While the eleventh book kept the fortunes of the Egyptian Empire in the foreground, the twelfth book chronicles ' the woeful time of the sons of Latiura' (like v. 1-11, from which xii. 1-11 is verbally taken). Our Sibyl sketches rapidly and incoherently the course of the Roman Empire, with repeated indifference to the facts of history. The date of the book is fixed by the death of Alexander Severus, with which the oracles end. It must have been written during the first half of the 3rd century. Otherwise there is little definite information about the author. Gellcken, who has devoted special attention to this book, finds Chris- tian additions in 28-34 (the prophecy of Christ's birth) and 232, which have a Jewish source, written not so much by an ardent Jew t as by one who was above all things an Eastern provincial, with ill- concealed admiration for the Imperial system. t But it is a dull book. The Sibyl at the close begs for relief from the strain of rhajjsody, on the ground that ' her soul within is weary of the divine mea- sures, prophesying of royal reigns.' The reader is also weary, long before the Sibyl. Short chronicles of long historical periods are apt to be dull, even in prose. When they are written in verse by a third-rate poet who covers three centuries in less than three hundred lines, they are even less relevant to poetry and religion than to history.
The thirteentli book covers an exceptionally short period, only a quarter of a century, from A.D. 241 to 265. It is the wail of a Christian who has a passionate abhorrence of the persecuting Emperor, Decius,§ and a brooding sense of pity for the calamities of the Empire. The book illus- trates what Gibbon (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, i.* [London, 1906]) describes as a period which was 'one uninterrupted series of confusion and calamity,' and one of the few redeeming points, in the mind of the Sibyllinist, seems to be the appearance of Odenathus (147 f.), the powerful senator of Palmyra, whose services in the field compelled the thanks and recognition of the Romans. Otherwise, the survey of the Sibyl em- braces little except disgrace and defeat for the Empire. For once, the woes are not open to the suspicion of professional colouring. The historian is obliged to write that ' during that calamitous period, every instant of 'time was marked, every
• It is almost refreshing to come across (in xii. 196 f .) a refer- ence to the legend of the thundering legion, in the survey of the campaigns of Marcus Aurelius. The divine miracle is attributed to the pious deserts of tlie Emperor.
t The favourable opinion of Hadrian (163-176) tells against this. How could any Jew, writing after Bar Cocbba's revolt, describe the Emperor thus? (The similar praise in v. 46 f. was written originally before that, since line .51, which implies a later period, must be an interpolated addition to the oracle.) Yet, even so, it is difficult to understand how either a Jew or a Christian of any definite belief could commend the Emperor's interest in the pagan mysteries (169-170). A similar ditticulty is raised by the curiously negative description of the dead in viii. 107 f. ; but the mood" of Ecclesiastes cannot be supposed to have died out among thinkers of Jewish birth.
J Even in the Christian passage (33-34), it is pointed out that 'the strength of Rome is to increase with him' {i.e. Christ). The author will not bear of the charge that his religion was either a foe or a source of weakness to the Empire.
§ That is, if WUamowitz is right in his attractive conjecture h'av itLariJiV (87).
SIBYLLINE ORACLES
SIBYLLINE ORACLES
489
province of the Roman world was afllictod, by barbarous invaders and military tyrants, and tbo ruined empire seemed to approaeh tlu; last and fatal moment of its dissolution' (p. 2.'!7). Tlio Sibyllinist relleets this period. If the lights are low iu his oraele, it is beeause they were burning low when it was written.*
The book is short and heterogeneous. The Sibyl is moved (1-6) to narrate the tumultuous wars of tlie Kast, in wliiih Konie was involved (Sf.). Suddenly she interpolates (64-73) a stern word to Bostra, which echoes the oracle in iii. 57 f.; the Arabian capital is denounced especially on the score of its passion for astrological juirsuits. Other prophecies follow, against Alexandria and Cajipa- docia particularly, but the Sibyl presently comes back to tlie disastrous fortunes of Rome (lU3f.) an<l her downfall at the hands of the Easterns ; it will be a time when the living will envy the dead, when they say ' death is good, yet death will lly from them' (llS-119; of. Rev 9<>). Then we hear of the dismal plight of Syria (119f. ), and a series of woes on various Eastern cities and provinces follows. Persia and Rome are the protagonists. So much is plain amid the symbcdic e.\pressions and the grandiloquent language of the oracle, but the habit of describing kings and rulers as wild beasts or of referring to them by a numerical equivalent for the first letter of their names t does not in-oniote lucidity, and even when we know the period which is uniler review it is far from easy to make sense of several details in tlie Sibyl's predic- tions. Obscurity may be impressive in- pseudo- oracular literature, but the iminession made is slight. The leading interest of the book's oracles is for students of Roman history at this dark period in the Empire's course ; the book has no religious significance, and there is nothing in its paragraphs which is worth quoting.