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[1]
There is a rock rising up above the ground. On it, say the Delphians, there stood and chanted the oracles a woman, by name Herophile and surnamed Sibyl. The former Sibyl I find was as ancient as any; the Greeks say that she was a daughter of Zeus by Lamia , daughter of Poseidon, that she was the first woman to chant oracles, and that the name Sibyl was given her by the Libyans.

[2] Herophile was younger than she was, but nevertheless she too was clearly born before the Trojan war, as she foretold in her oracles that Helen would be brought up in Sparta to be the ruin of Asia and of Europe , and that for her sake the Greeks would capture Troy . The Delians remember also a hymn this woman composed to Apollo. In her poem she calls herself not only Herophile but also Artemis, and the wedded wife of Apollo, saying too sometimes that she is his sister, and sometimes that she is his daughter.

[3] These statements she made in her poetry when in a frenzy and possessed by the god. Elsewhere in her oracles she states that her mother was an immortal, one of the nymphs of Ida, while her father was a human. These are the verses:—

I am by birth half mortal, half divine;

An immortal nymph was my mother, my father an eater of corn;

On my mother's side of Idaean birth, but my fatherland was red

Marpessus, sacred to the Mother, and the river Aidoneus.

[4] Even to-day there remain on Trojan Ida the ruins of the city Marpessus, with some sixty inhabitants. All the land around Marpessus is reddish and terribly parched, so that the light and porous nature of Ida in this place is in my opinion the reason why the river Aidoneus sinks into the ground, rises to sink once more, finally disappearing altogether beneath the earth. Marpessus is two hundred and forty stades distant from Alexandria in the Troad .

[5] The inhabitants of this Alexandria say that Herophile became the attendant of the temple of Apollo Smintheus, and that on the occasion of Hecuba's dream she uttered the prophecy which we know was actually fulfilled. This Sibyl passed the greater part of her life in Samos , but she also visited Clarus in the territory of Colophon , Delos and Delphi . Whenever she visited Delphi , she would stand on this rock and sing her chants.

[6] However, death came upon her in the Troad , and her tomb is in the grove of the Sminthian with these elegiac verses inscribed upon the tomb-stone:—

Here I am, the plain-speaking Sibyl of Phoebus,

Hidden beneath this stone tomb.

A maiden once gifted with voice, but now for ever voiceless,

By hard fate doomed to this fetter.

But I am buried near the nymphs and this Hermes,

Enjoying in the world below a part of the kingdom I had then.

The Hermes stands by the side of the tomb, a square-shaped figure of stone. On the left is water running down into a well, and the images of the nymphs.

[7] The Erythraeans, who are more eager than any other Greeks to lay claim to Herophile, adduce as evidence a mountain called Mount Corycus with a cave in it, saying that Herophile was born in it, and that she was a daughter of Theodorus, a shepherd of the district, and of a nymph. They add that the surname Idaean was given to the nymph simply because the men of those days called idai places that were thickly wooded. The verse about Marpessus and the river Aidoneus is cut out of the oracles by the Erythraeans.

[8]
The next woman to give oracles in the same way, according to Hyperochus of Cumae , a historian, was called Demo, and came from Cumae in the territory of the Opici. The Cumaeans can point to no oracle given by this woman, but they show a small stone urn in a sanctuary of Apollo, in which they say are placed the bones of the Sibyl.

[9] Later than Demo there grew up among the Hebrews above Palestine a woman who gave oracles and was named Sabbe. They say that the father of Sabbe was Berosus, and her mother Erymanthe. But some call her a Babylonian Sibyl, others an Egyptian.

[10]
Phaennis, daughter of a king of the Chaonians, and the Peleiae (Doves) at Dodona also gave oracles under the inspiration of a god, but they were not called by men Sibyls. To learn the date of Phaennis and to read her oracles ... for Phaennis was born when Antiochus was establishing his kingship immediately after the capture of Demetrius.¹ The Peleiades are said to have been born still earlier than Phemonoe, and to have been the first women to chant these verses:—

Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus shall be; O mighty Zeus.

Earth sends up the harvest, therefore sing the praise of earth as Mother.

[11]
It is said that the men who uttered oracles were Euclus of Cyprus , the Athenians Musaeus, son of Antiophemus, and Lycus, son of Pandion, and also Bacis, a Boeotian who was possessed by nymphs. I have read the oracles of all these except those of Lycus.
These are the women and men who, down to the present day, are said to have been the mouthpiece by which a god prophesied. But time is long, and perhaps similar things may occur again.

Description of Greece. Pausanias. W.H.S. Jones (Translator), H.A. Ormerod (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1918-1935.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.

Current edition Perseus

Description of Greece (English) (Pausanias. Pausanias Description of Greece, Volumes 1-4. Jones, W.H.S. (William Henry Samuel), translator; Ormerod, Henry Arderne, translator. London, New York: W. Heinemann, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1918-1935.)

Editions (1)

Ἑλλάδος Περιηγήσεως Perseus (Pausanias. Pausaniae Graeciae descriptio, Volumes 1-3. Spiro, Friedrich, editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1903.) — 10.12 focus

[1]
πέτρα δέ ἐστιν ἀνίσχουσα ὑπὲρ τῆς γῆς· ἐπὶ ταύτῃ Δελφοὶ στᾶσάν φασιν ᾆσαι τοὺς χρησμοὺς γυναῖκα ὄνομα Ἡροφίλην, Σίβυλλαν δὲ ἐπίκλησιν. τὴν δὲ πρότερον γενομένην, ταύτην ταῖς μάλιστα ὁμοίως οὖσαν ἀρχαίαν εὕρισκον, ἣν θυγατέρα Ἕλληνες Διὸς καὶ Λαμίας τῆς Ποσειδῶνός φασιν εἶναι, καὶ χρησμούς τε αὐτὴν γυναικῶν πρώτην ᾆσαι καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν Λιβύων Σίβυλλαν λέγουσιν ὀνομασθῆναι.

[2] ἡ δὲ Ἡροφίλη νεωτέρα μὲν ἐκείνης, φαίνεται δὲ ὅμως πρὸ τοῦ πολέμου γεγονυῖα καὶ αὕτη τοῦ Τρωικοῦ, καὶ Ἑλένην τε προεδήλωσεν ἐν τοῖς χρησμοῖς, ὡς ἐπʼ ὀλέθρῳ τῆς Ἀσίας καὶ Εὐρώπης τραφήσοιτο ἐν Σπάρτῃ, καὶ ὡς Ἴλιον ἁλώσεται διʼ αὐτὴν ὑπὸ Ἑλλήνων. Δήλιοι δὲ καὶ ὕμνον μέμνηνται τῆς γυναικὸς ἐς Ἀπόλλωνα. καλεῖ δὲ οὐχ Ἡροφίλην μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ Ἄρτεμιν ἐν τοῖς ἔπεσιν αὑτήν, καὶ Ἀπόλλωνος γυνὴ γαμετή, τοτὲ δὲ 0 ἀδελφὴ καὶ αὖθις θυγάτηρ φησὶν εἶναι.

[3] ταῦτα μὲν δὴ μαινομένη τε καὶ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ κάτοχος πεποίηκεν· ἑτέρωθι δὲ εἶπε τῶν χρησμῶν ὡς μητρὸς μὲν ἀθανάτης εἴη μιᾶς τῶν ἐν Ἴδῃ νυμφῶν, πατρὸς δὲ ἀνθρώπου, καὶ οὕτω λέγει τὰ ἔπη·

εἰμὶ δʼ ἐγὼ γεγαυῖα μέσον θνητοῦ τε θεᾶς τε,

νύμφης δʼ ἀθανάτης, πατρὸς δʼ αὖ κητοφάγοιο,

μητρόθεν Ἰδογενής, πατρὶς δέ μοί ἐστιν ἐρυθρή

Μάρπησσος, μητρὸς ἱερή, ποταμός τʼ Ἀιδωνεύς.

[4] ἦν δὲ ἔτι καὶ νῦν ἐν τῇ Ἴδῃ τῇ Τρωικῇ πόλεως Μαρπήσσου τὰ ἐρείπια καὶ ἐν αὐτοῖς οἰκήτορες ὅσον ἑξήκοντα ἄνθρωποι· ὑπέρυθρος δὲ πᾶσα ἡ περὶ τὴν Μάρπησσον γῆ καὶ δεινῶς ἐστιν αὐχμώδης, ὥστε καὶ τῷ Ἀϊδωνεῖ ποταμῷ καταδύεσθαί τε ἐς τὴν χώραν καὶ ἀνασχόντι τὸ αὐτὸ αὖθις πάσχειν, τέλος δὲ καὶ ἀφανίζεσθαι κατὰ τῆς γῆς, αἴτιον ἐμοὶ δοκεῖν ἐστιν ὅτι λεπτή τε κατὰ τοῦτο καὶ σηραγγώδης ἐστὶν ἡ Ἴδη. ἀπέχει δὲ Ἀλεξανδρείας τῆς ἐν τῇ Τρῳάδι τεσσαράκοντα ἡ Μάρπησσος καὶ διακόσια στάδια.

[5] τὴν δὲ Ἡροφίλην οἱ ἐν τῇ Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ ταύτῃ νεωκόρον τε τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος γενέσθαι τοῦ Σμινθέως καὶ ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνείρατι τῷ Ἑκάβης χρῆσαί φασιν αὐτὴν ἃ δὴ καὶ ἐπιτελεσθέντα ἴσμεν. αὕτη ἡ Σίβυλλα ᾤκησε μὲν τὸ πολὺ τοῦ βίου ἐν Σάμῳ, ἀφίκετο δὲ καὶ ἐς Κλάρον τὴν Κολοφωνίων καὶ ἐς Δῆλόν τε καὶ ἐς Δελφούς· ὁπότε δὲ ἀφίκοιτο, ἐπὶ ταύτης ἱσταμένη τῆς πέτρας ᾖδε.

[6] τὸ μέντοι χρεὼν αὐτὴν ἐπέλαβεν ἐν τῇ Τρῳάδι, 0 καί οἱ τὸ μνῆμα ἐν τῷ ἄλσει τοῦ Σμινθέως ἐστὶ καὶ ἐλεγεῖον ἐπὶ τῆς στήλης·

ἅδʼ ἐγὼ ἁ Φοίβοιο σαφηγορίς εἰμι Σίβυλλα

τῷδʼ ὑπὸ λαϊνέῳ σάματι κευθομένα,

παρθένος αὐδάεσσα τὸ πρίν, νῦν δʼ αἰὲν ἄναυδος,

μοίρᾳ ὑπὸ στιβαρᾷ τάνδε λαχοῦσα πέδαν.

ἀλλὰ πέλας Νύμφαισι καὶ Ἑρμῇ τῷδʼ ὑπόκειμαι,

μοῖραν ἔχοισα κάτω τᾶς τότʼ ἀνακτορίας.

ὁ μὲν δὴ παρὰ τὸ μνῆμα ἕστηκεν Ἑρμῆς λίθου τετράγωνον σχῆμα· ἐξ ἀριστερᾶς δὲ ὕδωρ τε κατερχόμενον ἐς κρήνην καὶ τῶν Νυμφῶν ἐστι τὰ ἀγάλματα.

[7] Ἐρυθραῖοι δὲ—ἀμφισβητοῦσι γὰρ τῆς Ἡροφίλης προθυμότατα Ἑλλήνων—Κώρυκόν τε καλούμενον ὄρος καὶ ἐν τῷ ὄρει σπήλαιον ἀποφαίνουσι, τεχθῆναι τὴν Ἡροφίλην ἐν αὐτῷ λέγοντες, Θεοδώρου δὲ ἐπιχωρίου ποιμένος καὶ νύμφης παῖδα εἶναι· Ἰδαίαν δὲ ἐπίκλησιν γενέσθαι τῇ νύμφῃ κατʼ ἄλλο μὲν οὐδέν, τῶν δὲ χωρίων τὰ δασέα ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἴδας τότε ὀνομάζεσθαι. τὸ δὲ ἔπος τὸ ἐς τὴν Μάρπησσον καὶ τὸν ποταμὸν τὸν Ἀϊδωνέα, τοῦτο οἱ Ἐρυθραῖοι τὸ ἔπος ἀφαιροῦσιν ἀπὸ τῶν χρησμῶν.

[8]
τὴν δὲ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ χρησμοὺς κατὰ ταὐτὰ εἰποῦσαν ἐκ Κύμης τῆς ἐν Ὀπικοῖς εἶναι, καλεῖσθαι δὲ αὐτὴν Δημὼ συνέγραψεν Ὑπέροχος ἀνὴρ Κυμαῖος. χρησμὸν δὲ οἱ Κυμαῖοι τῆς γυναικὸς ταύτης ἐς οὐδένα εἶχον ἐπιδείξασθαι, λίθου δὲ ὑδρίαν ἐν Ἀπόλλωνος ἱερῷ δεικνύουσιν οὐ μεγάλην, τῆς Σιβύλλης ἐνταῦθα κεῖσθαι 0 φάμενοι τὰ ὀστᾶ.

[9] ἐπετράφη δὲ καὶ ὕστερον τῆς Δημοῦς παρʼ Ἑβραίοις τοῖς ὑπὲρ τῆς Παλαιστίνης γυνὴ χρησμολόγος, ὄνομα δὲ αὐτῇ Σάββη· Βηρόσου δὲ εἶναι πατρὸς καὶ Ἐρυμάνθης μητρός φασι Σάββην· οἱ δὲ αὐτὴν Βαβυλωνίαν, ἕτεροι δὲ Σίβυλλαν καλοῦσιν Αἰγυπτίαν.

[10]
Φαεννὶς δὲ θυγάτηρ βασιλεύσαντος ἀνδρὸς ἐν Χάοσι καὶ αἱ Πέλειαι παρὰ Δωδωναίοις ἐμαντεύσαντο μὲν ἐκ θεοῦ καὶ αὗται, Σίβυλλαι δὲ ὑπὸ ἀνθρώπων οὐκ ἐκλήθησαν. τῆς μὲν δὴ πυθέσθαι τὴν ἡλικίαν καὶ ἐπιλέξασθαι τοὺς χρησμούς Ἀντιόχου γὰρ μετὰ τὸ ἁλῶναι Δημήτριον αὐτίκα ἐς τὴν ἀρχὴν καθισταμένου γέγονε Φαεννίς. τὰς Πελειάδας δὲ Φημονόης τε ἔτι προτέρας γενέσθαι λέγουσι καὶ ᾆσαι γυναικῶν πρώτας τάδε τὰ ἔπη·

Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ.

Γᾶ καρποὺς ἀνίει, διὸ κλῄζετε Ματέρα γαῖαν.

[11]
χρησμολόγους δὲ ἄνδρας Κύπριόν τε Εὔκλουν καὶ Ἀθηναίους Μουσαῖον τὸν Ἀντιοφήμου καὶ Λύκον τὸν Πανδίονος, τούτους τε γενέσθαι καὶ ἐκ Βοιωτίας Βάκιν φασὶ κατάσχετον ἄνδρα ἐκ νυμφῶν· τούτων πλὴν Λύκου τῶν ἄλλων ἐπελεξάμην τοὺς χρησμούς.
τοσαῦται μὲν ἄχρι ἐμοῦ λέγονται γυναῖκες καὶ ἄνδρες ἐκ θεοῦ μαντεύσασθαι· ἐν δὲ τῷ χρόνῳ τῷ πολλῷ καὶ αὖθις γένοιτο ἂν ἕτερα τοιαῦτα.

Translations (1)

English (Jones and Ormerod; retranslated Gregory Nagy, CHS, 2018) (OCR draft) Experimental (CHS Pausanias Reader retranslation by Gregory Nagy, based on Jones and Ormerod, with marked Greek terms, notes, quotations, and bibliographic attributions preserved.) — 10.12 focus

[1] There is a rock rising up above the ground. On it, say the Delphians, there stood and chanted the oracles a woman, by name Herophile and surnamed Sibyl. The former Sibyl I find was as ancient as any; the Greeks say that she was a daughter of Zeus by Lamia, daughter of Poseidon, that she was the first woman to chant oracles and that the name Sibyl was given her by the Libyans.

[2] Herophile was younger than she was, but nevertheless, she too was clearly born before the Trojan War, as she foretold in her oracles that Helen would be brought up in Sparta to be the ruin of Asia and of Europe and that for her sake, the Greeks would capture Troy. The Delians remember also a hymn this woman composed to Apollo. In her poem, she calls herself not only Herophile but also Artemis, and the wedded wife of Apollo, saying too sometimes that she is his sister and sometimes that she is his daughter.

[3] These statements she made in her poetry when in a frenzy and possessed by the god. Elsewhere in her oracles, she states that her mother was an immortal, one of the nymphs of Ida, while her father was a human. These are the verses:

I am by birth half mortal, half divine;
An immortal nymph was my mother, my father, an eater of wheat;
On my mother’s side of Idaean birth, but my fatherland was red
Marpessus, sacred to the Mother, and the river Aidoneus.

[4] Even today, there remain on Trojan Ida the ruins of the city Marpessus, with some sixty inhabitants. All the land around Marpessus is reddish and terribly parched, so that the light and porous nature of Ida in this place is, in my opinion, the reason why the river Aidoneus sinks into the ground, rises to sink once more, finally disappearing altogether beneath the earth. Marpessus is two hundred and forty stadium-lengths distant from Alexandria in the Troad.

[5] The inhabitants of this Alexandria say that Herophile became the attendant of the temple of Apollo Smintheus, and that on the occasion of Hecuba’s dream, she uttered the prophecy, which we know was actually fulfilled. This Sibyl passed the greater part of her life in Samos, but she also visited Klaros in the territory of Kolophon, Delos, and Delphi. Whenever she visited Delphi, she would stand on this rock and sing her chants.

[6] However, death came upon her in the Troad, and her tomb is in the grove of the Sminthian with these elegiac verses inscribed upon the tombstone:

Here I am, the plain speaking Sibyl of Phoebus,
Hidden beneath this stone tomb.
A maiden once gifted with voice, but now for ever voiceless,
By hard fate doomed to this fetter.
But I am buried near the nymphs and this Hermes,
Enjoying in the world below a part of the kingdom I had then.

The Hermes stands by the side of the tomb, a square-shaped figure of stone. On the left is water running down into a well and the images of the nymphs.

[7] The Erythraeans, who are more eager than any other Greeks to lay claim to Herophile, adduce as evidence a mountain called Mount Corycus with a cave in it, saying that Herophile was born in it and that she was a daughter of Theodoros, a shepherd of the district and of a nymph. They add that the surname Idaean was given to the nymph simply because the men of those days called idai places that were thickly wooded. The verse about Marpessus and the river Aidoneus is cut out of the oracles by the Erythraeans.

[8] The next woman to give oracles in the same way, according to Hyperochus of Cumae, a historian, was called Demo and came from Cumae in the territory of the Opici. The Cumaeans can point to no oracle given by this woman, but they show a small stone urn in a sanctuary of Apollo, in which they say are placed the bones of the Sibyl.

[9] Later than Demo, there grew up among the Hebrews above Palestine a woman who gave oracles and was named Sabbe. They say that the father of Sabbe was Berosus, and her mother Erymanthe. But some call her a Babylonian Sibyl, others an Egyptian.

[10] Phaennis, daughter of a king of the Chaonians, and the Peleiai (Doves) at Dodona also gave oracles under the inspiration of a god, but they were not called by men Sibyls. To learn the date of Phaennis and to read her oracles […] for Phaennis was born when Antiokhos was establishing his kingship immediately after the capture of Demetrios. The Peleiades are said to have been born still earlier than Phemonoe and to have been the first women to chant these verses:

Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus shall be; O mighty Zeus.
Earth sends up the harvest, therefore sing the praise of Earth as Mother.

[11] It is said that the men who uttered oracles were Euklos of Cyprus, the Athenians, Musaeus, son of Antiophemus, and Lykos, son of Pandion, and also Bacis, a Boeotian who was possessed by nymphs. I have read the oracles of all these except those of Lykos.

These are the women and men who, down to the present day, are said to have been the mouthpiece by which a god prophesied. But time is long, and perhaps similar things may occur again.

Votive Offerings At Delphi Continued

Notes on the current edition

Description of Greece

1. 281-280 B.C

New Alexandria Commentaries

Gregory Nagy, Editors: Angelia Hanhardt and Keith DeStone, Web producer: Noel Spencer, Consultant for images: Jill Curry Robbins, \[\[Noel gives this a separate URN\]\]

Pausanias Description of Greece 10.12

W.H.S. Jones (Translator), H.A. Ormerod (Translator)

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Votive Offerings At Delphi Continued

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