Tusculum, a day's easy journey southeast of Rome, was Cicero’s beloved retreat, high on a mountainous ridge overlooking Rome’s campagna.
Tusculum was an ancient city of Latium in the Alban Hills, on the northern edge of the outer ring of Alban volcanos (some 15 miles from Rome, near modern Frascati). Founded by at least the eighth century BC, its earlier history was often hostile to Rome during the period the town belonged to the Latin League. But from at least the fourth century B.C., it was a part of Rome's system of allied villages and tribes.
Approach Tusculum by the Via Latina or by the Via Tuscolana. The town itself perches along a long east-west ridge, 2,000 feet above sea level. From here, the air is cool and the views over the Campagnian plain are spectacular. Tusculum has its own temples, amphitheatre, theatre, shops, and tomb monuments on the roads leading into the town proper.
Legend said that Telegonus, son of Ulysses and Circe, first founded the city in pre-historic days. The town has been colonized since before the founding of Rome, and has significant Etruscan influence. When Tarquin the Proud was expelled from Rome, some of his strongest allies came from Tusculum, and Tusculum joined the Latin League against Rome at the famous Battle of Lake Regillus (497 BC). When the Latin League was trounced, Tusculum sought accommodation with Rome. Over the next century, Rome and Tusculum overcame their hostility and the city received Rome's franchise in 381 B.C. From then until the end, it was a town with its own aediles but with no independent government from Rome.
Tusculum now had the position of one of the first "municipium cum suffragio" cities near Rome. It continued to be a municipium until the end of the Empire.
Tusculum was one of the most snobbish places to have your country villa from the time of the late Republic through the period of Empire (although the Bay of Naples was both more popular and more extravagant). Archeologists have found the sites of no fewer than 134 villas in and around this small country town. It was the ultimate country get-away from Rome, high in the southern hills. Those living in Tusculum were a "Who's Who" of famous Romans. Perhaps most famous was Cicero, who had a villa at Tusculum about which he frequently wrote Atticus (who helped him obtain expensive Greek statues for his gardens), and where he wrote famous philosophic works including the "Tusculanae Quaestiones" . He admitted he loved Tusculum best. But a century before, Cato the Elder had his farm in Tusculum (before the word "villa" meant more than a farmhouse). Those known to have lived or had residences near Tusculum include the Emperors Claudius, Nero, and Vespasian; Agrippina, Nero's mother; the philosopher Pliny the Younger; and the famous sybarite Lucullus and his orator contemporary, Hortensius and the warriors Sulla and Pompey. Yet because the town itself, on its high volcanic ridge, was somewhat difficult to get to, Tusculum became famous not so much for the city itself, as for those whose luxurious villas surrounded its walls. By far the majority of all the villas around Tusculum have never been excavated.
Many Roman families were originally from Tusculum, including the gentes Mamilia, Fulvia, Fonteia, Juventia, Oppia, Cordia, Manlia, Furia and Porcia. To the end, its cool summer hills were a happy getaway from the heat and noise of Rome.
SOURCES:Map courtesy of Servian Walls.
