Cumae - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Cumae is an ancient Greek settlement lying to the northwest of Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

in the Italian region of Campania

Campania

Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...

. Cumae was the first Greek colony on the mainland of Italy (Magna Graecia

Magna Graecia

Magna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that were extensively colonized by Greek settlers; particularly the Achaean colonies of Tarentum, Crotone, and Sybaris, but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neapolis to the north...

), and the seat of the Cumaean Sibyl

Cumaean Sibyl

The ageless Cumaean Sibyl was the priestess presiding over the Apollonian oracle at Cumae, a Greek colony located near Naples, Italy.The word sibyl comes from the ancient Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. There were many Sibyls in different locations throughout the ancient world...

. It was the Cumaean alphabet that was adopted in Italy, first by the Etruscans (800 - 100 B.C.E.) and then by the Romans

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

(300 - 100 B.C.E.), thus becoming the Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...

, the world's most widely used phonemic script. The Cumaean alphabet was also used throughout the Greek island of Euboea

Euboea

Euboea is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. The narrow Euripus Strait separates it from Boeotia in mainland Greece. In general outline it is a long and narrow, seahorse-shaped island; it is about long, and varies in breadth from to...

.

Today Cuma - Fusaro is a frazione
Frazione
A frazione , in Italy, is the name given in administrative law to a type of territorial subdivision of a comune; for other administrative divisions, see municipio, circoscrizione, quartiere...

of the comune
Comune
In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...

of Bacoli

Bacoli

Bacoli is a comune in the Province of Naples in the Italian region Campania, located about 15 km west of Naples. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 27,402 and an area of 13.3 km².-History:...

Early history

The settlement, in a location that was already occupied, is believed to have been founded in the 8th century BC by Euboean Greeks, originally from the cities of Eretria

Eretria

Erétria was a polis in Ancient Greece, located on the western coast of the island of Euboea, south of Chalcis, facing the coast of Attica across the narrow Euboean Gulf. Eretria was an important Greek polis in the 6th/5th century BC. However, it lost its importance already in antiquity...

and Chalcis

Chalcis

Chalcis or Chalkida , the chief town of the island of Euboea in Greece, is situated on the strait of the Evripos at its narrowest point. The name is preserved from antiquity and is derived from the Greek χαλκός , though there is no trace of any mines in the area...

in Euboea

Euboea

, who were already established at Pithecusae (modern Ischia

Ischia

Ischia is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about 30 km from the city of Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands. Roughly trapezoidal in shape, it measures around 10 km east to west and 7 km north to south and has...

); they were led by the paired oecists (colonizers) Megasthenes of Chalcis and Hippocles of Cyme

Kymi, Greece

Kymi is a coastal town and a former municipality in the island of Euboea, Greece, named after an ancient Greek place of the same name. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Kymi-Aliveri, of which it is a municipal unit...

.

The Greeks were planted upon the earlier dwellings of indigenous, Iron-Age peoples whom they supplanted; a memory of them was preserved as cave-dwellers named Cimmerians

Cimmerians

The Cimmerians or Kimmerians were ancient equestrian nomads of Indo-European origin.According to the Greek historian Herodotus, of the 5th century BC, the Cimmerians inhabited the region north of the Caucasus and the Black Sea during the 8th and 7th centuries BC, in what is now Ukraine and Russia...

, among whom there was already an oracular tradition. Its name refers to the peninsula of Cyme in Euboea. The colony was also the entry point in the Italian peninsula

Peninsula

A peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....

for the Euboean alphabet, the local variant of the Greek alphabet used by its colonists, a variant of which was adapted by the Romans

Ancient Rome

and became the Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

still used worldwide today.

Cumae was a direct offshoot of an earlier colony on the nearby island of Ischia

Ischia

, Pithecusae, founded by colonists from the Euboean cities of Eretria

Eretria

and of Chalcis

Chalcis

(Χαλκίς), which was accounted its mother-city by agreement among the first settlers.

The colony thrived. By the eighth century it was strong enough to send Perieres and a group with him, who were among the founders of Zancle in Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

, and another band had returned to found Triteia in Achaea, Pausanias was told. It spread its influence throughout the area over the seventh and sixth centuries BC, gaining sway over Puteoli and Misenum and, thereafter, founding Neapolis

Naples

in 470 BC

470 BC

Year 470 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Potitus and Mamercus...

. All these facts were recalled long afterwards; Cumae's first brief contemporary mention in written history is in Thucydides

Thucydides

Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...

.

The growing power of the Cumaean Greeks led many indigenous tribes of the region to organize against them, notably the Dauni and Aurunci

Aurunci

The Aurunci were an Italic population which lived in southern Italy from around the 1st millennium BC. Of Indo-European origin, their language belonged to the Oscan group...

with the leadership of the Capua

Capua

Capua is a city and comune in the province of Caserta, Campania, southern Italy, situated 25 km north of Naples, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain. Ancient Capua was situated where Santa Maria Capua Vetere is now...

n Etruscans. This coalition was defeated by the Cumaeans in 524 BC under the direction of Aristodemus, called Malacus

Aristodemus of Cumae

Aristodemus, born in 550 BC also nicknamed Malakos, meaning voluptuous to touch), was a tyrant of Cumae.As a strategos, he defeated the Etruscan armies in 524 BC and 506 BC in the Battle of Aricia....

, a successful man of the people who overthrew the aristocratic faction, became a tyrant himself, and was assassinated.

Contact between the Romans and the Cumaeans is recorded during the reign of Aristodemus. Livy

Livy

Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

states that immediately prior to the war between Rome and Clusium, the Roman senate

Roman Senate

The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...

sent agents to Cumae to purchase grain in anticipation of a siege of Rome. Also Lucius Tarquinius Superbus

Lucius Tarquinius Superbus

Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was the legendary seventh and final King of Rome, reigning from 535 BC until the popular uprising in 509 BC that led to the establishment of the Roman Republic. He is more commonly known by his cognomen Tarquinius Superbus and was a member of the so-called Etruscan...

, the last legendary King of Rome

King of Rome

The King of Rome was the chief magistrate of the Roman Kingdom. According to legend, the first king of Rome was Romulus, who founded the city in 753 BC upon the Palatine Hill. Seven legendary kings are said to have ruled Rome until 509 BC, when the last king was overthrown. These kings ruled for...

, lived his life in exile with Aristodemus at Cumae after the establishment of the Roman Republic

Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...

.

Also during the reign of Aristodemus, the Cumaean army assisted the Latin

Latin league

The Latin League was a confederation of about 30 villages and tribes in the region of Latium near ancient Rome, organized for mutual defense...

city of Aricia

Aricia

Aricia can refer to:*Aricia, a genus of gossamer-winged butterflies usually included in Aricia *Aricia , historical figure in ancient Britain*Aricia , minor figure in Greek mythology*Aricia, Italy...

to defeat

War between Clusium and Aricia

The war between Clusium and Aricia was a military conflict in central Italy in around 508 BC.Lars Porsena was king of Clusium, at that time reputed to be one of the most powerful cities of Etruria. At the behest of the exiled king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, Porsena had waged war against...

the Etruscan forces of Clusium

Clusium

Clusium was an ancient city in Italy, one of several found at the site. The current municipality of Chiusi partly overlaps this Roman walled city. The Roman city remodeled an earlier Etruscan city, Clevsin, found in the territory of a prehistoric culture, possibly also Etruscan or proto-Etruscan...

.

The combined fleets of Cumae and Syracuse

Syracuse, Italy

Syracuse is a historic city in Sicily, the capital of the province of Syracuse. The city is notable for its rich Greek history, culture, amphitheatres, architecture, and as the birthplace of the preeminent mathematician and engineer Archimedes. This 2,700-year-old city played a key role in...

defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae

Battle of Cumae

The Battle of Cumae was a naval battle in 474 BC between the combined navies of Syracuse and Cumae and the Etruscans.Hiero I of Syracuse allied with Aristodemus, the tyrant of Cumae, to defend against Etruscan expansion into southern Italy. In 474 they met and defeated the Etruscan fleet at Cumae...

in 474 BC

474 BC

Year 474 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Medullinus and Vulso...

Oscan and Roman Cumae

The Greek period at Cumae came to an end in 421 BC, when the Oscans broke down the walls and took the city, ravaging the countryside. Some survivors fled to Neapolis. Cumae came under Roman rule with Capua

Capua

and in 338 was granted partial citizenship, a civitas sine suffragio
Civitas
In the history of Rome, the Latin term civitas , according to Cicero in the time of the late Roman Republic, was the social body of the cives, or citizens, united by law . It is the law that binds them together, giving them responsibilities on the one hand and rights of citizenship on the other...

. In the Second Punic War

Second Punic War

The Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War and The War Against Hannibal, lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the second major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic, with the participation of the Berbers on...

, in spite of temptations, Cumae withstood Hannibal's siege, under the leadership of Tib. Sempronius Gracchus

Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (consul 215 and 213 BC)

Tiberius Sempronius Tib. f. Tib. n. Gracchus was a Roman Republican consul in the Second Punic War. He was son of Tiberius Sempronius Tib. f...

.

Under Roman rule "quiet Cumae" slumbered until the disasters of the Gothic Wars, when it was repeatedly attacked, as the only fortified city in Campania aside from Neapolis: Belisarius

Belisarius

Flavius Belisarius was a general of the Byzantine Empire. He was instrumental to Emperor Justinian's ambitious project of reconquering much of the Mediterranean territory of the former Western Roman Empire, which had been lost less than a century previously....

took it in 536, Totila

Totila

Totila, original name Baduila was King of the Ostrogoths from 541 to 552 AD. A skilled military and political leader, Totila reversed the tide of Gothic War, recovering by 543 almost all the territories in Italy that the Eastern Roman Empire had captured from his Kingdom in 540.A relative of...

held it, and when Narses

Narses

Narses was, with Belisarius, one of the great generals in the service of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I during the "Reconquest" that took place during Justinian's reign....

gained possession of Cumae, he found he had won the whole treasury of the Goths. In 1207, forces from Naples, acting for the boy-King of Sicily, destroyed the city and its walls, as the stronghold of a nest of bandits.

The Sibyl of Cumae

Cumae is perhaps most famous as the seat of the Cumaean Sibyl. Her sanctuary is now open to the public.

In Roman mythology

Roman mythology

Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...

, there is an entrance to the underworld

Hades

Hades , Hadēs, originally , Haidēs or , Aidēs , meaning "the unseen") was the ancient Greek god of the underworld. The genitive , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades". Eventually, the nominative came to designate the abode of the dead.In Greek mythology, Hades...

located at Avernus

Avernus

Avernus was an ancient name for a crater near Cumae , Italy, in the Region of Campania west of Naples. It is approximately in circumference. Within the crater is Lake Avernus .-Role in ancient Roman society:...

, a crater lake near Cumae, and was the route Aeneas

Aeneas

Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...

used to descend to the Underworld.

The Temple of Zeus at Cumae was transformed into a Christian basilica at the end of the fourth century. At Cumae was set a widely influential Christian work of the second century, The Shepherd of Hermas
The Shepherd of Hermas
The Shepherd of Hermas is a Christian literary work of the 1st or 2nd century, considered a valuable book by many Christians, and considered canonical scripture by some of the early Church fathers such as Irenaeus. The Shepherd had great authority in the 2nd and 3rd centuries...

said by its author to have been inspired by way of visions.

The colony was built on a large rise, the seaward side of which was used as a bunker

Bunker

A military bunker is a hardened shelter, often buried partly or fully underground, designed to protect the inhabitants from falling bombs or other attacks...

and gun emplacement by the Germans

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

External links

YouTube video of Cuma from Napoli Underground.
"Cuma" in Around Naples Encyclopedia.
Blog of Cumae.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Early history

Oscan and Roman Cumae

The Sibyl of Cumae

See also

External links