GRUMENTUM  , an

ancient town in the centre of Lucania, 33 M . S. of Potentia by the direct road through Anxia, and 52 M. by the Via Herculia, at the point of divergence of a road eastward to Heraclea . It seems to have been a native Lucanian town, not a Greek settlement . In 215 B.C. the Carthaginian general Hanno was defeated under its walls, and in 207 B.C . Hannibal made it his headquarters . In the Social War it appears as a strong fortress, and seems to have been held by both sides at different times . It became a colony, perhaps in the time of Sulla, at latest under Augustus, and seems to have been of some importance . Its site, identified by Holste from the description of the martyrdom of St Laverius, is a ridge on the right bank of the Aciris (Agri) about 196o ft. above sea-level, m. below the modern Saponara, which lies much higher (2533 ft.) . Its ruins (all of the Roman period) include those of a large amphitheatre (arena 205 by 197 ft.), the only one in Lucania, except that at Paestum . There are also remains of a theatre . Inscriptions record the repair of its town walls and the construction of thermae (of which remains were found) in 57–51 B.C., the construction in 43 B.C., of a portico, remains of which may be seen along an ancient road, at right angles to the main road, which traversed Grumentum from S. to N . See F .

P . Caputi in Notizie degli scavi (1877), 129, and G . Patroni, ibid.(1897) 180 . (T .