Road station
Atella
S. Maria d`Atella (Pt)
Listen to the story
Atella, near Sant'Arpino between Capua and Naples, gave its name to the Atellan farces, rough masked comedies with stock characters that the Romans loved. After Cannae Atella went over to Hannibal; in 211 BC Rome punished it by driving out its people and handing the town over to the people of Nuceria, whose own city Hannibal had destroyed. By Cicero's day it flourished again as a municipium, with estates as far away as Gaul.