Perspectivas de futuro

Like many of her sister cities in Latium, Tibur already had a significant urban presence in the period before Rome’s rise to prominence in the region.Archaeological evidence suggests that the site was frequented in the Bronze Age and shows extensive Iron Age habitation and elaborate cemeteries with burials dated from the 8th-7th centuries.182It is clear that the Romans were conscious of the relative antiquity of Tibur, which is

discussed in literatureof the late Republic and Empire. This knowledge is also reflected

182 _{Recent summary of material in Fulminate 2003, 45-50. For Bronze Age material}

found at several sites at Tibur (Grotta Polesini, Osteria del Curato, S. Angelo in Arcese, and Colle Ripoli), see Mari and Sperandio 1985, Mari 1993. Burials dating to the 8th_-7th

centuries BCE were found at Tibur. See also Mari 1993 on proto-historic habitation in the territory of Tibur generally.

in poetic references to the city that account for the fact that Tibur was believed to have predated the legendary foundation of Rome in 753 BCE by depicting Tibur as an active participant in the “golden age” of heroes in Latium prior to the arrival of Aeneas. Pliny’s Natural History describes the people of Tibur as having an origin earlier than the city of Rome in the course of identifying the oldest trees in Latium; he computes the relative age of Tibur’s foundation through the legendary city founder of Tiburnus, who is said to be the son of Amphiraus, who fought at Thebes in the generation before the Trojan War.183 Statius also references the perceived antiquity of Tibur (and its trees) in his Silvae, when he asks rhetorically whether he should speak about the venerable old age of the groves at Manilius Vopiscus’ villa in Tibur.184 _{Dionysius of Halicarnassus names Tibur as one of}

the cities built by the Aborigines as they conquered the Italian peninsula, having come to Italy as colonists from Arcadia well before the Trojan War. He claims that not many of the Aboriginal cities survived, as most had been destroyed by wars and other disasters; Tibur, Antemnae, Tellenae, and Ficulea are the only cities still inhabited in his day.185 This makes Dionysius’ claim about the antiquity of Tibur more than a general statement about the history of cities in Latium before Aeneas’ arrival and Rome’s foundation, as Tibur is a rare survival belonging to this earliest phase of foundations.

The poetic narratives of the “Golden Age” of heroes in central Italy in Ovid and Vergil also situate Tibur in this era of Latin cities founded as colonies by Greek heroes. In the opening to the fourth book of the Fasti, Ovid begins the month of April, Venus’ month, by narrating the ancestry of the Julian line obliquely through Venus’ son

183 _{Pliny NH 16.87.2} 184 _{Stat. Silv. 1.3.38-9} 185 _{Dion. Hal. 1.14.1}

Aeneas.186 Before Aeneas’ descendant Romulus founded Rome and began the calendar known to Ovid’s readers, the poet says, “already the walls of watery Tibur were

standing” (iam moenia Tiburis udi/stabant, emphasis mine).187 The temporal adverb iam, repeated from earlier in line 71 (et iam Telegoni, iam moenia Tiburis udi) emphasizes the temporal priority of Tibur, along with a few other Italian cities—Tusculum, Patavium, Formiae, and Falerii—over Rome. The list is brief, as in Dionysius (although only Tibur appears on both lists), which suggests that the Romans attributed particular antiquity to some cities extending beyond the general impression of an active culture in Latium prior to the arrival of Aeneas. Tibur appears in Vergil among a larger group of Italian cities arrayed against the Trojans in the second half of the Aeneid: when the gates of war are opened and “calm Ausonia burns,” Vergil says, “their anvils set up, five such great cities make weapons anew: mighty Atina and proud Tibur, Ardea and Crustumeria and turreted Antemnae.”188 Vergil later refers to the eponymous founder of the city, whose name is given as Tiburtus: his brothers, the twins Catillus and Coras leave the walls of Tibur along with “the people called by the name of their brother” (i.e. the Tiburtes).189 _The

brothers are described as Argive youths (Argiva iuventus), referencing the legendary

186 _{The poet mentions the name of Augustus’ adopted family only briefly at lines 39-40}

(venimus ad felix aliquando nomen Iuli,/unde domus Teucros Iulia tangit avos) before returning to the age of legend. See especially Pasco-Pranger 2006 on the fourth book of the Fasti and its characterization of Venus, as well as (on the length of the Fasti) whether the absence of the books dealing directly with the Julian line is deliberate.

187 _{Ov. Fast. 4.71-2 et iam Telegoni, iam moenia Tiburis udi/stabant, Argolicae quod}

posuere manus (and already were standing the walls of Telegonus, of well-watered Tibur,

which Argive hands placed)

188 _{Verg. Aen. 7.623, 29-31}

189 _{Verg. Aen. 7.670-2 Tum gemini fratres Tiburtia moenia linquunt/fratris Tiburti dictam}

cognomine gentem/Catillusque acerque Coras, Argiva iuventus (Then the twin brothers

leave the Tiburtine walls—Catillus and Coras, Argive youths—and the race called by the name of their brother Tiburtus)

background of the city’s foundation as a Greek colony.190 The brothers associated with Tibur’s foundation join another implied list of ancient Italian communities by their inclusion here in Vergil’s so-called “catalogue of Italian heroes.”191 The majority of references to Tibur’s foundation associate it with the family of the aforementioned eponymous hero Tiburtus/Tiburnus.192 _{In Roman sources Tibur is thus consistently}

described as one of the earliest city foundations in Latium, even when the list of earliest cities changes from author to author. It is closely tied to early waves of Greek settlement in Italy and is thus firmly associated, in both historiographical accounts of prehistorical Italy and poetic depictions of the age of heroes, with an independent existence that is both prior to Aeneas’ arrival and thus, necessarily, pre-Roman.