Sublaqueum

• a little town of the Aequi, in Latium, near which Nero had a country-seat, now Subiaco, Plin. 3, 12, 17, § 109; Tac. A. 14, 22.
• —Hence, Sublăcen-sis, e, adj., of or belonging to Sublaqueum: villa, that of Nero, near Sublaqueum, Front. Aquaed. 93: viae, constructed there by him, id. ib. 7; 14; 15.

SUBLA´QUEUM (Subiaco), a place in the valley of the Anio about 24 miles above Tibur (Tivoli). It derived its name from its situation below the lake or lakes formed by the waters of the Anio in this part of its course, and called the SIMBRUINA STAGNA or SIMBRIVII LACUS. These lakes have now entirely disappeared: they were evidently in great part artificial, formed as reservoirs for the Aqua Marcia and Aqua Claudia, both of which were derived from the Anio in this part of its course. There is no mention of Sublaqueum before the time of Nero who had a villa there called by Frontinus Villa Neroniana Sublacensis;a nd Tacitus mentions the name as if it was one not familiar to every one. (Tac. 14.22; Frontin. de Aquaed. 93). It seems certain therefore that there was no town of the name, and it would appear from Tacitus (l. c.) that the place was included for municipal purposes within the territory of Tibur. Pliny also notices the name of Sublaqueum in the 4th Region of Augustus, but not among the municipal towns: as well as the lakes ( lacus tres amoenitate nobiles) from which it was derived. (Plin. Nat. 3.12. s. 17.) It appears from mediaeval records that these lakes continued to exist down to the middle ages, and the last of them did not disappear till the year 1305. (Nibby, Dintorni, vol. 3. p. 125.) Subiaco obtained a great celebrity in the middle ages as the place of retirement of St. Benedict, and the cradle of the celebrated monastic order to which he gave his name. It seems probable that the site was in his time quite deserted, and that the modern town owes its origin to the monastery founded by him, and a castle which was soon after established in its neighbourhood. (Nibby, l. c. p. 123.)

Now Subiaco, a small town of the Aequi in Latium, on the Anio, near its source.

This locality, recorded by Pliny the Elder (HN 3.109) and by the Peutinger Table, is on the bank of the Aniene at the foot of the Simbruini mountains, about 70 km from Rome. Nero had a villa constructed here (Tac. Ann. 14.22; Frontin. Aq. 93), already completed in A.D. 60. The villa, of which there survive conspicuous remnants, was built as a series of detached buildings and rooms of varying height along the shores of two or more artificial lakes created by enlarging the Aniene with two or three dams; one is the tallest known Roman example (ca. 42 m). Three nuclei have been noted on the left bank. One, perhaps a viridarium, is in the locality called Pianello. A second, very large, is in the locality called Casa delle Streghe, and is made up of a nymphaeum-veranda above and a series of rooms for habitation arranged along a windowed corridor below. A third, which is much less well known, is in the locality called S. Lorenzo where the Via Sublacensis passed. On the right bank were placed a like number of buildings, two on the upper part and one on the lower. Only the first two have been explored. One includes an ample room from which comes the celebrated Ephebe of Subiaco, near the ditch of S. Croce. The other is a complex of rooms giving on a gallery, before the Casa delle Streghe and the terminus of the first dam. The villa was inhabited until the late Imperial period and was later among the first refuges of St. Benedict, who founded nearby the important convent of S. Scolastica. In the lower part of the villa grew up the medieaval nucleus of Subiaco. The sculptures found in the villa are preserved in the Museo Nazional Romano in Rome.

L. Canina, Gli edifizi antichi nei contorni di Roma, V (1856) 137-39MPI; R. Lanciani, NSc (1883) 19-20; G. Fiorelli, NSc (1884) 425-27; H. Philipp, RE IV A (1931) 480; EAA 7 (1966) 537-38 (M. Torelli); N. Smith, “The Roman Dams of Subiaco,” Technology and Culture 11 (1970) 56-68.