If we disregard the representation of the monument as a huge and suitably marvelous basilica, we see that this account offers the same substance as Procopius.  The accounts of Ioannes Lydus and Agathias adhere to the same pattern but have an especially close relationship to each other.

{{{} h{ de\ Ku/mh po/lij e{stin  }Italikh/, h^j plhsi/on a!ntron e}sti sunhrefe\j kai\ glafurw/taton, e}n +^ diaitwme/nh h{ Sibu/lla au$th tou\j crhsmou\j e}di/dou toi~j punqanome/noij.  (Lydus)

        e}n t+~ pro\j h$lion a}ni/sconta tou~ lo/fou tetramme/n+ a}gkw~ni a!ntron ti u$pestin a}mfhrefe/j te kai\ glafurw/taton, w{j a!duta/ te e!cein au}to/mata kai\ ku/toj eu}ru\ kai\ baraqrw~dej; e}ntau~qa dh\ pa/lai fasi\ th\n Sibu/llan th\n pa/nu th\n  }Italh\n e}ndiaitwme/nhn foibo/lhpton te ei#nai kai\ e!nqoun kai\ proagoreu/ein ta\ e}so/mena toi~j punqanome/noij.

(Agathias)

        In addition to presenting the topics common to all four descriptions in the same pattern, these two accounts show parallel syntax and verbal correspondences: the variant deverbative adjective compounds sunhrefe/j / a}mhrefe/j, the recurrent glafurw/taton, the similar syntactic markers e{n +^ and e}ntau~qa, the echoing participial phrases diaitwme/nh h{ Sibu/lla and th\n Sibu/llan... e}ndiaitwme/nhn, the repeated toi~j punqanome/noij.  Agathias’s account is clearly an expanded version of Lydus’s. The most plausible way to account for the structure common to the four descriptions is to posit that they all derive from a common source.

       Parallels also link the two separate groups of descriptions.  On the one hand, pseudo-Justin’s characterization of the cave as panto\j qau/matoj a!xion connects his account to the paradoxographic source of Lycophron and pseudo-Aristotle.  On the other, the same features recur in the various descriptions of each group. Lycophron’s verses incorporate all the elements,

           Zwsthri/ou te klitu/n, e!nqa parqe/nou

           stugno\n Sibu/llhj e}stin oi}khth/rion,

           grw/n+ bere/qr+, sugkathrefe/j.  (1278-1280)

…the hill of Zosterios [i.e., Apollo] (7) where is

the gloomy dwelling of the maiden Sibyl,

vaulted over by the hollow cavern that is its roof.

        First, the Sibyl’s cave is her home, oi}khth/rion.  In three of the remaining five descriptions we see this odd combination of prophetic chamber and dwelling place repeated: pseudo-Aristotle calls the cave the qa/lamoj of the Sibyl, and she lives here (diaitwme/nh, e}ndiaitwme/nhn ) in Ioannes Lydus and Agathias. The cave is, moreover, an enclosed space.  Lycophron’s sugkathrefe/j, “roofed over, vaulted,” the only recorded instance of the word, is an expanded form of kathrefe/j , a variant of the e}re/fw-compound adjectives which is appropriate to poetic diction. (8)   Lydus uses the variant appropriate to prose, sunhrefe/j.  Agathias, on the other hand, not uncharacteristically chooses a}mfhrefe/j, a variant which appears elsewhere only as a hapax in Homer.  The cave is subterranean, in the mountain of Zosterius according to Lycophron.  It is also below the mountain in Agathias (a!ntron ti u$pesti ).  This element in their two descriptions is consistent with pseudo-Aristotle’s designation of the Sibyl’s chamber as kata/geioj.  Next, the cave is hollow in Lycophron (grw/n+), pseudo-Justin (e}xesme/nhn li/qou), Lydus and Agathias (glafurw/taton, in both).  Agathias offers more about this feature of the cave when he states that it is of such a type as to have a broad and cavernous vault or dome over it, w}j ...e!cein ku/toj eu}ru\ kai\ baraqrw~dej.  Agathias’s baraqrw~dej strikingly reminds the reader of Lycophron’s bere/qr+. In both descriptions the word refers to enclosed spaces. This is an exclusively poetic and epic usage and contrasts with the usual sense of baraqro/n as a chasm or open pit into which someone or something may fall.  The fact that not only the word, but also the poetic usage recurs in Agathias is suggestive: there is more than a casual relation between Agathias's and Lycophron’s account. (9)

          Thematic, syntactic and lexical parallels all point to the conclusion that the six descriptions of the Sibyl’s oracular chamber share a common ancestry.  As we have seen, Lycophron and pseudo-Aristotle rely on a written authority, either Lycus or Timaeus, that is ultimately based on the local guide tradition at Cumae.  The other four accounts must be treated as a separate grroup because they have been shaped by a distinct pattern, absent from pseudo-Aristotle and Lycophron, which determines the sequence in which the elements of their descriptions are presented.  Patterned in this way, they must have a source different from Lycus or Timaeus.  There are other reasons as well why Lycus or Timaeus cannot be the source for pseudo-Justin and the Byzantine writers.  First, on general principle writers of this date are more likely to have used compendia than to have read primary material.  Second, the source of these four descriptions has to postdate the publication of the Aeneid.  Agathias notes that according to the tradition Aeneas consulted the Cumaean Sibyl in her oracular cave. Since Aeneas’s visit to Cumae and consultation of the Sibyl is a Vergilian innovation, (10)  the source for Agathias and the other members of his group can have been composed only after the appearance of the Aeneid.  To account for the connections between Lycophron’s and pseudo-Aristotle’s accounts, on the one hand, and those of the other four writers, on the other, we have to assume a source for the four later descriptions that was based on the local Cumaean tradition that found its way into the early paradoxographic literature while it also incorporated innovations in the form and content of the description. A source of that kind, it goes without saying, could very well have drawn on Lycus or Timaeus for the part of its account that dealt with the description of the cave (as opposed to association of the cave with Aeneas).  It does not seem possible to speculate beyond this point.

         This analysis of the extant literary descriptions of the Sibyl’s cave demonstrates that there was a continuous and unitary local tradition that found a place in the literature from the fourth century B.C.E. in the works of  Lycus and/or Timaeus and that endured into the post-Vergilian period in the source which pseudo-Justin and subsequently the Byzantine writers used.  There is additional evidence from Agathias, however, which, in conjunction with evidence from pseudo-Justin, indicates that the local guide tradition continued well beyond into the sixth cenury.

         First, pseudo-Justin.  Of the six extant descriptions of the Sibyl's cave only this one offers any architectonic detail.  The text states that in the middle of the rock-cut "basilica" identified as the site of prophecy there were three receptacles carved out of the stone.  Before an oracular consultation the Sibyl bathed in these and then proceeded to the innermost chamber of the "basilica" where she sat on a throne on a high platform and prophesied.  It is clear that this is a description of the gallery which Prof. Maiuri uncovered in May, 1932, the so-called "grotta della Sibilla" at the acropolis of Cumae.  Since pseudo-Justin's description is one of six that derive in one way or another from a common source, then all six refer to the same place, i.e., Prof. Maiuri's "grotta della Sibilla."  The importance of the evidence of pseudo-Justin is to establish that in the tourist guide tradition Maiuri's grotta was shown as the site of Sibylline prophecy at Cumae.

         The evidence of Agathias is important because it provides a complement to pseudo-Justin: he explicitly locates the Sibyl's cave at the point of the acropolis where Maiuri's grotta is found.  Agathias's localization of the cave is embedded in his account of the siege of the acropolis of Cumae by the Byzantine general Narses in 552 C.E. during the Gothic war.  While Agathias is himself an ignoramus when it comes to Italian geography (for example, he places Cumae in Etruria) (11), his account is characterized nevertheless by the accuracy of its details about the topography of Cumae.  Agathias correctly places the acropolis on the shore of the Tyrrhenian Sea and accurately sketches its natural configuration and its fortifications (1.8.2-3).  When Narses moves his army forward to the assault of the acropolis, he uses the only practicable access, the sloping ground that rises from the south to meet the acropolis gate, (1.9.1). (12)  The account makes it clear that the Sibyl’s cave is located at the southeast corner of the acropolis under the gate and its adjoining walls.  The words used to designate the eastern angle of the acropolis, pro\j h$lion a}ni/sconta tou~ lo/fou tetramme/n+ a}gkw~ni , can in themselves be misleading and suggest a location on the east flank of the acropolis, but the context establishes that Agathias is referring to the southeast corner of the acropolis, the orientation of which corner is westward toward the sea.  At first Agathias notes merely that the cave lies under a part of the fortification (1.10.3).  Only as the story unfolds does it become clear that the acropolis gate rests upon the cave. Narses decides to undermine the fortifications by carving away the roof of the underlying cavern.  The successful execution of this plan brings about the collapse not only of the wall with its towers and battlements, but also of the acropolis gate (1.10.7).  Agathias quite rightly has the debris of the fortifications fall not only into the hollow cavern below, but also down the west slope of the acropolis to be lapped by the waves on the shore.  There can be no doubt that Agathias locates the Sibyl’s cave at the point where Maiuri's grotta is found .

          Agathias’s description of the cave, which is as vague as all the other extant descriptions apart from pseudo-Justin's, derives from a literary source. But his topographically detailed and accurate account of Narses’ seige of Cumae in 552 undoubtedly depends on an oral and presumably local source with accurate knowledge of the topography of the Cumaean acropolis and the location of the cave which was shown as the site of the Sibyl's prophecy. (13)  The tourist guide tradition about the cave of the Sibyl, of which Agathias was the beneficiary, had continued therefore into the sixth century and it remained consistent with the written accounts. The existence  of such a tourist guide tradition is a remarkable testimony to the strength and depth of Greek cultural patterns in the Phlegraean Fields.  It is one among a number of indices of the Greek character which the western part of the Bay of Naples retained throughout antiquity.  For example, in his comments on Lake Avernus Strabo (5.4.5) mentions the local tourist guide tradition that associated the area with Odysseus and his consultation of the souls of the dead on Odyssey 11, and he implies the continuation of that tradition into his own day.  Naples maintained its Hellenic identity in its social institutions and its nomenclaure.  The Greekness of the place, its exoticism, must be taken as a factor that helped attract tourists and, in particular, Roman tourists to Naples and the Phlegraean Fields.  From the earliest period of the Roman presence there the area was perceived as a land of otium, (14), that is, release from the obligations and rules of behavior governing everyday life.  Greek otium was regularly associated with voluptas and commisatio, on the one hand, and, more respectably,  with the pleasures of philosophy and literature, on the other. (15)  Roman cultural attitudes toward things Greek then help to explain why the Bay of Naples assumed so important a role in the cultural history of the late republic and the empire and why Baiae in particular figures as the epicenter of voluptous self-indulgence in its bathing establishements and its pleasure villas.  New rules, Greek rules of behavior, apply in the new exotic setting.

Notes