At no great distance, they shew the place to which the Eastern Queen Zenobia was confined, after she was brought in triumph to Rome by the emperor Aurelian.
The town of Tivoli is now wretchedly poor; it boasts however greater antiquity than Rome itself, being the ancient Tibur, which, Horace informs us, was founded by a Grecian colony.
Tibur Argæo positum colono
Sit meæ sedes utinam senectæ.
Ovid gives it the same origin, in the fourth book of the Fasti.
——Jam mœnia Tiburis udi
Stabant; Argolicæ quod posuere manus.
This was a populous and flourishing town in remoter antiquity; but it appears to have been thinly inhabited in the reign of Augustus. Horace, in an Epistle to Mæcenas, says,
Parvum parva decent. Mihi jam non Regia Roma,
Sed vacuum Tibur placet——