Sibylline Oracles

Historical printed page 387

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Book III, Lives 447—499 others. (47) But in the end thou shalt be a prey to thy lovers (48) with thy beauty and thy wealth: a grievous yoke shalt thou put upon thy neck. (49) Furthermore, a Lydian earthquake shall lay Persia in ruins, (50) bringing most direful woes on Europe and Asia. (51) {The Sidonians’ baleful king, and the war of others (52) shall bring baleful destruction to the sea-faring Samians.¢ (53) With the blood of perishing men the plain shall bubble to the sea: and wives with bright-robed girls (55) shall shout aloud for their own hideous violence, (56) some for their bridegrooms, some for their perishing sons, (57) The token of Cyprus: an earthquake shall destroy its ravines, (58) and Hades at one fell swoop shall possess himself of many souls. (59) Trallis, neighbour to Ephesus, shall shake down with an earthquake (60) its well-built walls and people of stout-hearted men. (61) And the earth shall be drenched by boiling water, (62) and the stupefied earth shall drink in mist as well: and there shall be an odour of sulphur. (63) Samos too at that time shall build a royal mansion. (64) Italy, to thee no foreign war shall come, (65) but a people of thy blood shall destroy thee, (66) shameless one, with many woes, stalwart as thou art and much renowned. (67) And thou, stretched by thine own warm ashes, (68) {careless of thy children’s future, shalt slay thyself,t (69) and thou shalt be not the mother of heroes but the nurse of beasts. (70) But when from Italy a destroyer shall come, (71) then Laodicea, (72) thou fair city of the Carians beside the wondrous waters of Lycus, thou shalt be dashed headlong, (73) and be silent after bemoaning thy much-vaunted parent. (74) The Thracian Crobuzi shall rise throughout Haemus. (75) On the Campanians there falls chattering of teeth, by reason of the city-wasting famine, (76) and they shall bewail their long-lived ancestor. (77) Cyrnos and Sardo, by the great storm eddies (78) and the lashes of the Holy God through the depths of the sea, (79) shall sink beneath the wave with their sea-faring children. (80) Alas for all the maids that Death shall wed, (81) and the lads whom the deep shall attend unanealed. (82) Alas for the infant children floating on the sea, and the stores of wealth. (83) The happy Mysian land shall suddenly produce a royal race. (84) But not for long shall Carthage truly} be. (85) And the Galatians shall have a miserable and piteous fate. (86) To Tenedos too there shall come a final unequalled evil. (87) And brazen Sicyon and thou, Corinth, too (88) {shalt resound with howls for all : and Aulis shall shout in equal measuret. (89) Then when my spirit ceased its inspired strain, (go) again the oracle of Mighty God stirred within my breast, (91) and bade me prophesy of several lands. (92) Woe to the race of Phoenicians, men and women, (93) and to all their sea-coast cities: not one of you, (94) shall come to the light of the sun in that light that iscommon toall. (95) Nor shall there be any more any numbering of thy life nor tribe to thee, (96) because of thine unrighteous tongue and thy lawless and unclean life (97) which all have led, opening their mouth for uncleanness, (98) and because they covenanted with monstrous words, false and unjust, (99) and stood before God 447. Rhodes was subdued by Rome in 167 B.C., after having successfully maintained its independence and prosperity through many difficult years. 451-2. Reading very uncertain. A slight emendation would give ‘a baleful king and war of others shall bring baleful destruction to the sea-faring sons of the Sidonians.’ Sidon was barbarously ravaged by Artaxerxes Ochus in 352 B.C. 456. bridegrooms (νυμφίων), a conjecture of Rzach for ‘corpses’ (νεκύων). 462. mist : a conjecture (ἀχλύν for αὐτῆς). 463. Samos fell into the hands of the Ptolemies some time before 274 B.C. 464 ff. Reference probably to the Social War. no foreign war. For οὔτις MSS. have οὗτος. 467. ashes, σποδιῇσι, a conjecture for ‘ offerings’, σπονδῇσι. 468. MSS. unintelligible. Various conjectures proposed. The text translates ἀπροιδὴς τεκέεσσιν ἑοῖς ἐναρίξεαι αὑτην. 470. a destroyer, i.e. probably Sulla, who sailed for Greece in 87 B.C. to prosecute the war against Mithradates. 472. For the earthquakes at Laodicea cf. iv. 107. The date is, however, uncertain. 473. thy much-vaunted parent, i.e. Zeus, whose figure is very common on the coins of the town. 474. Thracian Crobuzi. The restoration of these names is due to Meineke. Opies ἀκρόβυζοι. 475. city-wasting. MSS. ‘fruitful’ (πτολίπορθον (So Castal.) for πολύκαρπον). 476. The end of the line is apparently corruptly restored from 473. 477. Cyrnos and Sardo = Corsica and Sardinia. 480. Compare the discussion on death represented as marriage in J. C. Lawson’s Ancient Greek folk-lore and modern Greek religion, pp. 546 ff. 484. Carthage. It is proposed to read ‘Chalcedon’. But the allusion may be to the fall of Carthage in 146 B.C. 487-8. The rendering is a mere conjecture, the text being unintelligible. so Pato A further series of woes, the prosperity of the righteous, eschatological pictures, and exhortations to true worship. 495. nor tribe. Perhaps ‘throughout thy race’, κατὰ φῦλον for καὶ φῦλον. 387 CCA,