Greek city of Gergis in Asia Minor
Bronze 12mm (2.3 grams) Struck 400-350 B.C.
Reference: Sear 4098 var.; B.M.C.17.55,2-3 var.
Laureate head of the Sibyl Herophile three-quarter face to left.
Sphinx seated left.

The site of this town is not certainly known, but was probably on the rocky heights of Bali-Dagh, a few miles south of Ilion.

     The Sibyl played an important role in antiquity. The first recorded use of the name Sibyl was in the fifth century BC. Originally Sibyl was the name given to a single prophetic woman. However the name became generic, and Sibyl was used to identify a woman who could  prophesize. The Sibyls were most commonly associated with Apollo, who provided them with divine insight into the future. They were highly revered, and there work was accumulated in a corpus called the Sibyline books. This collection was housed in the Capitoline Temple of Jupiter., where they could only be consulted by the senate. The interest in sibyls throughout the Mediterranean world most likely stemmed from their close connection with Rome and the Sibyline corpus. The Sibyle Herophile was one of the ten Sibyls commonly known. She was a daughter of a nymph and a mortal. Herophile was meant to have been born near Gergis, at Marpessus, and her tomb was in the temple of Apollo at Gergis. Gergis was one of the three cities known to commemorate Sibyls on their coins. Her appearance on cois from Gergis would be a way of paying tribute to Herophile as well as indicating the important location of Gergis in terms of its proximity to the resting place of divine Sibyl. Herophile was said to have predicted the fall of Troy. She gave her prophecies in verse, and she delivered them standing on a stone which she always carried with her.

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The word sibyl probably comes (via Latin) from the Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. The earliest oracular seeresses known as the sibyls of antiquity, "who admittedly are known only through legend"^[1] prophesied at certain holy sites, under the divine influence of a deity, originally— at Delphi and Pessinos— one of the chthonic earth-goddesses. Later in antiquity, sibyls wandered from place to place.

The oldest collection of written Sibylline Books appears to have been made about the time of Solon and Cyrus at Gergis on Mount Ida in the Troad. The sibyl, who was born near there, at Marpessus, and whose tomb was later marked by the temple of Apollo built upon the archaic site, appears on the coins of Gergis, ca 400–350 BCE. (cf. Phlegon, quoted in the 5th century geographical dictionary of Stephanus of Byzantium, under 'Gergis'). Other places claimed to have been her home. The sibylline collection at Gergis was attributed to the Hellespontine Sibyl and was preserved in the temple of Apollo at Gergis. Thence it passed to Erythrae, where it became famous. It was this very collection, it would appear, which found its way to Cumae and from Cumae to Rome. Gergis, a city of Dardania in the Troad, a settlement of the ancient Teucri, and, consequently, a town of very great antiquity (Herodotus iv: 122). Gergis, according to Xenophon, was a place of much strength. It had a temple sacred to Apollo Gergithius, and was said to have given birth to the Sibyl, who is sometimes called Erythraea, from Erythrae, a small place on Mount Ida (Dionysius of Halicarnassus i. 55), and at others Gergithia ('of Gergis').

The Hellespontine Sibyl was the priestess presiding over the Apollonian oracle at Dardania. The Sibyl is sometimes referred to as the Trojan Sibyl.

The word Sibyl comes (via Latin) from the ancient Latin word sibylla, meaning prophetess. There were many Sibyls in the ancient world but this Sibyl is known for her prediction of the Crucifixion, and is usually shown standing beside a Cross.

The Hellespontian Sibyl was born in the village of Marpessus near the small town of Gergitha, during the lifetimes of Solon and Cyrus the Great. Marpessus, according to Heraclides of Pontus, was formerly within the boundaries of the Troad.

The sibylline collection at Gergis was attributed to the Hellespontine Sibyl and was preserved in the temple of Apollo at Gergis. Thence it passed to Erythrae, where it became famous.

Dardania (Greek: Δαρδανία) in Greek mythology is the name of a city^[1] founded on Mount Ida by Dardanus from which also the region and the people took their name. It lay on the Hellespont, and is the source of the strait's modern name, the Dardanelles.

From Dardanus' grandson Tros the people gained the additional name of Trojans and the region gained the additional name Troad. Tros' son Ilus subsequently founded a further city called Ilion (in Latin Ilium) down on the plain, the city now more commonly called Troy, and the kingdom was split between Ilium and Dardania.

Dardania has also been defined as "a district of the Troad, lying along the Hellespont, southwest of Abydos, and adjacent to the territory of Ilium. Its people (Dardani) appear in the Trojan War under Aeneas, in close alliance with the Trojans, with whose name their own is often interchanged, especially by the Roman poets."