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Alba Longa (in Italian sources occasionally written Albalonga) was an ancient city of Latium
Latium

Lazio, called Latium in English language, is a Regions of Italy of central Italy, bordered by Tuscany, Umbria, and Marche to the north, Abruzzo to the east, Campania to the south, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west....
 in central Italy
Italian Peninsula

The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula is one of the three peninsulas of Southern Europe , spanning 1,000 km from the Po Valley in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south....
 southeast of Rome
Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
 in the Alban Hills
Alban Hills

The Alban Hills are the site of a quiescent volcano in Italy, located 20 km southeast of Rome and about 24 km north of Anzio, Italy.The dominant peak is the Monte Cavo, at 950 m ....
. Founder and head of the Latin League
Latin league

The Latin League was a confederation of about 30 villages and tribes in the region of Latium near ancient Rome organized for mutual defense. The term "Latin League" is one coined by modern historians with no precise Latin equivalent....
, it was destroyed by Rome around the middle of the 7th century BC.

rding to the accounts of Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus....
, the kings of Alba Longa gave a direct line of descent between Ascanius
Ascanius

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Ascanius was the son of Aeneas and Creusa. After the Trojan War, as the city burned, Aeneas escaped to Latium in Italy, taking his father Anchises and his child Ascanius with him, though Creusa died during the escape....
 and Romulus
Romulus

Romulus may refer to any of these articles:...
. According to Livy
Livy

Titus Livius , known as Livy in English language, was a Ancient Rome historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita, from its founding through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own time....
, there are two more kings of Alba Longa, outside of this sequence.






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Alba Longa (in Italian sources occasionally written Albalonga) was an ancient city of Latium
Latium

Lazio, called Latium in English language, is a Regions of Italy of central Italy, bordered by Tuscany, Umbria, and Marche to the north, Abruzzo to the east, Campania to the south, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west....
 in central Italy
Italian Peninsula

The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula is one of the three peninsulas of Southern Europe , spanning 1,000 km from the Po Valley in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south....
 southeast of Rome
Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
 in the Alban Hills
Alban Hills

The Alban Hills are the site of a quiescent volcano in Italy, located 20 km southeast of Rome and about 24 km north of Anzio, Italy.The dominant peak is the Monte Cavo, at 950 m ....
. Founder and head of the Latin League
Latin league

The Latin League was a confederation of about 30 villages and tribes in the region of Latium near ancient Rome organized for mutual defense. The term "Latin League" is one coined by modern historians with no precise Latin equivalent....
, it was destroyed by Rome around the middle of the 7th century BC.

Kings of Alba Longa

According to the accounts of Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus....
, the kings of Alba Longa gave a direct line of descent between Ascanius
Ascanius

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Ascanius was the son of Aeneas and Creusa. After the Trojan War, as the city burned, Aeneas escaped to Latium in Italy, taking his father Anchises and his child Ascanius with him, though Creusa died during the escape....
 and Romulus
Romulus

Romulus may refer to any of these articles:...
. According to Livy
Livy

Titus Livius , known as Livy in English language, was a Ancient Rome historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita, from its founding through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own time....
, there are two more kings of Alba Longa, outside of this sequence. Both reigned during the reign of the Roman king Tullus Hostilius
Tullus Hostilius

Tullus Hostilius was the third of the legendary Kings of Rome. He succeeded Numa Pompilius, and was succeeded by Ancus Marcius.His successful wars with Alba Longa, Fidenae and Veii shadow forth the earlier conquests of Latin territory and the first extension of the Roman territory beyond the walls of Rome....
. The first of these kings was Gaius Cluilius
Gaius Cluilius

Gaius Cluilius was the king of Alba Longa during the reign of the Roman Kingdom king Tullus Hostilius in the middle of the seventh century B.C....
 who died during a war against the Romans. He was succeeded by Mettius Fufetius
Mettius Fufetius

Mettius Fufetius was a king of Alba Longa, an ancient town in central Italy near ancient Rome. He succeeded Gaius Cluilius. In book one of his history of Rome, Livy says that Mettius Fufetius betrays the Romans in battle....
, who was in turn executed by Tullus Hostilius for treachery. It is important to note that these are both identified as dictators, not as kings.

Archaeological data and historical interpretation


The location of the ancient Latin city has been much debated since the 16th century. The point of departure is the foundation story in Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus....
  which speaks of a site between Monte Cavo
Monte Cavo

Monte Cavo is the second highest mountain of the complex of the Alban Hills, near Rome, central Italy. An old volcano extinguished around 10,000 years ago, it is almost 1.000 m above the sea level and about 20 km from the sea, in the communal territory of Rocca di Papa....
 and Lake Albano. The site has been at various times identified with the convent of S. Paolo at Palazzola, near Albano
Albano Laziale

Albano Laziale is a commune in the province of Rome, on the Alban Hills, in Lazio . It is also a suburb of Rome, which is 25 km distant....
, or with Coste Caselle, near Marino, or finally with Castel Gandolfo
Castel Gandolfo

Castel Gandolfo is a small Italy town in Lazio that occupies a height overlooking Lake Albano about 30 km south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills....
. The last of these places in fact occupies the site of Domitian's villa, which ancient sources state in turn occupied the arx
Arx (Roman)

An Arx was a Roman citadel; the term was also used to refer to the northern hump of the two forming the Capitoline Hill of ancient Rome, where an arx once stood....
 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
Monte Cavo

Monte Cavo is the second highest mountain of the complex of the Alban Hills, near Rome, central Italy. An old volcano extinguished around 10,000 years ago, it is almost 1.000 m above the sea level and about 20 km from the sea, in the communal territory of Rocca di Papa....
 (Mons Albanus) was a very ancient shrine consecrated to Jupiter Latiaris. Florus
Florus

Florus, Roman Empire historian, lived in the time of Trajan and Hadrian.He compiled, chiefly from Livy, a brief sketch of the history of Rome from the foundation of the city to the closing of the temple of Janus by Augustus Caesar ....
 (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
Aricia

Aricia can refer to:*Aricia, a genus of gossamer-winged butterflies usually included in Plebejus*Aricia , historical figure in ancient Britain...
.

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