PRÆNESTE (the modern Palestrina), one of the most important cities of ancient Latium, was situated about 2400 feet above the level of the sea, on the south-western side of a bastion-like projection of the Apennines. This favourable position rendered it a place of great strength and power from the earliest times. Accordingly we find the Prænestines offering a formidable opposition to the might of the Romans. In 380 B.C., taking advantage of the civil dissensions among their enemies, they marched up to the very gates of Rome. A severe defeat which Cincinnatus gave them immediately afterwards on the banks of the Allia, did not break their power. In the very next year they were again in the field, summoning the rest of the states of Latium to come to their aid against the common aggressors on the banks of the Tiber. It is true that in the great Latin war which began in 340 B.C.,
they were forced to submit, and become allies of the Romans. Yet, in 82 B.C., the city is found in greater strength than ever, sustaining a close blockade from the forces of Sulla. It was not until that general, after receiving its surrender, had razed its fortifications, and butchered all its inhabitants, that the power of the town received its death-blow. After this period Præneste was famous as a place of resort. People repaired from all parts of Italy, and even from foreign countries, to consult at the shrine of Fortune which overlooked the city. The wealthy and the noble came from Rome to pass the hot summer months on the breezy terraces which rose upon the hillside. There, too, amid the roses for which the town was celebrated, might be seen such a poet as Horace, sitting over the famous nuts and wine which were grown in the neighbourhood, luxuriating in the cool zephyr which blew from the Tyrrhene sea, and looking down upon the plain which swept away, in wooded undulations, to the foot of the Alban hills.
The modern Palestrina is chiefly known on account of the remains of the ancient Præneste, which still exist. Many of the large irregular blocks of limestone which formed the wall of the citadel are to be seen at the present day. An exquisite piece of mosaic, which was dug up from among the ruins of the temple of Fortune in the seventeenth century, and which has been considered the finest specimen of its kind, is still preserved in the family of Barberini.