Atella

Atella was an ancient city of Campania, halfway between Naples and Capua; [Tabula Peutingeriana; William Smith, ed. "A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography" (1878) s.v. "Atella"] its ruins lie between the towns of Orta di Atella and Sant'Arpino. Atella is not mentioned until the Second Punic War, when, although an independent city striking its own coinage, it was allied with Capua and the other Campanian cities in siding with Carthage after the battle of Cannae. [Livy, ii.61; Silius Italicus, "Punica" xi.14, noted in Smith 1878.] It was occupied by Rome in 210 BC, the chief citizens executed and the survivors enslaved or exiled; the city was refounded as a home for the refugees from Nuceria. [Smith 1878.] In the first century BC, Cicero speaks highly of it [Cicero, "De leges agr." ii.31, familiar letters] and appears to have been its patron; it continued into imperial times as a "municipium", famed for its traditional scenic performances known as "Atellanae".

The Christian bishopric seated at Atella had its origins in 438 or 439 when Canion and eleven associates from North Africa were either expelled by Gaiseric, the Arian king of the Vandals or fled: "ex Africa pulsi vel propria sponte exulantes, in Italian advecti". As "'Saint Canio" he took his place among the saints and martyrs of Capua and of Campania in a mosaic iconography in the Basilica of Saint Prisco in Capua, where his image is identified with his name. His feast is recorded in the martyrologies as 25 May.

The city had been laid waste by the eighth century to such an extent that bishop Leo of Acerenza in Lucania translated the saint's relics to Acerenza, where he would be made the patron saint. The bishopric was transferred to the nearby Norman fortress-city of Aversa in 1030. [ [http://www.catholicity.com/encyclopedia/a/aversa,diocese_of.html "Catholic Encyclopedia" sv "Aversa"] ]

The ruins of the city walls, private houses, and many tombs remain, on sites in the "comuni" of Frattaminore, Orta di Atella, Sant'Arpino and Succivo (these last three together made the "comune" of Atella di Napoli in the mid‑1900s). Ancient territory of Atella is now represented in the "comuni" of Caivano, Cardito, Cesa, Frattamaggiore, Grumo Nevano and Sant'Antimo. [See those communes.]

----Atella is also the name of a small town founded in 1320 in the Basilicata region of southern Italy (population 4000).

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