Alba Longa

Map showing the vicinity of Lake Albano.

Castel Gandolfo on a long, sunlit ridge overlooking Lake Albano, most likely site of ancient Alba Longa.

Alba Longa (in Italian sources occasionally written Albalonga) was an ancient city of Latium^[1] in central Italy southeast of Rome^[2] in the Alban Hills. Founder and head of the Latin League, it was destroyed by Rome around the middle of the 7th century BC. In legend, Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome, had come from the royal dynasty of Alba Longa.

Kings of Alba Longa

According to the accounts of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the kings of Alba Longa gave a direct line of descent between Ascanius and Romulus. According to Livy,^[3] the dynasty divided: one branch founded Rome, while another continued to reign at Alba Longa. Under Tullus Hostilius, Alba Longa under its reigning king (rex), Gaius Cluilius, who also was descended from Aeneas, went to war against Rome, which Livy describes as "like a civil war." He died in camp of unspecified causes and Mettius Fufetius was appointed dictator. He was in turn executed by Tullus Hostilius for treachery. Alba was destroyed and its population was transported to Rome, where, according to Livy, they augmented the civic base considerably.

Archaeological data and historical interpretation

Livy said of Alba Longa that it was founded by Ascanius to relieve crowding at Lavinium. He placed it at the foot of the Alban Mount and said that it took its name from being extended along a ridge.^[4] Dionysius of Halicarnassus repeated the story, but added that Ascanius, following an oracle given to his father, collected other Latin populations as well. Noting that alba means "white" (and longa "long") he translated the name "long white town." Dionysius placed the town between the Alban Mount and the Alban Lake,^[5] thus beginning a long controversy about its location.

Since the 16th century, the site has been at various times identified with the convent of S. Paolo at Palazzola, near Albano, or with Coste Caselle, near Marino, or finally with Castel Gandolfo. The last of these places in fact occupies the site of Domitian's villa, which ancient sources state in turn occupied the arx of Alba.

Archaeological data available for the Iron Age show the existence of a string of villages, each one with its own necropolis, along the south-western shore of Lake Albano. When Rome destroyed these villages they must have still been in a pre-urban phase, starting to group around a centre that may well have been Castel Gandolfo, since the necropolis there is significantly larger, suggesting a larger town.

In the later republican period the territory of Alba (the Ager Albanus) was settled once again with many residential villas, which are mentioned in ancient literature and of which remains are extant.

The shrine of Jupiter Latiaris

On the top of the Monte Cavo (Mons Albanus) was a very ancient shrine consecrated to Jupiter Latiaris. Florus (2nd century) states that the site was selected by Ascanius, who, having founded Alba, invited all the Latins to celebrate sacrifices there to Jupiter, a custom which eventually led to the annual celebration there of the Feriae Latinae, at which all the cities that belonged to the Latin Confederation would gather under the aegis of Alba, sacrificing a white bull, the flesh of which was distributed among all the participants.

After Alba Longa was destroyed and her leadership role was assumed by Rome, tradition records the building of a full-scale temple to Jupiter Latiaris on the Alban Mount in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus; of which only a few courses of perimeter wall remain today, now removed off site; and substantial remains of the paved road that connected it to the Via Appia near Aricia.

Notes

Bibliography

• Ashby, Thomas (1899). "Alba Longa". The Journal of Philology 27 (53): 37-50. 

External links

• Dionysius of Halicarnassus; Ernest Cary (Translator); William Thayer (Editor) (1937-1950, 2007). Roman Antiquities. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Chicago: Harvard University, University of Chicago. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus/home.html. Retrieved on 13 July 2009. 
• Livius, Titus; D. Spillan (Translator) (1853, 2006). "The History of Rome, Books 1 to 8" (in English). Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19725. Retrieved on 13 July 2009. 
• Huyzendveld, Antonia (2000). "Alba Longa". Digiter geoarchaeologia. http://www.digiter.it/albaen.htm. Retrieved on 13 July 2009. 
• Piperno, Roberto (2009). "Giuseppe Vasi's Digression - Albano". romeartlovers.it. http://www.romeartlover.it/Albano.html. Retrieved on 13 July 2009. 
• Richter, GMA (1976, 2009). "ALBA LONGA (Castel Gandolfo) Latium, Italy". in Stillwell, Richard. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton, Medford: Princeton University Press, Perseus Digital Library. http://icarus.umkc.edu/sandbox/perseus/pecs/page.146.a.php. 

Coordinates: 41°44′49″N 12°39′01″E / 41.74691°N 12.65026°E / 41.74691; 12.65026