Circeii

About

Circeii was an ancient Roman city on the site of modern San Felice Circeo and near Mount Circeo, the mountain promontory on the southwest coast of Italy. The area around Circeii and Mount Circeo was thickly populated with Roman villas and other buildings, of which the remains of many can still be seen. The origin of the name is uncertain: it has naturally been connected with Homer's legend of Circe. The difficulty has been raised that the promontory ceased to be an island well before Homer's time; but Procopius remarked that the promontory has all the appearance of an island until one is actually upon it.

The town on the eastern side of Monte Circeo was probably founded by Greeks at the end of the Bronze Age, when they established ports and emporiums along the Italian coast.

At the east end of the promontory ridge are the remains of Bronze Age cyclopean walls that roughly form a rectangle of 200 by 100 metres. It seems to have been an acropolis and contains only a subterranean cistern with a beehive roof of converging blocks. The megalithic blocks are cut and assembled precisely together using tight polygonal joints without mortar. Many walls of this type were built during the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean, for example in Lazio those of Segni, Ferentino, Norba and Arpinum, possibly by the Aurunci people of the area. The blocks of the inner face are much less carefully worked both here and at Arpinum.

The Roman colony of Circeii was founded in the time of Roman king Tarquinius Superbus (before 495 BC).

The Roman colonists were expelled by the Volsci during the Volscian invasion led by Coriolanus in 491-488 BC. Circeii was reconquered by the Romans in about 393 BC three years before the Gaulish War. Not long afterwards the Circeians revolted, and joined the Volscians again. Nevertheless in Rome's treaty with Carthage in 348 BC Circeii is stated as under Roman protection.

They must have succeeded in establishing their independence as at the start of the second Latin War in 340 BC Circeii was a member of the Latin League. After the war it must have been recolonised by the Romans, because in the Second Punic War it was among their thirty Latin colonies. But in 209 BC, during the Second Punic War, Circeii was one of twelve colonies to refuse any more military contributions towards Rome and in 204 it was punished as a result, by supplying double the greatest number of foot soldiers they had ever provided and 120 horsemen, all chosen from the wealthiest citizens, and to be sent out of Italy. Also an annual tax was imposed.

The town only acquired municipal rights after the Social War and was unimportant except as a seaside resort.

In the 2nd Triumvirate, after a dispute between Lepidus and Octavian, Lepidus was forced into exile in Circeii in 36 BC.

It became an agreeable place of retirement for wealthy Romans under the later Republic and the Empire, and the emperors Tiberius and Domitian had villas nearby.

At the end of the republic or at latest at the beginning of the imperial period, the city of Circeii was connected to a harbour on the west side of the promontory on the shore of the Lago di Paola (a lagoon, now a considerable fishery) separated from the sea by a line of sand-dunes and connected with it by a Roman channel: Strabo speaks of the city as a small harbour 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) north of the west end of the promontory.

The Roman colonists were expelled by the Volsci during the Volscian invasion led by Coriolanus in 491-488 BC. Circeii was reconquered by the Romans in about 393 BC three years before the Gaulish War. Not long afterwards the Circeians revolted, and joined the Volscians again. Nevertheless in Rome's treaty with Carthage in 348 BC Circeii is stated as under Roman protection.

They must have succeeded in establishing their independence as at the start of the second Latin War in 340 BC Circeii was a member of the Latin League. After the war it must have been recolonised by the Romans, because in the Second Punic War it was among their thirty Latin colonies. But in 209 BC, during the Second Punic War, Circeii was one of twelve colonies to refuse any more military contributions towards Rome and in 204 it was punished as a result, by supplying double the greatest number of foot soldiers they had ever provided and 120 horsemen, all chosen from the wealthiest citizens, and to be sent out of Italy. Also an annual tax was imposed.

The town only acquired municipal rights after the Social War and was unimportant except as a seaside resort.

In the 2nd Triumvirate, after a dispute between Lepidus and Octavian, Lepidus was forced into exile in Circeii in 36 BC.

It became an agreeable place of retirement for wealthy Romans under the later Republic and the Empire, and the emperors Tiberius and Domitian had villas nearby.

At the end of the republic or at latest at the beginning of the imperial period, the city of Circeii was connected to a harbour on the west side of the promontory on the shore of the Lago di Paola (a lagoon, now a considerable fishery) separated from the sea by a line of sand-dunes and connected with it by a Roman channel: Strabo speaks of the city as a small harbour 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) north of the west end of the promontory.

The more modern town of San Felice Circeo seems to occupy the site of the ancient city; its mediaeval walls rest upon ancient Cyclopean walls of less careful construction than those of the acropolis, and enclose an area that measures 200 by 150 m (660 by 490 ft). Along with the acropolis on the east end of the mountain, the highest summit of the promontory has ruins of a platform attributed to a temple of Venus or Circe.

This coastal area became popular with rich Romans, like nearby coasts, for the location of large, luxurious villas. On the east end of the promontory stand the remains of several very large ancient villas which Cicero compared to those at Antium. [ citation needed ]

North of the city on the Lago di Paola near Sabaudia emperor Domitian built a sumptuous villa extending over a vast area. Along the lagoon were fine buildings, including a large open piscina or basin, surrounded by a double portico, while farther inland are several very large and well-preserved cisterns supplied by an aqueduct of which traces may still be seen.

An ancient inscription found near Torre Paola speaks of an amphitheatre, of which no remains are visible. Another inscription in the rock near San Felice speaks about this part of the Latin : promonturium Veneris ("promontory of Venus "; the only case of the use of this name) as belonging to the city of Circeii.