a large and important city of ancient Italy, capital of Campania, was situated in the midst of a very fer- tile and valuable territory two miles from the bank of the Vulturous, and about half that distance from the mountain Tifata. Much diversity of opinion has prevailed as to the date of its foundation, and the people by whom it was originally inhabited. It is now generally agreed that Capua was one of the twelve cities which the Tuscans were said to have founded in the south of Italy at the beginning of the ninth century B.C. The city soon rose in importance, and its Capuchins, inhabitants became renowned throughout the whole penin- sula for their wealth, and the luxurious magnificence of their lives. In course of time, as was natural, they degen- erated so far, that from having been originally a brave and warlike people, they could no longer resist the encroach- ments of the Samnites, who in 424 B.C. made themselves masters of the city, and put the inhabitants to the sword. The material prosperity of the city remained undiminished under the rule of the Samnites, who in less than a century had become as effeminate and degenerate as the Capuans had been. When they in turn were attacked by the moun- tainers, they were compelled to apply to Rome for assis- tance, which was immediately granted. At the close of the Latin war, in which the Capuans had assisted the allies, they were deprived of the Campanus Ager the most valua- ble district in Italy, but were admitted to take rank as citi- zens of Rome. They still continued, however, to select their own rulers. When the second Punic war broke out, the Capuans, elated with the prospect of retrieving their high position, opened their gates to Hannibal, who spent an entire winter with his army in the city. To the ener- vating contagion of Capuan effeminacy, historians have al- ways attributed the want of success which subsequently attended the Carthaginian commander in his Italian cam- paigns. When the Romans at length made themselves masters of the city, in the seventh year of the war, they took a terrible revenge, and only forbore to raze the city to the ground in consideration of the great natural advan- tages of its site. For its fidelity in the social war, the Ro- mans restored to Capua all its municipal privileges, and the city recovered all its commercial, though it never regained its political importance. Under Julius Caesar, the Cam- panus Ager was distributed among 20,000 citizens of Rome, and Capua became a Roman colony. Under the emperors it continued to prosper commercially, and seems to have been as rich and populous at the downfall of the western em- pire as during the time of its political independence, and its wealth marked it out as a special object of attack to the Vandals, who took and nearly destroyed it under Genseric, A.D. 456. What was left undone by the Vandals was com- pleted by the Saracens, who burnt the city to the ground in 840. The inhabitants who had fled for shelter to the neighbouring mountains returned on the departure of their eastern invaders, and established themselves at Casilinum, a stronghold distant a short way from their ancient home. Casilinum is the modern Capua, one of the strongest forts in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The site of the ancient Capua is now occupied by the village of Casale, in the neighbourhood of which extensive ruins of the old capital of Campania may still be distinctly traced.