Pagani, Campania Under Romans it was named Barbatianus. It obtained favourable terms, and remained faithful to Rome even after Cannae. Hannibal reduced it in 216 BC by starvation, and destroyed the town. The inhabitants returned when peace was restored. Even during the Social War it remained true to Rome. In 73 BC it was plundered by Spartacus. In the Middle Ages (around the 9th century) a small colony of Saracens was actually introduced in the town by permission of the Dukes of Naples, but it lasted only a few decades. It was united to Nocera Inferiore, and it took the name of
Religion in ancient Rome salted flour) and wine, then placed in the fire on the altar for the offering; the technical verb for this action was "porricere". Human sacrifice in ancient Rome was rare but documented. After the Roman defeat at Cannae two Gauls and two Greeks were buried under the Forum Boarium, in a stone chamber "which had on a previous occasion [228 BC] also been polluted by human victims, a practice most repulsive to Roman feelings". Livy avoids the word "sacrifice" in connection with this bloodless human life-offering; Plutarch does not. The rite was apparently repeated in 113 BC, preparatory to an