Vasto

Sister cities

• Bari
• City of Perth

History

According to legend, the town was founded by Diomedes, the Greek hero. The earliest archaeological relics date to 1300 BC. Histonium was one of the key towns of the Frentani, located on the Adriatic coast, about south of the promontory called Punta Penna. Ancient geographers cited the town as located in the territory of the Frentani and apparently under Julius Caesar did not obtain the rank of a colonia, but continued to bear the title of a municipium, as we learn from some inscriptions. Under the Roman Empire, the municipium of Histonium was a flourishing and opulent town, further attested by the existing ruins of an ancient Roman theatre, baths, and other public edifices, besides numerous mosaics, statues, and columns of granite or marble. Among the numerous inscriptions which have been found, one of the most curious records the fact of a young boy named Lucius Valerius Pudens having at thirteen years of age won the prize for Latin poetry in the contest held at Rome in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. The name of Histonium is still found in the Itineraries of the fourth century and it probably never ceased to exist on its present site, though ravaged successively by the Goths, the Lombards, the Franks, and the Arabs. Histonium had no natural port, and it is not improbable that in the days of its prosperity it depended on the port at the Punta Penna, where the current harbour that is the and the lighthouse are located, where there is good anchorage, and where Roman remains have also been found, which have been regarded, but probably erroneously, as those of the settlement of Buca. After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the region was occupied by Germanic tribes until Justinian's Byzantine re-conquest, which included the province of Samnium, of which…