TIBUR (mod. Tivoli, q.v.), an ancient town of Latium, 18 m. E.N.E. of Rome by the Via Tiburtina. (See TIBURTINA, VIA.) It is finely situated at the point where the Anio forms its celebrated falls; it is protected on the east, north and north-west by the river and it commands the entrance to its upper course, with an exten sive view over the Campagna below. The modern town is in part built upon the extensive terraces of the temple (itself a com paratively small building) of Hercules Victor, the chief deity of Tibur, of which some remains exist. Below it, on the cliffs above the Anio, is a large building round a colonnaded court yard built over the Via Tiburtina (which passes under it in an arched passage), the meeting place of the Herculanei Augustales.
Remains of two small temples of the late Republic—one cir cular, with Corinthian columns, the other rectangular with Ionic columns—stand at the north-east extremity of the town, above the waterfalls, traditionally, but wrongly, attributed to Vesta and the Sibyl of Tibur. The so-called Tempio della Tosse, an octagonal structure, is probably a tomb of the 4th century A.D.
Tibur was a favourite place of resort in Roman times, and both Augustus and Maecenas had villas here, and Horace also. A house shown as being his in the time of Suetonius is identified with a villa of the Augustan period, over which is built the monastery of S. Antonio. In his poems he frequently mentions Tibur with enthusiasm. Catullus and Statius, too, have rendered it famous. The abundance of water from aqueducts and springs and the falls of the Anio were among its chief attractions. The remains of villas in the district are numerous and important. (See T. Ashby
in Papers of the British School at Rome, iii.) The largest is that of Hadrian, situated in the low ground about 2 M. to the south west of Tibur, and occupying an area of some i6o acres. A number of statues have been found in the villa, and costly foreign marbles and fine mosaic pavements, some of the last being pre served in situ. Excavations have gone on since the 16th century, and are now carried on by the Italian government. See H. Winne feld Die Villa des Hadrian (Berlin 1895) ; Jahrbuch des k. d, arch. Instituts, Erganzungsheft iii.: R. Lanciani, La villa Hadrian (Rome 1906).
The ancient Tibur, though on the edge of the Sabine mountains, was a member of the Latin League. There are remains of ancient roads and outlying forts in its territory dating from the period of its independence. It allied itself with the Gauls in 361 B.c., and in the war which followed the towns of Empulum and Saxula were destroyed and triumphs over Tibur were celebrated in 36o ard 354 B.c., and again in 338, when its forces were defeated, with those of Praeneste. It, Lowever, became an ally of Rome. Syphax, king of Numidia, died in the territory of Tibur as a captive in 201 B.C. ; and in A.D. 2 73 Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, was assigned a residence here by Aurelian. Its prosperity during the imperial period was mainly due to the favour in which it stood as a summer resort. During the siege of Rome by Narses, Belisarius occupied Tibur: it was afterwards treacherously sur rendered to Totila, whose troops plundered it, but who rebuilt it in A.D. 547. (T. A.)