Latins (Italic tribe)
The Latins, sometimes known as the Latians, were an Italic tribe which included the early inhabitants of the city of Rome. From about 1000 BC, the Latins inhabited the small region known to the Romans as Old Latium, that is, the area between the river Tiber and the promontory of Mount Circeo 100 kilometres SE of Rome; the Latins were an Indo-European people who migrated into the Italian Peninsula during the late Bronze Age. Their language, belonged to the Italic branch of Indo-European, their material culture, known as the Latial culture, was a distinctive subset of the Proto-Villanovan culture that appeared in parts of the Italian peninsula in the first half of the 12th century BC. The Latins maintained close culturo-religious relations until they were definitively united politically under Rome in 338 BC, for centuries beyond; these included religious sanctuaries. The rise of Rome as by far the most populous and powerful Latin state from c. 600 BC led to volatile relations with the other Latin states, which numbered about 14 in 500 BC.
In the period of the Tarquin monarchy, it appears that Rome acquired political hegemony over the other states. After the fall of the Roman monarchy in c. 500 BC, there appears to have been a century of military alliance between Rome and the other Latins to confront the threat posed to all Latium by raiding by the surrounding Italic mountain-tribes the Volsci and Aequi. This system progressively broke down after c. 390 BC, when Rome's aggressive expansionism led to conflict with other Latin states, both individually and collectively. In 341–338 BC, the Latin states jointly fought the Latin War against Rome in a final attempt to preserve their independence; the war resulted in 338 BC in a decisive Roman victory. The other Latin states were either permanently subjugated to Rome, it has been suggested that the name Latium derives from the Latin word latus, referring, by extension, to the plains of the region. If this is true Latini meant "men of the plain"; the Latins belonged to a group of Indo-European tribes, conventionally known as the Italic tribes, that populated central and southern Italy during the Italian Iron Age.
The most accepted theory suggests that Latins and other proto-Italic tribes first entered Italy in the late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture part of the central European Urnfield culture system. In particular various authors, like Marija Gimbutas, had noted important similarities between proto-Villanova, the South-German Urnfield culture of Bavaria-Upper Austria and Middle-Danube Urnfield culture. According to David W. Anthony proto-Latins originated in today's eastern Hungary, kurganized around 3100 BC by the Yamna culture, while Kristian Kristiansen associated the proto-Villanovans with the Velatice-Baierdorf culture of Moravia and Austria; this is further confirmed by the fact that the subsequent Villanovan culture of Central Italy, which introduced iron-working to the Italian peninsula, was so related to the Central European Urnfield culture, Hallstatt culture, that it is not possible to tell them apart in their earlier stages. Furthermore, the contemporary Canegrate culture of Northern Italy represented a typical western example of the western Hallstatt culture, whose diffusion most took place in a Celtic-speaking context.
Several authors have suggested that the Beaker culture of Central and Western Europe, was a candidate for an early Indo-European culture, more for an ancestral European branch of Indo-European dialects, termed "North-west Indo-European", ancestral to Celtic, Italic and Balto-Slavic. All these groups were descended from Proto-Indo-European speakers from Yamna-culture, whose migrations in Central Europe split off Pre-Italic, Pre-Celtic and Pre-Germanic from Proto-Indo-European. Leaving archaeology aside, the geographical distribution of the ancient languages of the peninsula may plausibly be explained by the immigration of successive waves of peoples with different languages, according to Cornell. On this model, it appears that the "West Italic" group were the first wave and displaced by, the East Italic group; this is deduced from the marginal locations of the surviving West Italic niches. Besides Latin, putative members of the West Italic group are Faliscan, Venetic and Sicel, spoken in central Sicily.
The West Italic languages were thus spoken in limited and isolated areas, whereas the "East Italic" group comprised the Oscan and Umbrian dialects spoken over much of central and southern Italy. However, the chronology of Indo-European immigration remains elusive, as does the relative chronology between the Italic IE languages and the non-IE languages of the peninsula, notably the Etruscan. Most scholars consider that Etruscan is a pre-IE survival, part of a Mediterranean linguistic substratum; some authors believe that, before the spread of the Gaulish language in the plain of the river Po from c. 400 BC onwards and central Italy were dominated by non-IE languages: Etruscan, which shared some similarities with the Raetic, the non-IE Ligurian and the language of the undeciphered Novilara inscriptions from the region around Ancona on the Adriatic coast. However, Etruscan could have been introduced by migrants; the ancient Greek historian Herodotus preserves the tradition that the Tyrrhenoi originated in Lydia in Anatolia.
Possible support for an eastern
Capitoline Hill
The Capitolium or Capitoline Hill, between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the Seven Hills of Rome. The hill was earlier known as Mons Saturnius, dedicated to the god Saturn; the word Capitolium first meant the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus built here, afterwards it was used for the whole hill, thus Mons Capitolinus. Ancient sources refer the name to caput and the tale was that, when laying the foundations for the temple, the head of a man was found, some sources saying it was the head of some Tolus or Olus; the Capitolium was regarded by the Romans as indestructible, was adopted as a symbol of eternity. By the 16th century, Capitolinus had become Capitolino in Italian, Capitolium Campidoglio; the Capitoline Hill contains few ancient ground-level ruins, as they are entirely covered up by Medieval and Renaissance palaces that surround a piazza, a significant urban plan designed by Michelangelo. Influenced by Roman architecture and Roman republican times, the word Capitolium still lives in the English word capitol.
The Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C. is assumed to be named after the Capitoline Hill, but the relation is not clear. At this hill, the Sabines, creeping to the Citadel, were let in by the Roman maiden Tarpeia. For this treachery, Tarpeia was the first to be punished by being flung from a steep cliff overlooking the Roman Forum; this cliff was named the Tarpeian Rock after the Vestal Virgin, became a frequent execution site. The Sabines, who immigrated to Rome following the Rape of the Sabine Women, settled on the Capitoline; the Vulcanal, an 8th-century BC sacred precinct, occupied much of the eastern lower slopes of the Capitoline, at the head of what would become the Roman Forum. The summit was the site of a temple for the Capitoline Triad, started by Rome's fifth king, Tarquinius Priscus, completed by the seventh and last king, Tarquinius Superbus, it was considered one of the most beautiful temples in the city. The city legend starts with the recovery of a human skull when foundation trenches were being dug for the Temple of Jupiter at Tarquin's order.
Recent excavations on the Capitoline uncovered an early cemetery under the Temple of Jupiter. There are several important temples built on Capitoline hill: the temple of Juno Moneta, the temple of Virtus, the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus Capitolinus; the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus Capitolinus is the most important of the temples. It was nearly as large as the Parthenon; the hill and the temple of Jupiter became the symbols of the capital of the world. The Temple of Saturn was built at the foot of Capitoline Hill in the western end of the Forum Romanum; when the Senones Gauls raided Rome in 390 BC, after the battle of River Allia, the Capitoline Hill was the one section of the city to evade capture by the barbarians, due to its being fortified by the Roman defenders. According to legend Marcus Manlius Capitolinus was alerted to the Gallic attack by the sacred geese of Juno; when Julius Caesar suffered an accident during his triumph indicating the wrath of Jupiter for his actions in the Civil Wars, he approached the hill and Jupiter's temple on his knees as a way of averting the unlucky omen.
Vespasian's brother and nephew were besieged in the temple during the Year of Four Emperors. The Tabularium, located underground beneath the piazza and hilltop, occupies a building of the same name built in the 1st century BC to hold Roman records of state; the Tabularium looks out from the rear onto the Roman Forum. The main attraction of the Tabularium, besides the structure itself, is the Temple of Veiovis. During the lengthy period of ancient Rome, the Capitoline Hill was the geographical and ceremonial center. However, by the Renaissance, the former center was an untidy conglomeration of dilapidated buildings and the site of executions of criminals; the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli is adjacent to the square, located near where the ancient arx, or citadel, atop the hill it once stood. At its base are the remains of a Roman insula, with more than four storeys visible from the street. In the Middle Ages, the hill’s sacred function was obscured by its other role as the center of the civic government of Rome, revived as a commune in the 11th century.
The city's government was now to be under papal control, but the Capitoline was the scene of movements of urban resistance, such as the dramatic scenes of Cola di Rienzo's revived republic. In 1144, a revolt by the citizens against the authority of the Pope and nobles led to a senator taking up his official residence on the Capitoline Hill; the senator’s new palace turned its back on the ancient forum, beginning the change in orientation on the hill that Michelangelo would accentuate. A small piazza was laid out in front of the senator’s palace, intended for communal purposes. In the middle of the 14th century, the guilds’ court of justice was constructed on the southern end of the piazza; this would house the Conservatori in the 15th century. As a result, the piazza was surrounded by buildings by the 16th century; the existing design of the Piazza del Campidoglio and the surrounding palazzi was created by Renaissance artist and architect Michelangelo Buonarroti in 1536–1546. At the height of his fame, he w
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus. His literary style was Atticistic — imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime. Dionysius' opinion of the necessity of a promotion of paideia within education, from true knowledge of Classical sources, endured for centuries in a form integral to the identity of the Greek elite, he was a Halicarnassian. At some time he moved to Rome after the termination of the civil wars, spent twenty-two years studying Latin and literature and preparing materials for his history. During this period, he gave lessons in rhetoric, enjoyed the society of many distinguished men; the date of his death is unknown. In the 19th century, it was supposed that he was the ancestor of Aelius Dionysius of Halicarnassus, his major work, entitled Ῥωμαϊκὴ Ἀρχαιολογία, embraced the history of Rome from the mythical period to the beginning of the First Punic War. It was divided into twenty books, of which the first nine remain entire, the tenth and eleventh are nearly complete, the remaining books exist in fragments in the excerpts of the Roman emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus and an epitome discovered by Angelo Mai in a Milan manuscript.
The first three books of Appian, Plutarch's Life of Camillus and Life of Coriolanus embody much of Dionysius. His chief object was to reconcile the Greeks to the rule of Rome, by dilating upon the good qualities of their conquerors and by arguing, using more ancient sources, that the Romans were genuine descendants of the older Greeks. According to him, history is philosophy teaching by examples, this idea he has carried out from the point of view of a Greek rhetorician, but he consulted the best authorities, his work and that of Livy are the only connected and detailed extant accounts of early Roman history. Dionysius was the author of several rhetorical treatises, in which he shows that he has studied the best Attic models: The Art of Rhetoric, rather a collection of essays on the theory of rhetoric and not all his work; the last two treatises are supplemented by letters to Gn. Pompeius and Ammaeus. Dionysian imitatio is the literary method of imitation as formulated by Dionysius, who conceived it as the rhetorical practice of emulating, adapting and enriching a source text by an earlier author.
Dionysius' concept marked a significant departure from the concept of mimesis formulated by Aristotle in the 4th century BC, only concerned with "imitation of nature" and not "imitation of other authors." Latin orators and rhetoricians adopted Dionysius' method of imitatio and discarded Aristotle's mimesis. Dionysius is one of the primary sources for the accounts of the Roman foundation myth and the myth of Romulus and Remus, he was relied upon for the publications of Livy and Plutarch. He writes extensively on the myth; the myth spans the first 2 volumes of his Roman Antiquities, beginning with Book I chapter 73 and concluding in Book II chapter 56. Dionysius claims, her family descends from Aeneas of Troy and the daughter of King Latinus of the Original Latin tribes. Procas, her grandfather had willed the throne to his son Numitor but he was deposed by her uncle, Amulius. For fear of the threat that Numitor's heirs might pose, the king had Ilia's brother, Aegestus killed and blamed robbers; the truth about the crime was known by some, including Numitor.
Amulius appointed Ilia to the Vestal priestesshood, where her vow of chastity would prevent her from producing any further male rivals. Despite this, she became pregnant a few years claiming to have been raped; the different accounts of the twins' conception are laid out, but Dionysius declines to choose one over the others. The sources variously relate that it was a suitor, Amulius himself, or the god Mars himself; the latter is supposed to have comforted Ilia by making her grieve, telling her that she would bear twins whose bravery and triumphs would be unmatched. Ilia hid her pregnancy with claims of illness so as to avoid her vestal duties. Amulius suspected her and employed physicians and his wife to monitor her for signs of being with child; when he did discover the truth, she was placed under armed guard. After being informed of the delivery of the twins, Amulius suspected that she had in fact given birth to triplets; the third child had been concealed from the guards present. Ilia kept secretly in a hidden dungeon for the rest of her life.
Citing Fabius, Porcius Cato, Piso, Dionysius recounts the most common t
Via Latina
The Via Latina was a Roman road of Italy, running southeast from Rome for about 200 kilometers. It led from the Porta Latina in the Aurelian walls of Rome to the pass of Mount Algidus, it must have preceded the Via Appia as a route to Campania, in as much as the Latin colony at Cales was founded in 334 BC and must have been accessible from Rome by road, whereas the Via Appia was made only twenty-two years later. It follows, too, a far more natural line of communication, without the engineering difficulties that the arrow-straight Via Appia had to overcome; as a through-route, it preceded the Via Labicana, though the latter may have been preferred in times. After their junction, the Via Latina continued to follow the valley of the Trerus, following a line taken by the modern railway to Naples, passing below the Hernican hill-towns, Ferentino and others. At Fregellae, it crossed the Liri, passed through Aquino and Cassino, both comparatively low-lying towns, it entered the interval between the Apennines and the volcanic group of Rocca Monfina, the original road and, instead of traversing it, turned abruptly northeast over the mountains to Venafro, thus giving a direct communication with the interior of Samnium by roads to Isernia and Telese.
After the disorders of the civil wars, the via Latina was repaired by a group of prominent Romans, including Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus. In times, there was in all probability a shortcut by Rufrae along the line taken by the modern highroad and railway; the two lines rejoined near the present railway station of Caianiello, the road ran to Teanum and Cales, so to Casilinum, where there was the crossing of the Volturno and the junction with the Via Appia. The distance from Rome to Casilinum was 129 Roman miles by the Via Appia, 135 Roman miles by the old Via Latina through Venafrum, 126 Roman miles by the shortcut past Rufrae. Considerable remains of the road exist in the neighborhood of Rome; the Tombs of Via Latina are tombs over a short stretch of the road just outside Rome. Above ground they are reconstructed, but the underground chambers survived, they are now in an "archaeological park". They are not to be confused with the small Christian Via Latina Catacomb, only rediscovered in 1955, with many paintings.
It is unknown whether the catacombs were built if it was built in stages. The catacombs consist of many separate rooms all connected by a series of corridors. To organize the excavation, each room was given a letter to symbolize where it was located and what art work was depicted inside; the excavation of the catacombs took place in four stages starting with the stairways and finishing with the 3 corridors and their adjoining rooms. The Catacombs of Via Latina compared to other Roman catacombs, were discovered; the artwork within the catacombs is from the Medieval period. The art in the tomb is dated back to the 4th century; these particular catacombs in Rome, Italy depict images of Christian artwork. It is unknown whether this tomb belonged to a fraternity; the art fills every room in the catacombs. The catacombs were excavated in 1955 and published in 1962; each room inside the catacombs has a different subject depicted on the walls. Christian stories from the Old Testament and the New Testament fill the vast majority of rooms.
Pagan art the hero Hercules, are included within specific rooms to, one of the reasons why the Via Latina catacombs are special. Every room is denoted with a letter to help with organization of the different rooms and artworks. Room N is decorated of paintings of the pagan hero Hercules The paintings show Hercules as a hero or savior. There is said to be a focus on the after-life and life after death in Room N. For many of the other rooms, the subject matter is Christian art, depicting images of both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Notable art scenes depicted are the Flood Scene, Abraham's vision of the Three Angels under the Oak of Mamre, Crossing of the Red Sea, the Ascension of Elijah and the Good Shepherd; the photo on the right, the Resurrection of Lazarus, is one of the many religious stories told on the walls of the catacombs. Viewers can see the figure assumed to be Jesus raising a man from the dead as his disciples watch with intent. Viewers may notice Moses in the background receiving a message from above.
The style of the art work is similar throughout every room in the catacombs, meaning that all of the artworks were produced by one person or a group of people who used the same style and technique. Valle Latina Catacombs of Rome Early Christian art and architecture Berg, Beverly. 1994. "Alcestis and Hercules in the Catacomb of Via Latina." Vigiliae Christianae: A Review of Early Christian Life and Language 48, no.3: 219–34. Dulaey, Martine. 2011. "Imagery and the Fathers of the Church: About the Cubiculum F in the Via Latina Catacomb." Antiquité Tardive 19: 47–62. Ferrua, Antonio. 1991. The Unknown Catacomb: A Unique Discovery of Early Christian Art. New Lanark, Scotland: Geddes & Grosset. Snyder, H. Gregory. 2011. A Second-Century Christian Inscription from the Via Latina." Journal of Early Christian Studies 19, no. 2: 157–95. Tronzo, William. 1986. The Via Latina Catacomb: Imitation and Discontinuity in Fourth-Century Roman Painting. University Park: Pennsylvania S
Roman triumph
The Roman triumph was a civil ceremony and religious rite of ancient Rome, held to publicly celebrate and sanctify the success of a military commander who had led Roman forces to victory in the service of the state or and traditionally, one who had completed a foreign war. On the day of his triumph, the general wore a crown of laurel and the all-purple, gold-embroidered triumphal toga picta, regalia that identified him as near-divine or near-kingly, was known to paint his face red, he rode in a four-horse chariot through the streets of Rome in unarmed procession with his army and the spoils of his war. At Jupiter's temple on the Capitoline Hill, he offered sacrifice and the tokens of his victory to the god Jupiter. Republican morality required that, despite these extraordinary honours, the general conduct himself with dignified humility, as a mortal citizen who triumphed on behalf of Rome's Senate and gods; the triumph offered extraordinary opportunities for self-publicity, besides its religious and military dimensions.
Most Roman festivals were calendar fixtures, while the tradition and law which reserved a triumph to extraordinary victory ensured that its celebration, attendant feasting, public games promoted the general's status and achievement. By the Late Republican era, triumphs were drawn out and extravagant, motivated by increasing competition among the military-political adventurers who ran Rome's nascent empire, in some cases prolonged by several days of public games and entertainments. From the Principate onwards, the triumph reflected the Imperial order and the pre-eminence of the Imperial family; the triumph was consciously imitated by medieval and states in the royal entry and other ceremonial events. In Republican Rome exceptional military achievement merited the highest possible honours, which connected the vir triumphalis to Rome's mythical and semi-mythical past. In effect, the general was close to being "king for a day", close to divinity, he wore the regalia traditionally associated both with the ancient Roman monarchy and with the statue of Jupiter Capitolinus: the purple and gold "toga picta", laurel crown, red boots and, again the red-painted face of Rome's supreme deity.
He was drawn in procession through the city in a four-horse chariot, under the gaze of his peers and an applauding crowd, to the temple of Capitoline Jupiter. The spoils and captives of his victory led the way. Once at the Capitoline temple, he sacrificed two white oxen to Jupiter and laid tokens of his victory at Jupiter's feet, dedicating his victory to the Roman Senate and gods. Triumphs were tied to season, or religious festival of the Roman calendar. Most seem to have been celebrated at the earliest practicable opportunity on days that were deemed auspicious for the occasion. Tradition required; the ceremony was thus, in some sense, shared by the whole community of Roman gods, but overlaps were inevitable with specific festivals and anniversaries. Some may have been coincidental. For example, March 1, the festival and dies natalis of the war god Mars, was the traditional anniversary of the first triumph by Publicola, of six other Republican triumphs, of the first Roman triumph by Romulus.
Pompey postponed his third and most magnificent triumph for several months to make it coincide with his own dies natalis. Religious dimensions aside, the focus of the triumph was the general himself; the ceremony promoted him – however temporarily – above every mortal Roman. This was an opportunity granted to few. From the time of Scipio Africanus, the triumphal general was linked to Alexander and the demi-god Hercules, who had laboured selflessly for the benefit of all mankind, his sumptuous triumphal chariot was bedecked with charms against the possible envy and malice of onlookers. In some accounts, a companion or public slave would remind him from time to time of his own mortality. Rome's earliest "triumphs" were simple victory parades, celebrating the return of a victorious general and his army to the city, along with the fruits of his victory, ending with some form of dedication to the gods; this is so for the earliest legendary and semi-legendary triumphs of Rome's regal era, when the king functioned as Rome's highest magistrate and war-leader.
As Rome's population, power and territory increased, so did the scale, length and extravagance of its triumphal processions. The procession mustered in the open space of the Campus Martius well before first light. From there, all unforeseen delays and accidents aside, it would have managed a slow walking pace at best, punctuated by various planned stops en route to its final destination of the Capitoline temple, a distance of just under 4 km. Triumphal processions were notoriously slow; some ancient and modern sources suggest a standard processional order. First came the captive leaders and soldiers walking in chains, their captured weapons, gold, silver and curious or exotic treasures were carted behind them, along with paintings and models depicting significant places and episodes of the war. Next in line, all on foot, came Rome's senators and magistrate
Tusculum
Tusculum is a ruined Roman city in the Alban Hills, in the Latium region of Italy. Tusculum was one of the largest Roman cities in the Alban Hills and today is amongst the largest ruins of a Roman city in the region; the Tusculum is located on Tuscolo hill on the northern edge of the outer crater rim of the Alban volcano. The volcano itself is located in the Alban Hills 6 kilometres south of the present-day town of Frascati. Tuscolo Hills' summit is 670 metres above sea level and affords a view of the Roman Campagna, with Rome lying 25 kilometres to the north-west. Rome was reached by the Via Labicana to the north. Tusculum was most famous in Roman times for the many great and luxurious patrician country villas sited close to the city, yet a comfortable distance from Rome. Strabo wrote about Tusculum in Geography, V 3 § 12.: But still closer to Rome than the mountainous country where these cities lie, there is another ridge, which leaves a valley between them and is high as far as Mount Albanus.
It is on this chain, a city with no mean equipment of buildings. According to legend, the city was founded either by Telegonus, the son of Odysseus and Circe, or by the Latin king Latinus Silvius, a descendant of Aeneas, who according to Titus Livius was the founder of most of the towns and cities in Latium; the geographer Filippo Cluverio discounts these legends, asserting that the city was founded by Latins about three hundred years before the Trojan War. Funerary urns datable to the 8th–7th centuries B. C. demonstrate a human presence in the late phases of Latin culture in this area. Tusculum is first mentioned in history as an independent city-state with a king, a constitution and gods of its own; when Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last King of Rome, was expelled from the city in 509 B. C. he sought military help from his son-in-law Octavius Mamilius, one of the leading men of Tusculum. After the war between Clusium and Rome failed to win back the throne for Tarquinius, he sought refuge with Mamilius in Tusculum.
The Mamilii claimed to be descended from the founder of the city. Mamilius commanded the army of the Latins against the Romans at the Battle of Lake Regillus, where he was killed in 498 B. C; this is the point. According to some accounts Tusculum subsequently became an ally of Rome, incurring the frequent hostilities of the other Latin cities. In 460 B. C. the Sabines occupied the Capitol. Of the Latin cities, only Tusculum sent troops, commanded by the dictator Lucius Mamilius, to help the Romans. Together with the forces of the consul Publius Valerius Poplicola they were able to quash the revolt. Poplicola was thankful to the Tusculans for their help, conferred on Lucius Mamilius the honour of Roman citizenship. In 459 B. C. the Aequi captured its citadel. Because of the assistance given Rome the previous year, the Romans came to their defense, helped regain the citadel, with soldiers under the command of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who defeated the Aequi at the battle of Mount Algidus. In 381 BC, after an expression of complete submission to Rome, the people of Tusculum received a franchise from Rome.
Tusculum became self-governing city. The Tusculum citizens were therefore recorded in the "Tribus Papiria". Other accounts, speak of Tusculum as allied with Rome's enemies, the last being the Samnites in 323 BC. Several of the chief Roman families were of Tusculan origin, e.g. the gentes Mamilia, Fonteia, Oppia, Quinctia, Javonelia, Manlia and Porcia. In 54 BC, in his Orationes Pro Cn. Plancio, Marcus Tullius Cicero said: "You are from the most ancient municipium of Tusculum, from which so many consular families are originating, among which the gens Iuventia—all other municipia do not have so many coming from them". Varro wrote about the laws of Tusculum in De Lingua Latina, Volume 5: "New wine shall not be taken into the town before the Vinalia are proclaimed"; the town council kept the name of senate. Notwithstanding this, the fact that a special college of Roman equites was formed to take charge of the cults of the gods at Tusculum, of the Dioscuri, the citizens resident there were neither numerous nor men of distinction.
The villas of the neighbourhood had indeed acquired greater importance than the town itself, not accessible. By the end of the Republic, still more during the imperial period, the territory of Tusculum was a favorite place of residence for wealthy Romans. Seneca wrote: "Nobody who wants to acquire a home in Tusculum or Tibur for health reasons or as a summer residence, will calculate how much yearly payments are". In 45 BC Cicero wrote a series of books in his Roman villa in the Tusculanae Quaestiones. In his times there were eighteen owners of villas there. An example is the so-called villa of Lucullus, which belonged to Flavia gens, built in terraces on the slope of Tusculum facing Rome: the vast terrace now houses all the
