Caudium is first mentioned during the Second Samnite War, when in 321 BC the Samnite army under Pontius Telesinus encamped there just before their great victory over the Romans in the nearby mountain pass called the Caudine Forks (Livy 9.2), whose exact location is disputed.
Niebuhr supposed that the city was destroyed by the Romans in revenge for their great defeat at the Caudine Forks, but there is no evidence for this, and in a later period it was known as a stopping place along the Appian Way, both in the time of Augustus (Hor.
[2] In the triumviral period Caudium received a colony of veterans; and it appears from Pliny, as well as from inscriptions, that it retained its municipal character, though deprived of a large portion of its territory in favor of the neighboring city of Beneventum.
The ancient bishopric of Caudium is considered to have had its seat at what is now the village of Arpaia rather than at present-day Montesarchio.
The diocese of Caudium was nominally restored in 1970 by the Catholic Church as Latin titular bishopric.