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CumaeCumae (Cuma, in Italian) is an ancient Greek settlement lying to the northwest of Naples in the Italian region of Campania. The settlement is believed to have been founded in the 8th century BCE by Greeks from the city of Chalkis in Euboea upon the earlier dwellings of indigenous, Iron-Age peoples who they supplanted. Eusebius placed Cumae's Greek foundation at 1050 BCE though. Its name comes from the Greek word Kym, meaning wave - perhaps in reference to the wavelike shape of the peninsula. Cumae was the first Greek colony on the mainland of Italy, there having been earlier starts on the islands of Ischia and Sicily by colonists from the Euboean cities of Chalcis (Χαλκίς) and possibly Eretria(Ερέτρια) or Cuma (Kύμη). Cumae is perhaps most famous as the seat of the Cumaean Sibyl. Her sanctuary is now open to the public. The colony was also the entry point onto the Italian peninsula for the Cumean alphabet, a variant of which was adapted by the Romans. The Cumaen colony spread thoughout the area over the 6th and 7th centuries BCE, gaining sway over Puteoli and Miseno and, thereafter, the founding of Neapolis in 470 BCE. The growing power of the Cumaen Greeks, lead many indigenous tribes of the region, notably the Dauni and Auraunci with the leadership of the Capuan Etruscans. This coalition was defeated by the Cumaens in 524 BCE under the direction of Aristodemus. The combined fleets of Cumae and Syracuse defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae in 474 BCE. Tarquin II, the last King of Rome, lived his life in exile at Cumae after the establishment of the Roman Republic. Cumae was also a place where a widely influential early Christian work The Shepherd of Hermas was said 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 and gun implacement by the Germans during World War II. There is also a small, modern Greek Euboean city called Cuma (Kύμη) as well as an as yet little excavated ancient Greek city of Cuma, the source point for the Cumae alphabet.
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