Tusculum

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Tusculum was an ancient city of Latium in Italy situated in a commanding position on the north edge of the outer crater ring of the Alban volcano, in Alban Hills 6 km (4 miles) north-east of the modern Frascati on the Tuscolo hill.

The highest point is 670 m above sea level, the top of Tuscolo hill. It has a very extensive view of the Roman Campagna, with Rome lying 25 km (15 mi) to the north-west. Rome was approached 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.

1 HISTORY
2 The cross
3 Sources

[edit] HISTORY

View of the theatre.

[edit] Antiquity

Funerary urns datable to the 8th - 7th centuries BCE, are clear demonstrations of the presence of a habitat of the late phases of Latial culture in this zone and a continuous occupation from the eighth century BCE to the 12th century CE.

According to tradition, the city was founded by Telegonus, the son of Ulysses and Circe. When Tarquinius Superbus was expelled from Rome his cause was espoused by the chief of Tusculum, Octavius Mamilius, who took a leading part in the formation of the Latin League, composed of the thirty principal cities of Latium, banded together against Rome. Mamilius commanded the Latin army at the battle of Lake Regillus (497 BCE), but was killed, and the predominance of Rome among the Latin cities was practically established. According to some accounts Tusculum became from that time an ally of Rome, and on that account frequently incurred the hostility of the other Latin cities.

In 381 BCE, after an expression of complete submission to Rome, the people of Tusculum received the Roman franchise, Tusculum became the first "municipium cum suffragio", and thenceforth the city continued to hold the rank of a municipium, therefore the Tusculum citizens were recorded in the "Tribus Papiria". Other accounts, however, speak of Tusculum as often allied with Rome's enemies last of all with the Samnites in 323 BCE.

Several of the chief Roman families were of Tusculan origin, e.g. the gentes Mamilii (Mamilius), Fulvii, Fonteii, Juventii, Oppii, Coruncanii, Quinzii, Rabirii, Javolenii, Cordii, Manlii (Manlius), Furii (Furius) and Porcii; to the last-named the celebrated Catos belonged (as Marcus Porcius Cato "Cato the Elder" was born in Tusculum 243 BCE).

In 54 BCE, in his Orationes Pro Cn. Plancio, Marcus Tullius Cicero said: "....tu es ex municipio antiquissimo tusculano ex quo plurimae sunt familiae consulares quot e reliquis municipiis omnibus non sunt...." VIII cap.

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. The villas of the neighborhood had indeed acquired greater importance than the not easily accessible town itself, and by the end of the Republic, and still more during the imperial period, the territory of Tusculum was one of the favorite places of residence of the wealthy Romans.

In 45 BCE Cicero wrote a series of books in his Roman villa in Tusculum, the Tusculanae Quaestiones.

The last archeological evidence of Roman Tusculum is a bronze tablet of 406 CE commemorated Anicio Probo Consul 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 famous base of Counts of Tusculum, important family in the Medieval History of Rome.

The number and extent of the remains almost defy description, and can only be made clear by a map. Even in the time of Cicero there were eighteen owners of villas there. 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. On the hill of Tuscolo are remains of a small theatre excavated in 1839 (pictured).

Madonna del Tuscolo.

[edit] High Middle Ages

In the High Middle Ages, there were three churches in Tusculum: St. Savior and Holy Trinity "in civitate", while St. Thomas on the acropolis. The Greek monastery of St. Agata lay at the foot of the Tuscolo hill, at XV mile of Via Latina road, the old "Statio Roboraria" : it was founded in 370 A.C. by basilian monk John of Cappadocia disciple of St. Basil of Caesarea, called St. Basil the Great, he brought a relic of the master, handed it over to him by monk Gregory Nazianzus. In this Greek monastery the 27 December 1005 Saint Nilus the Younger died.

From X to XII century the Tusculum history is strictly connected to Counts of Tusculum history. They were a family, a clan sistem, started with Theophylact I, Count of Tusculum (-; 924) and with his daughter Marozia (892 - 932) who married Alberic I of Spoleto (-; 917), Marquis of Spoleto and Camerino, winner in 915 in the battle of Garigliano river against the Saracen Army.

The Counts of Tusculum became arbiter of Rome from politics and religious point of view for a long period of time, more one century; they were pro-Byzantine and contro-German Emperor, from their clan came many Popes of the evo age (from 914 to 1049).

The particular "formula" created by Counts of Tusculum was a solution to the problem of the meet between civil and religious power in Rome, they subordinated their own needs to those of the Papacy; in the same time the Counts of Tusculum had two members of the clan nominated one Pope and the other civil chief of Rome.

The Count Gregory I of Tusculum is remember as one of the greatest Count because he rebuilt the fortress on Tuscolo hill, gave as gift the "Criptaferrata" to saint Nilus the Younger and headed the Roman people rebellion on 1001 against the German Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor.

After 1049 the Counts of Tusculum Papacy finished because the particular "formula" of the papacy-family was out of time. Subsequent events from 1062 confirmed the change of Counts Tusculum politics, which became pro-Emperor against the Commune of Rome.

Tusculum had in this time several nobles guestes as Louis VII of France and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1049, after Frederick Barbarossa and the english Pope Adrian IV in 1155.

In 1167 the Roman Commune Army attacked Tusculum but it was defeated by the Emperor allied army; in the summer of 1167 a plague decimated the Emperor Army and Frederick Barbarossa went back to Germany.

In 1183 the Roman Commune Army attacked again Tusculum, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa send a new contingent of troops to its defence.

Croce del Tuscolo.

[edit] Destruction

The Roman Communal's Army destroyed the town on 17 April 1191 with the consent of Pope Celestine III and the authorization to proceed of Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, son of Frederick Barbarossa, obteined by Roman people under condition to the crowned save in Rome, two days before. Roger of Hoveden wrote "lapis supra lapidem non remansit", indeed the Roman Commune's army took away the stones of the walls of Tusculum as spoils of war in Rome.

Portrait of "Madonna del Tuscolo" placed nowadays in a little aedicule on the Tuscolo hill, is a reprodution in ceramic of an earlier original icon of Tusculum, which now is in the Abbey of St. Mary in Grottaferrata.

[edit] From destruction to nowadays

[edit] The plunder of Tusculum

After destruction the land of Tusculum city became woodland and pasture lands. The buildings destroyed in Tusculum became a big open quarry of materials for the inhabitants of the neighbours towns of Alban Hills.

[edit] The dispersion of the Tusculum residents

From 1167 the residents of Tusculum became to transfer to the neighbours (Locus) or little villages as Monte Porzio Catone, Grottaferrata but most "Tusculans" went to Frascati: the day of destruction Tusculum city, as matter of fact, was deserted, there were only a little group of defense troops.

[edit] The archaelogical excavations of Tusculum

In 1806 started the first campaign of archaeological excavation on the top of the Tuscolo hill by Lucien Bonaparte.

In 1825 the archaelogist Marquis Luigi Biondi (1776-1839) excavated to find out Tusculum, engaged by Queen Maria Cristina of Borbon wife of Charles Felix of Sardinia. In 1839 and 1840 the architect and archaelogist Luigi Canina (1795-1856) engaged by the same royal family, excavated the Theatre area of Tusculum. The ancient works of art excavated were sent to Ducal Savoia Castle of Agliè in Piedmont.

In 1890 Thomas Ashby (1874-1931) arrived to Rome as Director of "British School at Rome": he was an expert of ancient monuments topography and studied the Tusculum monuments and reported the results in "The Roman Campagna in Classical Times" published in London, 1927.

In 1955 and 1956 the archaelogist Maurizio Borda excavated a necropolis with cinerary urns.

From 1994 to 1999 the last excavation campaigns of archaelogist Xavier Dupré and his staff undertaken by "Escuela Espanola de Historia y Arqueologia en Roma": they have helped to understanding better the history of this ancient Latium city.

[edit] The cross

Now on the top of the Tuscolo hill there are an altar and an iron cross 19 metres (62,33 feet) high. The height of cross is 19 m because it was built 19 centuries after the death of Jesus Christ.

On the altar there is a marble slab with the Latin inscription:

HIC UBI DIIS GENTIUM EXTITERE DELUBRA
CRUX CHRISTI REFULGET
QUAM PERENNANDAE MEMORIAE SAECULI XIX A REPARATA SALUTE
ET ANNI L AB INITIO SACERDOTIO MICHAELIS LEGA CARD EPISC
OPTIMATES CLERUS POPULUSQUE TUSCULI ET DIOECESEOS
ERIGENDAM CURARUNT A.D. MCMXXXIV A FR XII
PIO XI PONT. MAX - VICTORIO EMM. III REGE - BENITO MUSSOLINI DUX -
ALDOBRANDINIO PRINCIPE PATRONO