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THERMAL LATIUM |
  
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| Between three and two million years ago, a broad circle of fire was continuously reflected in the Tyrrhenian, giving off phantasmagoric flashes long with the products of a prehistoric eruption. That circle of fire, reaching from the Volsini to the Aurunci Hills, was an almost uninterrupted volcanic explosion. The intermediate segments were covered by the Cimini and Sabatini Hills. Violent explosion, vomiting liquid fire, devastated the plains and poured into the gulf into which flowed the forerunner of the Tiber. The earth trembled continuously, altering the landscape, for thousands and thousands of years. Then the incessant volcanic explosion calmed down and the processes linked with it were trasferred from the surface to the furthest depths under ground. Moving and mixing in uninterrupted chemical activity, the waters gushing from the crust of Latium gradually gave origin to a soil that was particularly rich in hydrological resources; this was to leave its mark on the future of the people who lived there. The people of the seven hills were the ones who most appreciated the many springs to be found throughout the territory. Hot, warm and cold springs. Waters full of sulphur or excellent for drinking. A deep relationship grew up between man and water, and water was credited with divining powers so that religious rituals were dedicated to every thermal mineral spring. With the Romans, this interest, which had originally been of a purely hygienic nature, took on a therapeutic aspects, becoming a generalized custom which spread to all the neighbouring lands - of the Etruscans, Latini, Volsci, Aurunci and Hernici - that were equally rich in waters of every kind. Thermal Latium came into being in those far-off days, as may be seen by the well-known constructions, all on a very large scale. One striking example was Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, as well as the Large and Small Thermae, fed by the springs, of "aqua albula". Outside Rome, near Civitavecchia, the Terme Taurine are now being set up and developed in the form of a luxurious imperial villa conceived in such a way as to allow the most health-giving relationship with the waters. A short distance away, on the eastern slopes of the Tolfa mountains, the properties of the waters at Stigliano, already known by the Etruscans, were further exploited by the Romans.
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