Nuceria

About

The town is located on the northern ridge of the Monti Lattari, in the Agro Nocerino Sarnese.

Its seismic hazard rating puts it in zone 2 (medium hazard level), according to Ordinance PCM n. 3274 of 20 March 2003.

According to legend, an Etruscan princess escaped from her hometown for love and came to die in these areas. In her memory, her father erected a city, giving it her name, Nuceria. Another legend tells that a great flood swept away an entire forest leaving a single walnut tree (from the Latin nux, nucis – Nuceria).

The name's origins were uncovered through the study of inscriptions on the city's coins which stated Nuvkrinum Alafaternum. Analysing these two words, linguists have split the terms in this way:

The name Nuvkrinum Alafaternum is derived from nuv + krin-um + alafatern-um : nuv ('new'), krin ('fortress') of the Alfaterni, an Italic people of the Agro Nocerino Sarnese.

Archaeological evidence from the necropoli shows that at the end of the 7th century BC the native Oscan populations of the valley went to settle towards the sea for mainly strategic reasons, some founding Pompeii, others towards the interior, giving life to Nuvkrinum. The city was founded by the union of several scattered villages, colonising a strategic well-defended place guarding a fertile valley and a route between the gulfs of Naples and Salerno. It was centred on the suburb of Pareti.

It became an Etruscan settlement and possibly part of the dodecapolis (the twelve most important cities) of the Etruscan colonisation in Campania to block the Greek expansion towards the north.

After the defeat of 474 BC at the Battle of Cumae the Etruscans abandoned the region and Nuvkrinum passed to the Samnites. In the 5th century BC the city changed its name by adding Alfaternum from the name of the Samnite tribe of the Alfaterni.

Around the 6th century BC the Osci, an Italic people of Campania, probably gave rise to the original settlement of Nuceria Alfaterna, located in Nocera Superiore, between the current Pareti and Pucciano districts. This site was chosen due to its favourable geographic position with water sources and a very fertile hinterland protected from winds.

It became one of the most important cities of ancient Campania and the capital of a confederation ( Lega nucerina ) which included Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae and Sorrento. It minted its own money on which the expression Nuvkrinum Al (a) faternum was engraved using a particular alphabet (Nucerian alphabet) based on the Greek and Etruscan alphabets.

Nuceria's first mention in history is in 315 BC when, during the Second Samnite War, it was an ally of the Romans but was persuaded to abandon the alliance and join the Samnite cause. In 310 BC the Romans ravaged the territory of Nuceria but in the end it obtained favourable treatment and entered into an alliance with Rome as a civitas foederata.

During the Second Punic War (218 – 201 BC), the city's defences proved formidable enough that Hannibal reduced the city by starvation because of its loyalty to Rome, rather than by direct attack, though subsequently destroyed it in 216 BC. After the war the defences were rebuilt and strengthened with the addition of towers in opus incertum.

Its territory was ravaged during the Social War (90 BC) and by the troops of Spartacus.

During the period of the triumvirate, the city became a colonia as Nuceria Constantia, but the city proudly kept its origins and Greek was still written and spoken as a sign of cultural distinction.

In AD 59, there was a serious riot and bloodshed in the nearby Pompeii Amphitheatre between Pompeians and Nucerians (which is recorded in a fresco) and which led the Roman senate to send the Praetorian Guard to restore order and to ban further events for a period of ten years.

The earthquake in 62 and the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 caused serious damage to the town which never regained its previous prosperity.

Nuceria lay on the via Popillia, the great road linking Capua to southern Italy, as well as on the via Stabiana (towards Stabiae) and the Via Nuceria from Pompeii.

At its greatest expansion, Nuceria, famous for the robustness of the town walls, enclosed the current districts of Pareti, San Pietro, Pucciano, Grotti, Portaromana, Santa Maria Maggiore and San Clemente. There are astonishing similarities between the fortifications of Nuceria and Pompeii. Nuceria is rectangular with scarps defending the north, west, and east of the city while the southern side had the strongest fortifications as the most vulnerable section and, like Pompeii, featured a tufa opus quadratum double wall with an agger behind.

It was a bishopric as early as the 3rd century AD. The first bishop was Saint Priscus.

During the Gothic War (535–554), the Byzantines and Goths faced each other a few km away along the banks of the Sarno river for months until the Byzantines won the Battle of Mons Lactarius.