Before its integration into the modern Italian state, the city of Matera had experienced the rule of the Romans, Lombards, Arabs, Byzantines, Swabians, Angevins, Aragonese, and Bourbons.

Though scholars continue to debate the date the dwellings were first occupied in Matera,[1] and the continuity of their subsequent occupation, the area of what is now Matera is believed to have been settled since the Palaeolithic (10th millennium BC). This makes it potentially one of the oldest continually inhabited settlements in the world.[2] Alternatively, it has been suggested by Anne Toxey that the area has been "occupied continuously for at least three millennia".[3]

The town of Matera was founded by the Roman Lucius Caecilius Metellus in 251 BC who called it Matheola.[4] In AD 664 Matera was conquered by the Lombards[citation needed] and became part of the Duchy of Benevento. In the 7th and 8th centuries the nearby grottos were colonised by both Benedictine and Basilian monastic institutions.[5][citation needed] After the Arab conquest of Bari in 840,[6] Matera came under Islamic rule.[7] Emancipated from the old Lombard jurisdiction of the gastald of Acerenza in the Principality of Salerno, the town gained regional prominence.[8] In the spring of 867, it was burnt by the imperial troops of Louis II as the first key target in the emirate's conquest; the Chronicle of St Benedict of Monte Cassino calls it a particularly well-defended site.[9][10][11][12] The Franks soon fell out with the Lombards and the Byzantines exploited the local need for protection from Arab raiding and internal Lombard divisions to retake Apulia, which became the theme of Longobardia in 891/2.[13] Already by 887,[14] Matera's local Lombard elite bore Byzantine titles, the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno had to conduct business before the Byzantine judge and town notables of Matera, and the Greeks of Matera made up the Byzantine garrison of Naples.[15] The precarious Byzantine rule had to contend with the ambitions of Lombard towns and nobles against the background of frequent incursions from the neighbouring duchy of Capua-Benevento and from Arab Sicily. In 940 Matera was besieged, possibly with local assistance, by the Lombards.[16][17][18] On 25 January 982 the army of Otto II camped before the walls of Matera on its way from Salerno to Taranto, ostensibly marching against the Arabs.[19][20][21] In 994 Matera was temporarily captured by the Arabs after a four-month siege.[22][23][24][25][26] The town continued to play a part in Byzantine governance: in June 1019 the chartoularios Stephanos of Matera assisted in the re-foundation of Troia.[27] But civic unrest was also endemic and in 1040 the Byzantine judge Romanos was murdered at Matera by the local auxiliary troops during a wave of assaults on Byzantine officials that swept across the region.[28] After the prominent Apulian rebels enlisted the support of the Normans and defeated the new katepano of Italy at Cannae in 1041,[29][30] Matera fell within the scope of Norman incursions and struck a deal with the invaders.[31] In retaliation for this, the next katepano Georgios Maniakes, dispatched to Italy with special powers in April 1042, carried out mass executions in Matera in June, only to launch a rebellion of his own in September.[32][33][34] After his departure Matera elected William Iron Arm as its count (1042),[32][35] but like other towns it remained in Byzantine hands despite the Norman advances[36] – in 1054 died Sico, the protospatharios of Matera.[37] The city was seized in April 1064 as an independent acquisition by Robert, Count of Montescaglioso, a seditious nephew of Robert Guiscard, who profited from the involvement of his uncle further south.[38][39][40] After count Robert died in July 1080, Matera accepted the rule of his brother Geoffrey of Conversano.[41][42] Geoffrey's son Alexander joined a revolt against Roger II in 1132, but he fled before the advance of the king to Byzantium and left his son Geoffrey in Matera, whose inhabitants gave the city away to avoid being massacred by the royal troops.[43] Alexander later took part in the Byzantine invasion of Italy in 1156.[44] Lombard aristocrats survived with a reduced status: around 1150, Guaimar (III) of Capaccio, a descendant of Lombard princes, held a sub-fief near Matera from the count of Montescaglioso.[45] Meanwhile, after a period of association with the Byzantine metropolis of Otranto from 968,[46] the episcopal see of Matera was reclaimed by the archbishopric of Acerenza.[47] A new cathedral church of St Eustace was consecrated in May 1082.[48]

After a short communal phase and a series of pestilences and earthquakes, the city became an Aragonese possession in the 15th century, and was given in fief to the barons of the Tramontano family.[citation needed] In 1514, however, the population rebelled against the oppression and killed Count Giovanni Carlo Tramontano. In the 17th century Matera was handed over to the Orsini and then became part of the Terra d'Otranto, in Apulia. Later it was capital of the province of Basilicata, a position it retained until 1806, when Joseph Bonaparte assigned it to Potenza.[citation needed]

In 1927, it became capital of the new province of Matera.[citation needed]