5 venundare = to sell. Cf. ven-eo (= venum + eo), ven-do, and our vendor.
12 delirare = to be out of her mind. Lit. to make a crooked furrow in ploughing; de + lira (a furrow).
19 sacrarium = the place for the keeping of holy things, i.e. the Capitol. The original Sibylline Books were burnt in the fire on the Capitol, 82 B.C., but a fresh collection was made by Augustus, and deposited in the temple of Apollo on the Palatine.
20 quindecimviri (sacris faciundis), i.e. a college of priests who had charge of the Sibylline Books.
Parallel Passages. Verg. Aen. vi., espec. ll. 42-101, for the Cumaean Sibyl.
The Sibylline Books. ‘There existed also Etruscan libri fatales (Books of Fate), and these, together with the Sibylline Books, were kept in the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter. Nothing seemed more natural than to suppose that Tarquin, who built that temple, purchased also the sacred books of the Sibyl.’—Ihne.
TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS, 534-509 B.C.
[A.] Sextus Tarquinius at Gabii.
Inde in consilia publica adhiberi. . . . Ita cum sensim ad rebellandum primores Gabinorum incitaret, ipse cum promptissimis iuvenum praedatum atque in expeditiones iret, et dictis factisque omnibus ad fallendum instructis vana accresceret fides, dux ad 5 ultimum belli legitur. Ibi cum inscia multitudine, quid ageretur, proelia parva inter Romam Gabiosque fierent, quibus plerumque Gabina res superior esset, tum certatim summi infimique Gabinorum Sex. Tarquinium dono deum sibi missum ducem credere. 10 Apud milites vero obeundo pericula ac labores pariter, praedam munifice largiendo tanta caritate esse, ut non pater Tarquinius potentior Bomae quam filius Gabiis esset.