Continued From Beneventum, Samnium – Part I
From the Arch of Trajan, one of the streets leading due east out of the intersection in front of the arch is Viale dei Rettori (a slight uphill). About 300 meters along this street, it intersects with Via Sandro Pertini and curves to the south. On the southwest corner of this intersection is the Torre de Simone. While this tower from the city walls dates to the Lombard period, the base of the tower features several pieces of spoliated Roman marble, among which is a very prominent relief of a man carrying a vessel, probably from a funerary context.
Continuing on Viale dei Rettori as it heads south, about 250 meters on the road intersects with Piazza Castello. On the south side of this piazza is the Rocca dei Rettori; originally a corner tower in the Lombard walls but later enlarged to a castle in the 15th century CE. There is a large amount of Roman era spolia built into the former tower portion of the castle. These are particularly plentiful on the east side. Portrait reliefs from funerary monuments, inscriptions of various types, architectural elements, and other reliefs such as a horse and theater masks, are all visible in the façade. To the west of the tower is a modern statue of Trajan, and behind it against the castle, a series of four Roman milestones. The milestones are pretty worn, and the inscriptions aren’t terribly legible. No information on these is available on site. The site of the Rocca dei Rettori, which is also the high point of the historic center/Roman Beneventum, was also apparently the location of a castellum aquae in the Roman period. Reportedly the remains of this structure are visible somewhere in the gardens, but I couldn’t find any trace of these in the publicly accessible areas. There were some various architectural fragments in the garden, though.
Viale dei Rettori changes into Viale Atlantici after the piazza and continues on to the southeast. About half a kilometer down this road, past the large Villa Comunale di Benevento, is the Soprintendenza Archeologia. There is a small exhibition located here that is open daily during the week from 9:00 to 13:00 and 16:00 to 19:00, and from 9:00 to 13:00 on Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free. It’s a bit of a weird situation as it isn’t really open, you have to get the attention of the building guard to let you in. I just sort of wandered around the entrance for a bit until he came out. The small exhibition mostly has paleontological stuff (including an interesting fossil of a young Scipionyx dinosaur, the only example of the species) but there are a few ancient objects. In the courtyard are a few inscriptions and architectural pieces. It’s a bit out of the way, but the fossil is very interesting and it is free.
Tracking back to the Rocca dei Rettori, the road that heads off in the opposite direction of Viale Atlantici (to the west) is the mostly pedestrian street of Corso Garabaldi. About 150 meters down this road is the Piazza Santa Sofia, distinguishable by a bell tower and a fountain with an obelisk (not ancient). Tucked behind the Chiesa di Santa Sofia on the north side of the piazza is the entrance to the Museo del Sannio. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 9:00 to 19:00 and is closed on Monday. Entrance to the museum is 4 Euros and includes the Casiello Palace and Cloister of Santa Sofia. A combination ticket for 6 Euros includes the Egyptian collection at the ArCoS Museum and the Complesso Monumentale di Sant’Ilario a Port’Aurea.
Outside the entrance of the museum is a small garden area with some various lapidary pieces from Beneventum; inscriptions, reliefs, and architectural fragments. The museum itself is generally pretty good. It is not solely an archaeological museum, there are paintings and other artworks on display, but it does have a fairly robust archaeological collection mainly originating in the city. The first part of the archaeological portion of the museum has a number of reliefs from sarcophagi (a relatively new addition that wasn’t there the first time I visited) and a gallery of portrait busts of unknown people. There’s a small collection of small finds, including some objects from prior to the arrival of Roman hegemony.
The main archaeological rooms contain mostly lapidary type objects; reliefs, statuary, and architectural elements as well as a few cases of pottery vessels. One of the better pieces in the collection is a red granite obelisk erected by Domitian for a temple dedicated to Isis in Beneventum. This obelisk was in the ArCoS museum when I visited in 2015, but has since been moved to the Museo del Sannio, which is a much better space as its position in the center of the room allows for visibility of all sides. Previously only two sides were visible as it was placed in a corner. A room off this larger space has a collection of inscriptions. All the information in the museum is in Italian only, including the larger information panels. Most of the objects have labels, but some of them are very limited in the information actually provided. It took me about 2 hours to visit the museum, including a relatively fast-paced stroll through the non-archaeological collection. It was quite sparsely attended for the middle of the summer, just a few others visiting.
The adjacent Chiesa di Santa Sofia is open Thursday to Sunday from 9:00 to 19:00, and is open the rest of the week the same hours, but with a break between 12:00 and 16:00. Being a church, those hours are subject to change depending on ceremonies and such. The church itself was built in the 8th century CE, but the six columns located at the center of the church were likely spoliated from ancient Beneventum. The two columns flanking the exterior of the entrance to the church are also ancient. It has been suggested that the ancient columns used at Santa Sofia may have belonged to the temple dedicated to Isis (several other objects associated with Isis were found in or around the church). A few signs (in English and Italian) along the wall to the west of the entrance, detail the various archaeological excavations in the Piazza Santa Sofia, though none are currently visible. There’s also part of an inscription reused in the rear external wall of the church near the entrance to the museum.
More or less across Corso Garabaldi from the Piazza Santa Sofia is another smaller piazza. On the east side of this is the Museo ArCoS; the Museo di Arte Contemporanea del Sannio. As the name suggests, it is a contemporary art gallery, but within it is a collection of objects associated with Beneventum’s temple dedicated to Isis. Entrance hours are the same as the Museo del Sannio; Tuesday through Sunday from 9:00 to 19:00 and closed on Sunday. Entrance to just this gallery is 2 Euros, but it is also part of the combination ticket that include the Museo del Sannio and a few other sites for 6 Euros.
The location of the Iseum of Beneventum is unclear, though the Santi Quaranta area and the area of the cathedral have been proposed as possible locations for the temple. Otherwise, objects associated with the Iseum have been found throughout the city. The temple was constructed under Domitian in 88-89 CE and the location at Beneventum was notable as it was the place at which Domitian met his father, Vespasian, as he returned from campaigning in Egypt. Most of the objects are Imperial Roman creations, though some of them date to the Hellenistic period and back as far as the 17th century BCE, likely imported from Egypt for use in the sanctuary. Standout pieces in this collection are the bow of a marble boat from a statue of Isis Pelagia and a diorite statue of Domitian as the emperor. Both were out of the museum in 2023, on loan for an exhibition in Rome, but were there in 2015. Several statues of worshippers, priests, priestesses, bulls, and lions are also on display. It’s not a huge collection, it took me about 25 minutes for that, and then again a quick walk through of the contemporary art, which itself was not a very large collection either.
Back out to Corso Garabaldi, about a 5 minute and 400 meter walk to the west is the small Piazza Papiniano on the north side of the street. Located in the middle of this piazza is the companion to the obelisk in the Museo del Sannio. This was the second and more complete of the two identical obelisks from the Iseum of Beneventum. The hieroglyphic inscription on the obelisk record that the Iseum was constructed by a local named Rutilius Lupus and that the obelisks were dedicated to Isis in celebration of Domitian, perhaps as honors for the emperor’s return from military campaigning (which would have been in Dacia and Germania at the time). The obelisk is in a public square and is visible at any time.
Another 200 meters west down Coros Garabaldi is Piazza Orsini and the Cattedrale Metropolitana di Santa Maria de Episcopio. Facing onto the piazza, at the northeast corner of the cathedral, is the bell tower of the cathedral. The cathedral and bell tower are both constructed with spolia from the ancient city, but it is the bell tower that contains several distinctive pieces. Low on the east side of the bell tower, about 2 meters from street level, is a large relief depicting a boar with a laurel crown. This relief may have been related to the foundational myth of Beneventum relating to Diomedes. A little higher up are a fragment of an inscription and part of a funerary relief with two portraits. On the north side of the tower, just below the clock, are a series of 8 panels of funerary portraits with a total of 17 individuals and one horse. Higher up near the top is another funerary portrait as well as a relief of a theater mask. On the small visible portion of the west face of the tower are another few funerary portraits.
On the east side of the main building of the cathedral, just south of the bell tower are a couple sarcophagi displayed. The westernmost of the three entrances in the main (north) façade of the cathedral employs re-used Roman architraves for the impost blocks. A number of later inscriptions are visible as well. Just inside the main entrance of the cathedral is also a Roman sarcophagus decorated with Gorgon heads, seemingly re-used for a later burial. In the west façade of the cathedral, near street level about 60 meters down Via Carlo Torre, is an inscription for Marcus Gavius, who was a scriba aidilium iure dicundo and praefectus fabrum.
Continued In Beneventum, Samnium – Part III
Sources:
Appian. Bella Civilia, 4.1.3.
Athenaeus. Deipnosophistae, 1.57.
Bragantini, Irene. “A Note on the Temple of Isis at Beneventum.” The Iseum Campense From The Roman Empire To The Modern Age. Rome: Edizioni Quasar di Severino Tognon, 2018.
Grant, Michael. A Guide to the Ancient World: A Dictionary of Classical Place Names. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997.
Livy. Ab Urbe Condita, 9.27, 22.13, 24.14-20, 25.13-17, 27.10.
Pagano, Mario. “Qualche Osservazione Sull’Urbanistica di Benevento.” Antiqva Beneventana, Benevento: La Provincia Sannita, 2013.
Pliny the Elder. Historia Naturalis, 3.16.4.
Plutarch. Pyrrhus, 25.
Prada, Luigi. “To Isis the Great, Lady of Benevento: Privately Dedicated Egyptian Obelisks in Imperial Rome and the Twin Obelisks of Benevento Reedited.” Egypt and the Classical World: Cross-Cultural Encounters in Antiquity, by Jeffrey Spier and Sara E. Cole. J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Procopius. De Bellis, 7.6.1, 7.25.1.
Smith, William. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Walton & Murray, 1870.
Stillwell, Richard, William L. MacDonald, and Marian Holland. McAllister. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U Press, 1976.
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