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SIBLEY. 134 SIBYLLINE ORACLES. projected a telegraph route to Europe, by way of Bering Strait and Siberia, but though wires were strung in Siberia and Alaska, he abandoned the enterprise on the completion of the Atlantic cable in ISGti. After retiring in 18U9 from the Western Union Company, of which he had been president for seventeen years, lie devoted his at- tention to railroad building and land invest- ments, and thus augmented the large fortune ac- quired by the growth of the telegraph. He gave $100,000 for a library building at Rochester University, and expended $100,000 in founding the Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering at Cornell University. SIBONGA, se-bong'a. A town of Cebu, Philip- pines, situated on the eastern coast, 26 miles southwest of Cebfl (Map: Philippine Islands, H 9). Population, estimated, in 1899, 23,455. SIB'THORP, John (17.58-9G). An English botanist, born in O.xford, where he graduated at Lincoln College. He also studied at Edinburgh, at Montpellier, at Gottingen, and at Vienna. His great work. Flora Oxonicnsis (1794), shows him to have been an able botanist. Flora Grceca was published posthumously in ten volumes at an immense cost (1806-40). SIBYL (Lat. sihylla, from Gk. <r£/3uXa, sibyl; connected with Lat. per-sibiis, wise). The name in (ireek legend of women inspired by Apollo with prophetic power. The early authorities men- tion but one. probably the Erythraean Herophile. Later poets or local legends increased the num- ber, and finally we hear of ten, the Erythrfean, the Sanuan, the Trojan or Hellespontine, the Phry- gian, the Cimmerian, the Delphian, the CuniiPan, the Libyan, the Babylonian, and the Tiburtine, most of whom, however, enjoyed only local fame. Verses of vague import were current which were attributed to them. In Roman religious history these oracles played an important part. Accord- ing to the story an aged woman (the Cumaean Sibyl) appeared before King Tarquin the Proud, and offered him nine books at a high price. When he refused her demand, she went away, destroyed three books, and offered the remaining six at the original price: again refused, she presently returned with but three, and these were finally purchased by the King at the price demanded for the nine. These were placed in the cellar of the Temple of .Tupiter on the Capitol, and there re- mained until they perislied in the burning of the temple, B.C. 83. A new collection was made by a special commission, which visited all places where Sibyls had prophesied, and brought back about 1000 verses. Later, Augustus caused the col- lection to be carefully sifted, as much spurious material was thought to be present, and the whole to be deposited in a room in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine. Shortly after ..d. 400 they were burned by Stilieho. For the care and consultation of the books were appointed at first the Duoviri sacris faciunfli.i, whose number was raised in n.c. 367 to ten. five patricians and five plebeians, and by Sulla to fifteen. The consulta- tion could only occur by express vote of the senate, and the result was reported to that body in a formal document. The consultation seems to have been ordered in general when prodigies showed special need of conciliating the gods, and the established rites seemed inadequate. Natu- rally these Greek books were interpreted as ordering the introduction of Greek cults, and they thus contributed largely to the Hellenization of the old Roman religion. Consult: E. Maass, Ue ISibylluriiin Indicibus (Greifswald, 1879) ; Uiels, tiihyllimncki; liluttcr (Berlin, 1890); K. Schulters, Die Hibyllinischcti. liUcher in Rum (Hamburg, 1895) ; also the handbooks mentioned under Rosia.n Religion. Eor the subject of Christian Sibyllists, see Sibylline Oeacles. SIBYL, Grotto of the. ( 1 ) The name given to one of the caverns or cuttings in the rock on the banks of Lake Avernus. It has a brick gate- way and consists of an extensive hewn passage ventilated from above by a shaft. (2) A cavern at Cumte supposed to be the grotto described by Vergil in the sixth book of the .Eiteid. It has many openings and subterranean passages, most of which are blocked up. (3) A cavern at Mar- sala, the ancient Lilybasum, in Sicily. It con- tains a spring by means of whose waters the Sibyl was siqiposed to give forth her oracles. SIBYLLINE BOOKS. See Sibyl. SIBYLLINE ORACLES. A lengthy collec- tion of Greek hexameters, pseudonymously as- cribed lo the Oriental Sibyl. These writings be- long to an extensive literature first produced by the Jews, whom the early Christians soon followed with the intention of proving that the pagan oracles or the ancient poets had borne wit- ness to the superiority of the true religion of Israel or of Christ, or had propliesied the com- ing of the Kingdom of God. But few fragments of such literature have survived outside of these Siliylline Oracles, but these obfalned a prestige in the early Roman Empire and in the Christian Church that has insured their preservation. These oracles are a wild chaos of barbarous hexameters, and made up of disjointed sections, which are again full of interpolations, so that their present structure I'eveals the manner of the origin of the collection. Any one might add or insert his own lines, and they would be as readily accepted by the credulous public as were the verses he imitated. Through the older por- tions there breathes a fine spirit of monotheism and a trenchant scorn for the vices of heathen- ism. The collection is divided into fourteen books, of which the eighth, ninth, and fifteenth are now lost. The book containing the oldest fragments is the third. Through its abundant though veiled references to contemporary his- tory (set forth as prophecy), the oldest, sections clearly belong to the Maccabean period, and may be dated about B.C. 140. Other sections belong to the last pre-Christian century. The fourth book is now generally attributed to a .Jewish writer, in the last quarter of the first century a.d. The fifth is mostly Jewish (according to some -Tewish- Christian), with Christian interpolations, and contains material as late as Hadrian's reign. One CHiristian passage refers to Jesus as '"the noble man who came from heaven, who stretched fortli his hands on the fruitful cross, the best of the Hebrews." Books vi., vii., viii., are considered to be of Christian origin; they maintain the polemic against paganism, give a picture of the persecutions, and paint apocalyptic visions. The remaining books are nio.stly Christian. It has been thought that Vergil in his Fourth Eclogue, where he congratulates Pollio on the birth of a son and refers to the Cum.Tan Sibyl, had some passage of this .Jewish literature in mind. This pseudepigraphic propaganda was carried on ad