Suessula

History

Suessula is repeatedly mentioned during the wars between Romans and Samnites, as well as in the Second Punic War against Hannibal. Thus in the First Samnite War (343 BC) it was the scene of a decisive victory by Marcus Valerius Corvus over the Samnites, who had gathered together the remains of their army which had been previously defeated at Mount Gaurus (Livy vii. 37). In the following Campanian War the Suessulani followed the fortunes of the citizens of Capua, and shared the same fate, so that at the close of the contest, in 338 BC, they must have obtained the status of civitas, but without the right of suffrage (Id. viii. 14).

In the Second Punic War the city played a considerable part, though apparently more from its position than its own importance. Suessula was on the line of the Via Popillia, which was here intersected by a road which ran from Neapolis through Acerrae, and on to the Via Appia, which it reached just west of the Caudine pass. The line of hills which rises from the level plain of Campania immediately above Suessula, and forms a kind of prolongation of the ridge of Mount Tifata, was a station almost as convenient as that mountain itself, and in 216 BCE, it was occupied by M. Claudius Marcellus with the view of protecting Nola, and watching the operations of Hannibal against that city (Liv. xxiii. 14, 17). From this time the Romans seem to have kept up a permanent camp there for some years, which was known as the Castra Claudiana, from the name of Marcellus who had first established it, and which is continually alluded to during the operations of the subsequent campaigns (Liv. xxiil. 31, xxiv. 46, 47, xxv. 7, 22, xxvi. 9).

After this period, Suessula fades into obscurity. It continued to be a municipal town of Campania, though apparently one of a secondary class; and inscriptions attest its municipal rank under the Roman Empire. It had received a body of veterans as colonists under Sulla, but did not attain the colonial rank (Strabo v. p. 249; Plin. iii. 5. s. 9; Orell. Inscr. 129, 130, 2333; Lib. Col. p. 237). The Tabula Peutingeriana places it on a line of road from Capua to Nola, at the distance of 9 miles from each of those cities (Tab. Peut). …