Nola (Νώλα) was one of the oldest cities of Campania. At the time when it sent assistance to Neapolis against the Roman invasion (328 b.c. ) it was probably occupied by Oscans in alliance with the Samnites; but it had evidently passed through an Etruscan period, and had possibly received a Greek colony from Chalcis. The Romans made themselves masters of Nola in 313 b.c. In the Second Punic War it thrice bade defiance to Hannibal; but in the Social War it was betrayed into the hands of the Samnites, who kept possession till Marius, with whom they had sided, was defeated by Sulla. Whatever punishment Sulla may have inflicted, Nola “remained a municipium, with its own institutions and the use of the Oscan language.” At a later date it became a Roman colony. Marcus Agrippa and Augustus died at Nola. Sacked by Genseric in 455, and by the Saracens in 806 and 904, captured by Manfred in the 13th century, and damaged by earthquakes in the 15th and 16th, Nola lost much of its importance. The remains of two great amphitheatres described by Ambrosio Leone in the first part of the 16th century were used by Carlo Caraffa and Orso Orsini in 1664 to build their palaces in Naples and Nola. Giordano Bruno and the sculptor Giovanni Marliano were natives of the city; and some of the latter’s works are preserved in the cathedral.