Tusculum was an ancient Roman city in the Alban Hills, in the Latium region of Italy. 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, notably the villas of Cicero and Lucullus.
Founded~Ended date unknown ~ 1191Last edited Oct 15, 2026, 3:33 PM
Tusculum was an ancient Roman city in the Alban Hills, in the Latium region of Italy.1 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, notably the villas of Cicero and Lucullus.2
Location
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 km (4 mi) south of the present-day town of Frascati.
The summit of the hill is 670 m (2,200 ft) above sea level and affords a view of the Roman Campagna, with Rome lying 25 km (16 mi) to the north-west. It had a strategic position controlling the route from the territory of the Aequi and the Volsci to Rome which was important in earlier times.
Later Rome was reached by the Via Latina (from which a branch road ascended to Tusculum, while the main road passed through the valley to the south of it), or by the Via Labicana to the north.3
Most of the ancient city and the acropolis and amphitheatre have not yet been excavated archaeologically.
History
Antiquity
According to legend, the city was founded either by Telegonus, the son of Odysseus and Circe,3 or by the Latin king Latinus Silvius, a descendant of , who according to was the founder of most of the towns and cities in . The geographer discounts these legends, asserting that the city was founded by about three hundred years before the . Funerary urns datable to the 8th–7th centuries BC demonstrate a human presence in the late phases of Latin culture in this area.
This page is based on “Tusculum” from English Wikipedia, (r1367308861) CC BY-SA 4.0 used under the license. The original authors are listed in its page history.
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 in 509 BC,4 and failed to win back his throne by making war on Rome, he sought refuge with his son-in-law Octavius Mamilius, one of the leading men of Tusculum.5 The Mamilii claimed to be descended from Telegonus, 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 BC.6 This is the point at which Rome gained predominance among the Latin cities.
The first stable settlement has been identified by excavation in the acropolis area and dates to the 10th century BC, but it is from the 7th-6th centuries BC onwards that there is clear archaeological evidence of a well-organized settlement with growing relations with other Latin peoples in the region. The city developed on the slopes of the acropolis and particularly in the forum area, where a series of substantial and important buildings began to appear.7
The city walls can be dated between the 5th and 4th c. BC from the type and technique of construction, as visible on the North slope of the hill.
According to some accounts Tusculum subsequently became an ally of Rome, incurring the frequent hostilities of the other Latin cities.3 In 460 BC a Sabine named Appius Herdonius occupied the Capitol. Of the Latin cities, only Tusculum quickly 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.
In 458 BC the Aequi attacked Tusculum and captured its citadel. Because of the assistance given Rome the previous year, the Romans came to their defense, and helped regain the citadel, with soldiers under the command of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who defeated the Aequi at the battle of Mount Algidus.
Roman Republic
In 381 BC, after an expression of complete submission to Rome, the people of Tusculum received a franchise from Rome. Tusculum became the first "municipium cum suffragio", or self-governing city. The Tusculum citizens were therefore recorded in the "Tribus Papiria". Other accounts, however, speak of Tusculum as often allied with Rome's enemies, the last being the Samnites in 323 BC.3 Major urban development followed the granting of municipal status to the city (381 BC) and its annexation within the Roman sphere of influence, evidenced by the progressive rise of members of the leading Tusculan families to the highest Roman political offices.8
In Sulla's civil war Tusculum supported the Marians but after Sulla's victory in 82 BC it suffered extensive devastation and the punishment of becoming a veterans' colonia. Major building renovation dates from this time when monumentalisation of the forum took place and parts of the city wall were rebuilt.
In 54 BC Cicero said:9 "You are from the most ancient municipium of Tusculum, from which so many consular families are originating, among which even the gens Iuventia; all other municipia (together) do not have so many (consular families) coming from them".
Varro wrote about the laws of Tusculum:10 "New wine shall not be taken into the town before the Vinalia are proclaimed".
The town council kept the name of senate, but the title of dictator gave place to that of aedile. Notwithstanding this, and the fact that a special college of Roman equites was formed to take charge of the cults of the gods at Tusculum, and especially of the Dioscuri, the citizens resident there were neither numerous nor men of distinction.3
In Roman times the city had expanded into two parts: the acropolis with the temples of the Dioscuri and Jupiter Maius, and the main city along the ridge of the hill where the main street passes through the forum to the theatre.
The villas of the neighbourhood, of which 36 owners are recorded in the Republican era11 and 131 villa sites identified,12 had indeed acquired greater importance than the town itself, which was not easily accessible. By the end of the Republic, and still more during the imperial period, the territory of Tusculum was a favourite place of residence for wealthy Romans.3Seneca 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 Tusculum, the Tusculanae Quaestiones. In his times there were eighteen owners of villas there. An example is the so-called villa of Lucullus,13 which later belonged to Flavia gens, which was built in terraces on the slope of Tusculum facing Rome: the vast terrace now houses virtually all the historical centre of Frascati14 and his mausoleum is visible in the Torrione di Micara near Frascati.
Imperial period
The Imperial period was the city's golden age and from the reign of Tiberius, a vast program of systematisation and embellishment of the monumental centre was undertaken. Whilst in the Flavian period a slow decline of the city is noticeable, significant building activity included modifications and transformations of various buildings surrounding the forum such as the theatre and in the Temple of Mercury. The last phase of urban expansion was in the Hadrianic period with the construction of the amphitheatre, houses and thermal baths.15
Much of the territory (including Cicero's villa), but not the town itself, which lies far too high, was supplied with water by the Aqua Crabra.3
The last archaeological evidence of Roman Tusculum is a bronze tablet of 406 AD commemorating the Consul Anicius Petronius Probus and his sister Anicia.
From the 5th to the 10th century there are no historical mentions of Tusculum. In the 10th century it was the base of the Counts of Tusculum, an important family in the medieval history of Rome. They were a clan system whose first mentioned member is Theophylact I (died 924). His daughter Marozia married Alberic I, Marquis of Spoleto and Camerino, and was for a while the arbiter of political and religious affairs in Rome—a position which the Counts held for a long period of time. They were pro-Byzantine and against the German Emperors. From their clan came several Popes in the period between 914 and 1049.
Gregory I of Tusculum rebuilt the fortress on the Tuscolo hill, and gave as a gift the "Criptaferrata" to Saint Nilus the Younger, where the latter built a famous abbey. Gregory also headed the rebellion of the Roman people of 1001 against the German Emperor Otto III.
In 1167 the Roman communal army attacked Tusculum (Battle of Monte Porzio), but it was defeated by the Emperor-allied army, headed by Christian I, Archbishop of Mainz; in the summer of the same year, however, a plague decimated the imperial army and Frederick Barbarossa was forced to return to Germany.
Medieval destruction
From 1167 the residents of Tusculum moved to the neighbours (Locus) or little villages as Monte Porzio Catone, Grottaferrata and mostly to Frascati: only a little group of defence troops remained in the old city.
Roger of Hoveden wrote "lapis supra lapidem non remansit" (not a stone upon a stone remained), indeed the Roman Commune's army took away the stones of the walls of Tusculum as spoils of war in Rome.
After destruction the land of Tusculum became woodland and pasture lands. The buildings destroyed in Tusculum became a big open quarry of materials for the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns of the Alban Hills.
Description
The acropolis
The summit of the Tusculum ridge is the site of the acropolis, the roughly elliptical perimeter of which was surrounded by walls, most of which have survived to a maximum height of 2 m:16 these were in square tuff masonry, polygonal masonry, or double curtain walls in tuff blocks.17 Four gates opened into the acropolis, the most important of which, facing north-east towards the settlement below, was defended by an imposing bastion in square tuff masonry strengthened in the Middle Ages, linked to a long straight stretch of wall that ran west for over 30 m.
Inscriptions from the 1st century BC, discovered in 1901, refer to two temples dedicated to the Dioscuri and Isis. In ancient times the slopes of the acropolis were used as tuff and flint quarries, creating, among other things, a chasm in the ground.18
The forum
The forum lies near the top of the hill at 629 m above sea level, and was the most monumental part of the ancient city even if smaller, at 55x36 m, than other cities.
In the Archaic period, the forum probably originated as a market square located at the crossroads of important roads on the edge of the town: perhaps something similar to the Forum Boarium in Rome.19
Towards the end of the 4th or beginning of the 3rd century BC, an imposing terracing wall 35 m long, 2.5 m thick and 9 m high of tufa blocks was built in opus quadratum on the right flank of the archaic fountain, and a similar wall along the southern edge of the city. These walls served to create a large platform of approximately 60 x 90 m upon which the first forum of Tusculum was situated.
On the opposite side the limits of the forum were represented by a building approximately 20 x 10 m with a colonnaded façade. The forum was also edged by the so-called Curia of the Tusculan Senate of 10 x 7 m in square tuff masonry dating back to the 5th or 4th century BC.20
In the 1st century BC the entrance to the forum from the west, at the intersection of the main roads, was monumentalised with the construction of three temples: the sacellum of Mercury, a small temple dedicated to Hercules, and a third of unknown dedication. New channels and pavements in peperino were introduced, and an unidentified building with mosaic flooring on the north side of the forum.
On the southern side the basilica was built (22.5 x 42.5 m) facing directly onto the plaza over the porticoed building.21 The central nave, approximately 12 m long, was flanked by two smaller side aisles, with nine columns along the long sides and four along the short sides. The transformation of the monumental area was completed with the construction of the theatre at the eastern end of the forum.
The nearby "archaic cistern" of the 6-5th centuries BC was more likely a monumental fountain measuring 2.2 x 2.9 m with a pointed vault. Downstream of this fountain was the "fountain of the aediles", visible until the 1950s, was built immediately east of the archaic fountain: excavations have uncovered the fountain's foundations with a dedicatory inscription from the Tusculan aediles of 70 BC.22
The Theatre
During this same period, the most imposing and best preserved building of the entire city was built on the southwest side of the forum taking advantage of the slope of the acropolis. It represented a highly impressive stage backdrop for those arriving in the city from the northwest since theatres in the Latium were only built from the 1st century AD. The main access road to the acropolis passed under the cavea of the theatre itself, creating a via tecta or covered road. The original capacity was limited to 1,500 spectators.23
The stage, enlarged at the beginning of the Imperial Age to reach 12 by 35 m was embellished with statues of Orestes, Pylades, Telemachus, Telegonus and one of the fathers of the so-called "New Comedy", Diphilus. The cavea reached a diameter of 51 m for 2,000 spectators.
During the Flavian period the theatre underwent renovation of the marble decoration of the stage area.24
Amphitheatre
The Roman amphitheatre of Tusculum is located outside the walls, its south-eastern part resting on the slopes of the hill and its north-western part supported by masonry substructures.25 It has been partially excavated: the main entrances were excavated in 1820 and the rest in 1867. Its capacity was about 3,000 and it measures 80 x 53 m. The lower part is built in opus quadratum with blocks of peperino, the upper part in opus mixtum with brick lattice. Brick stamps date it to the 2nd century AD.
Cicero's Villa
Cicero's favourite residence and retreat for study and writing was at or near Tusculum. It was here that he composed his celebrated Tusculan Disputations and other philosophical works. It was a considerable building and comprised two gymnasia with covered parts (xysti) for exercise and philosophical discussion.26 One of these, which stood on higher ground, was called the "Lyceum," and contained a library; the other shaded by rows of trees, was called the "Academy." The main building contained a covered part, or peristyle, with recesses containing seats. It also had thermal baths and contained a number of works of art, both pictures and statues in bronze and marble. The cost of this and the other house which he built at Pompeii led to him being burdened with debt.27
Archaeology
In 1806 the first campaign of archaeological excavation on the top of the Tuscolo hill was begun by Lucien Bonaparte. In 1825 the archaeologist Luigi Biondi excavated to find out Tusculum, engaged by Queen Maria Cristina of Bourbon, wife of Charles Felix of Sardinia. In 1839 and 1840 the architect and archaeologist Luigi Canina, called by the same royal family, excavated the Theatre area of Tusculum. The ancient works of art excavated were sent to Savoy Castle of Agliè in Piedmont.
In 1955 and 1956 the archaeologist Maurizio Borda excavated a necropolis with cinerary urns.
Since 1994 the Tusculum Project29 has been excavating on the site. Geophysics in 2015 revealed an important discovery: a monumental building in the plateau above the monumental area. Excavations from 2015 to 2018 brought to light part of baths of the Hadrianic era built on a previous domestic building and on which a basilica was built during the Middle Ages. In 2023 a fine statue of a Bacchante dating from the 1st c. AD was discovered in the baths which may have been owned by Cicero and that he had described.30 Since 2019 the forum and the basilica have been revealed.
Main sights
The Roman theatre on the hill of Tuscolo and the Villa of Tiberius are now accessible. In the extra-urban area located south of the city, between it and the Via Latina, there is archeological evidence of burials in the medieval church already in ruin after 1191 and dating to the 13th century, found by the last archeological excavation (1999).31
In the High Middle Ages, there were three churches in Tusculum: St. Saviour and Holy Trinity "in civitate", and St. Thomas on the acropolis. The Greek monastery of St. Agatha lay at the foot of the Tuscolo hill, at the 15th mile of the Via Latina road, the old "Statio Roboraria" : it was founded in 370 AD by the basilian monk John of Cappadocia, a disciple of St. Basil of Caesarea, called St. Basil the Great. He brought here a relic of the master, handed it over to him by monk Gregory Nazianzus. Saint Nilus the Younger died in this Greek monastery on 27 December 1005.
The Portrait of "Madonna del Tuscolo", placed nowadays in a little aedicule on the Tuscolo hill, is a reproduction in ceramic of an earlier original icon from Tusculum, spoil of war, which now is in the Abbey of St. Mary in Grottaferrata.
The cross of Tusculum there was already in 1840, as reported by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, rector of the English College. In October, 1864 the students of the English College rebuilt the plinth of foundation of the old cross. Now on the top of the Tuscolo hill is an altar and an iron cross 19 metres (62,33 ft) high. The height of cross underlines the fact that it was built 19 centuries after the death of Jesus Christ.
But still closer to Rome than the mountainous country where these cities lie, there is another ridge, which leaves a valley (the valley near Algidum) between them and is high as far as Mount Albanus. It is on this chain that Tusculum is situated, a city with no mean equipment of buildings; and it is adorned by the plantings and villas encircling it, and particularly by those that extend below the city in the general direction of the city of Rome; for here Tusculum is a fertile and well-watered hill, which in many places rises gently into crests and admits of magnificently devised royal palaces.
William GellThe Topography of Rome and its Vicinity with Map. 2 vols. London, 1834. [Rev. and enlarged by Edward Henry Banbury. London, 1846.]
William Gell. Analisi storico-topografico-antiquaria della carta de' dintorni di Roma secondo le osservazione di Sir W. Gell e del professore A. Nibby. Rome, 1837 [2nd ed. 1848].
Thomas Ashby. The Roman Campagna in Classical Times. London, 1927.
G. Bagnani. The Roman Campagna and its treasures. London, 1929.
G.E. Mc Cracken. A History of Ancient Tusculum. Washington, 1939.
B. Goss. Tusculum in PECS (Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites). 1976.
T.J. Cornell. The beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to Punic War. London, 1995. ISBN 0-415-01596-0.
Xavier Dupré. Scavi archeologici di Tusculum. Rome, 2000. ISBN 88-900486-0-3.
Stefania Quilici Gigli, Lorenzo Quilici: Sulle fortificazioni di Tusculum, in Quaderni Archeologia Etrusco italica 21, 1993 ↩
Quilici, Lorenzo, and Stefania Quilici Gigli. Tusculum Ed Il Parco Archeologico. Roma: XI Comunità Montana del Lazio "Castelli romani e prenestini", 1991 p. 23-26 ↩
Quilici, Lorenzo, and Stefania Quilici Gigli. Tusculum Ed Il Parco Archeologico. Roma: XI Comunità Montana del Lazio "Castelli romani e prenestini", 1991 p 44-45 ↩
Xavier Dupré Raventós, Il foro repubblicano di Tusculum alla luce dei recenti scavi., su DIGITAL.CSIC, 2003. URL consultato il 29 settembre 2024. ↩
BIANCO R., PIZZO A., “L’area monumentale di Tusculum: nuove ricerche e proposte interpretative (età arcaica – età imperiale)”, en Archivo Español de Arqueología, 96, e11 ↩
Quilici, Lorenzo, and Stefania Quilici Gigli. Tusculum Ed Il Parco Archeologico. Roma: XI Comunità Montana del Lazio "Castelli romani e prenestini", 1991 p 53 ↩
Hernández Castro, D., & Pizzo, A. (2026). ¿Una bacante de Cicerón? El hallazgo de una posible escultura de Evandros en las excavaciones de Tusculum. Pyrenae, 57(2), 33–57. doi:10.1344/pyrenae2026. vol 57 num2.2 ↩
Tusculum was an ancient Roman city in the Alban Hills, in the Latium region of Italy.1 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, notably the villas of Cicero and Lucullus.2
Location
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 km (4 mi) south of the present-day town of Frascati.
The summit of the hill is 670 m (2,200 ft) above sea level and affords a view of the Roman Campagna, with Rome lying 25 km (16 mi) to the north-west. It had a strategic position controlling the route from the territory of the Aequi and the Volsci to Rome which was important in earlier times.
Later Rome was reached by the Via Latina (from which a branch road ascended to Tusculum, while the main road passed through the valley to the south of it), or by the Via Labicana to the north.3
Most of the ancient city and the acropolis and amphitheatre have not yet been excavated archaeologically.
History
Antiquity
According to legend, the city was founded either by Telegonus, the son of Odysseus and , or by the Latin king , a descendant of , who according to was the founder of most of the towns and cities in . The geographer discounts these legends, asserting that the city was founded by about three hundred years before the . Funerary urns datable to the 8th–7th centuries BC 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 in 509 BC,4 and failed to win back his throne by making war on Rome, he sought refuge with his son-in-law Octavius Mamilius, one of the leading men of Tusculum.5 The Mamilii claimed to be descended from Telegonus, 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 BC.6 This is the point at which Rome gained predominance among the Latin cities.
The first stable settlement has been identified by excavation in the acropolis area and dates to the 10th century BC, but it is from the 7th-6th centuries BC onwards that there is clear archaeological evidence of a well-organized settlement with growing relations with other Latin peoples in the region. The city developed on the slopes of the acropolis and particularly in the forum area, where a series of substantial and important buildings began to appear.7
The city walls can be dated between the 5th and 4th c. BC from the type and technique of construction, as visible on the North slope of the hill.
According to some accounts Tusculum subsequently became an ally of Rome, incurring the frequent hostilities of the other Latin cities.3 In 460 BC a Sabine named Appius Herdonius occupied the Capitol. Of the Latin cities, only Tusculum quickly 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.
In 458 BC the Aequi attacked Tusculum and captured its citadel. Because of the assistance given Rome the previous year, the Romans came to their defense, and helped regain the citadel, with soldiers under the command of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who defeated the Aequi at the battle of Mount Algidus.
Roman Republic
In 381 BC, after an expression of complete submission to Rome, the people of Tusculum received a franchise from Rome. Tusculum became the first "municipium cum suffragio", or self-governing city. The Tusculum citizens were therefore recorded in the "Tribus Papiria". Other accounts, however, speak of Tusculum as often allied with Rome's enemies, the last being the Samnites in 323 BC.3 Major urban development followed the granting of municipal status to the city (381 BC) and its annexation within the Roman sphere of influence, evidenced by the progressive rise of members of the leading Tusculan families to the highest Roman political offices.8
In Sulla's civil war Tusculum supported the Marians but after Sulla's victory in 82 BC it suffered extensive devastation and the punishment of becoming a veterans' colonia. Major building renovation dates from this time when monumentalisation of the forum took place and parts of the city wall were rebuilt.
In 54 BC Cicero said:9 "You are from the most ancient municipium of Tusculum, from which so many consular families are originating, among which even the gens Iuventia; all other municipia (together) do not have so many (consular families) coming from them".
Varro wrote about the laws of Tusculum:10 "New wine shall not be taken into the town before the Vinalia are proclaimed".
The town council kept the name of senate, but the title of dictator gave place to that of aedile. Notwithstanding this, and the fact that a special college of Roman equites was formed to take charge of the cults of the gods at Tusculum, and especially of the Dioscuri, the citizens resident there were neither numerous nor men of distinction.3
In Roman times the city had expanded into two parts: the acropolis with the temples of the Dioscuri and Jupiter Maius, and the main city along the ridge of the hill where the main street passes through the forum to the theatre.
The villas of the neighbourhood, of which 36 owners are recorded in the Republican era11 and 131 villa sites identified,12 had indeed acquired greater importance than the town itself, which was not easily accessible. By the end of the Republic, and still more during the imperial period, the territory of Tusculum was a favourite place of residence for wealthy Romans.3Seneca 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 Tusculum, the Tusculanae Quaestiones. In his times there were eighteen owners of villas there. An example is the so-called villa of Lucullus,13 which later belonged to Flavia gens, which was built in terraces on the slope of Tusculum facing Rome: the vast terrace now houses virtually all the historical centre of Frascati14 and his mausoleum is visible in the Torrione di Micara near Frascati.
Imperial period
The Imperial period was the city's golden age and from the reign of Tiberius, a vast program of systematisation and embellishment of the monumental centre was undertaken. Whilst in the Flavian period a slow decline of the city is noticeable, significant building activity included modifications and transformations of various buildings surrounding the forum such as the theatre and in the Temple of Mercury. The last phase of urban expansion was in the Hadrianic period with the construction of the amphitheatre, houses and thermal baths.15
Much of the territory (including Cicero's villa), but not the town itself, which lies far too high, was supplied with water by the Aqua Crabra.3
The last archaeological evidence of Roman Tusculum is a bronze tablet of 406 AD commemorating the Consul Anicius Petronius Probus and his sister Anicia.
From the 5th to the 10th century there are no historical mentions of Tusculum. In the 10th century it was the base of the Counts of Tusculum, an important family in the medieval history of Rome. They were a clan system whose first mentioned member is Theophylact I (died 924). His daughter Marozia married Alberic I, Marquis of Spoleto and Camerino, and was for a while the arbiter of political and religious affairs in Rome—a position which the Counts held for a long period of time. They were pro-Byzantine and against the German Emperors. From their clan came several Popes in the period between 914 and 1049.
Gregory I of Tusculum rebuilt the fortress on the Tuscolo hill, and gave as a gift the "Criptaferrata" to Saint Nilus the Younger, where the latter built a famous abbey. Gregory also headed the rebellion of the Roman people of 1001 against the German Emperor Otto III.
In 1167 the Roman communal army attacked Tusculum (Battle of Monte Porzio), but it was defeated by the Emperor-allied army, headed by Christian I, Archbishop of Mainz; in the summer of the same year, however, a plague decimated the imperial army and Frederick Barbarossa was forced to return to Germany.
Medieval destruction
From 1167 the residents of Tusculum moved to the neighbours (Locus) or little villages as Monte Porzio Catone, Grottaferrata and mostly to Frascati: only a little group of defence troops remained in the old city.
Roger of Hoveden wrote "lapis supra lapidem non remansit" (not a stone upon a stone remained), indeed the Roman Commune's army took away the stones of the walls of Tusculum as spoils of war in Rome.
After destruction the land of Tusculum became woodland and pasture lands. The buildings destroyed in Tusculum became a big open quarry of materials for the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns of the Alban Hills.
Description
The acropolis
The summit of the Tusculum ridge is the site of the acropolis, the roughly elliptical perimeter of which was surrounded by walls, most of which have survived to a maximum height of 2 m:16 these were in square tuff masonry, polygonal masonry, or double curtain walls in tuff blocks.17 Four gates opened into the acropolis, the most important of which, facing north-east towards the settlement below, was defended by an imposing bastion in square tuff masonry strengthened in the Middle Ages, linked to a long straight stretch of wall that ran west for over 30 m.
Inscriptions from the 1st century BC, discovered in 1901, refer to two temples dedicated to the Dioscuri and Isis. In ancient times the slopes of the acropolis were used as tuff and flint quarries, creating, among other things, a chasm in the ground.18
The forum
The forum lies near the top of the hill at 629 m above sea level, and was the most monumental part of the ancient city even if smaller, at 55x36 m, than other cities.
In the Archaic period, the forum probably originated as a market square located at the crossroads of important roads on the edge of the town: perhaps something similar to the Forum Boarium in Rome.19
Towards the end of the 4th or beginning of the 3rd century BC, an imposing terracing wall 35 m long, 2.5 m thick and 9 m high of tufa blocks was built in opus quadratum on the right flank of the archaic fountain, and a similar wall along the southern edge of the city. These walls served to create a large platform of approximately 60 x 90 m upon which the first forum of Tusculum was situated.
On the opposite side the limits of the forum were represented by a building approximately 20 x 10 m with a colonnaded façade. The forum was also edged by the so-called Curia of the Tusculan Senate of 10 x 7 m in square tuff masonry dating back to the 5th or 4th century BC.20
In the 1st century BC the entrance to the forum from the west, at the intersection of the main roads, was monumentalised with the construction of three temples: the sacellum of Mercury, a small temple dedicated to Hercules, and a third of unknown dedication. New channels and pavements in peperino were introduced, and an unidentified building with mosaic flooring on the north side of the forum.
On the southern side the basilica was built (22.5 x 42.5 m) facing directly onto the plaza over the porticoed building.21 The central nave, approximately 12 m long, was flanked by two smaller side aisles, with nine columns along the long sides and four along the short sides. The transformation of the monumental area was completed with the construction of the theatre at the eastern end of the forum.
The nearby "archaic cistern" of the 6-5th centuries BC was more likely a monumental fountain measuring 2.2 x 2.9 m with a pointed vault. Downstream of this fountain was the "fountain of the aediles", visible until the 1950s, was built immediately east of the archaic fountain: excavations have uncovered the fountain's foundations with a dedicatory inscription from the Tusculan aediles of 70 BC.22
The Theatre
During this same period, the most imposing and best preserved building of the entire city was built on the southwest side of the forum taking advantage of the slope of the acropolis. It represented a highly impressive stage backdrop for those arriving in the city from the northwest since theatres in the Latium were only built from the 1st century AD. The main access road to the acropolis passed under the cavea of the theatre itself, creating a via tecta or covered road. The original capacity was limited to 1,500 spectators.23
The stage, enlarged at the beginning of the Imperial Age to reach 12 by 35 m was embellished with statues of Orestes, Pylades, Telemachus, Telegonus and one of the fathers of the so-called "New Comedy", Diphilus. The cavea reached a diameter of 51 m for 2,000 spectators.
During the Flavian period the theatre underwent renovation of the marble decoration of the stage area.24
Amphitheatre
The Roman amphitheatre of Tusculum is located outside the walls, its south-eastern part resting on the slopes of the hill and its north-western part supported by masonry substructures.25 It has been partially excavated: the main entrances were excavated in 1820 and the rest in 1867. Its capacity was about 3,000 and it measures 80 x 53 m. The lower part is built in opus quadratum with blocks of peperino, the upper part in opus mixtum with brick lattice. Brick stamps date it to the 2nd century AD.
Cicero's Villa
Cicero's favourite residence and retreat for study and writing was at or near Tusculum. It was here that he composed his celebrated Tusculan Disputations and other philosophical works. It was a considerable building and comprised two gymnasia with covered parts (xysti) for exercise and philosophical discussion.26 One of these, which stood on higher ground, was called the "Lyceum," and contained a library; the other shaded by rows of trees, was called the "Academy." The main building contained a covered part, or peristyle, with recesses containing seats. It also had thermal baths and contained a number of works of art, both pictures and statues in bronze and marble. The cost of this and the other house which he built at Pompeii led to him being burdened with debt.27
Archaeology
In 1806 the first campaign of archaeological excavation on the top of the Tuscolo hill was begun by Lucien Bonaparte. In 1825 the archaeologist Luigi Biondi excavated to find out Tusculum, engaged by Queen Maria Cristina of Bourbon, wife of Charles Felix of Sardinia. In 1839 and 1840 the architect and archaeologist Luigi Canina, called by the same royal family, excavated the Theatre area of Tusculum. The ancient works of art excavated were sent to Savoy Castle of Agliè in Piedmont.
In 1955 and 1956 the archaeologist Maurizio Borda excavated a necropolis with cinerary urns.
Since 1994 the Tusculum Project29 has been excavating on the site. Geophysics in 2015 revealed an important discovery: a monumental building in the plateau above the monumental area. Excavations from 2015 to 2018 brought to light part of baths of the Hadrianic era built on a previous domestic building and on which a basilica was built during the Middle Ages. In 2023 a fine statue of a Bacchante dating from the 1st c. AD was discovered in the baths which may have been owned by Cicero and that he had described.30 Since 2019 the forum and the basilica have been revealed.
Main sights
The Roman theatre on the hill of Tuscolo and the Villa of Tiberius are now accessible. In the extra-urban area located south of the city, between it and the Via Latina, there is archeological evidence of burials in the medieval church already in ruin after 1191 and dating to the 13th century, found by the last archeological excavation (1999).31
In the High Middle Ages, there were three churches in Tusculum: St. Saviour and Holy Trinity "in civitate", and St. Thomas on the acropolis. The Greek monastery of St. Agatha lay at the foot of the Tuscolo hill, at the 15th mile of the Via Latina road, the old "Statio Roboraria" : it was founded in 370 AD by the basilian monk John of Cappadocia, a disciple of St. Basil of Caesarea, called St. Basil the Great. He brought here a relic of the master, handed it over to him by monk Gregory Nazianzus. Saint Nilus the Younger died in this Greek monastery on 27 December 1005.
The Portrait of "Madonna del Tuscolo", placed nowadays in a little aedicule on the Tuscolo hill, is a reproduction in ceramic of an earlier original icon from Tusculum, spoil of war, which now is in the Abbey of St. Mary in Grottaferrata.
The cross of Tusculum there was already in 1840, as reported by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, rector of the English College. In October, 1864 the students of the English College rebuilt the plinth of foundation of the old cross. Now on the top of the Tuscolo hill is an altar and an iron cross 19 metres (62,33 ft) high. The height of cross underlines the fact that it was built 19 centuries after the death of Jesus Christ.
But still closer to Rome than the mountainous country where these cities lie, there is another ridge, which leaves a valley (the valley near Algidum) between them and is high as far as Mount Albanus. It is on this chain that Tusculum is situated, a city with no mean equipment of buildings; and it is adorned by the plantings and villas encircling it, and particularly by those that extend below the city in the general direction of the city of Rome; for here Tusculum is a fertile and well-watered hill, which in many places rises gently into crests and admits of magnificently devised royal palaces.
William GellThe Topography of Rome and its Vicinity with Map. 2 vols. London, 1834. [Rev. and enlarged by Edward Henry Banbury. London, 1846.]
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Thomas Ashby. The Roman Campagna in Classical Times. London, 1927.
G. Bagnani. The Roman Campagna and its treasures. London, 1929.
G.E. Mc Cracken. A History of Ancient Tusculum. Washington, 1939.
B. Goss. Tusculum in PECS (Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites). 1976.
T.J. Cornell. The beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to Punic War. London, 1995. ISBN 0-415-01596-0.
Xavier Dupré. Scavi archeologici di Tusculum. Rome, 2000. ISBN 88-900486-0-3.
Stefania Quilici Gigli, Lorenzo Quilici: Sulle fortificazioni di Tusculum, in Quaderni Archeologia Etrusco italica 21, 1993 ↩
Quilici, Lorenzo, and Stefania Quilici Gigli. Tusculum Ed Il Parco Archeologico. Roma: XI Comunità Montana del Lazio "Castelli romani e prenestini", 1991 p. 23-26 ↩
Quilici, Lorenzo, and Stefania Quilici Gigli. Tusculum Ed Il Parco Archeologico. Roma: XI Comunità Montana del Lazio "Castelli romani e prenestini", 1991 p 44-45 ↩
Xavier Dupré Raventós, Il foro repubblicano di Tusculum alla luce dei recenti scavi., su DIGITAL.CSIC, 2003. URL consultato il 29 settembre 2024. ↩
BIANCO R., PIZZO A., “L’area monumentale di Tusculum: nuove ricerche e proposte interpretative (età arcaica – età imperiale)”, en Archivo Español de Arqueología, 96, e11 ↩
Quilici, Lorenzo, and Stefania Quilici Gigli. Tusculum Ed Il Parco Archeologico. Roma: XI Comunità Montana del Lazio "Castelli romani e prenestini", 1991 p 53 ↩
Hernández Castro, D., & Pizzo, A. (2026). ¿Una bacante de Cicerón? El hallazgo de una posible escultura de Evandros en las excavaciones de Tusculum. Pyrenae, 57(2), 33–57. doi:10.1344/pyrenae2026. vol 57 num2.2 ↩