page_title: Irpinia
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Irpinia / History
caption_attribution_description: English: View of the ruins in the archaeological park of the Ancient Roman town of Aeclanum.
context_page_description: Irpinia is a district of the Apennine Mountains around Avellino, a town in Campania, South Italy, about 50 km east of Naples. It was the territory of the ancient Hirpini tribe; its extent matches approximately today's province of Avellino.
context_section_description: The name "Irpinia" derives from the Oscan word "hirpus", which means wolf, and the wolf remains Irpinia's symbol to this day. Oscan tribes of the Sabines, under demographic pressure, migrated towards this area in the 6th century BC from what is now Umbria. The Hirpini occupied the region Sabato, Calore Irpino and Ofanto, becoming differentiated with time from the Samnites who settled the area from Molise and Matese. The main centres of the Hirpini were Malies or Maloenton (modern Benevento), Aeclanum (Mirabella Eclano), Aequum Tuticum (Ariano Irpino), Romulea (Bisaccia), Compsa (Conza), Aquilonia (Lacedonia), Aletrium (Calitri), and Abellinum (Atripalda).
  No certain date for the arrival of the Hiripini in the region can be given. They were already settled here at the time of the First Samnite War (342 BC). Their name is found in sources from 280 BC, when the Greek general Pyrrhus of Epirus made his expedition into Italy. A bronze medal reveals that they signed an alliance with the Samnites in 275 BC. Abellinum was conquered by the Romans in 252 BC. The Hirpini suffered internal divisions at the time of the Second Punic War. Caius Marius gave them Roman citizenship in 87 BC, but they were deprived of any privilege under the former's victor, Sulla (80 BC). In 22 BC Hirpinia became an imperial colony under the name Livia, which received substantial immigration from the Eastern Roman provinces at the time of emperor Alexander Severus (3rd century AD).
  After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Irpinia came successively under Byzantine, Lombard, Hohenstaufen, Anjou, Aragonese and finally Spanish domination. As part of the Kingdom of Naples it was included in the Principato Ultra or Ulterior, the sole land-locked province of the kingdom. Feudalism was abolished in 1806, the same year in which Avellino was declared capital of the province.
  Irpinia became part of the newly united Kingdom of Italy in 1861.
  The district has been subject to a number of strong earthquakes. On November 23, 1980, the 6.9 Mw  earthquake affected the area with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing 2,483–4,900, and injuring 7,700–8,934.
caption: Ruins of the town Aeclanum.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A400", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "1980:01:01 00:00:06", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2548", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4082", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "1980:01:01 00:00:06", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "1980:01:01 00:00:06", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "277/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "159/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "123/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "189/32", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1200", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1600", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1200", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1860", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "64000/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1200000/131", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}