Only one month ago the “Antro della Sibilla” (the Sybil Cave) of the Greek Colony of Cuma in the Burning Fields reopened.
Who was the Sibyl?
The Cumaean Sibyl was the priestess presiding over the oracle of Apollo in the city. The word Sibyl comes from the ancient Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. There were many sibyls in different locations throughout the ancient world but the importance of the Cumaean Sibyl is due to the legends of early Rome and Virgil wrote about her in the Aeneid, so the Cumaean Sibyl became the most famous among the Romans.
The famous cave was identified as the “house of the Sibyl” based on the description by Virgil in the Aeneid: the cave is a trapezoidal passage over 131 m long, running parallel to the side of the hill and cut out of the volcanic stone and leads to an innermost chamber, where the Sibyl was thought to have prophesied.
BOOK A TOUR WITH AN ARCHAEOLOGIST!
Pompeii and Herculaneum tours with an archaeologist 