Roman Mosaics; Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Roman Mosaics; Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood
John Stuart Mill · en
You look in vain for any trace of the sanctuary of the most celebrated
of the Sibyls. Her tomb is pointed out as a vague ruin a short
distance from the Necropolis, among the tombs which line the Via
Domitiana; and Justin Martyr and Pausanias both describe a round
cinerary urn found in this spot which was said to have contained her
ashes. The tufa rock of the Acropolis is pierced with numerous dark
caverns and labyrinthine passages, the work of prehistoric
inhabitants, which have only been partially explored on account of the
difficulty and danger, and any one of which might have been the abode
of the prophetess. A larger excavation in the side of the hill facing
the sea, with a flight of steps leading up from it into another
smaller recess, and numerous lateral openings and subterranean
passages, supposed to penetrate into the very heart of the mountain,
and even to communicate with Lake Fusaro, is pointed out by the local
guides as the Sibyl's Cave, which, as Virgil tells us, had a hundred
entrances and issues, from whence as many resounding voices echoed
forth the oracles of the inspired priestess. But we are confused in
our efforts at identification; for another cavern bore this name in
former ages, which was destroyed by the explosion of the combustible
materials with which Narses filled it in undermining the citadel.
This, we have reason to believe, was the cave which Justin Martyr
visited more than seventeen hundred years ago, and of which he has
left behind a most interesting account. "We saw," he says, "when we
were in Cumae, a place where a sanctuary is hollowed in the rock--a
thing really wonderful and worthy of all admiration. Here the Sibyl
delivered her oracles, we were told by those who had received them
from their ancestors, and who kept them even as their patrimony. Also,
in the middle of the sanctuary, they showed us three receptacles cut
in the same rock, and in which, they being filled with water, she
bathed, as they said, and when she resumed her garments, she retired
into the inner part of the sanctuary, likewise cut in the same rock,
and there being seated on a high place in the centre, she prophesied."
But after all you do not care to fasten your attention upon any
particular spot, for you feel that the whole place is overshadowed by
the presence of this mysterious being; and rock, and hill, and bush
are invested with an air of solemn majesty, and with the memory of an
ancient sanctity.