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KYMI (Ancient city) CAMPANIA
Kume. A town of Campania, the most ancient of the Greek colonies
in Italy and Sicily. It was founded from Cyme in Aeolis, in conjunction with Chalcis
and Eretria in Euboea. Its foundation is placed in B.C. 1050, but the date must
be regarded as uncertain. It was situated on a steep hill of Mount Gaurus, a little
north of the promontory Misenum. It became in early times a great and flourishing
city; its commerce was extensive; its territory included a great part of the rich
Campanian plain; its population was at least 60,000; and its power is attested
by its colonies in Italy and Sicily--Puteoli, Palaeopolis (afterwards Neapolis),
Zancle (afterwards Messana). But it had powerful enemies to encounter in the Etruscans
and the Italian nations. It was also weakened by internal dissensions, and one
of its citizens, Aristodemus, made himself tyrant of the place. Its power became
so much reduced that it was only saved from the attacks of the Etruscans by the
assistance of Hiero, who annihilated the Etruscan fleet, 474. It maintained its
independence till 417, when it was taken by the Campanians and most of its inhabitants
sold as slaves. From this time Capua became the chief city of Campania; and although
Cumae was subsequently a Roman municipium and a colony, it continued to decline
in importance. At last the Acropolis was the only part of the town that remained,
and this was eventually destroyed by Narses in his wars with the Goths. Cumae
was celebrated as the residence of the earliest Sibyl, and as the place where
Tarquinius Superbus died.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Total results on 8/5/2001:14 for Cuma, 235 for Cumae.
A city in Phlegraean Fields inside Cape Misenum on the Bay of Naples.
This area and its original Oscan inhabitants were known to Mycenaean explorers
of the 12th c. B.C., but the city was actually founded ca. 750 B.C. by colonists
from Chalkis, Eretria, and the island of Pithekusai (Ischia). The site included
a strong acropolis, fertile hinterland, and an attractive harbor, now nonexistent.
From 700 to 500 B.C. it was a prosperous and important disseminator of Greek culture
in the West through the Chalkidian alphabet, Greek cults, and several important
colonies of its own. The earliest historic Cumaean, Anistodemos, repulsed an Etruscan
attack in 524 B.C. and shared a leading role with the Latins and Romans in defeating
the Etruscans again at Aricia ca. 505; in 474 the Cumaean and Syracusan fleets
combined to crush Etruscan power in Campania. But about a half century later Cumae
was conquered by the Samnites and became Oscan until 180 B.C. Samnites were not
maritime-minded and did not really maintain the harbor. However, after Hannibal's
failure to establish outlets to the sea at Neapolis and Puteoli, in 215 B.C. Cumae
was his third--and equally unsuccessful--choice. Already a civitas sine suffragio
(338 B.C.) Cumae was now granted municipal citizenship with Latin as the official
language, and it became a municipium at the end of the Republic. In 37-36 Agrippa
undertook a massive reorganization of the harbor facilities, adapting the lakes
Lucrinus and Avernus on the bay side into Portus Julius for the construction of
a fleet and the training of personnel against Sextus Pompey (battles of Mylae
and Naulochos, 36 B.C.) and, on the Cumaean side, the construction of a whole
new Roman port for the unloading of supplies, and two long tunnels for communication
between the sea and the lakes (see below). After this great ad hoc achievement
Cumae once more silted up into maritime insignificance, though Symmachos sailed
from there to Formia in A.D. 383.
Cumae was most famous for its oracular Sibyl, just as her grotto is
now its most spectacular monument. As shown by an inscribed bronze disk, she was
giving, and declining to elucidate, responses by the middle or the late 7th c.
B.C., originally for a chthonic Hera and only later for Apollo, and her famous
bargaining with Tarquinius Priscus (regn. ca. 616-579) for the Sibylline Books
was about contemporary. Vergil's poetic but surprisingly accurate description
of her antrum (A en. 6.9-155 for the whole incident) is clearly based on autopsy.
Though restored by Augustus, the Sibyl's official cult lapsed within the next
century.
The site of the Sibyl's grotto was discovered in 1932, a trapezoidal
gallery (131.5 x 2.4 m and an average height of 5 m) cut N-S into a solid tufa
ridge below the acropolis, overlooking the sea through six similar trapezoidal
bays, with a total of nine doorways (not all now documented) and, cut back into
the rock on the left (E) side, three ceremonial baths later converted into cisterns;
note the repetition of triads and the Sibyl's relation to Hekate (Trivia). The
splendid archaic Greek stone-cutting is attributable to the 5th c. B.C. and reminiscent
of Mycenaean and Etruscan dromoi. At the extreme (S) end is an arched chamber,
the inmost adyton wherein Aeneas received oral instructions from the frenzied
priestess; a vaulted chamber to the E, perhaps the Sibyl's personal apartment,
and a similar but smaller W chamber, probably for light and ventilation, open
to left and right of the adyton. This last complex, with vertical walls and doorposts
supporting semicircular arches, is a 4th-3d c. addition or alteration to the original
gallery. Under the early Empire the whole floor was lowered 1.5 m to convert the
entire grotto into a cistern; still later, parts were used for Christian inhumation.
The entrance to the Sibyl's grotto was part of an architectural unit
including steps leading up to the Temple of Apollo (see below) and a ramp leading
downward to the entrance of the so-called Cumaean Roman crypt, a long underground
E-W tunnel passing under the acropolis. The operations of Narses against the Goths
(A.D. 560), landslides, and quarrying have destroyed this impressive facade, but
the crypt itself is undoubtedly attributable to Cocceius, the Augustan architect
who also built the very similar crypt of Cocceius under Monte Grillo (see below)
and the crypta Neapolitana tunnel between Puteoli and Neapolis. For 26 m the Cumaean
crypt is barrel-vaulted 5 m high and then opens into an enormous Great Hall or
"vestibule" 23 m high with revetment of tufa blocks and with four niches
for large statues; lighting for these and the whole crypt, of which the remainder
was a normal tunnel, was supplied by vertical or oblique light-shafts down through
the rock. Toward the E end enormous rock-cut storerooms and cisterns open on one
side. Like the Sibyl's grotto, this crypt was eventually used for Christian burials.
Even more impressive is the so-called crypt of Cocceius itself which,
passing for ca. 1 km under Monte Grillo, was wide enough for loaded wagons to
pass and which, after an open interval from the previous crypt, continued the
underground water-level supply route from Cumae to Agrippa's Lake Avernus base.
It was partly barrel-vaulted with neat blocks; the remainder was cut through unadorned
tufa. Like the other crypt it was lighted by vertical and oblique light-wells
of which the deepest is 30 m. As a further tour de force, Cocceius included an
aqueduct along its N side, with its own niches, ventilation shafts, and wells.
But it and the Cumaean crypt were strictly military in purpose and were not properly
maintained thereafter until the Bourbons cleared it for land reclamation purposes.
It can still be traversed despite ruts and water due to bradyseism and deforestation.-
It was undoubtedly Cocceius' masterpiece.
Not all of the crypt of Cocceius and the mountain under which it passes
is strictly Cumaean, but consideration of Cumae cannot ignore Domitian's cut through
the crest of Monte Grillo and his filling the consequent gash with the high narrow
Arco Felice of brick, not an aqueduct but apparently simply a high-level bridge
from one side of the cut to the other.
The precise areas of the Greek, Samnite, and Roman territory of Cumae
varied from time to time and are not entirely clear, but at least the acropolis
was always the obvious center. It was originally part of a crater; much of it
consists of varying qualities of tufa. Easiest access was from the S where the
harbor and principal city lay with appropriate gates, but on the remaining sides
it was impregnable. In Greek times it was fortified with walls of which some fine
stretches remain visible, but in Roman times it was extensively occupied by private
dwellings which have virtually eradicated structures (portico, cistern), but two
temples remain identifiable.
The lower of these, epigraphically identified as the Temple of Apollo,
built upon a still earlier sanctuary, exists only in ground plan (34.6 x 18.3
m). It was oriented N-S; in Augustan times the Cumaean Apollo received a new and
presumably more elaborate E-W temple; in the 6th-7th c. this was converted into
a Christian basilica, once more N-S. The Greek phase of the upper so-called Temple
of Jupiter is E-W but even less recognizable than that of Apollo, though its dimensions
were greater (at least 39.6 x 24.6 m). The Tiberio-Claudian phase is of characteristic
reticulate masonry and is generally recognizable in its unusual plan, which was
adapted to a Christian basilica in the 5th-6th c., one of the earliest such structures
in Campania.
In the lower town were Temples of Jupiter Flazzus (later the Capitolium)
and of Divus Vespasianus used for a committee meeting in A.D. 289, a forum (ca.
120 x 50 m) with long porticos, largely unexplored, and two 2d c. bathing establishments.
At the S end of the city was an amphitheater with a major axis of 90 m, of which
only parts of the outer shell remain above ground. Statius, who often refers to
Cumae, refers to quieta Cyme (Silv. 4.3.65) and Juvenal calls it vacuae (3.2),
but this was doubtless in contrast to Rome and busy Puteoli. Under the late Republic
and early Empire Cumae was a favorite resort of upper-class Romans, vying with
Puteoli and Baiae.
A large and ill-defined necropolis surrounds the city, especially
to the NE where extensive plundering during the 19th c., as well as responsible
excavation during the 20th c., has revealed interments of all periods including
pre-Hellenic; some tombs are painted. A tholos tomb reflecting Mycenaean tradition
and a mass grave of headless skeletons are of especial interest.
Most of the finds from Cumae, including a fine marble copy of Cresilas'
Diomedes, are in the Naples Museum.
H. Comfort, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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