Saticula was a Caudini city near the frontier of

Campania (man), it, Campana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demog ...

in southern

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. In 343 BC, during the

First Samnite War The First, Second, and Third Samnite Wars (343–341 BC, 326–304 BC, and 298–290 BC) were fought between the Roman Republic and the Samnites, who lived on a stretch of the Apennine Mountains south of Rome and north of the Lucanian tribe. ...

, the

Roman consul A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic ( to 27 BC), and ancient Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the ''cursus honorum'' (an ascending sequence of public offices to which politic ...

Cornelius attacked it during the campaign against the Samnites in the Battle of Saticula. Its archaeological remains are in the territory of the modern town of

Sant'Agata de' Goti Sant'Agata de' Goti is a ''comune'' (municipality) and former Catholic bishopric in the Province of Benevento in the Italian region Campania, located about 35 km northeast of Naples and about 25 km west of Benevento near the Monte Taburn ...

. Ceramic evidence from Saticula and nearby Caudium suggest that the two cities were part of a trade network along the

Volturno River The Volturno (ancient Latin name Volturnus, from ''volvere'', to roll) is a river in south-central Italy. Geography It rises in the Abruzzese central Apennines of Samnium near Castel San Vincenzo (province of Isernia, Molise) and flows southea ...

, linking the area with the rest of eastern Campagnia and the coast of the

Tyrrhenian Sea The Tyrrhenian Sea (; it, Mar Tirreno , french: Mer Tyrrhénienne , sc, Mare Tirrenu, co, Mari Tirrenu, scn, Mari Tirrenu, nap, Mare Tirreno) is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy. It is named for the Tyrrhenian pe ...

, as well as to the northern areas, including the

Pentri The Pentri (Greek: ) were a tribe of the Samnites, and apparently one of the most important of the subdivisions of that nation. According to Salmon, their name comes from the Celtic pen- .E.T.Salmon, ''Il Sannio ed i Sanniti'', Einaudi, Torino 1995 ...

settlements of Bovianum and

Saepinum Saepinum (modern Altilia, near Sepino) was a Samnite town located c. south of the modern Campobasso in south central Italy. Saepinum was on the ancient road from Beneventum to Corfinium. History The position of the original town is on the m ...

Fossil record

In 1995, the construction of the

Trans-Mediterranean Pipeline The Trans-Mediterranean Pipeline (''TransMed''; also ''Enrico Mattei gas pipeline'') is a natural gas pipeline from Algeria via Tunisia to Sicily and thence to mainland Italy. An extension of the TransMed pipeline delivers Algerian gas to Sloveni ...

excavated a fluvio-lacustrine succession that had been buried under volcanic deposits. Fossil bones and pollen samples were collected and further exploration continued in 2005, with a new trench dug to better access faunal and floral materials. The obtained pollen showed there had been a diverse vegetation cover of herbaceous and arboreal plants from different vegetation belts. There was a

deciduous forest In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, ...

with a mixture of

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

and hickory trees, along with

hornbeam Hornbeams are hardwood trees in the flowering plant genus ''Carpinus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The 30–40 species occur across much of the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Origin of names The common English name ''hornbeam ...

elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North ...

zelkova ''Zelkova'' (from Georgian ''dzelkva'', 'stone pillar') is a genus of six species of deciduous trees in the elm family Ulmaceae, native to southern Europe, and southwest and eastern Asia. They vary in size from shrubs (''Z. sicula'') to large ...

, and linden. The more mountainous forest was likely formed by species of cedars and hemlocks, with more evidence of fir and spruce close to the timberline. Herbs found at the site came mainly from the Poaceae and

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

families, while the steppe plants from genera such as ''Artemisia'' and ''Ephedra'' were less common. A single grain of '' Quercus ilex'', a Mediterranean oak, was discovered at the site in the second trench section. The animal fossils identified at the site are: an unidentified species of

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are n ...

; an unidentified species hyena; an unidentified species of

Elephantidae Elephantidae is a family of large, herbivorous proboscidean mammals collectively called elephants and mammoths. These are terrestrial large mammals with a snout modified into a trunk and teeth modified into tusks. Most genera and species in the ...

, believed to belong to the genus

Mammuthus A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, i ...

rather than to

Elephas ''Elephas'' is one of two surviving genera in the family of elephants, Elephantidae, with one surviving species, the Asian elephant, ''Elephas maximus''. Several extinct species have been identified as belonging to the genus, extending back to ...

; ''Stephanorhinus'' ''hundsheimensis'', an extinct species of rhino; '' Equus sussenbornensis'', a species of equine; ''

Hippopotamus antiquus ''Hippopotamus antiquus'', sometimes called the European hippopotamus, is an extinct species of ''Hippopotamus'' that ranged across Europe during the Early and Middle Pleistocene. Chronology In Italy, the first appearance of the taxon is durin ...

'', an extinct species of hippopotamus found in Europe; an unidentified species of Megacerini, an extinct genus of deer; and '' Axis eurygonos'', an extinct species of

cervid Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindee ...

. Based on the combination of animal and plant remains, the time period of the fossils are considered part of the late Early Pleistocene to early

Middle Pleistocene The Chibanian, widely known by its previous designation of Middle Pleistocene, is an age in the international geologic timescale or a stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. Th ...

References

Roman sites of Campania Former populated places in Italy Samnite cities Archaeological sites in Campania {{AncientRome-stub