There is a rock [along the Sacred Way of Delphi] that sticks out of the earth. On top of it, say the people of Delphi, there once stood, singing āidein

aeidein] the oracular-sayings [khrēsmoi], someone by the name of Hērophilē. Her name-of-invocation [epiklēsis] was Sibyl [Síbulla]. [In my investigations] I found an earlier one [= an even earlier Sibyl], as ancient as any of the others. The Greeks [Hellēnes] say that she was a daughter of Zeus and of Lamia, who in turn was a daughter of Poseidon, and that she was the first woman to sing [āidein

aeidein] oracular-sayings [khrēsmoi]. And they say that the name Sibyl [Síbulla] was given her by the Libyans.

Hērophilē was more recent than that one [= the one I was just talking about], but, in any case, she too was early, early enough to predate, evidently, the Trojan War, since she foretold in her oracular-sayings [khrēsmoi] that Helen would be born-and-raised [trephein in the passive] in Sparta to become the ruin of Asia and of Europe and that for her sake, the Greeks [Hellēnes] would capture Troy. The people of Delos remember also a hymn [humnos] this woman composed to Apollo.  [In her composition,] she calls herself not only Hērophilē but also Artemis; further, in some contexts, she says that she is a woman married to Apollo and, in other contexts, that she is his sister and, in still other contexts, that she is his daughter.

These things she has said-in-poetry [poieîn], being-in-a-mind-altered-state [mainesthai] and being possessed [katokhos] by the god [theos]. Elsewhere in her oracular-sayings [khrēsmoi], she said that her mother was an immortal, one of the nymphs [numphai] of [Mount] Ida, while her father was a human [anthrōpos]. This is how she speaks her poetic-words [epos plural]:

Even today, there remain on Trojan [Mount] Ida the ruins of the city Marpessos, with about sixty inhabitants. All the land around Marpessos is somewhat red and terribly parched, so that the light and porous nature of Ida in this place is, in my opinion, the reason why the river Aidoneus sinks into the ground, rises to sink once more, finally disappearing altogether beneath the earth. Marpessos is two hundred and forty stadium-lengths distant from Alexandria-in-the-Troad.

The inhabitants of this Alexandria say that Hērophilē became the temple-attendant [nēo-kóros] of Apollo Smintheus; also, that on the occasion of Hecuba’s dream [as signaled at 10.12.2], she foretold-in-her-oracular-sayings [khrênai] things that we by now know actually came-to-fulfillment [epi-teleîn passive]. This Sibyl had-her-abode [oikeîn] in Samos for the greater part of her life, but she also came to Klaros in the territory of the people of Kolophon; also to Delos, and to Delphi. Whenever she came to Delphi, she would stand on this rock [of the Sibyl] and would sing [āidein = aeidein] [her oracular sayings].

But that-which-is-by-necessity-to-be-foretold [tò khreṓn,

euphemism for ‘death’] came upon her in the Troad, and her tomb [mnêma] is there, in the grove [alsos] of [Apollo] Smintheus, with this elegiac composition inscribed upon the column [stēlē] [standing over the tomb]:

The people of Erythrai, who are more ambitious than any other Greeks [Hellēnes] to lay claim to Hērophilē, adduce-as-evidence [apophainein] a mountain called Korykos, and this mountain has a cave in it. They say that Hērophilē was born inside it and that she was a daughter of Theodoros, a local [epi-khōrios] shepherd, and of a nymph. They also say that the nymph’s name-of-invocation [epiklēsis] was ‘lady of Ida’ [Idaiā] for the simple reason than humans [anthrōpoi] used to name as idā [plural idai] locales [khōria] that were thickly wooded. The poeple of Erythrai have deleted [aphaireîn] [from the text of the oracular sayings of the Sybil] the verse [epos as ‘line(s) of poetry’] about Marpessos and the river Aidoneus.

After this one, the one who was next-in-time [= the next Sibyl] to speak oracular-sayings [khrēsmoi] in the same way was someone from Cumae [= Kumē in Greek], in the territory of the Opici, and her name was Dēmō. So says Hyperochus of Cumae [FGH 578 F2], a historian, who wrote-a-treatise [sun-graphein] about her. The people of Cumae can point-to [epi-deiknusthai] no oracular-saying [khrēsmos] spoken by this woman, but they show [deiknunai] a water-jar [hudriā] made of stone in a sanctuary of Apollo, and here is where they say are placed the bones of the Sibyl.

Even later than Dēmō, there was born-and-raised [trephein passive] among the Hebrews in the heights over Palestine a woman who was a speaker-of-oracular-sayings [khrēsmo-lógos] and whose name was Sabbe. They say that the father of Sabbe was Berosus, and her mother Erymanthe. But some call her a Babylonian Sibyl, others an Egyptian.

Then there is Phaennis, daughter of a king of the Khaones; there are also the ‘Doves’ [Peleiai] in the territory of the people of Dodona. These women likewise were-oracular-seers [manteuesthai], divinely [ek theou] inspired, but humans [anthrōpoi] did not call them Sibyls. To learn the date of the first of the two and to read [epilegesthai] her oracular-sayings [khrēsmoi] […text missing here…]. I say this because Phaennis was born when Antiokhos was establishing his kingship immediately after defeating Demetrios.¹ As for the Peleiades, they are said said to have been born even earlier than Phemonoe and to have been the first women to sing [āidein

aeidein] these verses [epos plural]:

They say that men who were speakers-of-oracular-sayings [khrēsmo-lógoi] were (1) Eukloûs of Cyprus, (2)  [two] Athenians, Musaeus [Mousaios] son of Antiophemos and Lykos son of Pandion, (3) also Bakis, a Boeotian man who was possessed [kataskhetos] by nymphs. I have read [epi-legesthai] the oracular-sayings [khrēsmoi] of all these except those of Lykos. So then, in a stretch of time that extends into my own time, these are the women and men who are said to-have-been-oracular-seers [manteuesthai], divinely [ek theou] inspired. And in the fullness of time—time being as long as time is, there could be other such things happening all over again.

VOTIVE OFFERINGS AT DELPHI CONTINUED