City
Bobiano
Boiano
Listen to the story
Bobiano was the chief town of the Pentri, a Samnite people, set in fertile country at the springs of the Biferno, where Boiano in Molise stands now. Rome fought over it in the Samnite Wars, and Sulla took it by force in 89 BC. Cicero knew it as the flourishing centre of Samnium, while the Greek geographer Strabo found it in decline. Under Vespasian, veterans of the Eleventh Legion were settled here, which is why the Roman writer Pliny calls it the colony of the men of the Eleventh. The map is confused in this corner: the road line onward is missing, though its distance figure survives.