Alba Longa (occasionally written Albalonga in Italian sources) was an ancient city of Latium in central Italy, 19 kilometres (12 mi) southeast of Rome, in the Alban Hills. Founder and head of the Latin League, it was destroyed by Rome around the middle of the 7th century BC. In legend, Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome, had come from the royal dynasty of Alba Longa, which in Virgil's Aeneid had been the bloodline of Aeneas, a son of Venus.