CAPUA, the chief ancient city of Campania, and one of the most important towns of ancient Italy, situated 16 m. N. of Neapolis, on the north-east edge of the Campanian plain. Its site in a position not naturally defensible, together with the regularity of its plan, indicates that it is not a very ancient town, though it probably occupies the site of an early Oscan settlement. It was founded about 600 B.c. The origin of the name is Campus, a plain, as the adjective Campanus shows. Etruscan supremacy in Cam pania ended with the Samnite invasion in the latter half of the 5th century B.C. ; these conquerors, however, themselves became luxurious, and made alliance with Rome against the Samnite mountain tribes ; the dependent communities Casilinum, Calatia, Atella shared in this and Campania fell under Roman supremacy about 340 B.C. (See CAMPANIA.) After the second Samnite War the Ager Falernus on the right bank of the Volturnus was dis tributed among citizens of Rome, the tribes Falerna being thus formed, and in 318 the powers of the native officials (meddices) were limited by the appointment of officials with the title prae fecti Capuam Cumas (taking their name from the most important towns of Campania) ; these were at first mere deputies of the praetor urbanus, but after 123 B.C. were elected Roman magis trates, four in number; they governed the whole of Campania until the time of Augustus, when they were abolished.
In 312 B.C. Capua was connected with Rome by the construction of the Via Appia, which left Rome by the Porta Capena. The Via Latina was perhaps prolonged to Casilinum when Capua fell under Roman supremacy, i.e., before the con struction of the Via Appia. The importance of Capua increased steadily during the 3rd century, and at the beginning of the sec ond Punic War it was considered to be only slightly behind Rome and Carthage themselves, and was able to furnish 30,00o infantry and 4,000 cavalry.
Until after the defeat of Cannae it remained faithful to Rome, but, after a vain demand that one of the consuls should always be selected from it, it transferred its allegiance to Hannibal, who made it his winter-quarters, with bad results to the moral of his troops (see PUNIC WARS). After a long siege it was taken by the Romans in 211 B.C., its magistrates and communal organization were abolished, the inhabitants losing their civic rights, and its ter ritory became Roman state domain.
Parts of it were sold in 205 and 199 B.C., another part was divided among the citizens of the new colonies of Volturnum and Liternum established near the coast in 194 B.C. Illegal encroachments by private persons had to be bought out in 162 B.C. and, after that period, it was let not to large but to small proprietors. Frequent attempts were made by the democratic leaders to divide the land among new settlers. The inhabitants of this thickly-populated district were grouped round important shrines, especially that of Diana Tifatina, in connection with which a pages Dianae existed on the west slope of the Mons Tifata. The town of Capua was entirely dependent on the prae f ecti. It pro duced spelt, wine, roses, spices, unguents, etc., and fine bronze objects. Its luxury remained proverbial; and Campania is espe cially spoken of as the home of gladiatorial combats. From the gladiatorial schools of Campania came Spartacus and his followers in 73 B.C. Julius Caesar as consul in 59 B.C. established a colony in connection with his agrarian law, and 20,000 Roman citizens were settled in this territory.
The number of colonists was increased by Mark Antony, Augus tus (who constructed an aqueduct from the Mons Tifata, and gave the town of Capua estates in the district of Cnossus in Crete to the value of f 120,000) and Nero. In the 4th century it was the seat of the consularis Campaniae and its chief town, though Ausonius puts it behind Mediolanum (Milan) and Aquileia in his ordo nobilium erbium. Under Constantine a Christian church was founded in Capua.
In A.D. 456 it was taken and destroyed by Gaiseric, but must have been soon rebuilt ; it was, however, finally destroyed by the Saracens in 84o and the church of S. Maria Maggiore, founded about 497, alone remained. It con tains 52 ancient marble columns, but was modernized in 1766. The site was occupied in the late middle ages by a village which has, however, outgrown the mediaeval Capua in modern days. Remains.—Important cemeteries have been discovered on all sides of it, the earliest of which go back to the 7th or 6th century B.C. The tombs are of various forms, partly chambers with fres coes on the walls, partly cubical blocks of peperino, hollowed out, with grooved lids. They contained vases of bronze with incised designs of Etruscan style and of clay, some of Greek, some of local manufacture, and paintings. On the east of the town, a temple has Oscan votive inscriptions, some of them inscribed upon terra-cotta tablets, others on cippi, while of a group of 15o tufa statuettes (representing a matron holding one or more children in her lap) three bore Latin inscriptions of the early imperial period. The extreme length of the town from east to west is most accurately determined by the fact that the Via Appia, which runs from north-west to south-east from Casilinum to Calatia, turns due east very soon after passing the so-called Arco Cam pano (a triumphal arch of good brickwork, once faced with marble, with three openings), and continues to run in this direction for
English feet ( = 6,000 ancient Oscan feet). The west gate was the Porta Romana; remains of the east gate (the name of which we do not know) have been found. This fact shows that the main street of the town was perfectly orientated, and that before the Via Appia was constructed, i.e., in all probability in pre Roman times. The width of the town from north to south cannot be so accurately determined, but the plan was almost certainly rectangular. There are remains of thermae on the north of the Via Appia and of a theatre opposite, on the south. The former consisted of a large cryptoporticus round three sides of a court, the south side being open to the road; it now lies under the prisons. The stage of the theatre had its back to the road. A fine subterranean Mithraeum has been found, in which the sacrifice of the bull is shown in painting and not (as usual) in sculpture. (Notizie degli Scavi [1924], 353.) Environs.—Outside the town on the north is the amphitheatre, built in the time of Augustus, restored by Hadrian and dedicated by Antoninus Pius, as the inscription over the main entrance recorded. The exterior was formed by 8o Doric arcades of four storeys each, but only two arches now remain. The keystones were adorned with heads of divinities. The interior is better preserved ; beneath the arena are subterranean passages like those in the amphitheatre at Puteoli. It is one of the largest in existence ; the longer diameter is 185 yd., the shorter 152, and the arena measures
by 49 yd., the corresponding dimensions in the Colosseum at Rome being 205, I 70, 93 and 58 yd. To the east are considerable remains of baths.
On the Via Appia, to the south-east of the east gate of the town, are two large and well-preserved Roman tombs. To the north is the Pagus Dianae; the site of the temple is occupied by the Bene dictine church of S. Angelo in Formis (944), reconstructed by the abbot Desiderius (afterwards Pope Victor III.) of Monte Cassino in 1073, with interesting paintings (IIth-12th cent.), forming a complete representation of all the chief episodes of the New Testa ment. Deposits of votive objects (f avissae ), removed from the ancient temple from time to time as new ones came in and occu pied all the available space, have been found, and considerable remains of buildings belonging to the Vicus Dianae (among them a triumphal arch and some baths, also a hall with frescoes, repre senting the goddess herself ready for the chase) still exist.
The ancient road from Capua went on beyond the Vicus Dianae to the Volturnus (remains of the bridge still exist) and then turned east along the river valley to Caiatia and Telesia. Other roads ran to Puteoli and Cumae (the so-called Via Campana) and to Neapolis, and as we have seen the Via Appia passed through Capua, which was thus the most important road centre of Cam pania (q.v.) . See Giacomo's well illustrated Da Capua a Caserta (Bergamo, 1924)•
