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On the day he crossed the Vulturnus, Hannibal pitched his camp at a small distance from the river. The next day, passing by Cales, he reached the Sidicinian territory, and having spent a day there in devastating the country, he led his troops along the Latin way through the territory of Suessa, Allifae, and Casinum.
"You know," I said, "that there flows through my estate near Casinum a stream which is both deep and clear and fifty-seven feet wide between the masonry embankments, so that it is necessary to use bridges to get from one part of the property to the other.
At first the sufferer could not speak, but when water had been given him, he gazed at Venantius with a strange smile, and, pointing before him, said faintly: 'Is not yonder Casinum? 'It is. We will bear you thither for harbourage. Courage, friend! 'Above, on the mountain, continued Basil painfully, 'dwells my kinsman Benedict, with his holy men. Could I but reach the monastery!
The gift was a little book, a beautifully written copy of all the verses composed by the good Marcus in honour of Benedict and of the Sacred Mount of Casinum. Holding it against his heart, Basil rode down into the mist. Rome waited. It was not long to the setting of the Pleiades, and there could be no hope that the new army from the East would enter Italy this year.
It was reported from Campania, that two temples, those of Fortune and Mars, and several sepulchres, had been struck by lightning. From Cumae, so does superstition connect the deities with the most trifling circumstances, that mice had gnawed some gold in the temple of Jupiter. That an immense swarm of bees had settled in the forum at Casinum.
Hannibal himself orders his guide to conduct him into the territory of Casinum, being certified by persons acquainted with the country, that if he seized that pass he would deprive the Romans of a passage by which they might get out to the assistance of their allies.
Desirous to refresh his horse in some good pasture-grounds, and to draw off his army, he ordered his guides to conduct him to the district of Casinum. They, mistaking his bad pronunciation, led him and his army to the town of Casilinum, on the frontier of Campania which the river Lothronus, called by the Romans Vulturnus, divides in two parts.
Let Montalembert describe this celebrated spot among the western Apennines: "At the foot of this rock Benedict found an amphitheatre of the time of the Cæsars, amidst the ruins of the town of Casinum, which the most learned and pious of Romans, Varro, that pagan Benedictine, whose memory and knowledge the sons of Benedict took pleasure in honoring, had rendered illustrious.
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