her by the people of Africa. The eighth
was the Persian or Babylonian Sibyl, whom Suidas names Sambetha. The
ninth was the Phrygian, who delivered her oracles at Ancyra, in
Phrygia. The tenth was the Tiburtine, who was called Albunea, and
prophesied near Tibur, or Tivoli, on the banks of the Anio. In the
present story Ovid evidently intends to represent these various
Sibyls as being the same person; and to account for her prolonged
existence, by representing that Apollo had granted her a life to
last for many ages.

Several ages before the Christian era, the Romans had a collection
of verses, which were commonly attributed to the Sibyls. These they
often consulted; and in the time of Tarquinius Superbus, two
officers were appointed for the purpose of keeping the Sibylline
books, whose business it was to look in them on the occasion of any
public calamity, in order to see whether it had been foretold and to
make their report to the Senate. The books were kept in a stone
chest, beneath the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. These Duumvirs
continued until the year of Rome 388, when eight others being added,
they formed the College of the Decemvirs. About eighty-three years
before the Christian era five other keepers of these books were
added, who thus formed the body called the Quindecimvirs.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Aulus Gellius, Servius, and many other
writers, state the following as the origin of the Sibylline books.
An aged woman presented to Tarquinius Superbus three books that
contained the oracles of the Sibyls, and demanded a large sum for
them. The king refusing to buy them, she went and burned them; and
returning, asked the same price for the remaining six, as she had
done for the original number. Being again repulsed, she burnt three
more, and coming back again, demanded the original price for the
three that remained. Astonished at the circumstance, the king bought
the books. Pliny and Solinus vary the story a little, in saying that
the woman at first presented but three books, and that she destroyed
two of them.

It is generally supposed, that on the burning of the Capitol, about
eighty-three years before the Christian era, the Sibylline books of
Tarquinius Superbus were destroyed in the flames. To repair the
loss, the Romans despatched officers to various cities of Italy, and
even to Asia and Africa, to collect whatever they could fi