1. Tranquillus thus tells why poets were so named: “When men putting off savagery first began to have a settled mode of life and to obtain a knowledge of themselves and their gods, they contrived a modest way of living and necessary words for themselves, but sought for magnificence in each for the worship of their gods. 2. And so, just as they made temples more beautiful than the homes of that time, and images larger than men’s bodies, so they thought that [the gods] must be honored with an eloquence even more stately, and they extolled their merits in splendid words and pleasure-giving verse.” 10. The function of a poet is in this, that by the aid of a figurative and indirect mode of speech he gracefully changes and transforms to a different aspect what has really taken place. But Lucan is not placed in the number of poets because he seems to have composed a history, not a poem. Chapter 8. On the sibyls. 3. The most learned authors relate that there were ten Sibyls. Of whom the first was the Persian; the second, the Libyan; the third, the Delphian, born in the temple of the Delphian Apollo, who foretold the Trojan wars and very many of whose verses Homer inserted in his work; the fourth, the Cimmerian in Italy; the fifth, the Erythraean, Herophyla by name, born in Babylon, who foretold to the Greeks on their way to Ilium that they would perish and Homer would write lies; she was called Erythraean because her verses were found in that island; the sixth, the Samian.... 5. The seventh, the Sibyl of Cumae, who brought nine books to Tarquinius Priscus in which were written the secrets[317] of Rome.... [317] Reading _secreta_ for _decreta_. 6. The eighth, the Sibyl of Hellespont, born in Trojan territory, who is said to have lived in the days of Solon and Cyrus.... The ninth, who prophesied at Ancyra. The tenth, the Sibyl of Tibur, Albunea by name. 7. Verses of all these are published, in which it is manifestly proved that they wrote many things about God and Christ and the heathen. The Erythraean Sibyl, however, is said to be the most celebrated and famous of them all. Chapter 9. On the magi. 1. The first of the magi was Zoroaster, king of the Bactrians, whom Ninus, king of the Assyrians, slew in battle, and of whom Aristotle writes that on the evidence of his works it is clear that he composed 2,000,000 verses. 2. This art was enlarged by Democritus many centuries later when Hippocrates was famous for his knowledge of medicine.... 3. And so this vanity of the magic arts flourished during many generations in the whole world by the teaching of the bad angels, through a certain knowledge of the future and the summoning up of infernal spirits. Their inventions are divinations, auguries, the so-called oracles, and necromancy.