The Forbidden Ancient Roman Scrolls That Shaped History

The Forbidden Ancient Roman Scrolls That Shaped History

From The BrainFood Show by Cloud10

June 4, 2026 · 13 min

About this episode

This episode explores the mysterious Sibylline Books of ancient Rome and their influence on history.

When we think of the most influential books in history, we often think of books that have a wide readership. Something that if not most literate people read, surely, many of the elite did. But it turns out, some of the most influential books in ancient history were only read by, quite literally, a handful of people. You see, Rome had a set of holy books, divinely revealed to a mysterious prophetess, that were kept under lock and key by a college of Roman priests never numbering more than 15 at a time. These books were only read by this select few, and were used by the Roman Senate to help decide all manner of things important to the management of Rome. This is the story of the mysterious Sibylline Books, the books not even the Roman senate were allowed to read. The Sibylline Books were three volumes of Greek hexameter poems, the same meter used in the Greek epics of Homer. We don’t actually know where the Sibylline Books came from other than the Romans' own mythology about them. The story goes that the last of Rome’s seven kings, Tarquinius Superbus who died in 495 BCE, was approached by an old woman with nine books written in Greek that told Rome’s future. She offered these…

Topics covered

  • ancient history
  • Roman culture
  • Sibylline Books
  • influential texts
  • mythology

Keywords

  • Sibylline Books
  • Tarquinius Superbus
  • Roman Senate
  • ancient texts
  • Greek hexameter

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Roman Senate, Roman priests

Books & works: Sibylline Books

Places: Rome

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