The legend which ascribes the foundation of Tusculum to Telegonus, the son of Circe and Ulysses, is familiar to all readers of the Latin poets. It is remarkable, however, that Virgil, who mentions most of the towns of Latium, has entirely omitted to notice Tusculum. This may be mere accident, or it may be attributable to a grudge similar to that which led him, according to Aulus Gellius, to omit Nola from the lines in the Georgics celebrating the fertility of Campania, but it certainly cannot be due to the fear of making an anachronism, as Nibby supposes. In the times of the Latin league, from the fall of Alba to the battle of the Lake Regillus, Tusculum was the most prominent town in Latium. It suffered, like the other towns of Latium, a complete eclipse during the later republic and the imperial times, but in the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries under the counts of Tusculum it became again a place of great importance and power, no less than seven Popes of their house having sat in the chair of St. Peter. The final destruction of the city is placed by Nibby, following the account given in the records of the Podesta of Reggio, on the 1st of April, A.D. 1191, in which year the city was given up to the Romans by the Emperor Henry VI., and after the withdrawal of the German garrison, was sacked and razed to the ground. Those of the inhabitants who escaped collected round the church of S. Sebastian on the foot of the hill, in the district called Frascati, whence the town of Frascati took its origin and name. They founded their new town upon the remains of an ancient villa, which stood near the round tomb which still remains on the road to the Villa della Ruffinella. The name of Lucullus has been attached to this villa and tomb from the statement of Plutarch that Lucullus was buried by his brother at his Tusculan villa. It is however, much more probable that the larger round tomb in the vigna Angelotti on the road towards Rome was the burial-place of Lucullus. [Sidenote: Scuola di Cicerone.]