The Sibyl · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Armenians will dread the ice of the fierce-flowing Araxes,
fearing the wars to come, and the great-hearted Persians too.
Between the Colchians and the mighty Pelasgians
there will be terrible wars and slaughters of men.
And the land of Phrygia and the cities of the Propontis-land,
baring double-edged swords from their sheaths,
will cut one another down through grievous impiety.
And then God will show a great sign to mortal men,
from heaven, as the years come round,
a sickle-star, portent of an evil war to come.
And then the king of the army will not escape violent hands,
but will die, struck down by a hand wielding gleaming iron.
After him, fifty counted, another again will rule,
appearing out of Asia, a dread terror, a close fighter;
and he will make war even against the shining walls of Rome,
against the Colchians, the Heniochi, the milk-drinking Agathyrsi,
by the Euxine sea, by the sandy gulf of Thrace.
And then the king of the army will not escape violent hands,
and even his dead corpse they will tear apart;
and then, the king having perished, desolate will be
man-glorying Rome, and many of her people will perish.
And then again another will rule, out of mighty Egypt,
dread and terrible, and he will destroy the great-hearted Parthians,
the Medes and Germans and the peoples of the Bosporus and the Agathyrsi,
the Britons, the Permanians, and the quiver-bearing Iberians,
the crooked Massagetae and the overweening Persians.
And then a splendid man will look upon all Hellas,
hating it, and Scythia, and windy Caucasus.
And a mighty sign there will be: while this man holds power,
from heaven crowns of light, at noon and at the north,
will rise, appearing like stars, all alike.
And then to his own son he will leave the royal power,
for a new age begins, when in his own allotted fate
the manly king shall go down into the house of Hades.
But when this man's son rules in the land of Rome,
appearing forth as one alone, there will be over all the earth
a great and lovely peace; and the Latins
will cherish him as king, for the honor of his father;
him, eager to go both to the rising and the setting sun,
the Romans will hold back, unwilling though he be, to their homes,
to rule over Rome, because he had become dear to all,
their hearts devoted to that far-famed lord and king.
But brief will be the life that death snatches from him,
accursed death, betrayed in his own allotted fate.
And afterward again other mighty warriors
will cut one another down, stirring up evil strife,
holding no royal palace, but that of tyrants.
And they will bring to pass many evils in all the world,
and most of all upon the Romans, until the third Dionysus,
until helmeted Ares comes forth from Egypt,