Montesarchio

The name comes from Hercules. Montesarchio goes back to Mons Arculi or Mons Herculis, and is tied to a legend by which Hercules lived in these parts and killed the lion in a cave of Monte Taburno, during one of his twelve labours; from Montesarculo the present form was reached, and on the municipal gonfalone the words Hercules alexicacos are written. The other name of the place, though, weighs a great deal more: this territory is commonly identified with Caudium, the Samnite city founded in the eighth century before Christ and reckoned the chief centre of the Caudine Samnium. It was near here that the Roman army suffered the defeat and the humiliation of the Caudine Forks.

The two historic quarters climb the hill beneath the tower and the castle: Latovetere, formed in Lombard times with the houses packed against the fortress, and Latonuovo, which grew in Norman times when the population increased. The fief passed from the Della Leonessa, who held it from 1278 to 1480, to the Carafa and then, from 1528, to the D'Avalos, who kept it until feudalism was abolished in 1806. In Bourbon times the tower was used as a maximum-security prison: among the prisoners was the patriot Carlo Poerio, and a plaque marks the cell in which he is thought to have been shut. The earthquake of 5 June 1688 had meanwhile badly damaged the town.