In the walls near this point is a stone doorway leading into a stone water-tank, with a pointed roof formed by overlapping stones, on the same principle as the roof of the so-called Mamertine prison at Rome, the gate of Arpinum and the treasuries of Mycenæ and Orchomenos. The doorway is about ten feet high and five wide, and the tank of the same dimensions. In the interior are three divisions or basins for water, and at the back an aqueduct enters by means of which the water was supplied. At the side of this tank there is a small ancient fountain under the wall which was supplied from the tank by a leaden pipe. An inscription on the fountain records that it was made by the Ædiles Quintus Cælius Latinus, son of Quintus, and Marcus Decumo, by command of the Senate of Tusculum. Not far from the fountain was found the fifteenth milestone from Rome.
On the road to Frascati, near the point where the western gate of the city has been supposed to have stood, the remains of an amphitheatre can be discovered. The seats are entirely destroyed, and it is only by the oval shape and by the position of the substruction that the ruins can be recognized as those of an amphitheatre. A round tomb stands a little above the amphitheatre, and beyond this the ruins of a large villa called Scuola di Cicerone cover the side of the hill towards the Alban valley.
The legend which ascribes the foundation of Tusculum to Telegonus, the son of Circe and Ulysses, is familiar to all readers of the Latin poets. It is remarkable, however, that Virgil, who mentions most of the towns of Latium, has entirely omitted to notice Tusculum. This may be mere accident, or it may be attributable to a grudge similar to that which led him, according to Aulus Gellius, to omit Nola from the lines in the Georgics celebrating the fertility of Campania, but it certainly cannot be due to the fear of making an anachronism, as Nibby supposes. In the times of the Latin league, from the fall of Alba to the battle of the Lake Regillus, Tusculum was the most prominent town in Latium. It suffered, like the other towns of Latium, a complete eclipse during the later republic and the imperial times, but in the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries under the counts of Tusculum it became again a place of great importance and power, no less than seven Popes of their house having sat in the chair of St. Peter. The final destruction of the city is placed by Nibby, following the account given in the records of the Podesta of Reggio, on the 1st of April, A.D. 1191, in which year the city was given up to the Romans by the Emperor Henry VI., and after the withdrawal of the German garrison, was sacked and razed to the ground. Those of the inhabitants who escaped collected round the church of S. Sebastian on the foot of the hill, in the district called Frascati, whence the town of Frascati took its origin and name. They founded their new town upon the remains of an ancient villa, which stood near the round tomb which still remains on the road to the Villa della Ruffinella. The name of Lucullus has been attached to this villa and tomb from the statement of Plutarch that Lucullus was buried by his brother at his Tusculan villa. It is however, much more probable that the larger round tomb in the vigna Angelotti on the road towards Rome was the burial-place of Lucullus.
Scuola di Cicerone.
The building now called Scuola di Cicerone is not far from the ruins of the western gate of Tusculum. The ground floor is apparently about 270 feet in length and 100 in depth, but the upper parts of the buildings have now completely disappeared. The materials were of brick and reticulated work, similar to that now found in the gardens of Sallust at Rome, and generally considered as belonging to the last age of the Republic or the early Empire. The ground floor had a cryptoporticus along its whole length, and above this on the first floor was probably an open portico with a colonnade. Eight large rooms opened out behind the cryptoporticus, in the second of which are the remains of some stairs, and at the back of the eighth a recess. At the ends of the cryptoporticus are the remains of some more rooms. There are no signs of decoration on any of the walls, and therefore this lowest story of the building is supposed to have been used as a storehouse for corn and farm produce.
There is, however, no evidence whatever to connect these ruins with Cicero’s Villa. The only indication we have of its site is given by the Scholiast on Horace, who speaks of it as situated near Tusculum on the upper slopes of the hill.[145]
Villa of Gabinius.
This will agree either with the ruins just described or with those found in 1741 under the modern Villa Rufinella, which is a little way lower down the western slope. That Cicero’s Villa was upon the upper part of the hill is confirmed by his own statement that it was so near that of the consul Gabinius, that at the time of Cicero’s exile, not only the furniture but the trees in his garden were transferred to the Villa of Gabinius, and we also find that this latter villa was upon the upper part of the hill. Nibby accordingly places the Villa of Gabinius on the site of the modern Villa Falconieri close to the Rufinella.
Several particulars about his villa are mentioned by Cicero himself. It contained two rooms called gymnasia, to the upper of which he gave the name of Lyceum, and which contained his library. The lower gymnasium was called the Academy in honour of Plato.
The Lyceum seems to have been used in the morning, and the Academia in the afternoon, as being more sheltered from the heat of the sun.