in Ancient Geography, a town of the Samnites, formerly called Maleventum from the unwholesomeness of the wind, and under that appellation it is mentioned by Livy; but after a Roman colony was led thither in the 48th year of the city, it came to have the name of Beneventum, as a more auspicious title. It is mentioned by Horace as an ancient city, said to have been built by Diomedes before the Trojan war. Now Benevento.