This city had much to suffer from the Lombards, and in 665 or 670, while the people were assembled in the cathedral for the ceremonies of Holy Saturday, it was suddenly attacked by King Grimoald, who pillaged it and butchered numbers of the people and clergy.
During Chlothar's reign, the Franks had made an attack on northwestern Italy, but were driven off by the Lombard king Grimoald near Rivoli.
It is not certain if the division of the duchy was territorial or a powersharing scheme, but if the former, it seems most probable that Grimoald's capital was either Freising, which he later favoured as a diocesan seat, or Salzburg, which he later treated as a capital of sorts (Vita Corbiniani).
Grimoald sent Altzek and his followers to his son Romuald in Benevento and they were then granted by Romuald land northeast of Naples in the "spacious but up till that time deserted" towns of Sepino, Bovianum (Boiano), and Isernia, in the present-day region of Molise in the Apennines.