Old Latium

It corresponded to the central part of the modern administrative region of Lazio, Italy, and it covered an area measuring of roughly 50 Roman miles.

The accounting provided by Pliny the Elder does not include all the centres of Latium Vetus that later developed into towns, but rather lists those which, according to the scholar, had disappeared by his time without leaving any trace.

68 and 69: In the first region moreover in Latium were the famous walled towns (clara oppida) Satricum, Scaptia, Politorium, Tellena, Tifata, Caenina, Ficana, Crustumeria, Ameriola, Medullum, Corniculum, Saturnia now which is Rome, Antipolis (which is now the Janiculum, a place in Rome), Antemnae, Camerium, Collatia, Amitinum, Norba, and Sulmo.

Together with them the Alban Peoples who used to receive the (sacrificial) meat on the Alban Mount: Albani, Aesolani, Accienses, Abolani, Bubetani, Bolani, Cusuetani, Coriolani, Fidenates, Foreti, Hortenses, Latinienses, Longani, Manates, Macrales, Munienses, Numinienses, Olliculani, Octulani, Pedani, Poletaurini, Querquetulani, Sicani, Sisolenses, Tolerienses, Tutienses, Vimitellari, Velienses, Venetulani, Vitellienses.The list is apparently made up of two sections, the first is referred to as clara oppida and the second as populi Albenses.

Only some of them seem to have reached the urban stage and the list reflects the typical archaic Bronze Age organization of human settlement: sparse, polycentric and gravitating around a religious centre, in this case the sanctuary of Iuppiter Latiaris.

The exact location of these settlements is unknown with a few exceptions: Aesulae, Pedum,[citation needed] Fidenae, Politorium, Bovillae, and Tolerium.

Dionysius gives a list of the towns members of the Latin League that voted for war against Rome after the capture of Fidenae by the Romans, under the influence of Aricia and of former king Tarquinius the Proud at an assembly held at Ferentinum:[8] Ardea, Aricia, Bovillae, Bubentum, Cora, Carventum, Circei, Corioli, Corbio, Cabum, Fortinea, Gabii, Laurentum, Lanuvium, Lavinium, Labici, Nomentum, Norba, Praeneste, Pedum, Querquetula, Satricum, Scaptia, Setia, Tibur, Tusculum, Tolerium, Tellenae, Velitrae.As Niebuhr remarked, once again the total yields the sacred number of thirty, but the sum is made up of different components.

In fact, many of the oppida had been destroyed or resettled by the Romans during the regal period, namely Caenina, Politorium, Ficana, Cameria, Medullium, Corniculum, Collatia.

Among the clara oppida of Pliny's list, Satricum, Norba, Sulmo, Scaptia, Tellenae show up here, and among the populi albenses Bubentum, Corioli, Pedum, Querquetula, Tolerium, and possibly Nomentum.

In his description of Augustan region I, which included Old Latium, the geographer Strabo mentions many old towns, among them Collatia, Antemnae, Fidenae and Labicum, as reduced to mere villages, private rural estates or displaced to different locations; Apiolae, Suessa and Alba Longa as disappeared; Tellenae on the foothills southwest of the Alban Hills as still standing.

The problem is made even more difficult because some of the ancient locations were possibly resettled during the Early Middle Ages, as was probably the case for Labicum and Collatia.

Towns which have been identified archaeologically include Satricum, Politorium, Ficana, Tellenae, Crustumerium, Corniculum, Antemnae, Collatia, Fidenae, Pedum,[citation needed] Apiolae, Gabii and perhaps Querquetulum.

It would rather have been a loose collection of small and sparsely populated protohistoric villages organised in the Bronze Age custom around the sanctuary of Mount Albanus and abandoned before it reached the urban stage.

[11] The town of Antemnae was located three miles to the north of Rome on the left bank of the river Anio and close to its confluence with the Tiber.

Antemnae was colonised by Rome at the time of Romolus during the first effort to control the left bank of the Tiber up to the Anio, thus ensuring a communication route with Etruria along the Via Salaria.

The most important of the Latin towns developed from the ancient populi albenses, Pedum stood between Tibur and Praeneste near modern Gallicano nel Lazio.

It may have been located near present-day "La Rustica" close to the Anio river, on a trade route connecting Latium with Etruria and Campania.

[18] Dionysius records a tradition according to which Romulus was at Caenina for a sacrifice during the festival of the Lupercalia, which was the occasion of the abduction of Remus by Numitor's shepherds.

[19] The town underwent synoecism and some of its cults and priests (sacerdotes) were transferred to Rome[20] by Romulus, who celebrated his first triumph after conquering the Caeninenses and killing their king, Acron.

However, according to Dionysius, Romulus allowed the Caeninenses to continue to live in their hometown, although they had to accept a colony of three hundred Romans and the allotment to them of one third of their land.

[21] The town is still mentioned at the beginning of the Republic: the Vindicius who revealed the plot of the Aquilii to Publius Valerius Publicola was a slave from Caenina captured in war.

Collatia was founded by the Latin king Silvius of Alba Longa and it was the hometown of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, one of the first two consuls of the Roman Republic.

It was located on one of the routes that linked Veii and Gabii, close to a ford on the Tiber, which fact, along with the richness of its countryside, was the cause of its importance and wealth.

Tombs contained a rich production of fine pottery painted in white and red, weapons, and other instruments from the early Iron Age onward.

Long-necked amphoras decorated with reliefs or scratches of a style typical of 7th-century Old Latium testify to the early quality of the local material culture.

Its name suggests a relationship to the Ligurian tribe of the Medulli (Medylloi in Strabon IV 1, 11) and would appear to be cognate with the Celtic deity Meduna.

Politorium has been identified in the archaic settlement found near Castel di Decima, south-east of Rome, but this identification lacks epigraphic confirmation.

It is mentioned by Cato, who records its founding, and by Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassos, who describe its capture and successive demolition by Ancus Marcius.

It has been identified by archaeologists at Le Ferriere, in the present Province of Latina, and it was systematically excavated by the Royal Dutch Institute in Rome in collaboration with Italian authorities.

[37] Further evidence connecting Ligures and Siculi was provided by a neolithic skeleton unearthed at Sgurgola near Anagni that was painted red, as were the ones found in the Ligurian cave of the "Arene Candide".