Cumae was the first Greek colony on the Italian mainland, founded in the 8th century BC by settlers from the island of Euboea, who chose this rocky promontory above the sea for its natural defenses. The city was enormously influential: the Cumaean alphabet was the ancestor of the Latin alphabet, and with it of essentially all modern European writing systems. By the time the Romans absorbed it, Cumae had been a major city for five centuries.
The archaeological park preserves the acropolis on the cliff top, with the remains of temples to Apollo and Jupiter and extraordinary views over the sea. Below, the famous Cave of the Sibyl — a 131-metre tunnel hewn through volcanic rock with a vaulted, trapezoidal cross-section — runs through the hillside, its walls still perfectly smooth from ancient stonecutters. The tunnel was discovered in 1932 and is one of the most atmospheric ancient monuments in Campania, relatively little visited compared to the more famous sites around Naples.