San Felice Circeo is a town and ''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

'' in the

province of Latina The Province of Latina ( it, Provincia di Latina) is an area of local government at the level of province in the Republic of Italy. It is one of five provinces that form the region of Lazio. The provincial capital is the city of Latina. It is bo ...

, in the

Lazio it, Laziale , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

region of central

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. It was an ancient city called

Circeii Circeii was an ancient Roman city on the site of modern San Felice Circeo and near Mount Circeo, the mountain promontory on the southwest coast of Italy. The area around Circeii and Mount Circeo was thickly populated with Roman villas and other ...

. It is included in the

Circeo National Park Circeo National Park ( Italian: ''Parco Nazionale del Circeo'') is an Italian national park founded in 1934. It occupies a strip of coastal land from Anzio to Terracina, including also a sector of forest in the mainland of San Felice Circeo, and ...

. Sites include the

Grotta Guattari Grotta may refer to: * Grotto (Italian: ''Grotta''), a small natural or artificial cave * Grótta, a tied island in Seltjarnarnes, Iceland * Grótta Sports Club in Iceland * , an archaeological site in Naxos after which the Grotta-Pelos culture ...

, one of the oldest

Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an Extinction, extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ag ...

sites in Italy, in which remains of nine Neanderthals were discovered.

Capo Circeo Lighthouse Capo Circeo Lighthouse ( it, Faro di Capo Circeo) is an active lighthouse in Lazio, Italy, located on Punto, about 3 kilometres west of San Felice Circeo. History The lighthouse has been active since 1866, and was built under the pontificate o ...

is from the old town.

History

In the treaty signed between Carthage and Rome in 509 BC, the Carthaginians agreed not to harm Circeii. In 209 BC, during the

Second Punic War The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Ital ...

, Circeii was one of twelve Latin colonies to refuse any more military contributions towards Rome and in 204 it was severly punished as a result, by furnishing double the greatest number of foot soldiers they had ever provided and 120 horsemen, all chosen from the wealthiest of the inhabitants, and to be sent out of Italy. Also an annual tax was imposed. The Roman

Triumvir A triumvirate ( la, triumvirātus) or a triarchy is a political institution ruled or dominated by three individuals, known as triumvirs ( la, triumviri). The arrangement can be formal or informal. Though the three leaders in a triumvirate are ...

Lepidus was exiled here after his fall in 36 BC by his former colleague, and future

Emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother ( ...

Octavian Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...

.Jochen Bleicken, ''Augustus: The Biography'' Translated by Anthea Bell (London: Penguin Books, 2015), p. 198

References

External links

SanFeliceCirceo.eu
Cities and towns in Lazio {{Lazio-geo-stub