in pagan antiquity, certain women said to have been endowed with a prophetic spirit, and to have delivered oracles foretelling the fates and revolutions of kingdoms, &c.

The most eminent of the ten sibyls mentioned by ancient writers, was she whom the Romans called the Cumæan or Erythrean sibyl, from her being born at Erythræ in Ionia, and removing from thence to Cumæ in Italy, where she delivered all her oracles from a cave dug out of the main rock; according to Virgil, En. III. 441, &c.

There is still preserved, in eight books of Greek verses, a collection of verses pretended to have been delivered by the sibyls; but the generality of critics look upon it as spurious: and it is the opinion of Prideaux, that the story of the three books of the sibyls, sold to Tarquin, was a state-trick or fetch of politics.