CALLI´CULA MONS
CALLI´CULA MONS a range of mountains in the northern part of Campania.
The name is found only in Livy (
22.15,
16), from whom we gather that it was the ridge which separates the great plain on the N. of the Vulturnus, known as the Falernus Ager, from the upper valley of that river, about Calatia and Allifae, which belonged to Samnium.
This ridge is, in fact, the same of which the continuation S. of the Vulturnus was known as the Mons Tifata. Hannibal crossed it without opposition on his march from Samnium into Campania (B.C. 217), when. he laid waste the Falernian Plain; but on his return Fabius occupied the passes of Mt. Callicula, as well as Casilinum, which commanded the passage of the Vulturnus, hoping thus to cut off his retreat. Hannibal, however, deceived him by a stratagem, and effected the passage of the mountain without difficulty (
Ib. 16--18). Polybius, who relates the same operations (3.91--94), designates this mountain range by the name of
Ἐριβιανὸν, for which it has been proposed to read
Τρεβιανὸν, from Trebia or Trebula, a small town in this neighbourhood; but the position of Trebula is not well ascertained, and the “Trebianus Ager,” mentioned by Livy in another passage (23.14), is placed by him S. of the Vulturnus.
The name given by Polybius is, however, in all probability, corrupt.
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E.H.B]
