Sibylle de Cumes
The sibyl who most concerned the Romans was the Cumaean Sibyl, located near the Greek city of Naples, whom Virgil's Aeneas consults before his descent to the lower world ("Aeneid" book VI: 10). Burkert notes (1985, p. 117) that the conquest of Cumae by the Oscans in the 5th century destroyed the tradition, but provides a "terminus ante quem" for a Cumaean sibyl. She is said to have sold the original Sibylline books to Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome. In Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, the Cumaean sibyl foretells the coming of a savior—possibly a flattering reference to the poet's patron, Augustus. Christians later identified this saviour as Jesus.