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Bovianum

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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the name of two ancient Italian towns. (I) UNDECIMANORUM [Boiano], the chief city of the Pentri Samnites, 9 m. N.W. of Saepinum and IS m. S.E. of Aesernia, on the important road from Beneventum to Corfinium, which connected the Via Appia and the Via Valeria. The original city occupied the height (Civita) above the modern town, where remains of Cyclopean walls still exist, while the Roman town (probably founded after the Social War, in which Bovianum was the seat of the Samnite assembly) lay in the plain. It acquired the name Undecimanorum when Vespasian settled the veterans of the Legio XI. Claudia there. Its remains have been covered by over 30 ft. of earth washed down from the mountains. Comparatively few inscriptions have been discovered. (2) VETUS (near Pietrabbondante, 5 m. S. of Agnone and 19 m. N.W. of Campobasso), according to Th. Mommsen (Corpus Inscrip. Lat. ix. Berlin, 1883, p. 257) the chief town of the Caraceni. It lay in a remote situation among the mountains, and where Bovianum is mentioned the reference is generally to Bovianum Undecimanorum. Remains of fortifications and lower down of a temple and a theatre (cf. Romische Mitteilungen, 1903, 1 54) - the latter remarkable for the fine preservation of the stone seats of the three lowest rows of the auditorium - are to be seen. No less than eight Oscan inscriptions have been found. (T. As.)