Ancient Campania (often also identified as Campania Felix or ager Campanus) originally indicated the territory of the ancient city of

Capua Capua ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in the province of Caserta, in the region of Campania, southern Italy, situated north of Naples, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain. History Ancient era The name of Capua comes from the Etrusc ...

in the

Roman period The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...

, and later also the plains of the various neighboring municipalities. It was a very large territory when compared with the other Italic cities of the Roman and pre-Roman period. It extended from the slopes of

Mount Massico Monte Massico (Latin: ''Mons Massicus'') is a mountain situated in the Italian Province of Caserta (Campania) between the rivers Volturno and Garigliano. Description Monte Massico is an Italian mountain ridge. In antiquity, it was described a ...

(to the north) up to the Phlegraean Fields and the Vesuvian area to the south. Initially it also included the ''

ager Falernus Ager or AGER may refer to: *Ager (surname) *Ager (river), a river in Upper Austria * Àger, a municipality in Catalonia, Spain *Viscounty of Àger, a medieval Catalan jurisdiction that branched off the County of Urgell *Ager, California, unincorp ...

'', then it was heavily downsized by

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

due to the alliance of the city of Capua with

Hannibal Hannibal (; xpu, 𐤇𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋, ''Ḥannibaʿl''; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Pu ...

. The main inhabited centers of this historical region were (from north to south)

Atella Atella was an ancient Oscan city of Campania, located 20km directly north of Naples. Remains The ruins of the city walls, private houses, the so-called ''garden of Virgil'' and many tombs remain, on sites in the '' comuni'' of Frattaminore, ...

, Liternum,

Cumae Cumae ( grc, Κύμη, (Kumē) or or ; it, Cuma) was the first ancient Greek colony on the mainland of Italy, founded by settlers from Euboea in the 8th century BC and soon becoming one of the strongest colonies. It later became a rich Ro ...

Baiae Baiae ( it, Baia; nap, Baia) was an ancient Roman town situated on the northwest shore of the Gulf of Naples and now in the ''comune'' of Bacoli. It was a fashionable resort for centuries in antiquity, particularly towards the end of the Rom ...

Puteoli Pozzuoli (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' of the Metropolitan City of Naples, in the Italian region of Campania. It is the main city of the Phlegrean Peninsula. History Pozzuoli began as the Greek colony of ''Dicaearchia'' ( el, Δικα ...

, Acerrae,

Nola Nola is a town and a municipality in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Campania, southern Italy. It lies on the plain between Mount Vesuvius and the Apennines. It is traditionally credited as the diocese that introduced bells to Christian worship ...

, Neapolis, Caprae,

Oplontis Oplontis is an ancient Roman archaeological site located in the town of Torre Annunziata, south of Naples in the Campania region of southern Italy. The excavated site comprises two Roman villas, the best-known of which is Villa A, the so-called V ...

Pompei Pompei (; nap, Pumpeje, ) or Pompeii (, as in the name of the ancient city) is a city and commune in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Italy, home of the ancient Roman ruins of Pompeii that are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Histo ...

, Sorrentum,

Stabiae Stabiae () was an ancient city situated near the modern town of Castellammare di Stabia and approximately 4.5 km southwest of Pompeii. Like Pompeii, and being only from Mount Vesuvius, this seaside resort was largely buried by tephra ash ...

, Nuceria Alfaterna and Salernum. Thanks to the fertility of the soil, also due to the presence of the Volturno river, it earned the name of ''Campania Felix''.

Classical age

According to the Roman philologist Sesto Pompeo Festo ( II century BC), the pre-Roman name of Campania was ''Oscor'', the name from which the Osci peoples who lived there (''Osci enim a Regione Campaniæ, quae est Oscor, vocati sunt.''). The toponym Campania, dating back to the fifth century BC, is of classical origin. The most accredited hypothesis is that it derives from the name of the ancient inhabitants of Capua. From Capuani, in fact, we would have Campani and, therefore, Campania; furthermore, both

Livio Livio is both a masculine Italian given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: Given name: *Livio Abramo (1903–1993), Brazilian artist *Livio Agresti (1508–1580), Italian painter *Livio Bendaña Espinoza (born 1935), Nicaragu ...

and

Polybius Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail. Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed ...

say of an ''Ager Campanus'' with a clear reference to Capua and the surrounding area. Ancient Campania, closed between the

Apennines The Apennines or Apennine Mountains (; grc-gre, links=no, Ἀπέννινα ὄρη or Ἀπέννινον ὄρος; la, Appenninus or – a singular with plural meaning;''Apenninus'' (Greek or ) has the form of an adjective, which wou ...

and the sea, had the

Sele Sele may refer to: Places Africa * Sele, Burkina Faso, a village in the Ouéleni Department of Burkina Fase. * Sele, Ethiopia, a town in Agbe municipality Asia * Sele, Turkey, a Turkish village in Kailar in Ottoman times *Şələ, Azerbaijan *Se ...

river as its boundaries to the south and the

Garigliano The Garigliano () is a river in central Italy. It forms at the confluence of the rivers Gari (also known as the Rapido) and Liri. Garigliano is actually a deformation of "Gari-Lirano" (which in Italian means something like "Gari from the Liri") ...

to the north (according to

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ...

, however, the city of

Sinuessa Sinuessa ( el, or ) was a city of Latium, in the more extended sense of the name, situated on the Tyrrhenian Sea, about 10 km north of the mouth of the Volturno River (the ancient ''Vulturnus''). It was on the line of the Via Appia, and was ...

). The territory of Campania, together with

Latium Latium ( , ; ) is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Definition Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil ( Old Latium) on ...

, became part, in the Augustan subdivision, of the Regio I: Latium et Campania.

Middle Ages

In the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, the toponym ''Terra Laboris'', recorded for the first time in 1092 (although there are doubts about the originality of the document), replaced the name Campania. The new toponym will officially replace the old one in the Norman territorial subdivision. In fact, from the seventh century, due to the prevalence of the

Duchy of Naples The Duchy of Naples ( la, Ducatus Neapolitanus, it, Ducato di Napoli) began as a Byzantine province that was constituted in the seventh century, in the reduced coastal lands that the Lombards had not conquered during their invasion of Italy in ...

, the connection between the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

toponym Campania and what it originally indicated was lost in the language: in an emblematic way, the geographical maps, from about 1500 to 1700, show the indication Terra Laboris olim ''Campania felix''.

Bibliography

* Gennaro Franciosi, ''La storia dell'Ager Campanus, i problemi della limitatio e sua lettura attuale'' (Real sito di S. Leucio 8-9 June 2001),

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, Jovene Editore, 2002, .

References

External links

*
Approfondimento sull'archeologia vesuviana e campana
', on ''vesuviolive.it.'' {{Campania Geographical, historical and cultural regions of Italy History of Campania Campania