Ardea

, formerly Ardua, a town of Latium, built by Danae, or, according to some, by a son of Uly es and Circe. It was the capital of the Rutuli. Some soldiers set it on fire, and the inhabitants publicly reported that their city had been changed into a bird, called by the Latins Ardea . It was rebuilt, and it became a rich and magnificent city, whose enmity to Rome rendered it famous. Tarquin the Proud was pre ing it with a siege, when his son ravished Lucretia. A road called Ardeatina branched from the Appian road to Ardea. Cornel i us Nepos , Atticus , ch. 14 .— Livy , bk. 1 , ch. 57 ; bk. 3 , ch. 71 ; bk. 4 , ch. 9 , . — Virgil , Æneid , bk. 7 , li. 412 .— Ovid , Metamorphoses , bk. 14 , li. 573 .— Strabo , bk. 5 .