The star of Bethlehem. Matt. ii, 2, 9. 41. Word.--The Logos, as in John i, 1. 50. Three hundred.--Designating Tiberius, as in book v, 30.] (18-41.) The high-gate city; and again shall come\\ Evil to Egypt and the Assyrians,\\ 55 And to the Colchian Heniochi,\\ And to those by the waters of the Rhine,\\ The Germans dwelling o'er the sandy shores.\\ And he himself shall ravage afterwards\\ The high-gate city near Eridanus\\ 60 Which is devising evils. And then he\\ Shall forthwith fall down, struck by gleaming iron.\\ And afterwards shall rule another man\\ Weaving guile, and the initial of his name\\ Will show the number three; and he much gold\\ 65 Shall gather; and with him there shall not be\\ Satiety of wealth, but plundering more\\ Recklessly he'll put all things in the earth.\\ But peace shall come, and Ares shall desist\\ From wars; and he shall make known many things\\ 70 In divination of the greatest things,\\ Inquiring for the sake of means of life;\\ Yet there shall be on him the greatest sign:\\ From heaven down on the king while perishing\\ There shall flow many little drops of blood.\\ 75 And many lawless things will he perform,\\ And put around the neck of Romans pain\\ Trusting in divination; and the heads\\ Of the assembly he will also slay.\\ And famine shall seize Cappadocians,\\ 80 And Thracians, Macedonians, and Italians.\\ [55. Heniochi.--A Sarmatian tribe, near Colchis. 59. City.--Cremona seems intended, but the writer has here apparently confused Tiberius with Vespasian, who destroyed this city by fire. 64. Three.--The letter {Greek G}, denoting Gaius, or Caius Cæsar, commonly called Caligula, a monster of wickedness.] (41-61.) And Egypt shall alone feed numerous tribes;\\ And the king himself beguiling secretly\\ Shall craftily destroy the virgin maid;\\ But her the citizens in tearful grief\\ 85 Shall bury; and against the king they all\\ Holding wrath shall abuse him craftily.\\ While strong Rome blossoms the strong man shall perish.\\ And again there shall rule another lord\\ Of the number of twice ten; and then shall come\\ 90 Unto the Sauromatians and to Thrace\\ And the Triballi, famed for hurling darts,\\ Wars and sad cares; and Roman Ares shall\\ Tear all in pieces. And a fearful sign\\ Shall there be when this man shall rule the land\\ 95 Of the Italians and Pannonians;\\ And there shall be at the mid hour of day\\ Dark night around them and then from the heaven\\ A shower of stones; and thereupon the lord\\ And vigorous judge of the Italians\\ 100 Shall go in Hades' halls by his own fate.\\ Again another fearful man shall come\\ And dreadful, numbering fifty; and from all\\ The cities many noblest citizens\\ Born to wealth he shall utterly destroy,\\ 105 A dreadful serpent breathing grievous war,\\ Who sometime stretching forth his hands shall make\\ An end of his own race and stir all things,\\ Acting the athlete, driving chariots,\\ [89. Twice ten.--Represented by Kappa, initial of Claudius (Klaudios) Comp. book v, 36. 101-114. This description of Nero is nearly identical with that of book v, 39-49.] (62-83.) Putting to death and daring countless things;\\ 110 And he shall cleave the mountain of two seas,\\ And sprinkle it with gore. And out of sight\\ Shall also vanish the destructive man;\\ Then making himself equal unto God\\ Shall he return, but God will prove him naught.\\ 115 And while he rules there shall be peace profound\\ And not the fears of men; and from the ocean\\ Flowing, and cleaving by Ausonia,\\ Shall come untrodden water; and around\\ Looking with anxious care he will appoint\\ 120 His very many contests for the people,\\ And he himself an actor will contend\\ With voice and cithara, and sing a song\\ Along with harp-string; later he will flee\\ And leave the royal power, and perishing\\ 125 Illy will he repay the harm he wrought.\\ After him three shall rule and two of them\\ Shall have the number seventy by their names,\\ And in addition to these shall be one\\ Of the third letter; and one here, one there,\\ 130 Shall perish by strong Ares' sturdy hands.\\ Then shall a mighty ruler of men come,\\ Destroyer of the pious, strong-minded man,\\ Spear-wielding Ares, whom seven times the tenth\\ Shall point out clearly; he shall overthrow\\ 135 Phœnicia and destroy Assyria.\\ A sword shall come upon the sacred land\\ Of Solyma even to the utmost bend\\ Of the Tiberian sea. Alas, alas,\\ Phœnicia, O how much shalt thou endure,\\ 140 Grief-laden with thy trophies tightly bound,\\ [126-131. Comp. book v, 50-53.] (83-106.) And every nation shall upon thee tread.\\ Alas, alas, to the Assyrians\\ Shalt thou come and shalt see young children serve\\ Among unfriendly men and with the wives,\\ 145 And every means of life and wealth shall perish;\\ For on thee God's wrath causing grievous woe\\ Shall come, because they did not keep his law,\\ But served all idols with unseemly arts.\\ And many wars and fights and homicides,\\ 150 Famines, and pestilences, and confusion\\ Of cities shall be. But the reverend king\\ Of mighty soul shall at the end of life\\ Himself fall by a strong necessity.\\ Then shall two other chief men, cherishing\\ 155 The memory of their father, great king, rule,\\ And in contending warriors glory much.\\ And (one) of these shall be a noble man\\ And lordly, whose name shall three hundred hold;\\ Yet he shall also fall by treachery,\\ 160 Not in the warring companies stretched out,\\ But struck in Rome's plain by the two-edged brass.\\ And after him a powerful warlike man\\ Of the letter four shall rule the mighty realm,\\ Whom all men on the boundless earth shall love,\\ 165 And then shall there be over all the world\\ A rest from war. Yet all, from west to east,\\ Shall serve him willingly, not by constraint,\\ And cities shall be under his control\\ And of themselves be subject. For to him\\ 170 Shall heavenly Sabaoth much glory bring,\\ The imperishable God who dwells on high.\\ [154. Two other.--Titus and Domitian, who seem to be also the ones designated by three hundred and four in the lines immediately following.] (106-132.) And then shall famine waste Pannonia\\ And all the Celtic land, and shall destroy\\ One here, another there. And there shall be\\ 175 For the Assyrians, whom Orontes laves,\\ Structures and ornament and what may seem\\ Yet greater anywhere. And the great king\\ Shall have a fondness for these and love them\\ Above the others far (and there are many);\\ 180 But he himself shall in mid breast receive\\ A great wound, and seized at the end of life\\ Craftily, by a friend, in hallowed house\\ Of the great royal hall shall he fall down\\ Wounded; and after him shall be a ruler\\ 185 Numbering fifty, venerable man,\\ Who above measure shall destroy from Rome\\ Many inhabitants and citizens;\\ But he shall rule few; for in Hades' halls\\ For a former king's sake he shall wounded go.\\ 190 But then another king, a warrior strong,\\ Who has three hundred for initial sign,\\ Shall bear rule and lay waste the Thracians' land\\ Which is much varied, and he shall destroy\\ The powerful Germans dwelling by the Rhine\\ 195 And the Iberians that shoot the arrow.\\ Moreover, there shall be unto the Jews\\ Another greatest evil, and with them\\ Bedewed with murder shall Phœnicia drink;\\ And the walls of the Assyrians shall fall\\ 200 By many warriors. And again a man\\ Destroying life shall waste them utterly.\\ [179. The reading of the Greek text of this line is corrupt and doubtful. 185. Fifty.--Designating Nerva. 190. Another.--Trajan. Comp. lines 190-210 with book v, 58-65.] (133-155.) And then shall threatenings of the mighty God,\\ Earthquakes, and great plagues be on every land,\\ Untimely snow-storms, and strong thunderbolts.\\ 205 And then the great king, mountain-roaming Celt,\\ Shall for the toil of Ares not escape\\ A fate unseemly, hastening eagerly\\ After the strife of battle, but worn out\\ Shall he be; foreign dust shall hide his corpse,\\ 210 But dust that of Nemea's flower has name.\\ And after him another shall arise,\\ A silver-headed man, and of the sea\\ Shall be his name, and of four syllables,\\ Ares himself first of the alphabet\\ 215 Presenting. Temples he shall dedicate\\ In all the cities, watching o'er the world\\ By his own foot, and bringing gifts away,\\ Both gold and amber much will he supply\\ For many; and magicians' mysteries\\ 220 All will he from the sanctuaries keep;\\ And what is much more excellent for men\\ Will he place . . . ruling . . . thunderbolt;\\ And great peace shall be when he shall be lord;\\ And he shall be a minstrel of rich voice\\ 225 And a participant in lawful things,\\ And a just minister of what is right;\\ But he shall fall, unloosing his own fate.\\ After him three shall rule, and the third late\\ Shall rule, three decades keeping; yet again\\ [211. Another.--Hadrian, Greek {Greek ?Adriano's}, a word of four syllables. Comp. book v, 65-71, and viii, 66-83. 222. Will he place.--Lacuna in the original text here leaves it impossible to complete the sentence, or even indicate the thought with any certainty. 228. Three.--The Antonines. See book v, 72, and viii, 85.] (156-177.) 230 Of the first unit shall another king\\ Bear the rule; and another after him\\ Shall be commander, of tens numbering seven;\\ And their names shall be honored; and they shall\\ Themselves destroy men marked by many a spot,\\ 235 Britons and mighty Moors and Dacians\\ And the Arabians. But when the last\\ Of these shall perish, fearful Ares then,\\ He that before was wounded, shall again\\ Against the Parthians come, and utterly\\ 240 Shall he destroy them. And then shall the king\\ Himself fall by a treacherous wild beast\\ Training his hands--excuse itself of death.\\ And after him another man shall rule,\\ In many wise things skilled, and he shall have\\ 245 Himself the name of the first mighty king\\ Of the first unit; and he shall be good\\ And mighty; and for the illustrious Latins\\ Shall this strong one accomplish many things\\ In memory of his father; and forthwith\\ 250 Shall he adorn the walls of Rome with gold\\ And silver and ivory; and he shall go\\ Within the market places and the temples\\ With a strong man. And sometime direst wound\\ Shall shoot up like ears in the Roman wars;\\ [230. First unit.--A, here denoting Antoninus Pius. 232. Tens numbering seven.--O, Greek initial of Verus ({Greek Ou?h~ros}). 235. Moors.--The Mauri, or Mauritanians, on the northwestern coast of Africa. 236-242. The statements of these lines are inexplicably obscure. Dire war was carried on with the Parthians under command of L. Verus, but the statements of lines 240-242 are not applicable to any of the Antonines, either literally or metaphorically. 246. First unit.--Designating Aurelius-that is, Marcus Aurelius.] (178-194.) 255 And he shall sack the whole land of the Germans,\\ When a great sign of God shall be displayed\\ From heaven, and shall for the king's piety\\ Save men in brazen armor and distress;\\ For God who is in heaven and hears all things\\ 260 Shall wet him with unseasonable rain\\ When he prays. But when these things are fulfilled\\ Of which I spoke, then with the rolling years\\ Shall also the renowned dominion cease\\ Of the great pious king; and at the end\\ 265 Of his life, having then proclaimed his son\\ Succeeding to the kingdom, he shall die\\ By his own lot and leave the royal power\\ Unto the ruler with the golden hair,\\ Who with two tens in his name, born a king\\ 270 From the race of his father, shall receive\\ Dominion. This man with superior powers\\ Of mind shall grasp all things; and he shall rival\\ Great-hearted overweening Hercules,\\ And be the best in mighty arms and have\\ 275 The greatest fame in chase and horsemanship;\\ But he shall live in peril all alone.\\ And while this man is ruler there shall be\\ A fearful sign: there shall be a great mist\\ Then in the plain of Rome, so that a man\\ [256. Great sign.--The marvelous thunder-storm, by aid of which the emperor and his army gained a great victory over the Quadi, and which the Romans ascribed to Jupiter Tonans, who heard Aurelius's prayer, but which the Christians of his army affirmed was in answer to their own prayers. 265. Son.--Commodus, who succeeded him. 269. Two tens.--Represented by {Greek K}, Greek initial of Commodus, specially famous for his skill with the bow and other arms, and boasting himself to be a rival of Hercules.] 280 May not discern his neighbor. And then wars\\ Shall come to pass along with mournful cares,\\ When the king himself, exceeding mad with love,\\ And weakly, shall come in the marriage-bed\\ Shaming his youthful offspring, infamous\\ 285 For inconsiderate wedding-songs impure.\\ And then, in helpless loneliness concealed,\\ The mighty baneful man held under wrath\\ Shall in a bath-room suffer evil plight,\\ Man-slaying Ares bound by treacherous fate.\\ 290 Know then the fatal lot of Rome is near\\ Because of zeal for power; and by the hands\\ Of Ares many in Palladian halls\\ Shall perish. And then Rome shall be bereft\\ And shall repay all things, which she alone\\ 295 Before accomplished by her many wars.\\ My heart laments, my heart within me mourns;\\ For from the time when thy first king, proud Rome,\\ Gave good law to thee and to men on earth,\\ And the Word of the great immortal God\\ 300 Came to the earth, until the nineteenth reign\\ Shall have been finished Cronos shall complete\\ Two hundred years, twice twenty and twice two,\\ With six months added; then the twentieth king,\\ When smitten with sharp brass he with the sword\\ 305 Shall in thy houses pour out blood, shall make\\ Thy race a widow, having in his name\\ [288. Bath-room.--Commodus was assassinated by suffocation in a bath room. 300. Nineteenth.--That is, the nineteenth reign reckoning from Augustus. Comp. line 303. 302. This computation is obviously erroneous, for Commodus was assassinated A. D. 192, to which if we add the thirteen years of Augustus before the date of our era we have only two hundred and five years.] (216-237.) The letter which the number eighty shows,\\ And burdened with old age; but he shall make\\ A widow of thee in a little time,\\ 310 When many warriors, many overthrows,\\ And murders, homicides, and deadly feuds\\ And miseries of conquests there shall be,\\ And in confusion many a horse and man\\ Shall, cleft by force of hands, fall in the plain.\\ 315 And then another man shall rule, and have\\ The sign of his name in the number ten;\\ And many sorrows shall he bring to pass,\\ And groans, and he shall plunder many men;\\ But he himself shall be short-lived and fall\\ 320 By mighty Ares, struck by gleaming iron.\\ Another, numbering fifty, then shall come,\\ A warrior roused up by the East for rule;\\ A warlike Ares he shall come to Thrace;\\ And he shall flee thereafter and shall come\\ 325 Into the land of the Bithynians\\ And the Cilician plain; but brazen Ares\\ The life-destroyer shall with speedy stroke\\ Utterly spoil him in the Assyrian fields.\\ And then again there shall rule craftily\\ 330 A man skilled in fraud, full of various wiles,\\ Roused up by the West, and his name shall have\\ The number of two hundred. And again\\ [307. Eighty.--Represented by {Greek P}, initial of Pertinax, who was sixty-seven years old when made emperor and lived only eighty-seven days thereafter. 316. Ten.--{Greek I}, here referring to Julianus (Didius Julianus), who after the murder of Pertinax made the highest bid for the empire, but reigned only sixty-six days. 321. Fifty.--{Greek N}, designating Niger, who claimed the empire on the death of Pertinax and was supported by the East, but being repeatedly defeated by the troops of his rival, Severus, he fled for Parthia, but was overtaken and slain. 232. Two hundred.--Represented by {Greek S} and designating Septimius Severus.] (238-258.) Another sign: he shall contrive a war\\ For royal power against Assyrian men,\\ 335 Raise a whole army and subject all things.\\ And he shall rule the Romans with his might;\\ But there is much contrivance in his heart,\\ Impulse of baleful Ares; serpent dire,\\ And violent in war, who shall destroy\\ 340 All high-born men upon the earth, and slay\\ The noble for their wealth, and, robber like,\\ Stripping all earth while men are perishing,\\ He shall go to the East; and all deceit\\ Shall be to him . . .\\ . . . . . . .\\ 345 Then shall a youthful Cæsar with him reign\\ Having the name of a puissant lord\\ Of Macedon, by the first letter known;\\ Bringing in broils around him he shall flee\\ The hard deception of the coming king\\ 350 In the bosom of the army; but the one\\ Who rules by his barbaric usages,\\ A temple-guard, shall perish suddenly\\ Slain by strong Ares with the gleaming iron;\\ Him even dead shall people tear in pieces.\\ 355 And then the kings of Persia shall rise up;\\ And . . . Roman Ares Roman lord.\\ [347. First letter.--Alexander Severus is denoted, his name reminding the writer of Alexander the Great of Macedon. 352. Temple-guard.--Heliogabalus (or Elagabalus) seems to be here referred to, who was in early youth trained as a priest In the Temple of the Sun at Emesa, and who, after he was made emperor, was wont to wear his pontifical dress and tiara as high-priest of the sun. But he came before, not after, Alexander Severus. 355. Kings of Persia.--The dynasty of the Sassanidæ, or kings of the later Persian Empire, founded by Ardechir Babegan, commonly called Artaxerxes.] (259-278.) And Phrygia shall with earthquakes groan again\\ Wretched. Alas, alas, Laodicea;\\ Alas, alas, sad Hierapolis;\\ 360 For you first once the yawning earth received.\\ Of Rome . . . immense Aus . . .\\ All things as many . . .\\ Shall wail . . . while men are perishing\\ In the hands of Ares; and the lot of men\\ 365 Shall be bad; but then by the eastern way\\ Hastening to look down upon Italy,\\ Stripped naked he shall fall by gleaming iron,\\ Acquiring hatred for his mother's sake.\\ For seasons are of all sorts; each holds back\\ 370 The other . . . gleaming and this not at once all know;\\ For all things shall not be (the lot) of all,\\ But only those shall be for happiness\\ Who honor God and shun idolatry.\\ And now, Lord of the world, of every realm\\ 375 Unfeigned immortal King--for thou didst put\\ Into my heart the oracle divine--\\ Make thou the word cease; for I do not know\\ What things I say; for thou art in me he\\ That speaketh all these things. Now let me rest\\ 380 A little and put from my heart aside\\ The charming song; for weary is my heart\\ Foretelling with divine words royal power.\\ [360. The verses which follow are so fragmentary that no certain meaning can be made out of them. Lines 365-368 appear to refer to the death of Alexander Severus. 374-382. Comp. conclusion of books xi and xiii.] (279-299.)