A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Amalthea
AMALTHEA, DEMOPHILA, or HIEROPHILA, the Cumean Sybil.
In the year of Rome, 219, 535 years before Christ, an old woman presented Tarquin the Proud nine books, which, she said, concerned the future destiny of Rome, and asked three hundred golden crowns for them. The king treated her demand with contempt; on which she burnt three before him. Some days after, she returned, and offered him the six which remained, for the same sum she had demanded for the whole; and, on his refusal, burnt three more. Surprised at her behaviour, he asked what she would have for those which were left; but she would not abate her first price. Not knowing what to do, he consulted the pontifs, who advised him to pay her the three hundred crowns. These books were held in such veneration by the Romans, that two magistrates were appointed to keep and consult them upon all extraordinary occasions, such as public calamities or necessities, when they acted as these sacred volumes appeared to advise them.
From fragments which remain, and from the use which Virgil made of them in his Pollio, it is evident, that they predicted the birth of our Saviour; but, whether they were merely the work of human fraud and ingenuity, and borrowed this striking prophecy from the Hebrews, or that the evil spirits, deluding the world so many ages by lying oracles, were obliged thus to foretel their own destruction, has been a doubt with the learned.
A work called the Sybilline Oracles, was published at Amsterdam, in 1689; but is believed to be spurious.