Project to restore the Sibylline Books

Salvete Quirites!

For most of July, I have been working on connecting with a person who is well known in Hellenistic circles, a British expatriate that, about twenty years ago, moved the modern town of Delphi and has devoted their entire life to Apollo. They have developed quite a reputation on the topic of oracles. After attempting various means of contact, I recently just met with this individual.

They were aware of the Roman Republic, but not of our new plans to restore the sacra publica more thoroughly. I spoke to them on behalf of our Republic community in my capacity as Praetor. After talking to them for nearly two hours, we agreed both agreed that restoration of the Sibylline Books should be attempted. If you do not know about this most critical Roman oracular tradition, then you can read more at this link.

The modern oracle in Greece has agreed to attempt such restoration. My understanding of his methods is that they travel to ancient Delphi daily. There they provide an offering to Apollo and other gods as required. He then meditates at the ancient site on requests made and uses various other techniques to obtain oracular verses. English is his native tongue, and so he writes these verses down in English. But he then translates such verses into Greek. Most of his work has been for Greeks, considering his place of residence, so this is his standard practice.

Here is an example of his work;

Μάταια αυτοί που πιστεύουν ότι είναι μόνο νικητές, Στις κραυγές που ζητούν, αλλά μια σιωπή είναι σαν ένα διαπεραστικό βέλος από τους ουρανούς,
Κανένας άνθρωπος δεν είναι νικητής χωρίς θυσία ή χωρίς να δίνει τίποτα,
Τα χάσματα ανοίγουν στον κόσμο με άδειο φόβο,
Ακόμα και ο Έρυξ έπεσε στην άβυσσο της ήττας, Αποκαλύπτεται στη σιωπή των αθάνατων είναι ένα όραμα των προθέσεων των θεών,
Απαιτείται εξαντρισμός μέσω θυσίας από ό, τι θα κερδίσει, καθώς η δόξα σας είναι μια αξιολύπητη απομίμηση όταν εγκαταλείπεται από τους θεούς!

They have offered to craft three books in this manner. He expects such work to take about one hundred days of daily work. They predict each book to have about five hundred lines of verse. This oracle has been enormously generous and is willing to do this work at cost for two of the books. One book they are eager to do as a gift to the Republic. For the last two books they are only requesting that we cover the cost of about sixty offerings at Delphi that such two additional books will require.

What will be produced will be three books, each with both Greek and English translations. They have promised to have all three books prepared for the new year at the latest.

I think this project is particularly important at this present time. We need to restore these books now. There is a long ancient tradition of these books being restored. The original books were destroyed in 83 BCE and restored by finding well-respected oracles across the land. We need to do the same now. This is our best chance.

We need to restore these books now for a few reasons. We are in a time of plague, and these books were traditionally consulted at such times. We seek to restore the collegium pontificum, and we need specific answers from the gods answered that cannot be easily procured by other means. We also need a means of determining if signs witnessed during our sacra publica are significant.

I have been in contact with a few citizens from the Republic about this topic. Together we have agreed to cover the costs personally. I have just made arrangements to this effect with the oracle. I will present the senate the results of the work done as it is made available. I hope it can be swiftly approved for we can restore the quindecimviri/duumviri sacris faciundis priesthood to tend to these restored Sibylline Books.

I share this all now to solicit your opinions and ideas.