LAVINIUM, ancient town of Latium (see LAURENTINA, VIA), 19 m. S. of Rome, the modern Pratica, situated 30o ft. above sea-level and 21 m. N.E. from the sea-coast. It was the city of King Latinus and Aeneas ritually refounded it, naming it after his wife Lavinia, Latinus' daughter. Consuls and praetors or dic tators sacrificed on the Alban Mount and at Lavinium to the Penates and to Vesta, before they entered upon office or departed for their province, and the cults of Lavinium were kept up largely by the imperial appointment of honorary non-resident citizens to hold the priesthoods. The citizens of Lavinium were known as Laurentes and under the empire as Laurentes Lavinates, and the place itself at a late period as Laurolavinium. It was deserted or forgotten not long after the time of Theodosius.
A separate city of Laurentum never existed, though it has often been sought at Tor Paterno, close to the sea coast, 5 miles north by west. Even in ancient times its territory was famous for salubrious groves of bay-trees (laurus) to which both Vitellius and Commodus resorted. Under the empire a portion must have been imperial domain and forest in which elephants were kept, and the imperial villa may be identified with the extensive ruins at Tor Paterno. Remains of other villas lie along the ancient coast line (half a mile inland of the modern, now marked by a row of sand-hills, and followed by the Via Severiana), both north-west and south-east of it, and indeed from the mouth of the Tiber to Antium, and thence again to Astura. In one of these villas, exca vated by the king of Italy in 1906, was found a fine replica of the famous discobolus of Myron. Some way to the northwest was the
village of Vicus AugusLanus Laurentium, taking its name probably from Augustus himself, and probably identical with the village mentioned by Pliny the younger as separated by only one villa from his own. This village was brought to light by excavation in 1874, and its forum and curia are still visible. The remains of the villa of Pliny, too, were excavated in 1713 and in 1802-10. It is impossible without further excavation to reconcile the remains mainly of substructions-with the elaborate description of his villa given by Pliny, Ep. ii. 1 (cf. H. Winnefeld in Jahrbuch des Instituts, 1891, 200 seq.).
The site of the ancient Lavinium, 30o ft. above sea-level and 21 m. inland, is healthy. It possesses considerable natural strength, and consists of a small hill, the original acropolis, occupied by the modern castle and the village surrounding it, and a larger one, now given over to cultivation, where the city stood. On the former there are now no traces of antiquity, but on the latter are scanty remains of the city walls. The necropolis, too, has been discovered, but not systematically excavated; but objects of the first Iron age, including a sword of Aegean type have been found.
See R. Lanciani in Monumenti dei Lincei, xiii. (19o3), 133 seq.; xvi. (1906), 241 seq.; J. Carcopino, Virgile et les origines d'Ostie (Paris, 1919), 171-387. (T. A.)