[5] An important ancient inscription in Oscan was found in Avella, the Cippus Abellanus, which records an agreement between Abella and Nola with regards to the use of land around a temple to Hercules that was situated on the border between the two municipalities.

Contrary to nearby Nola, where ceramics are prevalent, bucchero and imitations of Corinthian vases are prominent in this period, with the same shapes as found in Capua which seems to confirm the Etruscan character of the city.

From the 5th c. BC Abella was, like the rest of the region, under the Samnite hegemony and later assumed the character of a city, as evidenced by the remains of houses found north of the amphitheatre.

The walls have a regular layout throughout the eastern half and the only well-preserved part, incorporated in the amphitheatre, is in concrete with an opus incertum facing, with irregular blocks of various sizes, dated after the second Punic war of the 2nd century BC.

From the Liber de Coloniis Vespasian settled a number of his freedmen and dependants there, yet it appears, both from that treatise and from Pliny, that it had not then attained the rank of a colony, a dignity which we find it enjoying in the time of Trajan.

[6] Virgil and Silius Italicus considered that its territory was not fertile in corn, but rich in fruit-trees (maliferae Abellae): the neighbourhood also abounded in filberts or hazelnuts of a very choice quality, which were called from thence nuces Avellanae.

As in ancient times, even during the Middle Ages Avella continued to remain linked to the Nolan area and more precisely to the Terra di Lavoro.

It dates (according to Mommsen) from a period shortly after the Second Punic War, and is not only curious on account of details concerning the municipal magistrates, but is one of the most important documents for study of the Oscan language.

In the territory, various funerary monuments of the late Republican age and of the first century of the empire, belonging to the Ordus family coming from villas in the hills and along the roads that came out of the city.

The two main vomitoria on the major axis of the ellipse (itinera magna) with side rooms, the podium that divided the curve from the arena, and the tuff seats are all well preserved.