1. Cicero, In Verrem, 2.4.69 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
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2. Dionysius of Halycarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 4.62.6 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE)
| 4.62.6. But when the temple was burned after the close of the one hundred and seventy-third Olympiad, either purposely, as some think, or by accident, these oracles together with all the offerings consecrated to the god were destroyed by the fire. Those which are now extant have been scraped together from many places, some from the cities of Italy, others from Erythrae in Asia (whither three envoys were sent by vote of the senate to copy them), and others were brought from other cities, transcribed by private persons. Some of these are found to be interpolations among the genuine Sibylline oracles, being recognized as such by means of the soâcalled acrostics. In all this I am following the account given by Terentius Varro in his work on religion. |
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3. Appian, Civil Wars, 1.83 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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4. Plutarch, Sulla, 27 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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5. Plutarch, Theseus, 1.3 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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6. Tacitus, Annals, 6.12 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 6.12. A proposal was now put to the Fathers by the plebeian tribune Quintilianus with regard to a Sibylline book; Caninius Gallus, of the Fifteen, demanding its admission among the other verses of the same prophetess, and a senatorial decree on the point. This had been accorded without discussion, when the emperor forwarded a letter, in which he passed a lenient criticism on the tribune "whose youth accounted for his ignorance of old custom": to Gallus he expressed his displeasure that he, "long familiar with religious theory and ritual, had on dubious authority forestalled the decision of his College, and, before the poem had, as usual, been read and considered by the Masters, had brought up the question in a thinly attended senate." He reminded him at the same time that, because of the many apocryphal works circulated under the famous name, Augustus had fixed a day within which they were to be delivered to the Urban Praetor, private ownership becoming illegal. â A similar decision had been taken even at an earlier period, after the burning of the Capitol during the Social War; when the verses of the Sibyl, or Sibyls, as the case may be, were collected from Samos, Ilium, and Erythrae, and even in Africa, Sicily, and the Graeco-Italian colonies; the priests being entrusted with the task of sifting out the genuine specimens, so far as should have been possible by human means. Hence, in this case also, the book in question was submitted to the examination of the Quindecimvirate. |
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7. Tacitus, Histories, 3.72 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 3.72. This was the saddest and most shameful crime that the Roman state had ever suffered since its foundation. Rome had no foreign foe; the gods were ready to be propitious if our characters had allowed; and yet the home of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, founded after due auspices by our ancestors as a pledge of empire, which neither Porsenna, when the city gave itself up to him, nor the Gauls when they captured it, could violate â this was the shrine that the mad fury of emperors destroyed! The Capitol had indeed been burned before in civil war, but the crime was that of private individuals. Now it was openly besieged, openly burned â and what were the causes that led to arms? What was the price paid for this great disaster? This temple stood intact so long as we fought for our country. King Tarquinius Priscus had vowed it in the war with the Sabines and had laid its foundations rather to match his hope of future greatness than in accordance with what the fortunes of the Roman people, still moderate, could supply. Later the building was begun by Servius Tullius with the enthusiastic help of Rome's allies, and afterwards carried on by Tarquinius Superbus with the spoils taken from the enemy at the capture of Suessa Pometia. But the glory of completing the work was reserved for liberty: after the expulsion of the kings, Horatius Pulvillus in his second consulship dedicated it; and its magnificence was such that the enormous wealth of the Roman people acquired thereafter adorned rather than increased its splendour. The temple was built again on the same spot when after an interval of four hundred and fifteen years it had been burned in the consulship of Lucius Scipio and Gaius Norbanus. The victorious Sulla undertook the work, but still he did not dedicate it; that was the only thing that his good fortune was refused. Amid all the great works built by the Caesars the name of Lutatius Catulus kept its place down to Vitellius's day. This was the temple that then was burned. |
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8. Obsequens, De Prodigiis, 57 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)
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