Sibylline Oracles

Historical printed page 382

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Book III, Lines 164-219 severally about each (64) land and to their kings, and to put them in mind of things that are tobe. (65) And this was the first thing that God vouchsafed to my understanding, (66) namely how many kingdoms of men are being mustered. (67) First of all the house of Solomon shall hold sway, (68) and the Phoenician invaders of Asia and of the islands as well (69), and the race of the Pamphylians, Persians, and Phrygians, (70) and that too of the Carians and Mysians and Lydians rich in gold. (71) Then shall come the Greeks overweening and unholy: (72) then a very motley race of Macedonia shall hold sway, (73) who shall come as a dread war cloud upon mortals. (74) But the God of heaven shall smite them utterly. (75) Next there shall be the sway of another empire, (76) an empire of many hoary heads from the western sea, (77) which shall hold sway over much land, and shall convulse many men, (78) and shall cause fear to many kings in time to come; (79) much gold too and silver it shall ravish (80) from many cities: and again there shall be in the godlike earth (81) gold, yes, and silver, and raiment too. (82) And they shall afflict mortals. But those men shall have a great (83) fall, whensoever they enter on a course of unjust insolence. (84) And straightway a stress of ungodliness shall fall on them, (85) and male shall draw near to male, and they shall set their children (86) in ill-famed houses, and there shall be in those days (87) great tribulation among men, and it shall set all things wrong, (88) and cut everything short, and fill everything with evils, (89) through covetousness the corrupter of life, and ill-gotten wealth, (90) in many lands and especially in Macedonia. (91) And it shall stir up hatred, and they shall show all manner of guile, (92) until the seventh reign when there shall reign (93) over Egypt a king, who shall be of Greek origin. (94) And then the nation of the Mighty God shall be again powerful, (95) that nation which shall be to all mortals the guide of life. (96) But why has God put this too into my mind to say (97) what shall be the first evil and the next one and the last which is to fall (98) on all men, and what shall be the beginning of these? (99) First of all God shall inflict evil on the Titans, (200) for they shall suffer vengeance at the hands of the sons of the mighty Cronos, (201) because they bound Cronos and the honoured mother. (202) Then, secondly, the Greeks shall have tyrannies and haughty (203) kings, overweening and unchaste, (204) adulterous and evil in every way, and no longer shall mortals have (205) rest from war. And the terrible Phrygians shall perish, (206) all of them, and evil shall be upon Troy on that day. (207) Then to the Persians and Assyrians evil shall come, (208) and to the whole of Egypt, and to Libya and the Ethiopians, (209) and the Carians and Pamphylians an evil hard to remove, (10) and to all men. Why, then, do I detail each severally ? (11) But when the first have reached their end, straightway then shall (12) be a second series upon men. But now I will proclaim this first of all. (13) Evil shall come to the godly men, who dwell around the great temple (14) of Solomon, and who are the descendants of righteous (15) men. Yet of these also I will proclaim (16) the family and kindred of their fathers and the people of all, (17) everything expressly will I proclaim, O mortal of cunning wiles and crafty mind. (18) There is a city (Camarina) down in the land of Ur of the Chaldees, (19) from which comes 167 ff. The list of world powers falls into five divisions: (a) Asia, (ὁ) Greece, (c) Rome, (@) Egypt, (e) Jews. 168. and the Phoenician invaders of Asia, &c. MSS. have ‘ invaders of Phoenicia, Asia’, &c. 172. then. εἶτα Volkmann for ἄλλο, MSS. 175-93. Rome is still a distant power, but it arouses intense apprehension. The lines seem to reflect a date between 190 (Magnesia) and 165 B.C. when Rome intervened to effect a peace between the Hasmoneans and Lysias. 176. of many hoary heads, lit. ‘white and many headed ’, referring to the Roman Senate. 178. Perhaps referring to the check of Antiochus Epiphanes by G. Popilius Laenas in 168 B.C.; cf. Polyb. xxix. 27. 179. Referring to the tribute of 15,000 talents exacted after Magnesia. 180. there shall be in the godlike earth gold. The meaning seems to be that men would hide their treasures in order to prevent their being requisitioned to pay the tribute. The practice is condemned in Sirach xxix. 10; 2 Enoch li. 2, 183 ff. The particular vices are out of place as ascribed to the Romans of this early date. 188. The line is repeated in 1. 613, where it refers to Antiochus the Great. 190. Macedonia was divided after the battle of Pydna (168 Β.6.), and made a Roman province in 147 B.C. 192. The seventh king is Ptolemy VII, Philometor, son of Cleopatra I, and grandson of Antiochus III. He was proclaimed king in 182 B.c. Ewald, however, would understand the king to be Ptolemy Physkon. 194. The exaltation of the Jews refers to the age of the later Maccabees. 199-210. Another different enumeration of world powers beginning with the Titans. 200. i.e, υἱοῖς yap κρατεροῖο δίκας τίσουσι Κρόνοιο emended from wor yap κρτ. Kpovov τισουσιν δικας (Badt). 204. adulterous refers.to the abduction of Helen by Paris. 209. an evil hard to°\remove. Read τ᾽ ἄπορον for τε κακόν (with Herwerden). 211-17. An introduction to a sketch of Jewish history, which extends to 294. 218. The lacuna is to be filled up by ‘Camarina’, which Eupolemus gives as an old name for Ur. Schrader points out that Camarina might be connected with the Arabic word for moon, Ur being one of the main seats of the worship of Sin the Moon God. Ewald understands Οὐρχαλδαίου to refer to Abraham, and ‘the land of Abraham’ to mean Palestine. He reads σηκός re for καμάρινα. For Oip Χαλδαίων Ψ read εὐρυάγυια, but this seems a mere guess. 219. For δὴ Ψ reads pot, ‘my race’; as if the Sibyl claimed a Mesopotamian descent. 382