water from aqueducts and springs and the falls of the Anio were among its chief attractions. The remains of villas in the district are numerous and important (sec T. Ashby in Papers of the British School at Rome, iii.). The largest is that of Hadrian, situated in the low ground about 2 m. to the south-west of Tibur, and occupying an area of some 160 acres. The remains are extensive and well preserved, though the identifications of the existing buildings with those mentioned by Spartianus who records that Hadrian gave to them the names of various well-known edifices at Athens and elsewhere, cannot in most cases be treated as certain. A large number of statues have been found in the villa, and costly foreign marbles and fine mosaic pavements, some of the last being preserved in situ, while among others may he named the mosaic of the doves in the Capitol and that of the masks in the Vatican. Of the fresco and stucco decorations of the walls and ceilings, less is naturally preserved. Excavations have gone on since the 16th century, the last having been carried on by the Italian government to which the greater part of the site now belongs: but little has been done since 1884.[1]
The ancient Tibur was founded, according to tradition, by Tiburtus, Corax and Catillus, grandsons of Amphiaraus. Though on the edge of the Sabine mountains, it was a member of the Latin League. There are remains of ancient roads and out- lying forts in its territory dating from the period of its indepen- dence. It allied itself with the Gauls in 361 B.C., and in the war which followed the towns of Empulum and Saxula were destroyed (their sites are unknown) and triumphs over Tibur were celebrated in 360 and 354 B.C., and again in 338, when its forces were defeated, with those of Praeneste. It did not, how- ever, lose its independence, but became an ally of Rome, as is shown by an inscription, probably of the 2nd century B.C., in which it is recorded that the ambassadors of Tibur successfully cleared themselves before the Roman senate of a suspicion that they were acting contrary to their treaty with Rome. It acquired Roman citizenship in 90 B.C., though some of its citizens gained the franchise previously. Syphax, king of Numidia, died in the territory of Tibur as a captive in 201 B.C.; and in A.D. 273 Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, was assigned a residence here by Aurelian. Its prosperity during the imperial period was mainly due to the favour in which it stood as a summer resort. During the siege of Rome by Narses, Beli- sarius occupied Tibur : it was afterwards treacherously surren- dered to Totila, whose troops plundered it, but who rebuilt it in A.D. 547.
See H. Dessau in Corp. inscript. latin, xiv. 365 sqq. and reff. (Berlin, 1887); Notizie degli scavi, passim. (T. As.)
TIBURTINA, VIA, an ancient road of Italy, leading E.N.E. from Rome to Tibur, a distance of about 18 m. It must have come into existence, as a track at any rate, during the establishment of the Latin League. Though it afterwards became an important thoroughfare, the first portion of it always retained its original name, that of Via Valeria (see Valeria, Via) being applied only to the portion of the road beyond Tibur. The road is in the main followed by a modern highroad. There is, however, a difficulty about the last portion of its course from the Albulae Aquae (q.v.) to Tibur; whereas, according to the milestones and itineraries, it should be 20 m. from Rome to Tibur, it is impossible to make the distance more than 18 m. along any probable line.
See T. Ashby in Papers of the British School at Rome, iii. 84 sqq. (T. As.)
TICHBORNE CLAIMANT, THE. Roger Charles Tichborne (1820–1854), whose family name became a household word on account of an attempt made by an impostor in 1868 to personate him and obtain his heritage, was the eldest grandson of Sir Edward Tichborne, the 9th baronet, of a very ancient Hampshire family. Sir John de Tichborne, sheriff of Southampton, was created a baronet by James I. in 1621, and from him his descendants inherited great wealth and the position of one of the leading Roman Catholic families in the south of England. Roger Charles, born at Paris on the 5th of January 1829, was the eldest son of James Francis Doughty-Tichborne (who subsequently became 10th baronet and died in 1862) by Henriette Felicité, natural daughter of Henry Seymour of Knoyle, in Wiltshire. This lady, who hated England, was intent upon bringing up her son as a Frenchman; the result was that he got hardly any education until he went in 1846 to Stonyhurst, whence he proceeded in 1849 to Dublin and joined the 6th Dragoon Guards. His eccentricity and his French accent made him a butt in his regiment, and, being disappointed of war service, he sold out in 1852, and in the following year proceeded on a trip to South America. He sailed in March 1 853 from Havre for Valparaiso, whence he crossed the Andes, reaching Rio de Janeiro in 1854. In April of that year he sailed from Rio in the “Bella” and was lost at sea, the vessel foundering with all hands. His insurance was paid and his will proved in July 1855. The baronetcy and estates passed in 1862 to Roger’s younger brother, Sir Alfred Joseph Doughty-Tichborne, who died in 1866. The only person unconvinced of Roger’s death was his mother the dowager Lady Tichborne, from whom every tramp-sailor found a welcome at Tichborne Park. She advertised largely and injudiciously for the wanderer, and in November 1865 she learnt, through an agency in Sydney, that a man “answering to the description of her son” had been found in the guise of a small butcher at Wagga Wagga, in Queensland. As a matter of fact, the supposed Sir Roger did not correspond at all to the lost heir, who was slim, with sharp features and straight black hair, whereas the claimant was enormously fat, with wavy, light-brown hair. His first letter to Lady Tichborne was not only ignorant and illiterate, but appealed to circumstances (notably a birth-mark and an incident at Brighton) of which she admitted that she had no recollection. But so great was her infatuation with her fixed idea, that she soon overcame the first qualms of distrust and advanced money for the claimant to return to Europe. Like all pretenders, this one was impelled by his entourage, who regarded him in the light of an investment. He himself was reluctant to move, but the credulity of persons under the influence of a romantic story soon came to his aid. Thus an old friend of Sir James Tichborne’s at Sydney, though puzzled by the claimant’s answers, was convinced by a resemblance to his supposed father. At Sydney, too, he made the acquaintance of Bogle, a negro servant of a former baronet. Bogle sailed with him from Sydney in the summer of 1866, and coached him in the rudiments of the role which he was preparing to play. On reaching London on Christmas Day 1866 the claimant paid a flying visit to Tichborne House, near Alresford, where he was soon to obtain two important allies in the old family solicitor, Edward Hopkins, and a Winchester antiquary, Francis J. Baigent, who was intimately acquainted with the Tichborne family history. He next went over to Paris, where in an hotel bedroom on a dark January afternoon he was promptly “recognized” by Lady Tichborne. This “recognition” naturally made an enormous impression upon the English public, who were unaware that Lady Tichborne was a monomaniac. That such a term is no, exaggeration is shown by the fact that she at once acquiesced in her supposed son’s absolute ignorance of French. She allowed the claimant £1000 a year, accepted his wife, a poor illiterate girl, whom he had married in Queensland, and handed over to him the diaries and letters written by Roger Tichborne from South America. From these documents the claimant now carefully studied his part; he learnt much, too, from Baigent and from two carabiniers of Roger’s old regiment, whom he took into his service. The villagers in Hampshire, a number of the county families, and several of Tichborne’s fellow officers in the 6th Dragoons, became eager victims of the delusion. The members of the Tichborne family in England, however, were unanimous in declaring the claimant to be an impostor, and they were soon put upon the track of discoveries which revealed that Tom Castro, as the claimant had been called in Australia, was
- ↑ See H. Winnefeld, Die Villa des Hadrian (Berlin, 1895). Jahrbuch des k. d. arch. Instituts, Erganzungsheft III.: R. Lanciani, La Villa Adriana (Rome, 1906).
