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The sibyls were women that the ancient Greeks believed were oracles. The earliest sibyls, according to legend,〔Burkert 1985 p 117〕 prophesied at holy sites. Their prophecies were influenced by divine inspiration from a deity; originally at Delphi and Pessinos, the deities were chthonic deities. In later antiquity, various writers attested to the existence of sibyls in Greece, Italy, the Levant, and Asia Minor. The English word ''sibyl'' ( or ) comes — via the Old French ''sibile'' and the Latin ''sibylla'' — from the ancient Greek σίβυλλα (''sibulla'', plural σίβυλλαι ''sibullai''). Varro derived the name from ''theobule'' ("divine counsel"), but modern philologists mostly propose an Old Italic〔"Rheinisches Museum," 1.110f.〕 or alternatively a Semitic etymology.〔 "Since Lactantius expressly says (l.c. (Institutionum," i. 6 )) that the sibyl is a native of Babylon, the name is probably Semitic in origin. The word may be resolved into the two components "sib" + "il," thus denoting "the ancient of god" (Krauss, in "Byzantinische Zeit." xi. 122)"〕 ==History== The first known Greek writer to mention a sibyl is Heraclitus, in the 5th century BC: 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 92.〕 Walter Burkert observes that "frenzied women from whose lips the god speaks" are recorded very much earlier in the Near East, as in Mari in the second millennium and in Assyria in the first millennium".〔Burkert 1985, p 116〕 Until the literary elaborations of Roman writers, sibyls were not identified by a personal name, but by names that refer to the location of their ''temenos'', or shrine. In Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'', the first sibyl at Delphi mentioned ("the former" ()) was of great antiquity, and was thought, according to Pausanias, to have been given the name "sibyl" by the Libyans.〔See Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'', x.12 edited with commentary and translated by Sir James Frazer, 1913 edition. Cf. v.5, p.288. Also see (Pausanias, 10.12.1 ) at the Perseus Project.〕 Sir James Frazer calls the text defective. The second sibyl referred to by Pausanias, and named "Herophile", seems to have been based ultimately in Samos, but visited other shrines, at Clarus. Delos and Delphi and sang there, but that at the same time, Delphi had its own sibyl.〔 James Frazer writes, in his translation and commentary on Pausanias,〔Frazer quotes Ernst Maass, ''De Sibyllarum Indicibus'' (Berlin, 1879).〕 that only two of the Greek sibyls were historical: Herophile of Erythrae, who is thought to have lived in the 8th century BC, and Phyto of Samos who lived somewhat later. He observes that the Greeks at first seemed to have known only one sibyl, and instances Heraclides Ponticus〔Heraclitus, ''On Oracles''.〕 as the first ancient writer to distinguish several sibyls: Heraclitus names at least three sibyls, the Phrygian, the Erythraean, and the Hellespontine.〔Frazer, James, translation and commentary on Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'', v.5, p.288, commentary and notes on Book X, Ch. 12, line 1, "Herophile surnamed Sibyl": Prof. E. Maass (op cit., p.56) holds that two only of the Greek sibyls were historical, namely Herophile of Erythrae and Phyto of Samos; the former he thinks lived in the eighth century BC, the latter somewhat later Frazer goes on: At first, the Greeks seemed to have known only one sibyl. (Heraclitus, cited by Plutarch,'' De Pythiae Oraculis ''6; Aristophanes, ''Peace ''1095, 1116; Plato, ''Phaedrus'', p.244b). The first writer who is known to have distinguished several sibyls is Heraclitus Ponticus in his book ''On Oracles'', in which he appears to have enumerated at least three, namely the Phrygian, the Erythraean, and the Hellespontine. 〕 The scholar David S. Potter writes, "In the late fifth century BC it does appear that 'Sibylla' was the name given to a single inspired prophetess".〔David Stone Potter, ''Prophecy and history in the crisis of the Roman Empire: a historical commentary on the Thirteenth Sibylline Oracle'', Cf. Chapter 3, p.106.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sibyl」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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