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Rivers
of Campania of c.60+km
 The Sele
river (n.1, right) starts at 420 meters (1,400 feet) above
sea-level in the town of Caposele near Avellino and runs
SW for 64 km (40 miles) to empty into the Gulf of Salerno
near Paestum. (The red line on
the map, right, indicates the approximate route.) On the
way, the Sele flows through two Campanian provinces:
Avellino and Salerno. It picks up a number of tributaries
along the way; thus, in spite of its relatively short
length (5 or 6 rivers in Campania are longer) in terms of
average water discharge of southern Italian rivers, it is
second only to the Volturno. Although the Sele runs SW,
the headwaters of the Sele also feed the Apulian Aqueduct by an ingenious
bit of engineering that carries the Puglia-bound water
back across the watershed so it flows onto the eastern
side of the Apennines.In ancient times, the river was known as the Silarus, and the area near Caposele was the site of two important battles in Roman military history. The first was the Battle of Silarus (in 212 BC) during the Second Punic War. Hannibal managed to remain unbeaten on Italian soil (for all the good it eventually did him!) by destroying the entire Roman army sent against him. Most sources say that of 16,000 Roman soldiers in the battle, only 1,000 survived. The second battle was the last stand of Spartacus, the leader of the most famous slave rebellion in Roman history. In 73 BC, Spartacus, a slave-gladiator escaped with about 70 others and eventually wound up leading an army of about 100,000. They defeated Roman forces on a number of occasions, including one battle on Mt. Vesuvius (at the time, inactive) during which Spartacus' army, apparently trapped in the crater, made ladders from twisted vines, climbed out and down the other side of the crater during the night, and came around and up on the Roman attackers from the rear. Two years later, the rebellion had run its course, and the slave army was decisively beaten near Caposele. Sources say that 6000 slaves were taken prisoner by the Roman army and crucified along the Appian Way from Capua to Rome. In spite of fictional accounts, there is no evidence that Spartacus, himself, looked like Kirk Douglas or was one of the prisoners. He most likely died in the battle. |
