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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2016
The Sibylline Books played a very central but elusive role in the religious history of the Roman people. Originally, according to the tradition, they consisted of a set of Greek oracles kept by the Romans as one of their holiest texts. The story ran that an old woman offered nine books to King Tarquin (the fifth king, conventionally 616–579 BC) and asked for a price. He refused to buy them at her price; she reacted by destroying three of them and offering the remaining six at the same price; he refused again and she reacted in the same way again, offering the last three for the same price as before. At this point, he was impressed, consulted the priests, and at last realized his mistake, thus agreeing to buy the last three books at her original price.
1 For the story, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 4.62 = RoR ii.1.8.
2 Parke (1988).
3 For the origins of Tarquin, Oxford Classical Dictionary (19963), 1475.
4 For this college, see above, p. 25 and Table 1.
5 ILS 4175 = RoR ii. 10.4b. The date is AD 289 and the section quoted is preceded by a decree of the local authorities in Cumae, which must have been sent to the college for its approval.
6 For the Greek rite, Gagé (1955); RoR i.70-1, 173–4; RoR ii.7.5a, 7.5c.
7 Discussion in Scheid (1996).
8 For the three cults, see RoR i.64-6; 69–70; 83. See Table 4 for the dates at which these temples were completed and dedicated.
9 Vows: Ziolkowski (1992), 193–261; Orlin (1997).
10 Livy 25.12.1-13 = RoR ii.7.5c.
11 Her official title was Mater Deum Magna Idaea (Great Mother of the Gods, from Mount Ida); for the mythical connection with Ida, see Ovid, Fasti 4.247-72; for discussion, Wiseman (1984); Gruen (1990), 15–19.
12 See above p. 34.
13 See on this Feeney (1998), 32–8; though it should not be forgotten that the hymn was performed within a section of the ritual addressed to Apollo and Diana, so the significance of the emphasis on them should not be pressed too far.
14 Palmer (1974), 94–108.
15 For the revivals in general: RoR i. 108–13; for the fetial ritual, Cicero, On Duties 3.109; Rosenstein (1990), 136–7; 148–50.
16 Augustan ‘revival’ of religion: Warde Fowler (1911), 428–51; RoR i.167-210.
17 For discussion: RoR i. 125–34; North (1986).
18 On the lapse of the office: RoR i. 130–2; on the Ara Pacis: Torelli (1982), 27–61, esp 43–4; Elsner (1991); (1995); RoR ii.4.3. See above ch. III n. 30.
19 Bickerman (1973); Price (1984); RoR I.206-10.
20 The Jews were only able to sacrifice at all until the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem after the revolt of AD 66–70: Philo, Embassy to Gaius 155–8 = RoR ii.l2.6c(ii); RoR i.341; Christians and sacrifice: Gordon (1990); Rives (1995); RoR i.225-6; ii.6.8.
21 Seneca, The Pumpkinification of Claudius (Apocolocyntosis); cf. Griffin (1976), 129–33; commentary by Eden (1984).
22 The point of the satire rests on layers of irony, so that it is risky to make any inferences as to the author’s attitude to the worship of Emperors as such; perhaps Divus Augustus too is being made fun of.
23 For the ceremonies, Price (1987); RoR ii.9.3b; after Caesar and Augustus, Claudius was the next to be deified, so that Tiberius and Gaius were omitted, as later Nero and Domitian. Fourteen Emperors were deified in all between Augustus and Caracalla. For a table, based on the Arval records, Scheid (1998a), 133.
24 Scheid (1998a).
25 Fink (1971) = RoR ii.3.5, under June 26.
26 On which see Beard (1985).