The Albanum territory underwent great changes in about 202 A.D. when the emperor Septimius Severus chose it as the site for the camp (Castra Albana) of the Legio II Parthica. The impressive ruins of the Castra Albana are still visible today as an integral part of the city that has grown up around them and they bear witness to its former splendour.

It was not long before a town grew up around the camp, inhabited mainly by the families of the legionaries.

Trade and industry began to prosper and many of the late republican farms (villae rusticae) were given a new lease of life.

Some of the large public buildings such as the baths and the amphitheatre attracted the inhabitants of all the small Latin towns in the neighbourhood.

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