Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/161

 LAVINIUM. oviavffTjvri, Strab. xii. p. 534 ; Aaoviviav/i, Ptol. V. 7. § 9), the name of one of the four districts iiHo which Cappadocia was divided under the Eomans. It was the part extending from the nortliern slope of Mount Amanus to the Euphrates, on the north of Ai'avene, and on the east of Muriane. [L. S.] LAVINIUM (Aaoviviov; AaSiviov, Steph. B.: Eth. AaSividTrjs, Laviniensis: Pratica), an ancient city of Latium, situated about 3 miles from the sea- coast, between Laurentum and Ardea, and distant 17 miles from Rome. It was founded, according to the tradition universally adopted by Roman writers, by Aeneas, shortly after his landing in Italy, and called by him after the name of his wife Lavinia, the daughter of the king Latinus. (Liv. i. 1 ; Dionys. i. 45, 59; Strab. v. p. 229; Varr. L. L. v. § 144; Solin. 2. § 14.) The same legendary history repre- sented Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, as transferring the seat of government and rank of the capital city of the Latins from Lavinium to Alba, 30 years after the foundation of the former city. But the attempt to remove at the same time the Penates, or household gods of Lavinium, proved unsuccessful: the tutelary deities returned to their old abode; hence Lavinium continued not only to exist by the side of the nevv cajiital, but was always regarded with reverence as a kind of sacred metropolis, a character which it re- tained even down to a late period of the Roman his- tory. (Liv. i. 8; Dionys. i. 66, 67; Strab. v. p. 229 ; Vict. Orig. Gent. Rom. 17.) It is impossible here to enter into a discussion of the legend of the Trojan settlement in Latium, a question which is briefly examined under the article Latium; but it may be observed that there are many reasons for admitting the correctness of the tradition that La- vinium was at one time the metropolis or centre of the Latin state; a conclusion, indeed, to which we are led by the name alone, for there can be little doubt that Latinus and Lavinus are only two forms of the same name, so that Lavinium would be merely the ca- pital or city of the Latins. (Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 201 ; Donaldson, Varronianus, p. 6.) The circumstance that the Penates or tutelary gods of Lavinium con- tinued down to a late period to be regarded as those not only of Rome, but of all Latium, affords a strong corroboration of this view. (Varr. L. L. v. § 144.) 'Whether Lavinium was from the first only the sacred metropolis of the Latin cities, — a kind of common sanctuary or centre of religious worship (as supposed by Schwegler, Romische Geschickte, vol. i. p. 319), — or, as represented in the common tradition, was the political capital also, until supplanted by Alba, is a point on which it is difficult to pronounce with cer- tainty ; but the circumstance that Lavinium appears in history as a separate political community, and one of the cities composing the Latin League, would seem opposed to the former view. It is certain, however, that it had lost all political supremacy, and that this had passed into the hands of Alba, at a very early period ; nor did Lavinium recover any political importance after the fall of Alba: through- out the historical period it plays a veiy subordinate part. The first notice we find of it in the Roman history is in the legends concerning Tatius, who is represented as being murdered at Lavinium on oc- casion of a solemn sacrifice, in revenge for some depredations committed by his followers on the Lavinian territory. (Liv. i. 14; Dionys. ii. 51, 52; Pint. Rom. 23 ; Strab. v. p. 230.) It is remark- able that Livy in this passage represents the people LAVINniM. 145 injured as the Lmirentes, though the injury was avenged at Lavinium, — a strong proof of the intimate relations which were conceived as existing between the two cities. The treaty between Rome and La- vinium was said to have been renewed at the same time (Liv. I. c), and there is no doubt that both the Roman annals and traditions represented Lavinium, as well as Laurentum, as almost uniformly on friendly terms with Rome. It was, however, an independent city, as is proved by the statement that Collatinus and his family, when banished from Rome, retired into exile at Lavinium. (Liv. ii. 2.) The only interruption of these friendly relations took place, according to Dionysius, a few years after this, when he reckons the Lavinians among the Latin cities which entered into a league against- Rome before the battle of Regillus. (Dionys. v. 61.) There is, however, good reason to believe that the names there enumerated are in reality only those of the cities that formed the pennanent Latin League, and who concluded the celebrated treaty with Sp. Cassius in b. c. 493. (Niebulir, vol. ii. pp. 23, Lavinium is next mentioned during the wars of Coriolanus, who is said to have besieged and, ac- cording to Livy, reduced the city (Liv. ii. 39; Dionys. viii. 21); but, from this time, we hear no more of it till the great Latin War in B. c. 340. On that occasion, according to our present text of Livy (viii. 11), the citizens of Lavinium are repre- sented as sending auxiliaries to the forces of the League, who, however, arrived too late to be of ser- vice. But no mention occra-s of Lavinium in the following campaigns, or in the general settlement of the Latin state at the end of the war ; hence it ap- pears highly probable that in the former passage Lanwcium, and not Lavinium, is the city really meant ; the confusion between these names in the MSB. being of perpetual occurrence. [Lanuvium.] It is much more probable that the Lavinians were on this occasion also comprised with the Laurentes, who, as -we are expressly told, took no part in the war, and in consequence continued to maintain their former friendly relations with Rome without interrup- tion. (L. vi. I. c.) From this time no historical mention occurs of Lavinium till after the fall of the Roman Republic ; but it appears to have fallen into decay in common with most of the places near the coast of Latium ; and Strabo speaks of it as presenting the mere vestiges of a city, but still retaining its sacred rites, which were believed to have been transmitted from the days of Aeneas. (Strab. v. p. 232.) Dio- nysius also tells us that the memory of the three animals — the eagle, the wolf, and the fox — which were connected by a well-known legend with the foundation of Lavinium, was preserved by the figures of them still extant in his time in the forum of that town ; while, according to Varro, not only was there a similar bronze figure of the celebrated sow with her thirty young ones, but part of the flesh of the sow herself was still preserved in pickle, and shown by the priests. (Dionys. i. 57, 59 ; Varr. R. R. ii. 4.) The name of La^'inium is omitted by Pliny, where we should have expected to find it, between Laurentum and Ardea, but he enumerates among the existing communities of Latium the " Ilionenses Lavini," — an appellation evidently assumed by the citizens in commemoration of their supposed Trojan descent. (Plin. iii. 5. s. 9.) Shortly after the time of Pliny, and probably in the reign of Trajan, Lavinium seems to have re-