BENEVENTUM.

BENEVENTUM. The wikipedia entry for the Appian Way describes how the Appian Way was extended 35 miles past Capua to a place the Samnites called “Maloenton” (or, apparently, “Maleventum”). Pyrrhus had said about an earlier battle in the Samnite Wars, “One more such victory, and I am lost”. It was at Maloenton that Pyrrhus suffered a crushing defeat at the two-day Battle of Beneventum in 275 BC—the last battle of the Pyrrhic Wars. Here is the wikipedia entry on the Battle of Beneventum. The Romans renamed the town from “Maleventum” (“site of bad events”) to a name more associated with good omens—“Beneventum” (“site of good events”).

Kids, you should take note of Beneventum because it is your mother’s understanding that her mother’s parents—two of your great grandparents—came from a village near Beneventum (now Benevento).

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