Allifae

About

Allifae was an ancient town of Italy, a center of Oscan or Samnite origin, situated in the valley of the Vulturnus, at the foot of the lofty mountain group now called the Monte Matese, about 40 km northwest of Telesia, and 27 km east-northwest of Teano.

It was close to the frontiers of Campania, and is enumerated among the Campanian cities by Pliny, and by Silius Italicus but Strabo expressly calls it a Samnite city That it was so at an earlier period is certain, as we find it repeatedly mentioned in the wars of the Romans with that people. Allifae was conquered multiple times by the Romans, initially in 326 BC during the Second Samnite Wars; Livy wrote :"Three towns fell into their hands, Allifæ, Callifæ, and Ruffrium; and the adjoining country to a great extent was, on the first arrival of the consuls, laid entirely waste" (Livy, VIII. 25).However, the Romans lost control soon after in 310 BC:"During these transactions in Etruria the other Consul CM. Rutilus took Allife by storm from the Samnites, and many of their forts and smaller towns were either destroyed or surrendered uninjured" (Livy, IX. 38).The battles culminated three years later in 307 BC:"The proconsul Quintus Fabius...