a city of Italy, in the kingdom of Naples, with an archbishop's see. It is situated near the confluence of the rivers Sabato and Calore, in a fertile valley called the Strait of Benevento, full of gentlemen's seats and houses of pleasure. This town hath frequently suffered terribly by earthquakes; particularly in 1703, when a great part of it was overturned, and the rest much damaged. E. Long. 14. 57. N. Lat. 41. 6.

The arch of Trajan, now called the Porta Aurea, forms one of the entrances to the city. This arch, though it appears to great disadvantage from the walls and houses that hem it in on both sides, is in tolerable preservation, and one of the most magnificent remains of Roman grandeur to be met with out of Rome. The architecture and sculpture are both singularly beautiful. This elegant monument was erected in the year of Christ 114, about the commencement of the Parthian war, and after the submission of Decebalus had entitled Trajan to the surname of Dacicus. The order is Composite; the materials white marble; the height 60 palms; length, 37 and a half; and depth 24. It consists of a single arch, the span of which is 20 palms, the height 35. On each side of it, two fluted columns, upon a joint pedestal, support an entablature and an attic. The intercolumniations and frieze are covered with basso-relievos, representing the battles and triumphs of the Dacian war. In the attic is the inscription. As the sixth year of Trajan's consulate, marked on this arch, is also to be seen on all the milliary columns he erected along his new road to Brundusium, it is probable that the arch was built to commemorate so beneficial an undertaking. Except the old metropolis of the world, no city in Italy can boast of so many remains of ancient sculpture as are to be found in Benevento. Scarce a wall is built of anything but altars, tombs, columns, and remains of entablatures.

The cathedral is a clumsy edifice, in a style of Gothic, or rather Lombard, architecture. This church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was built in the fifth century, enlarged in the 11th, and altered considerably in the 13th, when Archbishop Roger adorned it with a new front. To obtain a sufficient quantity of marble for this purpose, he spared neither sarcophagus, altar, Benevento, altar, nor inscription; but fixed them promiscuously and irregularly in the walls of his barbarous structure. Three doors (a type of the Trinity, according to the rules established by the mystical Vitruvii of those ages) opened into this facade. That in the centre is of bronze, embossed with the life of Christ, and the effigies of the Beneventine metropolitan, with all his suffragan bishops. The inside offers nothing to the curious observer but columns, altars, and other decorations, executed in the most inelegant style that any of the church-building barbarians ever adopted. In the court stands a small Egyptian obelisk, of red granite, crowded with hieroglyphics. In the adjoining square are a fountain and a very indifferent statue of Benedict XIII., long archbishop of Benevento.

Of the Beneventine history the following abstract is given by Mr. Swinburne, in his Travels in Sicily. According to some authors (he informs us), Diomed was the founder of Beneventum; whence its origin must be referred to the "years that immediately succeeded the Trojan war." Other writers assign it to the Samnites, who made it one of their principal towns, where they frequently took refuge when worsted by the Romans. In their time its name was Maleventum, a word of uncertain etymology; however, it founded so ill in the Latin tongue, that the superstitious Romans, after achieving the conquest of Samnium, changed it into Beneventum, in order to introduce their colony under fortunate auspices. Near this place, in the 479th year of Rome, Pyrrhus was defeated by Curius Dentatus. In the war against Hannibal, Beneventum signalized its attachment to Rome, by liberal tenders of succour and real services. Its reception of Gracchus, after his defeat of Hamo, is extolled by Livy; and, from the gratitude of the senate, many solid advantages accrued to the Beneventines. As they long partook, in a distinguished manner, of the glories and prosperity of the Roman empire, they also severely felt the effects of its decline, and shared in a large proportion the horrors of devastation that attended the irruption of the northern nations.

"The modern history of this city will appear interesting to those readers who do not despise the events of ages which we usually and justly call dark and barbarous. They certainly are of importance to all the present states of Europe; for at that period originated the original existence of most of them. Had no northern savages descended from their snowy mountains, to overturn the Roman colossus, and break asunder the fetters of mankind, few of those powers, which now make so formidable a figure, would ever have been so much as heard of. The avengers of the general wrongs were, no doubt, the destroyers of arts and literature, and brought on the thick clouds of ignorance, which for many centuries no gleam of light could penetrate; but it is to be remembered, also, that the Romans themselves had already made great progress in banishing true taste and knowledge, and would very soon have been a barbarous nation, though neither Goths nor Vandals had ever approached the frontier.

"The Lombards came the last of the Scythian or Scandinavian hordes to invade Italy. After fixing the seat of their empire at Pavia, they sent a detachment to possess the southern provinces. In 571, Zotto was appointed duke of Benevento, as a feudatory of Benevento the king of Lombardy; and seems to have confined his rule to the city alone, from which he felled forth to seek for booty. The second duke, whose name was Arechis, conquered almost the whole country that now constitutes the kingdom of Naples. His successors appear long to have remained satisfied with the extent of dominion he had transmitted to them. Grimwald, one of them, usurped the crown of Lombardy; but his son Romwald, though a very successful warrior, contented himself with the ducal title. The fall of Desiderius, last king of the Lombards, did not affect the state of Benevento. By an effort of policy or resolution, Arechis the second kept possession; and availing himself of the favourable conjuncture, asserted his independence,—threw off all feudal submission,—assumed the style of prince,—and coined money with his own image upon it; a prerogative exercised by none of his predecessors as dukes of Benevento. During four reigns, this state maintained itself on a respectable footing; and might long have continued so, had not civil war, added to very powerful assaults from abroad, hastened its ruin. Radelchis and Siconulp aspired to the principality; and each of them invited the Saracens to his aid. The desolation caused by this conflict is scarcely to be described. No better method for terminating these fatal dissensions could be devised than dividing the dominions into two distinct sovereignties. In 851, Radelchis reigned as prince at Benevento; and his adversary fixed his court with the same title at Salerno. From this treaty of partition, the ruin of the Lombards became inevitable: a want of union undermined their strength,—foreigners gained an ascendant over them, irresolution and weakness pervaded their whole system of government. The erection of Capua into a third principality was another destructive operation: and now the inroads of the Saracens, the attacks of the eastern and western emperors, anarchy and animosity at home, reduced the Lombard states to such wretchedness, that they were able to make a very feeble resistance to the Norman arms. The city of Benevento alone escaped their sway, by a grant which the emperor Henry II. had made of it to the bishop of Rome, in exchange for the territory of Bamberg in Germany, where the popes enjoyed a kind of sovereignty. From the year 1054 to this day, the Roman see, with some short interruptions of possession, has exercised temporal dominion over this city. Benevento has given three popes to the chair of St. Peter; viz. Felix III. Victor III. and Gregory VIII. and, what it is much prouder of, reckons St. Januarius in the list of its bishops."