Pyrrhus, on the arrival of Carthaginian reenforcements, returns to Italy; he is totally defeated by M. Curius Dentatus (at Beneventum), who exhibits in his triumphs the first elephants ever seen in Rome.

The city of Beneventum refused to open its gates to the Sovereign Pontiff, who, at the Emperor's request, pronounced against it a sentence of excommunication.

Louis, King of Italy, drives the Saracens out of Beneventum.

It was subsequently carried on to Beneventum, and finally to Brundusium.

He lay with his main army at Arpi, while Tiberius Gracchus with four legions confronted him in Apulia, resting upon the fortresses of Luceria and Beneventum.

Meanwhile the Bruttian army of the Carthaginians under Hanno had various encounters in Lucania with the Roman army of Apulia; here Tiberius Gracchus sustained the struggle with good results, and after a successful combat not far from Beneventum, in which the slave legions pressed into service had distinguished themselves, he bestowed liberty and burgess-rights on his slave-soldiers in the name of the people.

Hannibal accordingly collected a considerable supply of grain, and directed the Campanians to receive it at Beneventum; but their tardiness gave the consuls Quintus Flaccus and Appius Claudius time to come up, to inflict a severe defeat on Hanno who protected the grain, and to seize his camp and all his stores.

Two colonies established; one at Ariminum in Picenum, another at Beneventum in Samnium.

Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, the proconsul, defeats the Carthaginians under Hanno at Beneventum chiefly by the services of the slaves in his army, whom he subsequently liberated.

He also ordered Tiberius Gracchus to bring up his troops from Luceria to Beneventum, and Quintus Fabius the praetor, the son of the consul, to go to Luceria in the room of Gracchus.

During the same time, the consul, Fabius, came to attempt Casilinum, which was occupied by a Carthaginian garrison; and, as if by concert, Hanno approached Beneventum on one side from the Bruttians, with a large body of foot and horse, while on the other side Gracchus approached it from Luceria.

He then gave the signal for packing up the baggage; and the soldiers, sporting and jesting as they drove and carried their booty, returned to Beneventum in so playful a mood, that they appeared to be returning, not from the field of battle, but from a feast celebrated on some remarkable holiday.

While these events occurred at Beneventum, Hannibal having laid waste the territory of Naples, moved his camp to Nola.

" Afterwards the owners of those slaves whom Tiberius Sempronius had manumitted at Beneventum, came to them, stating that they were sent for by the public bankers, to receive the price of their slaves, but that they would not accept of it till the war was concluded.

These, as they were straggling in a careless manner, Hanno surprising, retorted upon his enemy a defeat not much less disastrous than he had himself received at Beneventum, and then hastily retired to the territory of the Bruttians, lest Gracchus should overtake him.

Hanno, setting out from Bruttium with his army, and carefully avoiding the camp of the enemy and the consuls who were in Samnium, when he drew near to Beneventum, pitched his camp on an eminence three miles from the city.

The consuls, hearing what was going on at Capua, arranged it so that one of them should lead an army into Campania; and Fulvius, to whose lot that province had fallen, setting out by night, entered the walls of Beneventum.

They set out at the fourth watch of the night, leaving all their packages and baggage of every description at Beneventum; and arriving a little before daylight at the camp, they occasioned such a panic, that, had the camp been situated on level ground, it might doubtlessly have been taken on the first assault.

After throwing down the camp of the enemy, they returned thence to Beneventum; and there both the consuls (for Appius Claudius came thither a few days after) sold the booty and distributed it, making presents to those by whose exertions the camp of the enemy had been captured; above all, to Accuaeus the Pelignian, and Titus Pedanius, first centurion of the third legion.

The consuls led their legions from Beneventum into the Campanian territory, with the intention not only of destroying the corn, which was in the blade, but of laying siege to Capua; considering that they would render their consulate illustrious by the destruction of so opulent a city, and that they would wipe away the foul disgrace of the empire, from the defection of a city so near remaining unpunished for three years.

There are some who have put forth an account, stating, that when in the territory of Beneventum, near the river Calor, having gone out from his camp with his lictors and three servants, for the purpose of bathing, he was slain while naked and unarmed, and endeavouring to defend himself with the stones which the river brought down, by a party of the enemy which happened to be concealed among the osiers which grew upon the banks.

Hannibal, having moved his camp from the territory of Beneventum to Capua, drew out his troops in order of battle the third day after his arrival; not entertaining the least doubt but that, as the Campanians had fought successfully a few days ago when he was absent, the Romans would be still less able to withstand him and his army, which had been so often victorious.

They had snatched, as it were, from the very jaws of Hannibal, and restored to the Roman people, Cumae, Beneventum, and other towns.

Having thus regulated at Rome his own affairs and those of the Church, he returned to his camp, took Pavia, received the submission of all the Lombard dukes and counts, save one only, Aregisius, duke of Beneventum, and entered France again, taking with him as prisoner King Didier, whom he banished to a monastery, first at Liege and then at Corbie, where the dethroned Lombard, say the chroniclers, ended his days in saintly fashion.

He is so figured on the sculptured doors of the cathedral of Beneventum, and in the cathedral of Monreale, both executed by Greek artists.