Sibylline Books.
The Sibylline prophecies were of early Trojan descent, and the most celebrated of the Sibyls, or priestesses, plays an important part in the tales of Æneas. Her prophecies were supposed to be heard in dark caverns and apertures in rocks. They are thought by Varro to have been written upon palm leaves in Greek hexameters. They were largely circulated in the time of Crœsus, and the promises which they made of future empire to Æneas escaping from the flames of Troy into Italy, were remarkably realized by Rome. Of the nine books offered for sale by a Sibyl to Tarquinius Superbus, six were burnt, after which he purchased the remaining three for the price originally demanded for the nine. They were kept in a stone chest under ground in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, in the custody of certain officers, who only consulted the books at the special command of the Senate. Some Sibylline books appear to have been consulted until the tenth century.