Extract

Prophecies, texts purporting to be the work of inspired sages, had an important role in Graeco-Roman thought. Collections of prophecies, which are attested as early as the 6th cent. bce (Hdt. 7. 6), might be attributed to a divine or semi-divine character such as *Orpheus, *Bacis, or a *Sibyl; they could be presented as accounts of moments where an individual was seized by a prophetic fit, or collections of significant oracles that either emanated, or were claimed to have emanated, from major oracular shrines. The priests of *Delphi are said to have assembled such a collection for *Croesus in the 6th cent. (Hdt. 1. 91), *Porphyry assembled a collection of such texts in the 3rd cent. ce to offer explanations of cult practices, and Christians took over portions of these collections to illustrate intimations of Christian truth in pagan texts.The purveyors of such texts, usually called chresmologoi in Greek and by a number of different titles in Latin (including vates, prophetes, and hariolus), ordinarily did not claim inspiration for themselves, and it is impossible to know what role they played in the actual composition of such works.