Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/259

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Chap 16.]
ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, ETC.
225


CHAP. 16.—THE SECOND REGION OF ITALY.

Adjoining to this district is the second region of Italy, which, embraces the Hirpini, Calabria, Apulia, and the Salentini, extending a distance of 250 miles along the Gulf of Tarentum, which receives its name from a town of the Laconians so called, situate at the bottom of the Gulf, to which was annexed the maritime colony which had previously settled there. Tarentum[1] is distant from the promontory of Lacinium 136 miles, and throws out the territory of Calabria opposite to it in the form of a peninsula. The Greeks called this territory Messapia, from their leader[2]; before which it was called Peucetia, from Peucetius[3], the brother of Œnotrius, and was comprised in the territory of Salentinum. Between the two promontories[4] there is a distance of 100 miles. The breadth across the peninsula from Tarentum[5] to Brundusium by land is 35 miles, considerably less if measured from the port of Sasina[6]. The towns inland from Tarentum are Varia[7] surnamed Apulia, Messapia, and Aletium[8]; on the coast, Senum, and Callipolis[9], now known as Anxa, 75 miles from

    year B.C. 326) was obliged to engage under unfavourable circumstances near Pandosia, on the Acheron, and fell as he was crossing the river; thus accomplishing a prophecy of Dodona which had warned him to beware of Pandosia and the Acheron. He was uncle to Alexander the Great, being the brother of Olympias. The site of Pandosia is supposed to have been the modern Castro Franco.

  1. ↑ This word is understood in the text, and Ansart would have it to mean that the "Gulf of Tarentum is distant," &c., but, as he says, such an assertion would be very indefinite, it not being stated what part of the Gulf is meant. He therefore suggests that the most distant point from Lacinium is meant; which however, according to him, would make but 117 miles straight across, and 160 by land. The city of Tarentum would be the most distant point.
  2. ↑ Messapus, a Bœotian, mentioned by Strabo, B. ix.
  3. ↑ A son of Lycaon.
  4. ↑ Of Lacinium and Acra Iapygia. About seventy miles seems to be the real distance; certainly not, as Pliny says, 100.
  5. ↑ The modern Taranto to Brindisi.
  6. ↑ Probably situate at the further extremity of the bay on which Tarentum stood.
  7. ↑ According to D'Anville and Mannert, the modern Oria. Messapia is the modern Mesagna.
  8. ↑ The modern Santa Maria dell' Alizza, according to D'Anville.
  9. ↑ The modern Gallipoli, in the Terra di Otranto. The real distance from Tarentum is between fifty and sixty miles.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.