PRIENESTE, The modern Pales trina. A very ancient city of Latium, situated on the slope of the hills about twenty miles southeast of Rome. Tradition ascribed its foundation to Telegonus. the son of Ulysses, or to a certain Cieculus. son of Vulcan. It was one of the important cities in the early Latin League, and is first mentioned by Livy (ii., 19, 2) as taking the side of Rome against the other cities of the league in B.C. 499. We hear no more of until B.C. 383, when the town began to lord it over the allies of Rome, and two years later even dared to declare war on Rome itself. It was soon vanquished and forced to surrender to the Roman dictator, Cincinnatus (n.c. 380). In the Hannibalic war the PrcenestineA were faithful to Rome and were rewarded with an offer of Roman citizenship. which, with lofty local pride, they refused to accept. They spoke a dialeot of Latin a '•ikh seemed amu=inz to the Roman-. and t' eir ha its mere re_arded as pro vincial in t' e Dunn.: the civil wars Marii - -a k- Prez e-te hi- headquarters. but the
cite as taken at I destroyed by Sulla Ex. •-•2 , re •.i't it with ,:Teat splenlor and settled a R in o nv there. Under the Empire -te wa- a favorite summer re-)rt. on ac t -at • f Ikfty pc-ition. Horace Ott...s. iii..
-. _2 tiny equal charm in rigidul. pw.,re, T'i r u,i. and laquitia Rain. Pr.tneste was renowned fkr it- large and magnificent Tem ple of Fortune with an oracle much frequented iv w PrcrHe,tinor. Cicero. Der.. rt.. 41.? the :Middle Age- Pale- trina was Ung a bone of contention between the pope- and the powerful Colon= family, anl was destroyed in 1436. but afterwards rebuilt. In 1630 Pope Urban VIII. ceded it to the Barberini.
Pale-trina now a squali.1 town occupying proximately the site of the ancient Temple of Fortune: it' populati•m is 6100. Besides the Barberini Palace, it line of the ancient polygonal wall-. The great composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was born here.