The origin of the city of Potenza, certainly very ancient, is uncertain and could have been Pelasgic or Sabellic or of Italo-Greek lineage. Probably the city was a sort of confluence center of the inhabitants the locality now called Serra di Vaglio, at an altitude of 1095 meters.
The attitude of the Lucan and Potenza populations towards Rome, starting from the third century BC, was always open hostility, given that, in the wars between the Romans and the Samnites first and between Rome and the Bruzi afterwards, they always sided with the enemies of Rome, even if they lived without particular shocks until the time of the battle of Canne, when they passed in the field of Hannibal, betting on its fortunes. After the battle of Metauro, during which his brother Asdrubale Barca was defeated and killed, Hannibal, in fact, retired to Africa, leaving the town at the mercy of Rome which, according to the tradition of local historiography, from municipium, was reduced to the rank of praefectura first and then of military colony, with the change of the name in Potentia Romanorum.
The shrewdness of Rome did not, in reality, underestimate the geographical and strategic position of the city, which was connected, with the opening of military roads, to many neighboring centers: for Oppidum with Venusia and for Anxia.
Potenza
Address: Piazza Matteotti 1
Phone: 0971 415111
Site:
http://www.comune.potenza.it/Location inserted by
BBCC