The Aborigines in Roman mythology are the oldest inhabitants of central Italy, connected in legendary history with Aeneas, Latinus and Evander. They were supposed to have descended from their mountain home near Reate (an ancient Sabine town) upon Latium, where they expelled the Sicels and subsequently settled down as Latini under a King Latinus. [1] [2]
The most generally accepted etymology of the Latin word aborigines is that it derives from ab origine, according to which they were the original inhabitants of the country, although Cato the Elder regarded them as Hellenic immigrants, not as a native Italian people. [3] For this reason, scholars have argued that the word actually has a pre-Latin origin, which has been lost, and ab origine is an example of etymological reinterpretation. [4]
Other etymological explanations suggested are arborigines, meaning "tree-born," and aberrigines, meaning "nomads". Lycophron calls a people of central Italy Boreigonoi, meaning "Boreal people". [5]
The Aborigines were possibly descendants of the Pelasgians, the original inhabitants of Greece and surrounding regions, [1] [6] or, more precisely, descendants of the Oenotrians, a tribe descended from Pelasgus by Oenotrus, son of Lycaon, primeval king of Arcadia. [7] Their earliest known home was Reate, an ancient Sabine town to the north-east of Latium near Carseoli. [2] These Aborigines were driven from their mountain home by the Sabines and settled on the river Anio. [1] The Sicels, who inhabited Latium at the time, gave way to the Aborigines, and a portion of them emigrated to Sicily, providing the origin for the island's name. [1] The emigration of the Sicels to Sicily is said to have taken place in either 1264 BC [8] or 1035 BC (Thucydides). [1]
The remaining Siculians joined with the Aborigines eventually becoming the people known as Prisci Latini (meaning old Latins), that is Prisci et Latini, or simply Latini . [1] The Aborigines did not become Latini until the reign of their king, Latinus, from whom the Romans attributed their name. This was after the arrival of the Trojans with Aeneas in the aftermath of the Trojan War. [9]
The following list is based on Dionysius of Halicarnassus. [10] [11]
All of these cities are claimed to have been taken from the Umbrians. [12] In Latium itself the Aborigines had the cities Antemnae, Caenina, Ficulnea, Tellenae, and Tibur some of which Dionysius attests were taken from the Siculians. [11] [13]
Elymus was the supposed Trojan ancestor of the Elymians (Ἔλυμοι), an indigenous people of Sicily, in Greek and Roman legend.
Ascanius was a legendary king of Alba Longa and the son of the Trojan hero Aeneas and Creusa, daughter of Priam. He is a significant figure in Roman mythology because of his genealogy: as the son of the Roman founding father Aeneas, himself the son of the goddess Venus and the Trojan prince Anchises, he was regarded as an ancestor of the Roman people. Under his additional name Iulus, he was claimed as the particular ancestor of the gens Iulia, the family of Julius Caesar, and therefore a progenitor of the first line of Roman emperors, the Julio-Claudian dynasty. In some Roman genealogies, he is also made to be an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. Together with his father, he is a major character in Virgil's Aeneid.
In Roman mythology, Evander was a culture hero from Arcadia, Greece, who was said to have brought the pantheon, laws, and alphabet of Greece to ancient Italy, where he founded the city of Pallantium on the future site of Palatine Hill, Rome, sixty years before the Trojan War. He instituted the festival of the Lupercalia. Evander was deified after his death and an altar was constructed to him on the Aventine Hill.
Turnus was the legendary King of the Rutuli in Roman history, and the chief antagonist of the hero Aeneas in Virgil's Aeneid.
In Roman mythology, Lavinia is the daughter of Latinus and Amata, and the last wife of Aeneas.
The Sabines were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Emperor Augustus. His literary style was atticistic – imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime.
In Etruscan and Sabine religion, Feronia was a goddess associated with wildlife, fertility, health, and abundance, also venerated by the Faliscans and later adopted into ancient Roman religion. As the goddess who granted freedom to slaves or civil rights to the most humble part of society, she was especially honored among plebeians and freedmen. Her festival, the Feroniae, was November 13 during the Ludi Plebeii, in conjunction with Fortuna Primigenia; both were goddesses of Praeneste.
Aeneas Silvius is the son of Silvius, in some versions grandson of Ascanius and great-grandson, grandson or son of Aeneas. He is the third in the list of the mythical kings of Alba Longa in Latium, and the Silvii regarded him as the founder of their house. Dionysius of Halicarnassus ascribes to him a reign of 31 years. Ovid does not mention him among the Alban kings. According to Livy and Dionysius, the heir of Aeneas Silvius was named Latinus Silvius.
Latinius Silvius was the fourth descendant of Aeneas and fourth in the list of mythical kings of Alba Longa. Titus Livius credits him with founding a majority of the settlements in Latium. It is, however, unclear if this person ever existed.
Gabii was an ancient city of Latium, located 18 km (11 mi) due east of Rome along the Via Praenestina, which was in early times known as the Via Gabina. It was on the south-eastern perimeter of an extinct volcanic crater lake, approximately circular in shape, named the Lacus Gabinus, and then during later times called the Lago di Castiglione, "lake of the fortification", after Castiglione, a mediaeval tower erected on the site of the ancient acropolis, or arx, of Gabii. A necropolis is adjacent on that side of the lake. At present, the former lake is entirely agricultural land. The ruins of the ancient city project from the fields next to the cliffs overlooking it, on both sides of the via. A municipium in Roman times, Gabii is currently located in the frazione of Osteria dell'Osa 10 km (6.2 mi) from the comune of Monte Compatri, of which it is a part, in the Province of Rome, Region of Lazio. The site is under new seasonal archaeological excavation.
The Albans were Latins from the ancient city of Alba Longa, southeast of Rome. Some of Rome's prominent patrician families such as the Julii, Servilii, Quinctii, Geganii, Curiatii and Cloelii were of Alban descent.
The kings of Alba Longa, or Alban kings, were a series of legendary kings of Latium, who ruled from the ancient city of Alba Longa. In the mythic tradition of ancient Rome, they fill the 400-year gap between the settlement of Aeneas in Italy and the founding of the city of Rome by Romulus. It was this line of descent to which the Julii claimed kinship. The traditional line of the Alban kings ends with Numitor, the grandfather of Romulus and Remus. One later king, Gaius Cluilius, is mentioned by Roman historians, although his relation to the original line, if any, is unknown; and after his death, a few generations after the time of Romulus, the city was destroyed by Tullus Hostilius, the third King of Rome, and its population transferred to Alba's daughter city.
Alba Silvius was in Roman mythology the fifth king of Alba Longa. He was the son of Latinus Silvius and the father of Atys. He reigned thirty-nine years.
Romulus was the legendary founder and first king of Rome. Various traditions attribute the establishment of many of Rome's oldest legal, political, religious, and social institutions to Romulus and his contemporaries. Although many of these traditions incorporate elements of folklore, and it is not clear to what extent a historical figure underlies the mythical Romulus, the events and institutions ascribed to him were central to the myths surrounding Rome's origins and cultural traditions.
In Roman mythology, Silvius or Silvius Postumus, was either the son of Aeneas and Lavinia or the son of Ascanius. He succeeded Ascanius as King of Alba Longa and reigned 1139–1110 BC.
Cameria or Camerium was an ancient city of Latium, which according to tradition was conquered by Rome in the time of the Kings, and destroyed following a revolt against Roman authority in 502 BC. Its inhabitants were known as Camerini.
Alba Longa was an ancient Latin city in Central Italy in the vicinity of Lake Albano in the Alban Hills. The ancient Romans believed it to be the founder and head of the Latin League, before it was destroyed by the Roman Kingdom around the middle of the 7th century BC and its inhabitants were forced to settle in Rome. In legend, Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome, had come from the royal dynasty of Alba Longa, which in Virgil's Aeneid had been the bloodline of Aeneas, a son of Venus.
Old Latium is a region of the Apennine Peninsula bounded to the north by the Tiber River, to the east by the central Apennine Mountains, to the west by the Mediterranean Sea and to the south by Monte Circeo. It was the territory of the Latins, an Italic tribe which included the early inhabitants of the city of Rome. Later it was also settled by various Italic tribes such as the Rutulians, Volscians, Aequi, and Hernici. The region was referred to as "old" to distinguish it from the expanded region, Latium, that included the region to the south of Old Latium, between Monte Circeo and the river Garigliano – the so-called Latium adiectum. It corresponded to the central part of the modern administrative region of Lazio, Italy, and it covered an area measuring of roughly 50 Roman miles. It was calculated by Mommsen that the region's area was about 1860 square kilometres.
