Benevento (, , ; ; Beneventano: Beneviénte) is a city and comune of Campania, Italy, capital of the province of Benevento, northeast of Naples. It is situated on a hill above sea level at the confluence of the Calore Irpino (or Beneventano) and the Sabato. In 2020, Benevento has 58,418 inhabitants. It is also the seat of a Catholic archbishop. Benevento occupies the site of the ancient Beneventum, originally Maleventum or even earlier Maloenton. The meaning of the name of the town is evidenced by its former Latin name, translating as good or fair wind. In the imperial period it was supposed to have been founded by Diomedes after the Trojan War. Due to its artistic and cultural significance, the Santa Sofia Church in Benevento was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011, as part of a group of seven historic buildings inscribed as Longobards in Italy, Places of Power (568–774 A.D.). A patron saint of Benevento is Saint Bartholomew, the Apostle, whose relics are kept there at the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta. History Ancient era Benevento, as Maleventum, was one of the chief cities of Samnium, situated on the Appian Way at a distance of east of Capua on the banks of the river Calor (now Calore). There is some discrepancy as to the tribe to which it belonged at contact: Pliny the Elder expressly assigns it to the Hirpini, while Livy's wording is somewhat obscure and Ptolemy considers the town as belonging to the Samnites proper, as distinguished from the Hirpini. All ancient writers concur in representing it as a very ancient city, with Gaius Julius Solinus and Stephanus of Byzantium ascribing its foundation to this legend appears to have been adopted by the city's inhabitants, who in the time of Procopius pretended to exhibit the tusks of the Calydonian Boar as proof of their descent. Sextus Pompeius Festus, on the contrary (s. v. Ausoniam), related that the city was founded by Auson, a son of Ulysses and Circe, a tradition which indicates that it was an ancient Ausonian city prior to its conquest by the Samnites. It first appears in history as a Samnite city, and must have already been a place of strength as the Romans did not venture to attack it during their first two wars with the Samnites; it appears, however, to have fallen into their hands during the Third Samnite War,