PICENTIA
In 268 BC, Romans deported, from the Adriatic coast, 360 thousand Picentini (an ancient Italic people), founding among other things the town of Picentia (now Pontecagnano). In Hannibal’s military campaigns in Southern Italy, during the Second Punic War (218-202 BC), the Picentini rose up and came over to the Carthaginian. For this reason, at the end of the conflict, the Romans forced them to live scattered on the territory. The city was violently destroyed during the Social War (90-89 BC) and there was the consequent dispersion of the inhabitants in smaller suburban villages.