Compsa - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

COMPSA (mod. Conza), an ancient city of the Hirpini, near the sources of the Aufidus, on the boundary of Lucania and not far from that of Apulia, on a ridge 1998 ft. above sea-level. It was betrayed to Hannibal in 216 B.C. after the defeat of Cannae, but recaptured two years later. It was probably occupied by Sulla in 89 B.C., and was the scene of the death of T. Annius Milo in 48 B.C. Most authorities (cf. Hiilsen in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopadie, Stuttgart, 1901, iv. 797) refer Caes. Bell. civ. iii. 22, and Plin. Hist. Nat. ii. 147, to this place, supposing the MSS. to be corrupt. The usual identification of the site of Milo's death with Cassano on the Gulf of Taranto must therefore be rejected. In imperial times, as inscriptions show, it was a municipium, but it lay far from any of the main high-roads. There are no important ancient remains.