Crustumerium (or Crustumium) was an ancient town of

Latium Latium ( , ; ) is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Definition Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil (Old Latium) on whic ...

, on the edge of the

Sabine The Sabines (, , , ; ) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains (see Sabina) of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome. The Sabines divided int ...

territory, near the headwaters of the Allia, not far from the

Tiber The Tiber ( ; ; ) is the List of rivers of Italy, third-longest river in Italy and the longest in Central Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where it is joined by the R ...

. In the legends concerning Rome's early history, the Crustumini were amongst the peoples which attended Romulus' festival of Neptune Equester. At that festival, the Roman men seized the young women amongst the visiting spectators, an event known as the Rape of the Sabine Women. Afterwards, according to

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding i ...

, the Crustumini commenced hostilities. The Romans retaliated and captured Crustumerium. A Roman

colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

was subsequently sent to the town by Romulus and many citizens of the town migrated to Rome. More of the Roman colonists preferred to go to Crustumerium than to another town, Antemnae, because of the fertility of the soil at the former. According to

, the town later revolted to become part of the Latin League, which went to war with

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

during the reign of Rome's king

Lucius Tarquinius Priscus Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (), or Tarquin the Elder, was the legendary fifth king of Rome and first of its Etruscan dynasty. He reigned for thirty-eight years.Livy, '' ab urbe condita libri'', I Tarquinius expanded Roman power through military ...

. Crustumerium was one of a number of towns captured by Tarquinius. It was conquered in 500 BC according to Livy (ii. 19), the tribus Crustumina or Clustumina being formed in 471 BC. Livy records that in 468 BC the Sabines marched through the territory of Crustumerium towards Latium, ravaging the countryside. Pliny mentions it among the lost cities of Latium, but the name clung to the district, the fertility of which remained famous. The site of Crustumerium has been identified in the locality Marcigliana Vecchia, north to modern

along the Via Salaria, not far from Settebagni; only partially excavated, it covered an area of some 60 hectares. Since the site of the city was identified in the 1970s, an archaeological project has been undertaken. In 2010 the Groningen Institute of Archaeology (GIA) received funding of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) to elaborate their research on the Iron Age settlement of Crustumerium.

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* {{Coord, 42, 03, N, 12, 37, E, display=title, region:IT_type:city_source:GNS-enwiki 8th century BC in the Roman Kingdom Classical geography Ancient Italian history