PART
2 – Ch.XII.12
(The
principal prehistoric divinities of
XII.
12. Deciana and Caloian. Cybele and Attis.
Sibylla Erythrea or Dacica.
Dochia or Dochiana
also appears in the traditions of the Romanian people as the sad Mother, who
looks everywhere for her beloved son, called “Caloian” (Scaloian, Calian), who had lost his way in some woods,
and, unable to return, had died there.
Romanians have even
today an important religious custom from the cult of the Great Mother.
When there is a big draught in spring, the Romanian
girls make a big doll from yellow clay, in the shape of a man, which they adorn
with ribbons, with colored pieces of fabric and with flowers, and they put on
its head a piece of an eggshell as a cap. In other places it is dressed in folk
costume, with leather peasant sandals and fur cap (Noua Revista Romana, 1900,
II. p.94). This doll, they say, represents young
Caloian; and on Tuesday, in the third week after Easter, the girls place
this clay figure in a coffin, one girl represents the priest, another the
deacon, wail, cry, some of them even with tears, invoking it in their
lamentations with the words: “Caloiane,
body of Deciana”, meaning child of Deciana,
or “Scaloiene Scaloian, body of Dician” (Noua Revista Romana, 1900, II, p.95; Marian, Sarbatorile, II. p.302), or “Caloiene, Ian, body of Dician”.
These young vestals
take then and bury the doll (or dolls) in a place near water, and after the
burial they give alms. The third day after this ceremony, the girls go again to
the grave of Caloian, exhume it, lament again over it, place it in a reed
coffin, light candles and make it float on the Danube or some other water or
river. In some places only girls take part in this procession. In others,
groups of boys and girls, from the different partitions (tribes) of the
village.
In other localities
two dolls are made, one of masculine
sex, the other feminine, representing the “Father
of the Sun” and the “Mother of rain”.
Both are called Scaloieni. And in
the village Seimenii-mari from
The feminine doll
is called in lamentations “Scaloiana
Iana, body of Deciana”, or “Caloiana Iana, head of tutuiana”. (Varro tells us - VII. 44 - that Tutulati were called in
After this ceremony
also finishes, there is a big feast, new alms, called “the alms of Caloian”, the young people pay local musicians, and
after the feast and alms they make a big “hora” (TN – dance in a circle) and
dance until night.
According to the
folk traditions, this was the day when the small child Caloian died.
It is usually
celebrated on the third Thursday after Easter. In that day, called “Caloian” or “Scaloian”, nobody works. The origin of this religious belief and
custom from the
With the Romans,
this festivity had the name of Caianus
(C. I. L. I. p.390). It began at 28 March (INITIUM
CAIANI) and ended at the Ides of May, when the Vestals, in the presence of
the priests and magistrates, threw in the Tiber from Sublicius Pons 24 dolls or
reed simulacra which they called Argaei,
meaning clay figures (Festus, p.17; Varro, L.L.VII.48; Ovid, Fast. III. 791, V. 625).
The populations of
Pelasgian origin of
While at north of
the Lower Danube Caloian was the
pampered son of “Deciana”, or the
Great Mother, he appears in Phrygian legends as a young shepherd extraordinarily
handsome, called Attis, whose love
was sought by the Great Mother, called by them Cybele.
This Attis was,
according to the legends of
Attis, the son of
Calaus of the Phrygians, is identical with young Caloian from the religious
legends and customs of the Romanian people, and the name Nana of his mother appears in Romanian carols as Nina Dochiana. As Attis is the son of
Calaus in the neo-Phrygian legends, similarly the Great Mother or Cybele
appears in Greek inscriptions with the epithet of Koilana, meaning Caloiana (Goehler, p.69 - C. I. G. 3886, D. 270).
The tradition is the
same. The difference is only that, while the Romanian legend has preserved its
primitive character, moral-religious, in the traditions of Asia Minor,
influenced by the Greek erotic spirit, young Attis, the son of Calaus, appears
as the favorite of Cybele or the Great Mother. And similarly, there existed in
Diodorus Siculus writes regarding this (III. 59.7): “In
This is an
important document for the origin of the cult of Cybele or the Great Mother in
Or, in other words,
the cult of Cybele was imported on the
Finally, there
still existed in Greco-Roman antiquity another tradition, which placed the
country of Cybele at the Hyperboreans, at north of the
According to this
tradition, the origin of which goes back also to the Pelasgian populations of
Asia Minor, Apollo, fired with love for beautiful Cybele, had wandered with her
from Nysa to the Hyperboreans (Diodorus Siculus, III. 59.6).
But which was the
origin of the name Cybele, has
remained a historical enigma to this day.
Strabo tells us in his Geography (XII. 5. 3), that
the Mother of gods was so called after the mountain Cybele from
But the origin of
this name was completely different (Daremberg,
Dictionnaire des antiquites,
Even from the most
remote times Gaea, or the Mother of
gods, considered as a benevolent goddess, was worshiped too as a prophetic divinity (Hesiod, Theog. v. 463; Cicero, Divin. I. 36. 79; Eschyl, Eum. 2, calls Gaea the first prophetess).
Under the shade of
the groves and under the cover of the rocks, the priests and priestesses of the
Great Mother practiced in those extremely religious times, the art of
divination and the primitive medical sciences (Heim, Incantamenta magica. Lipsiae, 1892, p.504).
In folk Romanian
incantations, the Mother of gods appears even today under the name of “Maica
Domnului” (TN – Mother of God), as the guardian of life and health, who brings
help and solace to the sick.
The name Cybele, by its form and also by its
meaning, is identical with the term Sibyl,
an archaic Pelasgian word, which means prophetess
(this also resulting from the epithet of the great Mother of Sipilena).
This word has been
preserved to this day as an obscure topographical name in some mountainous
regions of the Carpathians, an old memory of the sanctuaries of the Mother of
gods, where once her oracles were consulted.
In the northern
parts of
The name Sibylla, as Suidas also declares, is Latin. But in fact it is proto-Latin.
In prehistoric
antiquity, when the art of divination had such an important role in public and
private life, there were a number of famous Sibyls and they were known to
classical times by the names of the various lands where they had originated.
But none of these prophetic women originated in Greek lands. The Sibyls were
inspired by a deep mystical religious feeling, and this character was lacking
to the Greek spirit. According to what Pausanias
tells us (lib. X. 12. 1), the first Sibyls were at
Here the Sibyl called Erythrea (
As Suidas tells us, she was born in the
village Marmissos, near the town
Gergittion (Gergitha), on the territory which had been once under Trojan rule.
Sybilla Erythrea,
according to what Pausanias writes
(lib. X. 12. 2), was also mentioned in some hymns in Apollo’s honor. In some of
these hymns she is called the sister, wife or daughter of Apollo, meaning the
priestess of Apollo, the great god of the Pelasgian light.
And in another hymn
she tells us about her origin in the following verses:
(TN – I give here
only the Latin translation by Dindorfius,
of Pausanias’ s Greek text):
Inter utrumque
sequor medium divasque hominesque,
Nympha immortali
sata, cetophago genitore.
Ida meae matri patria est, mihi patria rubra
Marpessus, matri
quae sacra, amnisque Aidoneus.
The Sibyls, who
pronounced their oracles in moments of divine inspiration or ecstasy, never
wrote their pronouncements, and never remembered them afterwards. They were
noted down by certain writers from the colleges of priests of the respective
sanctuaries.
The fragment from
the hymn of Sibylla Erythrea, presented by Pausanias, is evidently, from the
point of view of the confused meaning of its first verses, only a simple Greek
translation from the ancient Pelasgian language. The prehistoric Sibyls from
This fragment
presents a particular historical interest regarding the country and nationality
of Sibylla Erythrea.
Various authors of
antiquity have considered Sibylla Erythrea as originated from the Ida mountain near Troy. But we can’t find a single authentic document in the entire
geographical literature of ancient times, to confirm that the villages
Erythrae, Marmessos and the river Aidoneus had existed on the territory of
ancient Ilion.
The country of this
glorious Sibyl was a completely different one.
The entire chain of
the Carpathians was once, as we saw, a holy domain of the great Pelasgian
divinities. We find especially in the region of the Carpathians between
Transylvania and Hungary, in the mountains rich in gold of the Arimaspes and
Agathyrses, the traces of a material prosperity and a moral civilization very
advanced for the ante-historical times.
Here is the country
of Sibylla Erythrea, according to all the geographical data transmitted to us
by the authors of antiquity.
North of the town Halmagiu, which constitutes the central
point of Zarand district, there
exists even today the village called Marmesci
(Marmissos with Suidas, Mermessos with Stephanos
Byzanthinos, Marpessos with Pausanias). In close proximity with
this village begins a fine mountain range called Mama, or Moma (Mater
iera with Pausanias), which stretches along the river Crisul
Negru (TN – the Black Cris),.
In the same region,
on the right bank of Crisul Negru, there exists, enclosed among hills and
mountains, a significant Romanian village called Rosia (TN – today Rosia Montana), and on the eastern side of this
village, the river Iad (TN – Hell), Aidoneus of Pausanias, flows northwards and into the river Crisul Repede (TN –
the Fast Cris) [1].
[1. The river Iad springs from the mountain The Peak of the Glade, and is used
for the transportation of the log rafts when its waters are big. The Greek form
‘Aidoneus
derives from ‘Aides, the lower world, iad.
Aidoneus was also an epithet of
Pluto].
We have therefore
in Pausanias’ fragment, four principal geographic data regarding the country of
Sibylla Erythrea, and all these are on the territory of the northern
Pelasgians, in the lands once renowned for their gold mines, and where three
important rivers are even today called Cris
(Chriseios).
The origin of
Sibylla Erythrea in the northern lands of Istru is also confirmed by another
important series of geographical data.
Fortunately Suidas, in his historic-literary
lexicon, had extracted from various authors of antiquity a few precious notes
about the historical individuality and the country of this illustrious Sibyl.
As he tells us,
this genial woman, who occupied such a significant place in the history of the
ancient world, was born on the territory of the Rosieni, called Batti,
where later a town was founded, called Erythrae
(Rosia, TN – the Red one).
This note is very
important. Even today a hill, which is immediately near this village, bears the
name of “Botiascu”, and two other
heights on the upper part of the river Iad,
bear the name of Botea and Bodea (Specialkarte, f. 18, XXVII;
Petra Boghi, 19. XXVII).
The country of Sibylla Erythrea ( Rosiana )
Suidas also tells us that Sibylla Erythrea was
also called by some Sardana, Gergithia, Libussa, Leucana, Samia, Rhodia and Sicelana,
names given after lands and localities from the same region where we have also
the names Marmesci, Mama, Rosia, Iad and Boti.
Sardana corresponds to Zarandana, after the name of Zarand
district, in which is Marmesci village; Gergithia
corresponds to Gurguiata, a hilltop
on the south-western part of the village Reieni; Libyssa comes from the village Lapusa,
Leucana from the valley Leuca, between the Curcubeta and Zanoga
mountains, Samia from the villages Soim or Soimus; Rhodia from the
gold mines of Zarand, called Ruda, Sicelana from the locality Sicula [2].
[2. The old Sibyl of Mermessos (Marmesci) was also known in the Pelasgian lands
of Asia Minor under the names of Lampousa,
Sarbis and Taraxandra (Suidas).
There is a surprising similarity between the name of Sarbis and the name of the village Sarbesci, situated in the proximity of Moma mountain. Another village situated south-east of Marmesci is
called Sarb].
Still in this
region, eastward from the sources of the river Iad, on a coast of Britea mountain, there is the woody
place called Sivla (Buteanu, Stana de vale, 1887, p.61) a
name which we don’t find in any other place, and which evidently corresponds to
the Greco-Latin form of Sibylla or Sibulla.
This whole region,
in which we find grouped together all the geographical data of antiquity
related to the country of Sibylla Erythrea, had once important commercial and
religious ties with the southern lands.
Sibylla Rosiana or Erythrea had received
various geographical names, after the various places where she had spent a
longer time of her long and unsettled life of inspired woman.
When Suidas tells us with some precaution,
that the village Marmiss-os and Gertittion are within the limits of the
territory over which the Trojans had once ruled, this data refers in fact to
the time of the great Trojan empire, about which Herodotus also writes (lib. VIII. 20) that the Trojans, crossing
once the Bosphorus to Europe, had subjected all the Thracians, spreading their
rule to the Ionic Sea.
So, what we have
now to also examine, is the data referring to the genealogy of Sibylla
Erythrea.
According to what
the Greek translation, communicated by Pausanias,
tells us, the father of Sibylla Erythrea was chetophagos, meaning an
eater of chiti, marine monsters.
The primitive
meaning of these words was incontestably altered. This mistake alone can
definitely prove to us that the Hymn of Sibylla Erythrea had been translated
from a proto-Latin rustic language, by an ignorant writer.
The original text
expresses certainly a completely different idea, meaning, that the father of
the Sibyl was a man who ate bread, “pane”, “chita” in the peasant dialect of the Romanians of Transylvania and
Hungary. The Sibyl indicated by these words that he was a farmer, as in
antiquity the two large social classes were the farmers and the shepherds.
Suidas, another Greek author who seemingly had in
front of him the same archaic text of the hymn, calls the Sybil’s father Aristo-crates (a big eater). These are
the same words, but with a different interpretation.
And as others tell,
continues Suidas, the father of
Sibylla Erythrea was called Crinagoras.
Here we have again
a topical personal name. A high mountain near the river Iad bears even today
the name of Cernagura (Specialkarte,
f. 18. XXVII).
Pausanias calls the mother of Sibylla Erythrea, Idogenes, and Suidas calls her Hydale
and Hydole. It is the same word in
different Greek forms. On the western side of the village Rosia, on the beautiful valley of Holod, there is the village called today Hodis (Hoghis), while a significant hill near Rosia is called “Dampu Hodisanului” (Ibid. 18. XXVI.
XXVII). When the fragment communicated by Pausanias tells us that the mother of
Sibylla Erythrea was Idogena, it is
certain that we have here a corrupt form of Hodisiana, or Hodigena.
The geographical
origin of Sibylla Erythrea is wholly established.
On the basis of
these geographical and genealogical data, as well as on the basis of the great
ethnic and religious movement started from north to south in those Pelasgian
times, we can state here as an absolute historical truth, that Sibylla
Erythrea, the most glorious of those who bore the name of Sibyl, was born in
the village Rosia, spent some time
in the village Marmesci, near the Moma or Mama mountain (where a renowned sanctuary of the Great Mother probably existed), and in the
hamlets on the valley of Iad,
localities situated in the districts Zarand
- Bihor.
She was the
daughter of a farmer, and her mother was Hodisiana
of origin.
We return now to the
Greek fragment from the hymn of the Sibyl, which we can translate as such:
I was born among
men and goddesses,
I am an immortal
woman, my father ate bread (was a farmer),
After my mother I
am Hodisiana, and my country is Rosia,
Marmesci, the sacred place of the Mother (great), and the river Iad.
These verses also
contain another entirely characteristic particularity.
Here Sibylla calls
herself, with all her religious certainty, an “immortal woman”. This was not a simple personal conviction of the
Sibyl. She expresses here one of the fundamental principles of the Pelasgian
religion from the Lower Danube.
The Getae were those who, as Herodotus tells us (lib. IV. 93),
considered themselves immortal.
To Sibylla Erythrea
was attributed in antiquity a famous collection of predictions, known in the
whole of Greece, whose primitive redaction was going back to ante-Homeric
times.
Apart from oracles,
as Suidas tells us, she also wrote
about palpitations and different songs.
And the same author
tells us in another place, basing his information on various biographical
sources, that Sibylla Erythrea wrote in heroic
verses three books about Divination, and those she took to Rome at the time
of the consuls, or according to what others say, at the times of Tarquinius, hoping
that she will receive much for them. But when she saw that she was despised,
she burned two of the books brought with her, and only one was left, which the
Romans bought at a high price. And Dionysius
of Halicarnasus adds (lib. IV. 62) that king Tarquinius, astonished by the
resolution of this woman, consulted the augurs about the remaining books
(according to him Sibylla had brought to Rome nine books, out of which she had
burnt six). The augurs, examining the rest of the books, declared to Tarquinius
that they had reached the conclusion, from certain signs, that those books had
been sent by divinity, and that it was very unfortunate that all the books had
not been bought. They advised Tarquinius to pay the whole price to the woman.
Then this woman, after giving them the remaining books, told them to keep them
with great care, after which she left and was never seen again [3].
[3. In what language these books were written, no author tells us. The fact
that the Romans had instituted a special college of priests for their
conservation and consultation, denotes that special knowledge was required for
their interpretation (Livy, lib. X. 8; Plaut, Pseud. I. 1. 23)].
These books of the
Sibyl, as results also from traditions, and from the respect shown always for
them by the Romans, were characterized by a great religiosity. They conformed
to the traditional principles of the old Pelasgian theology, and they had an
immense influence on the state life of the Roman people [4].
[4. According to what Pliny writes (XIII. 27), the third book
of the Sibyl, bought by king Tarquinius Superbus, had burnt together with the
Capitolium, in the times of Sulla. After this disaster, the Romans searched in
every part of the empire for the country
of Sibylla Erythrea, hoping to find another copy of her oracles. But their
search was without result.
The later sibylline books were only
simple compilations from various oracles, in large part not authentic, written
in Greek. They did not represent the old Pelasgian doctrines any more; Tacitus (Ann. VI. 12)].
Sibylla Erythrea was therefore considered identical with
the Sibyl called Cumana (Marc. Cap. II. 8. 7). But all the
historical sources confirm the fact that the Sibyl who brought to Rome the
Pelasgians’ books of the divine revelation, was not from Italy (Livy,
lib. I. 7).
In ancient
traditions, Sibylla Erythrea was also called Amalthea and Albunea.
Both these names have an evident geographical character. They refer to the
country, or in other words to the lands from where this legendary Sibyl came.
Amalthea (Plato,
Phaed. P.315; Stephanus, Thesaurus
I.gr; Lactantius, De falsa
religione, c. 6) is only a simple Greek ethnic form of the name of the town Halmagiu, the central point of the
district of Zarand, near which was the village Marmesci. Amalthea Marpesia, as she is called by Tibullis (Eleg.II. 5. 67-68), referred therefore to Sibylla
Erythrea from Marmesci, near Halmagiu.
A second name under
which Sibylla Erythrea was known in the Rome countryside, was Albunea (Lactantius, De falsa religione c. 6; Virgil, Aen. VII. v. 34) [5].
[5. The various geographical names
attributed to the same Sibyl, had as a consequence the fact that the later
Greek and Roman authors have arbitrarily multiplied their number. This happened
especially to Sibylla Erythrea, who was called Phrygiana, or from Ida, Cumana, Libyca, Delphica, Sicula, Amalthea,
Marpesia, Albunea, etc].
But on the
territory of Italy no locality, town or village ever existed, to which we could
reduce with certainty the origin of this name. Sibylla known to Roman history
was only a pilgrim in Italy.
The name Albunea, given to this holy woman, who
had come to Italy from other lands, derives incontestably from the locality
rich in gold mines of Dacia, called in Roman epoch Alburnus major, part of which was the village Rosia of today, vicus
Pirustarum in Roman official language [6].
[6. Some wanted to derive the name Albunea from Aquae Albulae on the plain of Latium,
but the sanctuary dedicated to Sibylla Albunea was located in the highest mountains of Tiber (Pauly-Wissowa, R. R, Aquae Albulae)].
So, in Italy too,
there had been confusion about the country of Sibylla Erythrea or Rosiana.
Some historical
sources call her Amalthea Marpesia,
meaning from Marmescii from Halmagiu, as she herself says in the
fragment communicated by Pausanias.
And in other traditions she is called Albunea
(Alburnea), meaning from Alburnus or Rosia near Abrud.
The name of this noble
and astute Sibyl shone in prehistoric times not only at Delphi and in Latium,
but also in the Pelasgian lands of ancient Germany.
Tacitus tells us (Germania, c.8) that in Germany,
in a remote time (olim), a prophetess called Aurinia was venerated as a divinity. Wackernagel rectifies it to Albruna
(Pauly-Wissowa, R. E. Albruna). Aurinia or Albruna (= Alburna) is one and the same holy Sibyl from the lands
rich in gold of Dacia, who was venerated as a divinity also at Tiber, under the
name of Albunea [7].
[7. We find a memory about this
renowned “old mother” (TN–maica =
mother = nun) and her teachings, in the following folk verses, communicated
directly from the lands of Cris:
“Don’t work on Sunday,
Friday and Wednesday, Holy moon shall beat you;
Let’s search for the old mother, with incense in hand, with white book underarm;
She is a little nun, who kept praying from the
book, for the sins of man”.
The simulacrum discovered in the bed
of the river Anio, represented, as Lactantius
writes, Sibylla Albunea with a book
in her hand. It is important to stress that in the verses above, one of the
attributes of the “old nun” is also
a “white book underarm”].
Finally, there was
another old Roman tradition about Sibylla Erythrea.
Eneas, leaving Troy
in order to find another country in the great Pelasgian world, consulted, after
the religious custom of those times, the Pelasgian oracle of Dodona, and also
Sibylla Erythrea, asking in what part of the world should he, and the emigrated
Trojans, settle. Sibylla Erythrea was the one who advised them to go to the
western countries (Dionysius of
Halicarnasus, lib. I. c. 55).
And according to
other tradition, Eneas, leaving Troy, came firstly to Thrace, to a “barbarian”
people called Crusaei (Ibid, lib. I.
c. 47, 49), or Cruseni (in Romanic
form). These received him with hospitality. Eneas stayed with them for a whole
winter, after which he left towards Italy.
So, in these
traditions about the westward migration of the Trojans, we meet with a curious
coincidence: Sibylla Erythrea was originated in the lands of the Crisuri (TN – rivers), while the name
of a people from barbarian Thrace, very hospitable, was that of Cruseni.
This Sibyl from
Rosia appears in the history of those remote times as a traveling prophetess,
in the service of the Great Mother (Ovid,
Fast. IV. v. 239-240) and the powerful Pelasgian god (her books were very
carefully preserved in the Capitolium, in a stone box, deposited in an
underground vault, under the temple of Jupiter optimus maximus).
Inspired by a great
religious fervor, she traveled from country to country, changed her abode from
one sanctuary to another, placing her talent, art, and spiritual visions, in
the service of the priests from the respective oracles. She was a pilgrim at Delphi,
Delos and Dodona, a pilgrim on the shores of Asia Minor and Latium, admired and
respected everywhere for her wisdom, her universal knowledge and her holy life.
Pliny, talking about this Sibyl (H.
N. VII. 33), says that there was something divine
in her, and that she had a sort of holy communion with the heavenly powers (Lactantius, De ira Dei, cap.22).
Sibyla Erythrea had
not been the only one to represent the northern oracles in southern lands.
A whole group of
northern prophets were known in antiquity, like the Hyperborean shepherds, who founded the oracle of Delphi (Pausanias,
lib. X. 5. 7), like Abaris the
Hyperborean, who wrote a whole book of oracles known under the name of “Scythicae” (Suidas, ‘Abaris), and also
like the anonymous founders of Apollo’s oracle of Delos. Finally, Latona (Leto) and Ilithyia, worshipped as divinities, and the virgins Arge and Opis, celebrated in the religious songs of the Delians and Ionians
(Herodotus, lib. IV. 35), belong to
the same category of holy women gone south from Hyperborean lands.
Sibylla Erythrea,
by her biographical data, as well as by her severe religious principles not
influenced by the Greek spirit, was an illustrious representative of the wisdom
and religion of the Hyperboreans, or Pelasgians from north of the Istru.
“The people of
Ellada call me a woman from “another
country” says she in her oracles [8].
[8. In various Romanian manuscripts
from the 17th and 18th centuries, which are also only
simple copies or translations from other older manuscripts, this Sibyl is
mentioned under the name of “Savila”.
She is the wisest woman of the
ancient world. For her generosity, nobility, and spiritual qualities, she
becomes queen (Lactantius calls her
also the most distinguished and noble of all the Sibyls).
But she appears especially rich in gold and precious stones. She travels even to Palestine, and, convinced in the superiority of her spirit, she
tests the wisdom of king Solomon.
According to one of these
manuscripts her country is tera “Ugorescu”, meaning Unguresca (TN – Hungarian country). So, in a manuscript from 1760
it is said about this Sibyl that: “she was from
the end of the earth, where is the precious gold called sufir”, that “Savila was so wise, that other
kings from the ends of the earth sent for her advice…that she gave to the
church of Sion many precious
objects, and clothes, and gold and precious stones, and that she went back
to her country with great honor” (Gaster,
Literatura, p.326; Chrestomatie, II. p.71-72).
The country of Sibylla is
characterized in this manuscript as very rich in precious metals and stones. In
this regard are important the words of Ammianus
(XXII, 8), Herodotus (IV. 104) and Fridvalszky (Mineralogia M. Principatus
Transilvaniae, p.174), about the diamonds of the Agathyrses of Transylvania.
In Hebrew traditions this divine
“Savila” is called “the queen of Saba” (Cart. Reg. I. 10).
In a Romanian manuscript Bible from the 17th century,
this Sibyl is also talked about.
We reproduce from this manuscript
the extract published by Gaster (Romanian
folk literature. p.338): “She becomes queen. One night, her boyars from tera Ugorescu see nine suns rising in the sky, each
having a different shape and light. Savila
explains this dream, saying that those nine suns meant nine peoples which shall
rule the world”.
The old Sibylline books of the
Romans, as results from Titus Livy, contained explanations and
predictions for extraordinary events, for omens, cases of pestilence, violent
changes in atmosphere, hard winters, draught, lightning, thunder, earthquakes,
etc (lib. III.10; IV.21; V.13; VII.6.27; XXI.62; XXIV.10.44; XXV.7; XXVI.23;
XXVII.4; XXXVI.37).
The lightning and thunder were
especially considered as a manifestation of divine will, according to old
Pelasgian ideas. Even from the most remote times, there existed with the
Pelasgian populations a very developed doctrine about lightning and thunder,
doctrine based on a long observation of phenomena and events. The whole system
of this science, regarding future events, was presented in some sacred books
called libri fulgurales or tonitruales, which the Romans had
borrowed from the northern Pelasgians or Turseni (Etruscans).
Such books, in manuscript and print,
have existed with the Romanian people until the last centuries under the name
of books for earthquakes and Gromovnice,
or books for thunder. They are written in the same style as the sibylline
books, based on astronomical principles. Exactly like the ancient books of the
Romans (borrowed from the Etruscans, as it is told), the Romanian books
distinguish between the day and night lightning.
The origin of these books goes back
to a very remote epoch. They hail from the times of ante-Christian religion,
when divination was incorporated in the public cult.
We will quote here some examples
from these Romanian books regarding lightning and earthquakes. According to Sbornicul of the Romanian Academy of
1799: “The sign of Leo: if thunder
in Leo’s number, death among men and spoilt wheat…and on the western side (TN – side = lature) grief among men…and if
thunder or lightning at noon, much
rain and famine…; the valleys and
streams will fill with water…at Ram
will be fine and the crop of the earth will be on that side…and if earthquake, many kings will be
troubled, and the boyars will die in wars…and it will be great fear on the western side. And crops will be all over the
earth and in that place where the earth will shake, winter will be hard; and a
great man will arise, very powerful…and if lightening
or thunder at night…the springs and the streams will dry out”.
We have to note here that Ram mentioned in this fragment is not
presented as the illustrious capital of a great empire from west to east (TN –
Rome in Romanian folk speech), but only as a somewhat more important national
city from the western regions, while lature
(TN – side) seems to infer here Latium.
Under the rule of pious Numa, according to what the ancient
Annals of the Roman pontiffs said, terrible lightning happened, which had
terrified Rome’s people, so that the king was constrained by the instructions
given him by his wife Egeria, to ask the divinity how could he avoid the
certain disasters announced by this omen.
Ovid (Fast.
III. 285 seqq), who used for the description of the Roman Feasts the ancient
religious books of the pontiffs, their astronomical calendars and treatises,
describes this omen in words which show a big similarity with the text of the
Romanian Gromovnic: “much rain”, “the valleys and streams will fill with
water”, “great fear in the western side”.
Therefore the primitive concept of
the Romanian (Greek and Slav) books about thunder, lightning and earthquakes,
goes back incontestably to some very remote times. We have to mention here too,
that the so-called Libri Etrusci (Etruscan
Books), were of Hyperborean origin.
The dominant characteristic of the
Hyperboreans was to know the future. They were the holy people of the ancient
world, all the gods attended their funeral feasts, they had founded the first
oracles in Hellada,