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 deity, originally one of the chthonic earth-goddesses. Later in antiquity, sibyls wandered from place to place. The mark of a Sibyl possessed with the second sight is the gift to be able to ...

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• Sibyl - The number of Sibyls
• Sibyl - The later Sibyls
• Sibyl - Sibylline books

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Like Heraclitus, Plato speaks of only one Sibyl, but in course of time the number increased to nine, with a tenth, the Tiburtine Sibyl, probably Etruscan in origin, added by the Romans. According to Lactantius' Divine Institutions (i.6, 4th century AD, quoting from a lost work of Varro, 1st century BC) these ten were those who follow. Of them, the three most famous sibyls throughout their long career were the Delphic, the Erythraean and the Cumaean. Not all the Sibyls in the following list were securely identified with an oracu ...

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Sibyl, Sibyl - The number of Sibyls, Sibyl - The later Sibyls, Sibyl - Sibylline books

Read more here: » Sibyl: Encyclopedia II - Sibyl - The number of Sibyls

The Sibyls were also represented in publicly available art. Michelangelo fixed our image of the sibyls forever, in his powerful representations of them, seated, both aged and ageless, beyond mere femininity, in the frescos of the Sistine Chapel. Five sibyls were painted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo; the Delphic Sibyl, Lybian Sibyl, Persian Sibyl, Cumaean Sibyl and the Erythraean Sibyl. The library of Pope Julius II in the Vatican has images of sibyls and they a ...

See also:

Sibyl, Sibyl - The number of Sibyls, Sibyl - The later Sibyls, Sibyl - Sibylline books

Read more here: » Sibyl: Encyclopedia II - Sibyl - The later Sibyls