Sibyl

The word sibyl comes (via Latin) from the Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. The earlier oracular seeresses known as the sibyls of antiquity prophesied at certain holy sites, probably all of pre-Indo-European origin, under the divine influence of a , originally one of the chthonic earth-goddesses. Later in antiquity, sibyls wandered from place to place.

Related Topics:
Latin - Greek - Prophet - Pre-Indo-European - Chthonic

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Homer seems to have been unaware of a Sibyl. The first Greek writer, so far as we know, who mentions a sibyl is Heraclitus, in the 5th century BCE:

Related Topics:
Homer - Heraclitus

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:'The Sibyl, with frenzied mouth uttering things not to be laughed at, unadorned and unperfumed, yet reaches to a thousand years with her voice by aid of the god.' (Heraclitus, fragment 12)

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Sibyls are not identified by a personal name, but by names that refer to the location of their temenos, for shrine.

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