[6] Due to its artistic and cultural significance, the Santa Sofia Church in Benevento was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011, as part of a group of seven historic buildings inscribed as Longobards in Italy, Places of Power (568–774 A.D.).

Benevento was certainly in the power of the Romans in 274 BC, when Pyrrhus of Epirus was defeated in a great battle, fought in its immediate neighborhood, by the consul Manius Curius Dentatus.

[12] It is probable that the Oscan or Samnite name was Maloeis, or Malieis (Μαλιείς in Ancient Greek), whence the form Maleventum would derive, like Agrigentum from Acragas (now Agrigento), Selinuntium from Selinus (the ruins of which are at now Selinunte), etc.

[14] And though its territory was more than once laid waste by the Carthaginians, it was still one of the eighteen Latin colonies which in 209 BCE were at once able and willing to furnish the required quota of men and money for continuing the war.

For this prosperity it was doubtless indebted in part to its position on the Via Appia, just at the junction of the two principal arms or branches of that great road, the one called afterwards the Via Traiana, leading thence by Aequum Tuticum (now Ariano Irpino) into Apulia; the other by Aeclanum to Venusia (now Venosa) and Tarentum (now Taranto).

For administrative purposes it was first included, together with the rest of the Hirpini, in the second region of Augustus, but was afterwards annexed to Campania and placed under the control of the consular of that province.

[21] Beneventum retained its importance down to the close of the Empire, and though during the Gothic wars it was taken by Totila, and its walls razed to the ground, they were restored, as well as its public buildings, shortly after; and P. Diaconus speaks of it as a very wealthy city, and the capital of all the surrounding provinces.

Towards the west it included that of Caudium, with the exception of the town itself; to the north it extended as far as the river Tamarus (now Tammaro), including the village of Pago Veiano, which, as we learn from an inscription, was anciently called Pagus Veianus; on the northeast it comprised the town of Aequum Tuticum (now Saint Eleutherio hamlet, between Ariano Irpino and Castelfranco in Miscano), and on the east and south bordered on the territories of Aeclanum (now Mirabella Eclano) and Abellinum (now Avellino).

After his reign the Eastern Roman Empire had only Naples, Amalfi, Gaeta, Sorrento, the tip of Calabria and the maritime cities of Apulia left in southern Italy.

King Liutprand intervened several times, imposing a candidate of his own to the realm's succession; his successor Ratchis declared the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento to be foreign countries where it was forbidden to travel without royal permission.

With the collapse of the Lombard Kingdom in 773, Duke Arechis II was elevated to Prince under the new Frankish Empire, in compensation for having some of his territory transferred back to the Papal States.

The so-called Langobardia minor was unified for the last time by Duke Pandolfo Testa di Ferro, who expanded his extensive control in the Mezzogiorno from his base in Benevento and Capua.

The first decades of the 11th century saw two more German-descended rulers in southern Italy: Henry II, conquered in 1022 both Capua and Benevento, but returned after the failed siege of Troia.

In these years the three states (Benevento, Capua, and Salerno) were often engaged in local wars and disputes that favoured the rise of the Normans from mercenaries to ruler of the whole of Southern Italy.

Benevento passed to the papacy peacefully when the emperor Henry III ceded it to Leo IX, in exchange for the pope's consent to the establishment of the Diocese of Bamberg (1053).

The papacy ruled it by appointed rectors, seated in a palace, and the principality continued to be a papal possession until 1806, when Napoleon granted it to his minister Talleyrand with the title of sovereign prince.

In the following decades, the town saw considerable expansion and modernization; the local economy became increasingly diversified, with the traditional agricultural sector (especially the cultivation of tobacco and cereals) being joined by growing confectionery, mechanical, liquor, lumber and brickmaking industries.

During World War II, Benevento's key position in the railway communications between Rome and Apulia resulted in the town being heavily bombed by the Allied air forces in the summer of 1943.

Public sector grew considerably during this period, becoming a prime source of employment for many inhabitants of the province; the town also saw increasing demographic expansion, resulting in a somewhat incontrolled building boom.

In recent years, several urban renewal projects have been carried out in the old city centre, and Benevento has become the seat of the University of Sannio and several research institutes.

Enclosed in the walls, this construction marked the entrance in Benevento of the Via Traiana, the road built by the Spanish emperor to shorten the path from Rome to Brindisi.

The arch was put during the Middle Age in the fenced area of the town, in order to represent the Porta Aurea, on account of its fair proportions and the wealth and excellence of its sculptural adornments.

In 1903 the foundations of the Temple of Isis were discovered close to the Arch of Trajan, and many fragments of fine sculptures in both the Egyptian and the Greco-Roman style belonging to it were found.

They had apparently been used as the foundation of a portion of the city wall, reconstructed in 663 under the fear of an attack by the Byzantine emperor Constans II, the temple having been destroyed by order of the bishop, St Barbatus, to provide the necessary material (A. Meomartini, 0.

The church interior was once totally frescoed by Byzantine artists: fragments of these paintings, portraying the Histories of Christ, can be still seen in the two side apses.

Santa Sofia was almost destroyed by the earthquake of 1688, and rebuilt in Baroque forms by commission of the then cardinal Orsini of Benevento (later Pope Benedict XIII).

The Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, with its arcaded façade and incomplete square campanile (begun in 1279 by the archbishop Romano Capodiferro) dates from the 9th century.

Another testimony of the cathedral is the XII century bronze door, the Janua Major, composed of 72 tiles with bas relief, whose fragments were rebuilt after the Second World War.

The site had been already used by the Samnites, who had constructed here a set of defensive terraces, and the Romans, with a thermal plant (Castellum aquae), whose remains can be still seen in the castle garden.

Frazioni, or wards, include: Acquafredda, Cancelleria, Capodimonte, Caprarella, Cardoncielli, Cardoni, Cellarulo, Chiumiento, Ciancelle, Ciofani, Cretazzo, Epitaffio, Francavilla, Gran Potenza, Imperatore, Lammia, Madonna della Salute, Masseria del Ponte, Masseria La Vipera, Mascambruni, Montecalvo, Olivola, Pacevecchia, Pamparuottolo, Pantano, Perrottiello, Piano Cappelle, Pino, Ponte Corvo, Rosetiello, Ripa Zecca, Roseto, Santa Clementina, San Chirico, San Cumano (anc.