Periodization in the Sibylline Oracles: Insights from Pseudo-Seneca’s Octavia��

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• Kenneth Atkinson
• 15^th Nangeroni Enoch Seminar Meeting

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• Photo: Cumaean Sibyl by Andrea del Castagno (1419-1457)
• Source: Wikipedia Commons

19 CE: A Bad Year in the Roman Empire�

• Tiberius was in the fifth year of his reign.
• An earthquake occurred in Asia
• Slave revolts erupted in Italy
• Tiberius expels the Jews along with the worshippers of Isis and astrologers from Rome.
• The consul Norbanus disrupts Rome.

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• Photo: Bust of Tiberius, Musée Saint-Raymond, Toulouse.
• Source: Wikipedia Commons

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The plebs urbana Chant A Sibylline Oracle to Oppose Tiberius� �

“Thrice three hundred years having run their course of fulfillment.

Ingrown dissent shall destroy the Roman people and Sybaritic Folly.” (Cassius Dio, 57.18.4-5)

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• Photo: Michelangelo, The Delphic Sibyl
• Source: Wikipedia Commons

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64 CE: A Bad Year in the Roman Empire

• Nero was the emperor.

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• Great fire occurred that year, which many attributed to Nero.

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• Persecution Christians (& Jews?) [Tacitus]?

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• The plebs urbana recalled the Sibylline Oracle recited during Tiberius’ reign and began to chant it:

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“Thrice three hundred years having run their course of fulfillment. Ingrown dissent shall destroy the Roman people and Sybaritic Folly.”

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Photo: Bust of Nero, Glyptothek, Munich

Source: Wikipedia Commons

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64 CE: A Bad Year in the Roman Empire

• Like Tiberius, Nero ordered that the official Sibylline Books consulted.

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• He told the crowd that the oracle they were chanting was not in the official collection.

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• This time, the crowd responded by chanting what they termed was “a genuine Sibylline prophecy”:

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• “Last of the sons of Aeneas, a mother-slayer shall rule.”

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• The crowd pointed out that Nero was the last emperor of the Julian line descended from Aeneas.

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• Photo: Gold Aureus of Nero, Rome, AD 64 - AD 65
• Source: Wikipedia Commons

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What do These Two Events Indicate?

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• Oral Sibylline prophecies circulated in Rome during times of crises.
• The public had knowledge of oral Sibylline Oracles that were not part of the official collection.
• The public believed the chronology of the Oracle fit the present, even though its chronology aligned with no known event. This presupposes oral explanations of the Oracles.
• The crowd’s mention of Sybaritic Folly to undermine Nero’s reign is also found in the Roman play Octavia, which shows traces of Sibylline prophecy.
• Based on the Octavia’s content, we should consider the possibility that pagans learned about Judaism from oral Sibylline traditions.

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The Date of the Octavia

• Based on its historical allusions, dated between the years 68-71 CE.

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• Although Seneca features prominently in the play, the traditional attribution to Seneca (the Younger) is doubtful. The anonymous author, commonly referred to as Pseudo-Seneca, was greatly influenced by Seneca’s writings, especially his De clementia and Consolatio ad Helviam, both of which are respectively reflected in the text at 377-436 and 437-592.

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• Photo: Claudia Octavia. Found in Rome, via Varese. Cat. number 53.
• Source: Wikipedia Commons

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The Octavia

 The Latin Roman play Octavia is the only complete Roman historical play (fabula praetexta).

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• The Octavia has not attracted much scholarly attention. Over sixty years ago, C. J. Herington wrote:

“The Octavia is, on the face of it, one of the most bizarre documents which have reached us from antiquity. If the news of its discovery had broken yesterday, there would certainly have been a sensation at the bare idea, whatever the literary merits of the work. A few years ago, the publication of a 15-line fragment of a Greek play about Gyges caused discussion enough; but here we have a complete Roman historical play, unlike any other ancient play featuring Nero, Octavia, Poppaea, Seneca.... Surely, one would think, this ought to be an exciting document, from both the literary and the historical point of view. Why is no one excited?”

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• Herrington, C. J. “Octavia Praetexta: A Survey.” The Classical Quarterly 11 (1951): 18-30.

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The Octavia: Contents

• The Octavia takes place over a three-day period, between May and June of 62 CE.

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• Opens with Nero’s wife, Claudia Octavia, describing her misfortunes (1-272).

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• Seneca laments the present and tries to convince Nero not to divorce Octavia to marry his mistress, Poppea Sabina. Seneca encourages Nero to stop his ruthless behavior (437-592).

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• The ghost of Nero’s mother Agrippina appears to curse Nero (593-645), followed by Poppaea’s terror at having a nightmare of Agrippina on her wedding night (690-761).

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• An anonymous Prefect tells Nero that a riot has been quelled, but Nero demands more bloodshed (820-76). Octavia and the chorus of Roman citizens bemoan Octavia’s fate as she demands immediate execution (877-98).

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• The play ends (972-82) with a chorus of Roman citizens asserting that Rome is the most barbaric place on earth.

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�The Sibylline Oracles in the Octavia: �The Myth of Ages (425-34)

• Passion for war and hunger for gold grew
• Through the world; the greatest vice arose,
• Rank excess, a destructive plague. Time’s passing
• And grievous folly gave it force and power.
• A gathering wave of vices from many years
• Floods over us. We’re crushed by a heavy age,
• Where crime reigns, made impiety rages,
• Potent lust lords it with immoral love,
• Triumphant excess and its greedy hands
• Rape the world’s infinite wealth—to waste it. (Trans. A. J. Boyle, Octavia: Attributed to Seneca [OUP, 2008])

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cupido belli creuit atque auri fames                              �totum per orbem, maximum exortum est malum�luxuria, pestis blanda, cui uires dedit�roburque longum tempus atque error grauis.�Collecta uitia per tot aetates diu�in nos redundant: saeculo premimur graui,                               �quo scelera regnant, saeuit impietas furens,�turpi libido Venere dominatur potens,�luxuria uictrix orbis immensas opes�iam pridem auaris manibus, ut perdat, rapit.

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The Myth of Ages

• The Octavia also prefaces its Myth of Ages with a description of a cosmic collapse and renewal (392-97):

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• If the firmament is ageing—its vastness
• Due to the collapse again into blind chaos—
• Its last day is here to crush an impious
• Race with heaven’s fall, so a renascent,
• Better world breed a new generation,
• As the young world did when Saturn ruled. (Trans. Boyle)

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• Photo: Stoic destruction of the earth.
• Source: Wikipedia Commons

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The Sibylline Oracles in the Octavia: Nero as Typhon (222-51)

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• The Octavia describes the sins of a degenerate age presided over by Nero, who is referred to as the monster Typhon (222-51).
• Although a Near Eastern figure, the myth of Tryphon also appears in Hesiod (Theog. 820-68) and other Greek writers showing that the myth was well-known in Europe.

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• Photo: Zeus attacking Typhon. Hyrcia (ca 540-530 BCE) in the Staatliche Antikensammlungen 596
• Source: Wikipedia Commons

Nero as Typhon in the Sibylline Tradition

• Typhon appears in the writings of Hersiod, Berossus, Nicander, Ovid, Apollodorus, Plutarch, Philo of Byblos, and Nonnos.
• The Octavia (241) states that Nero has already “driven the High Ones from their shrines,” which appears to be an allusion to the Typhon myth as found in Ovid (Met. 5.315-31) where Typhoeus cases the gods from their throne and changes them to Egypt.
• Nero in Sibylline Oracles:
• “a man who is a matricide” (5:343)
• Description of cosmic thunder, flames, and water (5:361-74)
• Cosmic destruction caused by a war stirred up by “the matricide” (5:376-8).
• Trouble comes to “luxuriant Rome” by ‘the great beast” with a “spirit of fire” (8:140-57)
• “the purple dragon comes on the waves” and brings destruction to Italy (8:88-109; cf. Rev. 13)
• (translations: Collins, OTP, volume 1)

Sybaritic Folly

• The oracle the plebs urbana shouted during the reigns of Tiberius and Nero proclaimed that the end of days will be caused by “Sybaritic folly.” It sheds some light on the Octavia’s use of the Myth of Ages tradition (397-437). In his soliloquy, the character Seneca emphasizes that luxuria is the source of Rome’s decline and decay.

• This suggests a widespread knowledge of Sibylline traditions and commentaries among the public, which Octavia’s writer did not need to explain. This is especially true of the “Sybaritic folly.”

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Sybaritic Folly�

• Sybaris was a Greek polis in southern Italy, in northeastern Calabria, inland on the western side of the gulf of Taranto.
• It was famous in antiquity for its great wealth.
• In 510/509 BCE, the neighboring Achean colony of Kroton and its population conquered Sybaris, driving out its inhabitants.
• The city was replaced with the new city known as Thurii in 444/443 BCE.
• The remains of Sybaris and Thurii were gradually buried by sediment: rediscovered and excavated in the 1960’s.

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•  Photo: Theatre at Sybaris.
• Source: Wikipedia Commons

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Sybaris and Moral Causation

• Athenaeus recorded many earlier traditions about the city’s downfall. According to a Delphic oracle he cites (12.520b), the Oracle predicted the city’s downfall and attributes it to its citizen’s hybris that led them to revere a mortal man more than a god.
• Robert J. Gorman and Vanessa B. Gorman comment “…the fall of Sybaris perhaps is the earliest manifestation of the theory of historical causation according to which unusual prosperity sets in motion a chain reaction of decadence: from πλοῡτος (“wealth”) to τρυφή to κόρος (“surfeit”) to ὕβρις (“insulting arrogance”) to ἀπώλεια (“destruction”).

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*Gorman, Robert J. and Vanessa B. Gorman. “The Tryphê of the Sybariters: A Historiographical Problem in Athenaeus.” The Journal of Hellenistic Studies 127 (2007): 38-60.

Sybaritic Folly�

• The ancients believed Sybaris’ wealth and luxury offended the gods, who allowed Kroton to sack the city.
• The luxury of the Sybarites became notorious among Greek writers; many recounted its fall as a warning. 
• Sybaris became the most prominent example in antiquity of a community that the Gods punished with ruin because of luxury.

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• Photo: Port of Sybaris.
• Source: Wikipedia Commons

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Sibylline Oracle 2

• The Sibylline Oracle the crowd recited to denounce Nero is similar to Sibylline Oracle 2:15-19, which is a passage containing Jewish material:

• Then indeed the tenth generation of men will also appear
• after these things, when the earth-shaking lightning-giver
• will break the glory of idols and shake the people of
• seven-hilled Rome. Great wealth will perish,
• burned in a great fire by the flame of Hephaestus. (Collins, OTP 1.388).

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Sybaritic Folly�

• Suetonius provides evidence that there were traditions associating Nero with a world conflagration. According to Suetonius:
• But he (=Nero) showed no greater mercy to the people or the walls of his capital. When someone in a general conversation said: “When I am dead, be earth consumed by fire.” He (=Nero) rejoined, “Nay, rather while I live,” and his action was wholly in accord. (LCL).

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•  Photo: Poster for the 1913 silent film Quo Vadis.
• Source: Wikipedia Commons

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Nero Traditions

• Although the stories of Nero wanting to bring about the world’s destruction by fire may be mere legend, the extant historical accounts suggest that the pubic associated the burning of Rome with the approaching end of Roman power, as evident by the Sibylline Oracle the public chanted during his reign.
• Suetonius (Vespasian, 4.5) mentions that an oracle in circulation throughout the East said that the ruler of the world would come from Judea. He says this fed the flame of the Jewish Revolt against Rome.
• The Sibylline Oracles chanted against Nero reflect this tradition and show that the public was well versed in prophetic literature of the East.
• Photo: Henryk Siemiradzki, “Nero’s Torches.”
• Source: Wikipedia Commons

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Sibylline Themes in Roman Literature

• Vergil’s Eclogue 4 and Horace’s Epode 16, written within one year of one another in 39-40 BCE, utilize Sibylline themes.
• Both writers assume the reader is familiar with the Sibylline traditions.
• Horace encourage the righteous to flee Rome.
• Horace draws upon standard Sibylline and apocalyptic topioi similar to Sibylline Oracle 3.
• Do any of these or other pagan writers reflect knowledge of Judaism?
• Photo: Bust of Vergil (1^st century CE), Parco della Grotta di Posillipo, Italy
• Source: Wikipedia Commons

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Could Pagans Have Learned About Judaism from the Sibylline Oracles?

• Oivd, Metamorphoses, 1.293-96

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• This one occupies a hill, another sits in a curved skiff
• And leads his oars there, where recently Ararat had been;
• That one sails over crops or the roof of a submerged farmhouse,
• This one catches fish in the top of an elm
•  Occupat hic collem, cumba sedet alter adunca�et ducit remos illic, ubi nuper ararat:�ille supra segetes aut mersae culmina villae               �navigat, hic summa piscem deprendit in ulmo.
• (Translation K.F.B. Fletcher, CP 105 [2020]: 209-13)
• Photo: Mt. Ararat
• Source: Photo by the author

Jewish Themes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses

• Flood (Met. 1.270-71, 356-57; Gen. 9:8-17).
• Bird and flood story (Met. 1.307-8; Gen. 8:6-12).
• Deucalion and Pyrrha are pious like Noah and escape a flood (Met. 1.322-23, 327; Gen. 6:9)
• Deucalion and Pyrrha turn backward when throwing the stones of their “great mother’: Shem and Japeth turn backward to avoid seeing Noah’s nakedness (Met. 1.381-83, 394, 398-99; Gen. 9:23).
• Ovid mentions the Sabbath (Ars am. 1.413-16; Rem. am. 219-20).
• Engraving of Deucalion and Pyrrha by Virgil Solis.
• Source: Wikipedia Commons

Conclusions

• Pagans, Jews, and Christians, particularly from Nero’s time and through the Flavian era used Sibylline traditions to denounce and predict the end of the Roman Empire.
• They accomplished this by citing exempla from the past to interpret the present and predict the future.
• The conception of time in the Jewish and Christian Sibylline Oracles not only shows the vitality of ancient Sibylline traditions, but this collection is an invaluable witness to close contacts between pagans, Jews, and Christians in antiquity.

Conclusions

• Sibylline Oracles circulated orally among the public and likely provided pagans with much of their knowledge of Judaism.

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• Pseudo-Seneca’s Octavia is a neglected text for understanding the concept of time in the Jewish and Christian Sibylline Oracles.

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• This play incorporates ancient oral and written Sibylline traditions that emerged Nero’s tumultuous reign.
• The Octavia show that many believed that end of days was near and that it would be caused by “Sybaritic folly.” The Sybaris myth is frequently alluded to in ancient literature and Sibylline Oracles without naming the city of Sybaris: shows prior knowledge of this tradition.
• The Octavia provides a version of the Myth of Ages similar to the Jewish Sibylline traditions in which luxuria is the source of decline and decay.

Conclusions

• The Sibylline Books we have been discussing at this conference were likely popular and continued to be collected and redacted because of the long history of oral Sibylline Oracles that circulated among the public for centuries.
• The Octavia provides a glimpse into the popular use of traditions common in the Sibylline Oracles, particularly those associated with Nero. The Octavia’s author assumes the public knows these traditions.
• This oral body of Sibylline traditions was constantly recycled to apply them to current events.
• The Sibylline Oracles chanted during the reigns of Tiberius and Nero show that the same Sibylline chronology could be applied to different circumstances, showing that the ancients had a different understanding of history.
• It was this ability to reuse the Sibylline traditions, and their acceptance among the public and elites, that helps explain the continued survival of this genre well into the Christian era.
• Vitality of the Sibylline Traditions: Their later use in Christian literature, art, and their survival (without mention of the Sibyl) in the Islamic world (Qur’an 89:6-14): City of Iram (Ubar”)

Thanks For Your Attention