(anc. geog.) a very ancient city of Italy, in Campania, and capital of that district. It is famous for the abode of Hannibal the Carthaginian general after the battle of Cannæ, and where Livy accuses him, but unjustly, of having enervated himself with pleasures*. It still retains the name, and is the see of an archbishop. It is situated on the river Vultur, no. in E. Long. 15° 5'. N. Lat. 41° 7'. The history of Capua is thus shortly deduced by Mr Swinburne. "It was a settlement of the Osci known before the foundation of Rome; as the amazing fertility of the land and a lucrative commerce poured immense wealth upon its inhabitants, it became one of the most extensive and magnificent cities in the world. With riches excessive luxury crept in, and the Capuans grew insolent; but by their effeminacy they soon lost the power of repelling those neighbouring nations which their insolence had exasperated: For this reason Capua was continually exposed to the necessity of calling in foreign aid, and endangering its safety by the uncommon temptations it offered to needy auxiliaries. The Roman soldiers sent to defend Capua were on the point of making it their prey, and often the voice of the Roman people was loud for a removal from the barren unwholesome banks of the Tiber to the garden of Italy, near those of the Voltorno. Through well-founded jealousy of the ambition of Rome, or, as Livy and other partial writers term it, natural inconstancy, the Capuans warmly espoused the quarrel of Carthage: Hannibal made Capua his winter-quarters after the campaign of Cannæ; and there, if we are to believe historians, his rough and hitherto invincible soldiers were enervated by pleasure and indolence.

"When through a failure of supplies from Carthage Hannibal was under a necessity of remaining in Bruttium, and leaving the Capuans to defend themselves, this city, which had been long invested, was surrendered at discretion to the consuls Appius Claudius and Q. Fulvius Flaccus. The senators were put to death, the nobles imprisoned for life, and all the citizens sold and dispersed." Vibius, the chief of Hannibal's friends, avoided this ignominious fate, and escaped from the cruel vengeance of the Romans by a voluntary death.—When the mob insisted upon the gates being thrown open to the enemy, Vibius assembled his steady associates, and sat down with them to a superb banquet, after which each of the guests swallowed a poisonous draught, and expired in full possession of their freedom. The buildings were spared by the victor; and Capua was left to be merely a harbour for the husbandmen of the plain, a warehouse for goods, and a granary for corn; but so advantageous a situation could not long be neglected; colonies were sent to inhabit it, and in process of time it regained a degree of importance.

"Generic the Vandal was more cruel than the Roman conquerors had been; for he massacred the inhabitants, and burnt the town to the ground. Narves rebuilt it; but in 841 it was totally destroyed by an army of Saracens, and the inhabitants driven into the mountains. Some time after the retreat of these savage invaders, the Lombards ventured down again into the plain, but not deeming their force adequate to the defence of so large a circuit as the old city, they built themselves a smaller one on the river, and called it Capua.—They chose the site of Caiilinum, famous in the second Pu-