VILLA TORLONIA, 
FRASCATI. 
N some hot spring morning one wearies 
of the bustle and clatter of Rome, one 
looks longingly at the bunches of blue 
anemones and crimson cyclamens on the 
flower-stalls, and pictures how they are growing in 
the April woods. beyond the city; and there is 
keen pleasure in leaving behind the street-cries, 
the press and throng of the Corso, and the crowd 
of tourists, and in finding one’s self drawing out 
into the silent campagna, where the giant aqueducts 
stride across the plain, and the shepherd with his 
brown sheep and white dogs are the only living 
beings to be seen. The train winds higher and 
higher among grey olives and pink-flushed almond 
trees, and the air feels fresh and pure, as in the 
evening sunset we look back to Rome over that 
wondrous plain and see only the shadowy dome 
rising above the purple patch which is the city. 
So Tusculum of old for long centuries looked down 
upon Rome, for Rome was the most recent rather 
than the most ancient among the Latin cities. 
This 
“Fatica di gloria e di sventure, 
Terra Latina” 
(This Latin land, 
Tired out with glory and mis-fortune”’) 
goes back so far that its origin is lost in fabulous 
legends. It was said to have been founded by 
Telegonus, the son of Ulysses and Circe, and 
Mauritius, Prince of Tusculum, claimed to be 
descended from them. It is strange indeed, as 
one wanders up the lonely paths and_ slopes that 
lie behind Frascati, to think that all over this 
wild ground, where the goats crop and the gorse 
and wild thyme scent the air, rose 
“The white streets of Tusculum, 
The proudest town of all.” 
A great, well-ordered city, with its own laws and 
civil dignatories, and all around it a rich and 
cultivated country-side, with vines and olives, corn 
lands and pasture. On the neighbouring hills the 
white walls of other cities glimmered in the 
sunshine, Palestrina, Preneste, the ancient towns 
of Gabii and Labicum, and on_ the shores of 
the Alban lake that Alba Longa from which, 
five hundred years after the founding of Tusculum, 
a little band of outlaws was to descend into the 
142 
plain, and there, where a hill rose beside the river, 
was to found Roma Immortalis. 
Tusculum saw Rome rise gradually to great- 
ness. It intermarried with her, it made treaties 
with her, it fought her in the wide plain below. 
Probably it is over by Monte Porzio, in what 
looks like an extinct crater, that Lake Regillus 
lay, where that battle was fought when out of 
40,000 Latins only 1t0,o00 came home, when 
Rome was only saved by her cavalry, and her 
generals voted a Temple to the Great Twin 
Brethren, who, in the moment when all seemed 
lost, men had seen riding in their van. 
In the decline of the Republic, and the 
rise of the Empire, men began to enjoy leisure. 
They had the wish to escape from the bustle 
of towns, and, peace reigning between Rome 
and prosperous Tusculum, the delightful slopes 
which lay below the city were singled out, and 
villas rose in every part, from the smallest to 
the most sumptuous. The country-side was white 
with them; the names of great numbers have 
been recovered, and the sites of many determined. 
There was the villa of the Octavii, where Villa 
Aldobrandini now stands; Cato’s was at Monte 
Porzio, that of Pliny the younger at Centrone. 
The Javoleni built where the ruins of Borghetto 
now stand, Cicero’s stately school and __ halls 
stretched away to Grotta Ferrata, and on the site 
of Villa Torlonia glowed the gardens of Lucullus, 
most famous of all. Archzologists believe that 
the ancient villas were laid out on much the same 
plan as those of a later time, with a succession 
of terraces and marble balustrades, and arranged 
so that the descending water could be utilised to 
the greatest possible advantage. Besides all that 
taste and love of luxury could do, Lucullus had 
here his celebrated library, to which Cicero often 
had recourse. Here he gave magnificent banquets, 
with delicacies brought irom all parts of the 
known world; here, perhaps, he planted those 
cherry trees, which he was the first to intro- 
duce into Europe, bringing them from Cerasus 
in Pontus. At his death his superb villa came 
into the hands of the Flavii. In the first century 
it was part of the Imperial domains, and was 
restored and embellished by Domitian, and though 
