The land of the Samnites, taken by Rome, had become public property, and in 181 before Christ the consuls Marcus Baebius Tamphilus and Publius Cornelius Cethegus settled here the Ligurians they had deported from their mountains: about forty thousand free people, with their wives and children, moved at public expense and given a sum of silver to buy what they needed in their new homes. Livy relates that the Senate granted the two consuls a triumph, and that they were the first to obtain that honour without having fought. The deported took the name of Baebius, and their capital stood at Macchia, a few kilometres from the village.
In 1832, in a field of his own, the local lawyer Giosuè De Agostini found the Tabula Alimentaria: a document of the year 101 listing the estates and the owners to whom, by Trajan's will, money had been lent at two and a half per cent, the interest being set aside for poor children; it can be seen today in Rome, at the Baths of Diocletian. The Ligurian town died out, probably burned between the eighth and the ninth century — that ground is still called Maccla Saracenorum — and the survivors moved to the rocky spur where the village stands today, among centuries-old oaks: from Quercetum to Cercetum, to Cercellum, to Circello. The Normans built the castle on the summit; the medieval borgo had seven gates, and a secret passage, now lost, led from the church of San Nicola to the castle.
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📅 Every year, on 2 August
Circello celebrates Saint Michael the Archangel on 2 August. The area preserves the memory of the ancient settlement of the Ligures Baebiani, a Ligurian people relocated here in Roman times.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Circello, but an easy day trip away.
