Cuius

Cuius, a maritime city of Campania in Italy, the legendary abode of the Sibyl, stated by Strabo to be the oldest of the Greek colonies in that country, and probably founded by colonists from Chalcis and Cyme in Asia Minor. By 700 B.C. it attained to an extraordinary degree of prosperity, owing to the fertility of its soil and its excellent harbours, and some twenty years before the usurpation of the tyrant Aristodemus, about 505 B.C., was powerful enough to repulse a formidable invasion of Etruscan and other hostile tribes. In 474 B.C. it gained the signal victory of Hieron over the Tyrrhenian and Carthaginian fleets, but was in turn taken by storm by the Samnites 420 B.C., its defenders being slain or reduced to slavery. Subsequently, it received the Roman franchise 338 B.C.