Benevento
Benevento is a city and comune of Campania, Italy, capital of the province of Benevento. It is situated on a hill above sea level at the confluence of the Calore Irpino and the Sabato. As of June 30, 2025, Benevento has 55,319 inhabitants. It is also the seat of a Catholic archbishop.
Benevento occupies the site of the ancient Beneventum, originally Maleventum or even earlier Maloenton. In the imperial period, its founder was deemed to have been Diomedes after the Trojan War.
Due to its artistic and cultural significance, the Santa Sofia Church in Benevento was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011, as part of a group of seven historic buildings inscribed as Longobards in Italy, Places of Power.
The patron saint of Benevento is Saint Bartholomew, the Apostle, whose relics are kept there at the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta.
Territorial subdivisions
, or wards, include: Acquafredda, Cancelleria, Capodimonte, Caprarella, Cardoncielli, Cardoni, Cellarulo, Chiumiento, Ciancelle, Ciofani, Cretazzo, Epitaffio, Francavilla, Gran Potenza, Imperatore, Lammia, Madonna della Salute, Masseria del Ponte, Masseria La Vipera, Mascambruni, Montecalvo, Olivola, Pacevecchia, Pamparuottolo, Pantano, Perrottiello, Piano Cappelle, Pino, Ponte Corvo, Rosetiello, Ripa Zecca, Roseto, Santa Clementina, San Chirico, San Cumano, San Domenico, San Giovanni a Caprara, Sant'Angelo a Piesco, San Vitale, Scafa, Serretelle, Sponsilli, Torre Alfieri, and Vallereccia.History
Ancient era
Benevento, as Maleventum, was one of the chief cities of Samnium, situated on the Appian Way at a distance of east of Capua on the banks of the river Calor. There is some discrepancy as to the tribe to which it belonged at contact: Pliny the Elder expressly assigns it to the Hirpini, while Livy's wording is somewhat obscure and Ptolemy considers the town as belonging to the Samnites proper, as distinguished from the Hirpini. All ancient writers concur in representing it as a very ancient city, with Gaius Julius Solinus and Stephanus of Byzantium ascribing its foundation to this legend appears to have been adopted by the city's inhabitants, who in the time of Procopius pretended to exhibit the tusks of the Calydonian Boar as proof of their descent. Sextus Pompeius Festus, on the contrary, related that the city was founded by Auson, a son of Ulysses and Circe, a tradition which indicates that it was an ancient Ausonian city prior to its conquest by the Samnites. It first appears in history as a Samnite city, and must have already been a place of strength as the Romans did not venture to attack it during their first two wars with the Samnites; it appears, however, to have fallen into their hands during the Third Samnite War, though the exact occasion is unknown.Benevento was certainly in the power of the Romans in 274 BC, when Pyrrhus of Epirus was defeated in a great battle, fought in its immediate neighborhood, by the consul Manius Curius Dentatus. Six years later they further sought to secure its possession by establishing there a Roman colony with Latin rights. It was at this time that it first assumed the name of Beneventum, having previously been called Maleventum, a name which the Romans regarded as of evil augury, and changed into one of a more fortunate signification. It is probable that the Oscan or Samnite name was Maloeis, or Malieis, whence the form Maleventum would derive, like Agrigentum from Acragas, Selinuntium from Selinus, etc.
As a Roman colony Beneventum seems to have quickly become a flourishing place; and in the Second Punic War was repeatedly occupied by Roman generals as a post of importance, on account of its proximity to Campania, and its strength as a fortress. In its immediate neighborhood were fought two of the most decisive actions of the war: the Battle of Beneventum, in which the Carthaginian general Hanno was defeated by Tiberius Gracchus; the other in 212 BC, when the camp of Hanno, in which he had accumulated a vast quantity of corn and other stores, was stormed and taken by the Roman consul Quintus Fulvius Flaccus. And though its territory was more than once laid waste by the Carthaginians, it was still one of the eighteen Latin colonies which in 209 BCE were at once able and willing to furnish the required quota of men and money for continuing the war. No mention of it occurs during the Social War, although it seems to have escaped from the calamities which at that time befell so many cities of Samnium; towards the close of the Roman Republic Benevento is described as one of the most opulent and flourishing cities of Italy.
Under the Second Triumvirate its territory was portioned out by the Triumvirs to their veterans, and subsequently a fresh colony was established there by Augustus, who greatly enlarged its domain by the addition of the territory of Caudium. A third colony was settled there by Nero, at which time it assumed the title of Concordia; hence we find it bearing, in inscriptions of the reign of Septimius Severus, the titles Colonia Julia Augusta Concordia Felix Beneventum. Its importance and flourishing condition under the Roman Empire is sufficiently attested by existing remains and inscriptions; it was at that period unquestionably the chief city of the Hirpini, and probably, next to Capua, the most populous and considerable city of southern Italy. For this prosperity it was doubtless indebted in part to its position on the Via Appia, just at the junction of the two principal arms or branches of that great road, the one called afterwards the Via Traiana, leading thence by Aequum Tuticum into Apulia; the other by Aeclanum to Venusia and Tarentum. Its wealth is also evidenced by the quantity of coins minted by Beneventum. Horace famously notes Beneventum on his journey from Rome to Brundusium. It was indebted to the same circumstance for the honor of repeated visits from the emperors of Rome, among which those of Nero, Trajan, and Septimus Severus, are particularly recorded.
File:PiranesiArchTrajanBenevento.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The Arch of Trajan, provided with a portcullis, as it appeared in the 18th century, etching by Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Some of the bas-reliefs are now in the British Museum.
It was probably for the same reason that the triumphal arch, the Arch of Trajan, was erected there by the senate and people of Rome and constructed by the architect Apollodorus of Damascus in 114. The Arch of Trajan is one of the best-preserved Roman structures in the Campania. It repeats the formula of the Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, with reliefs of Trajan's life and exploits of his reign. Some of the sculptures are in the British Museum. Successive emperors seem to have bestowed on the city accessions of territory, and erected, or at least given name to, various public buildings. For administrative purposes it was first included, together with the rest of the Hirpini, in the second region of Augustus, but was afterwards annexed to Campania and placed under the control of the consular of that province. Its inhabitants were included in the Stellatine tribe. Beneventum retained its importance down to the close of the Empire, and though during the Gothic wars it was taken by Totila, and its walls razed to the ground, they were restored, as well as its public buildings, shortly after; and P. Diaconus speaks of it as a very wealthy city, and the capital of all the surrounding provinces.
Beneventum indeed seems to have been a place of much literary cultivation; it was the birthplace of Lucius Orbilius Pupillus, who long continued to teach in his native city before he removed to Rome, and was honored with a statue by his fellow-townsmen; while existing inscriptions record similar honors paid to another grammarian, Rutilius Aelianus, as well as to orators and poets, apparently only of local celebrity.
The territory of Beneventum under the Roman Empire was of very considerable extent. Towards the west it included that of Caudium, with the exception of the town itself; to the north it extended as far as the river Tamarus, including the village of Pago Veiano, which, as we learn from an inscription, was anciently called Pagus Veianus; on the northeast it comprised the town of Aequum Tuticum, and on the east and south bordered on the territories of Aeclanum and Abellinum. An inscription has preserved to us the names of several of the pagi or villages dependent upon Beneventum, but their sites cannot be identified.
The city's most ancient coins bear the legend "Malies" or "Maliesa", which have been supposed to belong to the Samnite, or pre-Samnite, Maleventum. Coins with the legend "BENVENTOD", must have been struck after it became a Latin colony.
Duchy of Benevento
Not long after it had been sacked by Totila and its walls razed, Benevento became the seat of a powerful Lombard duchy. The circumstances of the creation of duchy of Benevento are disputed. Lombards were present in southern Italy well before the complete conquest of the Po Valley: the duchy would have been founded in 576 by some soldiers led by Zotto, autonomously from the Lombard king.Zotto's successor was Arechis I, from the Duchy of Friuli, who captured Capua and Crotone, sacked the Byzantine Amalfi but was unable to capture Naples. After his reign the Eastern Roman Empire had only Naples, Amalfi, Gaeta, Sorrento, the tip of Calabria and the maritime cities of Apulia left in southern Italy.
In the following decades, Benevento added some territories to the Roman-Byzantine duchy by conquest, but the main enemy was now the northern Lombard Kingdom itself. King Liutprand intervened several times, imposing a candidate of his own to the realm's succession; his successor Ratchis declared the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento to be foreign countries where it was forbidden to travel without royal permission.
With the collapse of the Lombard Kingdom in 773, Duke Arechis II was elevated to Prince under the new Frankish Empire, in compensation for having some of his territory transferred back to the Papal States.
In November 774, the Duke of Benevento Duke Arechis II, immediately after being crowned prince, decided to send members of the Benevento Cortisani and Baccari families to occupy the central area of the Biferno river in the neighboring region of Molise, seeking to expand their political dominance.
Benevento was acclaimed by a chronicler as a "second Pavia"—Ticinum geminum—after the Lombard capital was lost. This principality was short-lived: in 851, Salerno broke off under Siconulf and, by the end of that century, Capua was independent as well. Benevento was ruled again by the Byzantines between 891 and 895.
The so-called Langobardia minor was unified for the last time by Duke Pandolfo Testa di Ferro, who expanded his extensive control in the Mezzogiorno from his base in Benevento and Capua. Before his death, he had also gained the title of Duke of Spoleto from Emperor Otto I. However, both Benevento and Salerno rebelled to his son and heir, Pandulf II.
The first decades of the 11th century saw two more German-descended rulers in southern Italy: Henry II, conquered in 1022 both Capua and Benevento, but returned after the failed siege of Troia. Conrad II obtained similar results in 1038. In these years the three states were often engaged in local wars and disputes that favoured the rise of the Normans from mercenaries to ruler of the whole of Southern Italy. The greatest of them was Robert Guiscard, who captured Benevento in 1053 after the Emperor Henry III had first authorised its conquest in 1047 when Pandulf III and Landulf VI shut the gates to him. These princes were later expelled from the city and then recalled after the pope failed to defend it from Guiscard. The city fell to Normans in 1077. It was a papal city until after 1081.