Aricia is a Latin town situated along the via Appia and founded, according to tradition, by Hippolytus, son of Theseus, or Archilocus Siculus. The oldest remains include the Iron Age necropoli Valle Lupara, Galloro, Colle Pardo and Parco Chigi, and the urban walls, which date to the Archaic period. In this last phase Aricia held an important role inside the Latin League. In the fourth century BC the urban walls were enlarged as the city expanded toward the valley beneath the acropolis after the construction of the via Appia in 312 BC. To show his gratitude for the fidelity shown by the Aricians during the war against Marius, Sulla renovated the city, giving it new buildings and repairing those which had been destroyed,. In the Late Republican period, Aricia itself was just a small town, while the surrounding territory became host to the rich residences of wealthy persons and families. The city center continued to be occupied throughout the Imperial, late Antique, and Medieval periods, and more or less continuously up until today.
When a series of buildings were demolished in piazza S. Nicola, the Soprintendenza for Lazio verified the existence of walls of peperino built in opera quadratum, already signaled by Emmanuele Lucidi, Antonio Nibby, William Gell and Luigi Canina. Investigations conducted since 1995 have shown that the walls in opera quadrata belonged to a temple which sat on a podium, with three cellae, built between the end of the second and the beginning of the first century BC. The pronaos was reconstructed on the basis of comparison with contemporary buildings. As far as the attribution of the temple is concerned, divinities such as Jupiter, Juno, Aesculapius, Diana are all possible, as we know from the sources that all were venerated at Aricia. Indeed, it is not possible to exclude that this temple was the Capitolium of the city.