Lavinium

Lavinium was a port city of Latium, 6 km (3.7 mi) to the south of Rome, midway between the Tiber river at Ostia and Antium.

Today's settlement remains a walled village of medieval design, Pratica di Mare, in the comune of Pomezia.

The latter is a city constructed in 1939 and settled according to a plan of Benito Mussolini, whose engineers completed the millennia-long task of draining and filling the marsh, now the Pontine fields.

It has the historical distinction of being the airfield from which Otto Skorzeny flew Mussolini to safety in Germany after his rescue from imprisonment in a mountain villa.

Today the base is both a secure airport for the protection of distinguished visitors to the Rome region and a home for air shows of advanced aircraft.

The Fosso di Pratica was re-routed around the end of a runway; however, today's small brook is in no way compatible with the concept of a port.

[2] According to Roman mythology, which links Lavinium more securely to Rome, the city was named by Aeneas[3] in honor of Lavinia, daughter of Latinus, king of the Latins, and his wife, Amata.

[7] In around 488 BC, Lavinium was captured by an invading army of the Volsci, led by Gaius Marcius Coriolanus and Attius Tullus Aufidius.

Gate into the interior of the settlement of the frazione of Pratica di Mare, a medieval walled village at the site of the center of ancient Lavinium. The structures in the photograph vary in date. On the left is the Castello Borghese, possibly the site of the Roman arx or citadel. The archaeological excavations are in a field off to the left of the photograph. The comune of Pomezia and the museum are directly behind the photographer.
Ex voto statues in the museum at Lavinium
Silver denarius struck by C. Sulpicius C. f. Galba in Rome 106 BC. The Di Penates depicted on the obverse were brought to Lavinium from Troy by Aeneas . The reverse depicts a prophecy from the Aeneid : "in the place where a white sow casts thirty piglets under an oak tree, a new city shall be built." A bronze statue of a sow was placed in the forum of Lavinium.