Abstract:

Mythical Control of the Territory and Political Propaganda in Latium Vetus: the case of Tusculum

This paper proposes a new reading of the foundational myth of Tusculum through the presence of the Greek heroes, whose statues were exhibited in the public centre of the city at a time in which the old Latin communities were no longer the powerful people who once dominated the territory and contended with Rome. On the one hand, Telegonus the founder and Telemachus, the sons of Ulysses, revealed an ancient connection that ideally reaches the Circeo, the limit of coastal Latium vetus. On the other hand, Orestes and Pylades had brought from Greece the cult of Diana, which was worshiped at Nemi, the federal sanctuary, the physical and neuralgic centre of the peoples of Latium.

Keywords: Latium, mythology, spatial organization, Roman religion.