Apollo

Apollo, otherwise known as Phoebus, is the Greco-Roman god of prophecy, medicine, plague, and poetry. Certain cults and traditions also venerate him as the god of the sun.

Apollo is revered as the patron god of the Gentes Usonii.

Sibylline Books

During the reign of the seventh King of Rome, Tarquin the Proud (r. 534–509 BCE), a prophetess of the cult of Apollo, known as the Cumaean Sibyl, approached the king with a series of scrolls, claiming they contained divinely sourced information about the future. Tarquin initially rejected the scrolls, dissuaded by the exorbitant price the Oracle demanded. After burning several of the scrolls and demanding an even larger sum each time, Tarquin relented and paid the increased price for the remaining scrolls. These texts, known as the Sibylline Books, were kept under intense protection by the Romans and routinely consulted whenever tragedy struck.

Despite this, in 405 CE, a military commander of the Western Roman Empire named Flavius Stilicho order the destruction of the Sibylline Books, as their contents were being used to slander his political and military influence.