In maps you will find in that district where Salernum was situated, the name _Picentia_ or _Picentini_; but this name does not belong to the early times. Strabo says that they were transplanted thither as an ἀποδασμὸς of the Picentini on the upper sea. This must have taken place before the Hannibalian war, for at that time the Picentians were among the nations which rose against Rome. This is not the place for entering into minute discussions, I will only state, as the result of my inquiries, that this happened after the Samnite wars. When the Romans conquered that district and found it greatly depopulated, they transplanted the Picentini thither for the purpose of preventing the communication of the Samnites with the lower sea; for they might obtain assistance from the Tarentines, with whom they were on terms of friendship. By the same means, the very enterprising Agathocles, who would have liked to gain a firm footing in southern Italy, was kept away from that coast. The communication with the Lucanians, who were allied with Rome during the second and third war, also was kept open in this manner; and it was of great importance to Rome to maintain this connection. Among the Frentanians there is no town worth mentioning. Among the Pentrians we have BOVIANUM, which appears in Roman history at first as a great place; but all Samnite towns of the interior had this feature in common, that they were, properly speaking, not fortified. This circumstance has led to a foolish assertion which occurs in the writings of some of the ancients, though men like Strabo did not believe it. The friendship subsisting between the Samnites and Tarentines gave rise to a wish among the former to be regarded as kinsmen of the Tarentines, and hence the fancy that the Samnites were a Lacedaemonian colony. This singular notion was then supported by accidental circumstances, as for example, by the fact that the Samnite towns were open places. There is in reality no trace of a truly fortified town in all Samnium; but the case of those towns which the Samnites conquered beyond their own frontiers is of course different. The Samnite towns were situated on hills, the sides of which were cut precipitously; and such a situation may at first have been sufficient; but it was of no avail against bold and daring enemies like the Romans, who attacked a place, _cingebant corona_, and then stormed it by means of ladders. The consequence was, that Bovianum and other towns, when the Romans were masters of the country around, offered no resistance, but were scaled and devastated. But they soon rose again, though with smaller houses and of less extent. During the Samnite wars, Bovianum was destroyed three or four times in the course of a few years; and hence we may form some idea as to the condition in which it must have been. But notwithstanding all this, we again find it as a respectable town at the period of the Hannibalian war; in that of