Cameria

CAME´RIA or CAME´RIUM(Καμερία: Eth. Καμερῖνος, Camerinus), an ancient city of Latium, mentioned by Livy among the towns of the Prisci Latini taken by Tarquinius Priscus. (Liv. 1.38.) In accordance with this statement we find it enumerated among the colonies of Alba Longa, or the cities founded by Latinus Silvius. (Diod. vii. ap. Euseb. Arm. p. 185; Origo Gentis Rom.17.) Dionysius also says that it received a colony from Alba, but had previously been a city of the Aborigines. According to him it engaged in a war against Romulus and Tatius, but was taken by their arms, and a Roman colony established there (2.50). But, notwithstanding this, he also mentions it as one of the independent Latin cities reduced by Tarquin (3.51). After the expulsion of the kings from Rome, Cameria was one of the foremost to espouse the cause of the exiled Tarquins, for which it was severely punished, being taken and utterly destroyed by the Consul Verginius, B.C. 502. (Dionys. 5.21, 40, 49.) This event may, probably, be received as historically true: at least it explains why the name of Cameria does not appear in the list of the cities of the Latin League shortly afterwards (Dionys. 5.61): nor does it ever again appear in history: and is only noticed by Pliny (Plin. Nat. 3.5. s. 9) among the once celebrated cities of Latium, which were in his time utterly extinct. Tacitus has recorded that the ancient family of the Coruncanii derived its origin from Cameria ( Ann. 11.24.), and the cognomen of Camerinus borne by one of the most ancient families of the Sulpician gens, seems to point to the same extraction.
The site of Cameria, like that of most, of the other towns of Latium that were destroyed at so early a period, must be almost wholly conjectural. Palombara, a small town on an isolated hill, near the foot of the lofty Monte Gennaro, and about 22 miles from Rome, has as fair a claim as any other locality. (Abeken, Mittel Italien, p. 78.)
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