Bojano

Bojano lies in Molise in the southern Apennines. Originally called Bovaianom, it was settled by the seventh century BC. As the capital of the Pentri, a Samnite people, it became a leading center during the Samnite Wars. In 89 BC it served briefly as the rebel capital during the Social War, after which Sulla sacked the town.

Roman colonization followed under both triumvirates and under Vespasian, who settled veterans of Legio XI Claudia there. The settlement was known as Bovianum Undecumanorum to distinguish it from Bovianum Vetus and remained important in late antiquity. After the Lombard conquest, the deserted region was assigned to Bulgars who fled the Avars around 662. Bojano became the seat of a gastaldate. Paul the Deacon, writing after 787, noted that local Bulgars still used their own language as well as Latin.

Saracen attacks marked the next two centuries. In the mid-eleventh century the Hauteville Normans conquered Bojano and made it the center of a county. Samnite highland routes connected the Volturno and Biferno valleys.