The Sibyl · a new plain-English translation from the original language
and he held Kronos in chains, and Rhea his consort,
and hid her in the earth and kept her bound in fetters.
and then, unwilling, the offspring of mighty Kronos learned of it,
and they roused against him a great war and tumult.
and this became the beginning of war for all mortals.
[for this was the first beginning of war for mortals].
and then God delivered evil into the hands of the Titans.
and all the generations of the Titans and of Kronos
died. but afterward, as time rolled on,
the kingdom of Egypt arose, and then that of the Persians,
the Medes, the Ethiopians, and Assyrian Babylon,
then the Macedonians, then Egypt again, then Rome.
and then the utterance of the great God stood
in my breast, and bade me prophesy over all
the earth, and set before kings the things that are to be.
and this God first put into my mind,
how many kingdoms of men shall arise.
for the house of Solomon shall rule first of all,
then the Phoenicians, masters of Asia and of other
islands, and the race of Pamphylians and Persians and Phrygians,
the Carians and Mysians, and the race of the gold-rich Lydians.
then after them the Greeks, insolent and unholy;
another great and manifold nation of Macedon shall rule,
who shall bring a fearsome cloud of war upon mortals.
but the heavenly God shall utterly destroy them from the depths.
and then there shall be the beginning of another kingdom,
white and many-headed, from the western sea,
which shall rule over much land, and shake many peoples,
and shall bring fear afterward upon all kings,
and shall carry off much gold and silver besides
out of many cities; and once more upon the holy ground there will be
gold, and then silver too, and ornament.
and they shall oppress mortals. and great shall be the fall
of those men, when they begin their unjust arrogance.
and at once among them there shall be a compulsion to godlessness,
and man shall lie with man, and they shall set up boys
in shameful brothels, and in those days there shall be
great oppression among men, and it shall throw everything into turmoil,
and it shall cut down everything and fill everything with evils
through shameful love of money and ill-gotten wealth,
in many lands, but most of all in Macedonia.
hatred shall arise, and every deceit shall be theirs.
[until the seventh kingdom, over which shall reign
a king of Egypt who shall be of the race of the Greeks.]
and then the nation of the great God shall again be strong,
who shall be guides of life for all mortals.
yet why has the Deity laid this further charge upon my thought, to speak,
what evil shall be first, what next, and what last of all
upon all mankind, and what shall stand as the opening of these things?
first God shall deliver evil into the hands of the Titans.