Sibylline Books
The nine books of prophetic verses the Cumaean Sibyl offered to the Roman king Tarquin, of which she burned six when he refused her price and sold the last three for the full amount of the original nine; Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus record the story. The surviving books, written originally on palm leaves, were kept in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitol and were consulted only by the state, through the priestly board of the quindecimviri, at moments of grave public danger, plague, or portent, when their verses prescribed the sacrifices and rites that might turn aside th