ANCIENT ROME

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11767, 14 October 1932, Page 5

ANCIENT ROME

A RCHAEOLOGICAL TRIUMPH. DISCOVERY OF FAMOUS SIBYL’S CAVE. (U P A. bv Elec. Tel. Copyright.) LONDON, Oct. 12. The Times’ Rome correspondent describes one of the greatest archaeological iriumps in recent years. Professor Muiuri. Superintendent of Antiquities, discovered on the west side of Mount Cumae the cave in which the sibyl of Cumae delivered to Aeneas the oracles which predicted the foundation of Rome. Professor Mailin', in exploring a wine collar, discovered a corridor, exactly described in the sixth book ol Virgil's Aeneid, ending in a vaulted chamber in which the sibyl dwelt. The sibyl U 1 Cumae figures prominently in the sixth book of A i??il s Aeneid as the conductor of the poet into the realm of the shades. Livy records the legend that she cam-fiom the east- appeared be lore King Taiqum. and offered him lime hooka for sale. The price demanded appeared exorbitant and the king refused to purchase them. She then went away and destroyed three, and on returning asked as much for the remaining six books as for the nine. She was again refused., whereupon she destroyed another three, and once more offered to sell the remainder, still at ihe same price asked at first, laiquin was struck by her pertinacity and bought the books, winch were found to obtain oracular advices concerning the religion and policy of the Roman'. They were preserved in. a subterranean chamber of the temple of Jupiter and were originally eutrusted to two officials who alone wore entitled to inspect them. In the year S 3 B.C- the temple of Jupiter having been destroyed uy file the original sibylline books, or leaiCe. were lost, but subsequently a new collection was obtained and deposited in the rebuilt temple. In 12 B.C. they were transferred to the temple of Apollo, where they remained until they were publicly burned between 401 and 408.