Before Rome existed as anything more than a village, Tusculum was already a hill town of the Latin League, and it stayed prosperous long after, producing Cato the Elder and, centuries later, becoming the country retreat of choice for Cicero, whose villa here he called his Tusculanum.
Rome razed the town in 1191, during a feud with the papacy, and it was never rebuilt, which is why the site feels so undisturbed today. Ongoing excavations have uncovered a small Roman theater cut into the hillside, an amphitheater, a forum, and the so-called Villa of Tiberius, and the site is left largely unfenced and unlabeled, a real ruin rather than a curated museum. From the acropolis, the view stretches over the Alban Hills and, on a clear day, all the way to Rome.
