The region of present Salerno in Campania, …

Years: 194BCE - 194BCE

The region of present Salerno in Campania, located about thirty miles (fifty kilometers) southeast of present Naples on a hill overlooking the Gulf of Salerno, has been continuously settled since prehistoric times, although the first certain signs of human presence date to the period between the ninth and sixth centuries BCE.

The Oscan-Etruscan settlement of Irna (founded in the sixth century BCE), situated across the Irno river, in today's Salernitan quarter of Fratte, represented an important base for Etruscan trade with the Greek colonies of Posidonia and Elea.

The Samnites had occupied it around the fifth century BCE as a consequence of the Battle of Cumae (474 BCE) as part of the Syracusan sphere of influence.

With the Roman advance in Campania, Irna began to lose its importance, being supplanted by the new Roman colony (194 BCE) of Salernum, developing around an initial castrum.

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