Sibylline Oracles

Historical printed page 381

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Βοοκ III, Lines 103-163 tower from on high, (103) and incited mortal men to mutual strife. (104) Therefore men named the city Babylon. (105) But when the tower was fallen and men’s tongues (106) divided off with divers kinds of sounds, then the whole (107) earth began to be filled with separate kingdoms. (108) Then came the tenth neration of articulate men, (109) since the flood came upon the men of yore. (10) And Cronos, itan, and Iapetus were kings, (11) the goodliest children of Gaia and Ouranos, whom men called (12) Earth and Heaven,dubbingthem so (13) because they were the first of all articulate men. (14) Three- fold were the divisions of earth in the portion of each, (15) and each was king in his own sphere, nor did they fight, (16) for oaths had been made to their father, and the shares were just. (17) Then their father’s full time of age arrived (18) and so he died. And his sons in monstrous transgression of their oaths (19) stirred up strife against one another (20) as to who should reign over mortals in possession of royal honour. (21) And Cronos and Titan fought against each other. (22) But them Rhea and Gaia and garland-loving Aphrodite, (23) Demeter and Hestia and fair-tressed Dione (24) brought to friendship, reconciling the kings (25) all brethren as they were and of one kin, and the other (26) men who were of like blood and parentage. (27) And they resolved that Cronos should reign as king of all, (28) because he was eldest and fairest of form. (29) But Titan for his part imposed mighty oaths on Cronos (30) that he should not rear a family of male children, so that he himself might be king (31) when old age and death overtook Cronos. (32) So whensoever Rhea was in travail, the Titans would sit beside her (33) and tear in pieces every male child, (34) but the women children they would leave alive to be reared with their mother. (35) But our lady Rhea when she brought forth her third child (36) brought forth Hera first: and when they saw evidently (37) that the child was female they went away to their homes, those rough (38) Titans. And then Rhea brought forth a man child, (39) whom she quickly sent away, to be reared secretly and privily, (40) to Phrygia, taking three Cretan men under oath into her counsel. (41) Therefore they gave him the name of Zeus because he was sent away unsuspected. (42) In like manner too she sent away Poseidon stealthily. (43) Then at the third time Rhea, goddess among women, gave birth to Pluto (44) as she was passing Dodona, whence ran the watery courses (45) of the river Europus, and the water flowed to the sea (46) blended with the Peneius, and they call it the Stygian stream. (47) But when the Titans heard that there were sons (48) born privily to the union of Cronos and Rhea, (49) then Titan mustered his seventy sons, (50) and held in bonds Cronos and Rhea his consort. (51) And he hid them in the earth and kept them in fetters. (52) Then indeed the sons of mighty Cronos heard of it, (53) and they raised up for him a great war and battle din. (54) And this is the beginning of war toall mortals (55) [yea this is the first beginning of war to mortals]. (56) And then God inflicted evil on the Titans. (57) And all the families of the Titans and of Cronos (58) died. Then in the circling course of time (59) the Egyptian empire arose, then that of the Persians, (60) of the Medes and Ethiopians and of Assyrian Babylon, (61) then that of the Mace- donians, again that of Egypt and then of Rome. (62) And then the message of the Great God fluttered in my breast (63) and bade me prophesy 104. The derivation is taken from Genesis where the name is connected with δα, Babel is probably dad z/i ‘ gate of god’, and Babylon dad z/ani ‘ gate of the gods’. 110 ff. The account of the Titans is parallel to Hesiod, Theog. 421 ff., but differs in several details. See Friedl., Einl., p. xxvii. 114 Ε Compare the account in Epiph. Azcoratus cxiv, in which Noah is represented as dividing the world among his three sons and exacting from them an oath that none should invade his brother’s portion. It is from Ham’s violation of this compact by robbing Shem of Canaan that Epiphanius deduces the justice and morality of the command to Israel to exterminate the Canaanites. A similar story is told in an Ethiopian work (Keéra Nagast, ed. Bezold, 1905). 119. For the wars of the gods cf. Hes. Zheag. 629 ff. 122. Geffcken quotes a similar story from Moses of Khoren (History of Armenia i. 6) in which Kronos is represented by Zrwan. 132. The account is curiously parallel to Apoc. xii. 4. 140. The ordinary account as alluded to in Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus, 46 ff.; Lucr. ii. 629 ff.; Virg. Georg. iv. 150 represents Zeus as reared in Crete when the Curetes drown his infant cries by beating cymbals. 141. The derivation of Zeus, from the preposition of διεπέμφθη, ‘he was sent away’, is singularly weak, and may be not original, but Geffck. compares a similar derivation in Cornutus 2. 144. Dodona was celebrated for its whispering oaks, the most ancient oracle of Zeus. 145. the river Europus, i.e. Homer's Titaresius, a tributary of the Peneius. In //. ii. 753 f. it is said to flow with the Peneius, but not to mingle its waters. Homer also mentions its connexion with Styx. 156-61. A concise summary which is, perhaps, not original here. Friedlieb suggests that 156 is picked up by 199, the intervening lines being an interpolation. 159. The prominence given to Egypt is to be noticed. It is the first of empires and the only name that recurs. 162-294. The Babylonian Sibyl standing in the remote past reviews the history of the world as far as the time of Cyrus (167-210 an interpolation). 162. fluttered, inraro, so MSS. _ Kz. and Geffck. ‘ paseo ἵστατο. 301