AECLANUM, an ancient town of Samnium, Italy, 15m. E. S.E. of Beneventum, on the Via Appia (near modern Mirabella).
It became the chief town of the Hirpini after Beneventum had become a Roman colony. Sulla captured it in 89 B.C. by setting on fire its wooden breastwork, and new fortifications were erected. Hadrian, who repaired the Via Appia from Beneventum to this point, made it a colony; it has ruins of city walls, aqueduct, baths and amphitheatre ; nearly 400 inscriptions have been found. Two different routes to Apulia diverged at this point, one (Via Aurelia Aeclanensis) leading through the modern Ariano to Her donie, the other (the Via Appia of the Empire) passing the Lacus Ampsanctus and going on to Aquilonia and Venusia.
See Ashby and Gardner, Papers of the British School at Rome, viii. o8 sqq.