Again, after Father Tiber had disappeared, and Æneas, having invoked the god, fitted out two galleys to go up the Tiber to Evander:
"Now on the shore the fatal swine is found.
Wondrous to tell, she lay along the ground;
Her well-fed offspring at her udders hung—
She white herself, and white her thirty young!"
Æneid, viii. 120.
Thus, according to Virgil's own showing, the sow was found on the banks of the Tiber; how then could the shores of the Alban Lake be the site of Alba Longa? Ought we not rather to look for that site on the banks of the Tiber below Rome, where the sow was found, according to the voices of the oracle and the river-god, and the record handed down by Virgil? On the other hand, we are told Alba Longa was "built by Ascanius, the son of Æneas, thirty years after the building of Lavinium. Alba stood between a mountain and a lake: the mountain is extremely strong and high, and the lake deep and large. When one part of the lake is low upon the retreat of the water, and the bottom clear, the ruins of porticoes and other traces of habitation appear, being the remains of the palace of King Alladius, which was destroyed by the lake rising. Alba Longa was demolished by Marcus Horatius, by command of Tullus Hostilius" (Dionysius, i. 66. See Livy, i. 29).
From Castel Gandolfo a pleasant road by the lake leads to Marino, passing through a wood after leaving the lake. Just before entering the town we come to a wooded glen, the ancient
VALLIS FERENTINA,
where the diet of the Latin states assembled to discuss the interests of peace and war. A stream runs through the valley, and in the spring which feeds the stream, at the head of the valley, Turnus Herdonius, Lord of Ariccia, was drowned by the command of Tarquinius Superbus.