Later it was occupied by the aborigines who gave it the name of Polistephanon , meaning "Crown of the City". A last legend, inspired to the Tyrrheanian tradition, tells about Anio, king of Etruscan people. He died in order to follow her daughter Salia, fugitive for love, (who became the mother of Latin and Salio, prototypes of illustrious lineage) in the river. This river, before called Peretusio, later changed its name thanks to him. Another opinion, shared from various students, believes that the word Tivoli (Tibur and, perhaps, originally, Teibur) comes to the word Teba, that according to Varrone means hill. So, the name derives from the position of the city; since it is on a hill (235 m). Also nowadays, the name hill refers to that part of the city that sets on the precipices of the Aniene.
Waterfall of Tivoli
Anyway about the word Tibur, there is a last hypothesis referring to the most characteristic element of the territory: its great fall. According to this, Tibur means city near the jump of the water, linking to the Tiberis term, that is the Tevere, that it is exactly a water course. The first tradition (that one about the construction made by a Greek colony) perhaps the most evocative, it is the one that collected greater credibility by some local scholars.
So the historian Del Re conjectured the foundation of the city in the month of April, when the Greek celebrated the main rituals of the spring. Today the historians conclude that for sure Tivoli was an ancient Sicilian colony, that began to develop only during the age of the iron with the contribution of Latin and Sabine populations and groups of people coming from the Appennines. The year of foundation of the city should be the 1215 b.C., 462 years before the born of Rome. The foundation day is celebrated the 5th of April, resuming the hypothesis of Del Re. In 1985 it has been celebrated the dawn of the XXXIII century of life of the city.
