Vera santagata

Benevento is a town and comune of Campania, Italy, capital of the province of Benevento, 50 km northeast of Naples. It is situated on a hill 130 m (300 ft) above sea-level at the confluence of the Calore and Sabbato. It is also the seat of a Catholic archbishopric.

Benevento occupies the site of the ancient Beneventum, originally Maleventum or more correctly Maloeis (derived from the Greek word for apple malon). The Romans' theory that it meant "the site of bad wind" is no longer considered by historians today. Some older (and more speculative) authors also proposed it could mean "a place of crazy people", as in ancient times it was supposed that mad people had a sort of wind storm inside their head). Ragazze da 1 a 25 su 103 Santagata Vera. In the imperial period it was supposed to have been founded by Diomedes after the Trojan War.

History

Benevento in antiquity

The site was the chief town of the Samnites, who took refuge here after their defeat by the Roman Republic in 314 BCE. It appears not to have fallen into Roman hands until Pyrrhus's absence in Sicily, but served as a base of operations in the last campaign against Pyrrhus, who gave up his campaign in Italy after the inconclusive Battle of Beneventum (275 BCE).

A Latin colony was planted here in 268 BCE, and it was then that the name was changed for the sake of superstition (male = bad, bene = good), and probably then that the Via Appia was extended from Capua to Beneventum. It remained in the hands of the Romans during both the Punic and the Social Wars, and was a fortress of importance to them. After the Social War it became a municipium and under Augustus a colony. Marco Santagata.