Roman cistern whose name recalls the legendary tradition of the sibyls, prophetic figures of classical antiquity often associated with remote or mysterious places. The structure is part of the dense network of water collection and storage works that dotted the promontory, essential in an area with little surface water and, in the surrounding plain, marshy and malarial land until the great reclamation works of the 20th century.
For lovers of antiquities and nature walks, the trail from the “Peretto” to Torre Paola holds some surprises. Crossing the woodland you first come to the ruins of the Grotta dei Banditi; continuing west, past the aqueduct road, you climb to a clearing where the Grotta della Sibilla is found.
In fact it is a water store, a cistern that served a Roman villa above it, of which no traces remain. The cavity is 20 metres long and 2.6 metres wide and occupies the whole platform on which the villa stood. It had limestone walls in opus incertum and a true vault, now much thinned along the walls. Water came in through a cleft in the rock fed by a stream running down the slopes of the mountain.
