Ligures Baebiani

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Ligures Baebiani, in ancient geography, a settlement of Ligurians in Samnium, Italy. The towns of Taurasia and Cisauna in Samnium had been captured in 298 BC by the consul L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, and the territory of the former remained Roman state domain. In 180 BC 47,000 Ligurians from the neighborhood of Luna (Ligures Apuani), with women and children, were transferred to this district, and two settlements were formed taking their names from the consuls of 181 BC, the Ligures Baebiani and the Ligures Corneliani. The site of the former town lies 15 m. north of Beneventum, on the road to Saepinum and Aesernia. In its ruins several inscriptions have been found, notably a large bronze tablet discovered in a public building in the Forum bearing the date AD 101, and relating to the alimentary institution founded by Trajan here (see Veleia). A sum of money was lent to landed proprietors of the district (whose names and estates are specified in the inscription), and the interest which it produced formed the income of the institution, which, on the model of that of Veleia, would have served to support a little over one hundred children. The capital was 401,800 sesterces, and the annual interest probably at 5%, i.e. 20,090 sesterces. The site of the other settlement, that of the Ligures Corneliani is unknown.

See Theodor Mommsen in Corp. Inscr. Lat. ix. (Berlin, 1883), 125 sqq.

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