The Virgin announced by the Cumaean Sibyl

At the time of the Virgin, the sense of expectation felt by the Romans might have come from the great oracle reported by Virgil in the 4th Eclogue of his "Bucolics":

“The last era of the Cumaean prophecy has now arrived: The great cycle of periods is born anew. Now returns the Maid, returns the reign of Saturn: Now a new generation comes down from high heaven. Yet do thou at that boy's birth, in whom the iron age shall cease, and the golden age arise over all the world.”

The Virgin Mary, in whom the Son of God would descend, certainly did not know this oracle, but Jesus, who was born during the reign of Emperor Augustus, did indeed transform the iron of oppression into the love that the gold symbolizes.

Vittorio Messori

In Hypothèses sur Jésus, (Hypothesis on Jesus) Mame, 1978, p.90