In the beginning of the VI century the hordes of Alboino descended in Italy. Along most of the coastal strip in the South , Rome and Ravenna, the Byzantines held, but the rest of Italy fell into the hands of the Longobards.
Amalfi was little more than a “castrum” , a frontier defence post against the Longobards of the Duchy of Benevento, Salerno and Capua ( or so they were defined by Pope Gregory Magno in a letter to the Bishop of Amalfi ), so at that point they decided to initiate own commercial activities with the eastern territories…

Battaglia di Ostia

This adventure however was short-lived, mortified by the Longobard Sicardo who in 839 defeated the city which he then sacked taking the inhabitants to Salerno as slaves. Even today at Salerno the area where the people of Amalfi were held, the quarter Le Fornelle in the historical centre is called “The Amalfitan quarter”, and here they left a strong stamp on the dialect and usages of the inhabitants…