Until 1980 they were picturesque stone paths between the houses of a lively and populated village. For less then twenty years, these paths identified the location of ancient ruins, protected by a historical-archaeological park open to visitors.
The fiftynine seconds that razed Conza della Campania to the ground on that unforgettable 23 November, bringing back the hands on the clock of history, brought the pre-existing Compsa and even traces of an older Samnite settlement to the present. The strange fate of the town, on the hill near the course of the Ofanto, regenerated several times over the centuries and that today condenses in a single space overlapping evidence of eras, cultures, populations.
It was from the removal of the rubble dismantled by the earthquake, that the layer corresponding to the oldest settlement emerged, of which now only an increasingly distant memory remained. Originally it was a Samnite city, belonging to the Irpini tribe, and had participated as an ally of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, in the war against Rome. Then, in 275 BC it had been defeated by the Romans in the decisive battle of Benevento. And Compsa Romana, thanks also to its strategic geographical position, became a municipium assigned to the gens Galeria. But during the Second Punic War, Compsa supported Hannibal, as the historian Tito Livio also remembers. Only in 216 was it reconquered by Quinto Fabio Massimo and in 214 it returned to being a municipium. It would later be mentioned by Julius Caesar in his De bello civile, confirming the importance that was recognized at that time.
The remains of the found forum belong to the Roman Compsa, built according to the classical scheme of hinges and decumans. In the paved square there is a funerary stone and, in the immediate vicinity, there are both ancient Samnite houses and a Roman building with a podium made of limestone blocks. There are also parts of the amphitheater, near which a votive altar dedicated to Venus has come back to light. Of great interest is a marble funerary altar, which bears two eagles with spread wings and garlands with the names of the patrons. And part of the thermal spa has also re-emerged.
The Roman city has returned epigraphs, mosaics, sarcophagi and valuable artifacts, kept in a museum set up inside the archaeological area.
After being occupied by various barbarian populations, Conza, then already a bishopric, was raided in 570 by the Lombards, who then annexed it to the Duchy of Salerno and established a gastaldato (In the Lombard period, a district headed by an administrator of the king) there, later suppressed by the Normans. It was in that century that the cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta was built on a pre-existing Roman temple. Which suffered considerable damage, like the rest of the town, from the earthquake happened in the 990, after the which Compsa was rebuilt higher up. The cathedral underwent a first refurbishment in the 13th century, followed by others to heal the wounds of recurring earthquakes. From which only pieces of the walls were saved and the tomb of Sant’Erberto, bishop of Conza between 1169 and 1181 and who later, sanctified, became its patron. The marble sarcophagus housing his remains has survived intact to this day. The apse and the right wall remain of the ancient cathedral, an integral part of the historical archaeological park. Where part of the turreted bell tower and the Capuchin crypt are also found.
The park occupies the entire area of the ancient Conza which, epicenter of the 1980 earthquake, was the most devastated area, so much so as to suggest, for the second time in history, the reconstruction in another site, about a kilometer away, downstream. There the new Conza was born, remaining deeply linked to the fascinating vestiges, witnesses of its past, on the hill.
