{"title":"The Sibylline Books in the Early Roman Empire","authors":"S. Satterfield","doi":"10.1515/jah-2021-0016","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Many scholars have suggested that Augustus and Tiberius were afraid of prodigies and the Sibylline Books. Not only, they claim, did these emperors suppress prodigy reports, they also destroyed parts of the official Sibylline collection. This paper argues that the early emperors were not afraid of state divination. Rather than being a threat to their power, prodigies, expiations, and the Sibylline Books were used to confirm their position and to counter the authority of competing forms of divination.","PeriodicalId":41459,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology","volume":"122 1","pages":"107 - 129"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jah-2021-0016","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"ARCHAEOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract Many scholars have suggested that Augustus and Tiberius were afraid of prodigies and the Sibylline Books. Not only, they claim, did these emperors suppress prodigy reports, they also destroyed parts of the official Sibylline collection. This paper argues that the early emperors were not afraid of state divination. Rather than being a threat to their power, prodigies, expiations, and the Sibylline Books were used to confirm their position and to counter the authority of competing forms of divination.