Trebula Mutusca

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For other ancient cities named Trebula, see Trebula.

Trebula (Greek: Τρήβουλα) or Trebula Mutusca or simply, e.g. in Virgil, Mutusca or Mutuscae, was an ancient city of the Sabines, one of two bearing the name Trebula – Pliny being the only author who mentions both places: Trebulani qui cognominantur Mutuscaei, et qui Suffenates, Plin. vi. 12. s. 17. Its site is clearly fixed at Monteleone Sabino, a village about 3 km on the right of the Via Salaria, between Osteria Nuova and Poggio San Lorenzo. Here there are considerable ruins, including those of a theatre, of thermae or baths, and portions of the ancient pavement. Several inscriptions have also been found here, some of which have the name of the people, Plebs Trebulana, Trebulani Mutuscani, and Trebulani Mut., so that no doubt can remain of their attribution. (Chaupy, Maison d'Horace, vol. iii. pp. 93-96; Orell. Inscr. 923, 3442, 3963.)

As this seems to have been much the more considerable place of the two Sabine cities named Trebula (the other being Trebula Suffenas), it is probably that meant by Strabo, who mentions Trebula without any distinctive adjunct but in conjunction with Eretum (Strab. v. p. 228). The Liber Coloniarumn also mentions a "Tribule", municipium (p. 258) which is probably the same place. Martial also alludes to Trebula as situated among cold and damp mountain valleys (v. 72), but it is not certain which of the two places he here refers to. The was a temple of Feronia, which was plundered by Hannibal.^[1] Virgil speaks of Mutusca as abounding in olives (oliviferaeque Mutuscae, Aen. vii. 711), which is still the case with the neighbourhood of Monteleone Sabino, and a village near it bears in consequence the name of Oliveto.