The Cumeaen Sibyl
As painted by Andrea del Castagno
In the 3leaf clover shaped inner sanctum of a cave(Antro della Sibella), a mortal oracle known as the Sibyl of Cumae(a Greek enclave in the Campanian plains of Italy founded around the 8th century BC) lived a thousand years because of a wish bestowed upon her in return for the gift of her virginity to Apollo. She deceitfully refused him though he had already granted her a lifetime as plenty as the grains of sand in her hand. Her grave mistake was that she never asked for that thousand years to be eternally young thus her body over time shriveled away into a small morsel kept in a bottle then eventually disappeared so that in the end, all that was left was her voice. At that point her only wish became to die.
In her active life this prophetess of Apollo would inscribe on oak leaves the names of individuals and their fates. She would arrange them in a puzzle like order about the cave to reveal the prophecies but it was told that if the wind blew them, she would leave them in disarray - All prophecy lost.
The famous story is of the Greek hero, Aeneas with her as guide on a journey into the underworld with the golden bough to visit Aeneas' dead father and learn one day that his progeny would create the great Roman Civilization
Another story is of sad burning of The Sibyline Books so I wont recount it.
She is mentioned by Dante, in Virgil's Aenied and Ovid's Metamorphoses.
