Though the town itself was not populous, the beauty of the situation, and wholesomeness of the air, prompted great numbers of illustrious Romans, both before the final destruction of the Republic, and afterwards in Augustus’s time, to build country-houses in the neighbourhood. Julius Cæsar had a villa here, which he was under the necessity of selling to defray the expence of the public shews and games he exhibited to the people during his Ædileship. Plutarch says, that his liberality and magnificence, on this occasion, obscured the glory of all who had preceded him in the office, and gained the hearts of the people to such a degree, that they were ready to invent new offices and new honours for him. He then laid the foundation of that power and popularity, which enabled him, in the end, to overturn the constitution of his country. Caius Cassius had also a country house here; where Marcus Brutus and he are said to have had frequent meetings, and to have formed the plan which terminated the ambition of Cæsar, and again offered to Rome that freedom which she had not the virtue to accept. Here, also, was the villa of Augustus, whose success in life arose at the field of Philippi from which he fled, was confirmed by the death of the most virtuous citizens of Rome, and who, without the talents, reaped the fruits of the labours and vast projects of Julius. Lepidus the Triumvir, Cæcilius Metellus, Quintilius Varus, the poets Catullus and Propertius, and other distinguished Romans, had villas in this town or its environs; and you are shewn the spots on which they stood; but nothing renders Tibur so interesting, as the frequent mention which Horace makes of it in his writings. His great patron and friend Mæcenas had a villa here, the ruins of which are to be seen on the south bank of the Anio; and it was pretty generally supposed, that the poet’s own house and farm were very near it, and immediately without the walls of Tibur; but it has been of late asserted, with great probability, that Horace’s farm was situated nine miles above that of Mæcenas’s, at the side of a stream called Licenza, formerly Digentia, near the hill Lucretilis, in the country of the ancient Sabines. Those who hold this opinion say, that when Horace talks of Tibur, he alludes to the villa of Mæcenas; but when he mentions Digentia, or Lucretilis, his own house and farm are to be understood; as in the eighteenth Epistle of the first book,
Me quoties resicit gelidus Digentia rivus,
Quem Mandela bibit, rugosus frigore pagus;
Quid sentire putas, quid credis, amice, precari?
the seventeenth Ode of the first book,
Velox amænum sæpe Lucretilem
Mutat Lycæo Faunus;——
and in other passages. But whether the poet’s house and farm were near the town of Tibur, or at a distance from it, his writings sufficiently show that he spent much of his time there; and it is probable that he composed great part of his works in that favourite retreat. This he himself in some measure declares, in that fine Ode addressed to Julius Antonius, son of Mark Antony, by Fulvia; the same whom Augustus first pardoned, and afterwards put privately to death, on account of an intrigue into which Antonius was seduced by the abandoned Julia, daughter of Augustus.
——Ego, apis Matinæ