Listed 20 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "LECCE Town PUGLIA" .
KALLIPOLIS (Ancient city) PUGLIA
Callipolis (Kallipolis), a city on the E. coast of Sicily, which was
of Greek origin, and a colony from the neighbouring city of Naxos. (Scymn. Ch.
286; Strab. vi. p. 272.) It appears to have ceased to exist at an early period,
as the only notice of it found in history is in Herodotus (vii. 154), who mentions
it as having been besieged and reduced to subjection by Hippocrates, tyrant of
Gela. It is probable that it was destroyed, or its inhabitants removed, either
by that ruler, or his successor Gelon, according to a policy familiar to the Sicilian
despots, as, from the absence of all mention of the name by Thucydides during
the operations of the Athenians on the E. coast of Sicily, it seems certain that
it was then no longer in existence. Nor is the name afterwards found in Diodorus;
and it is only mentioned by Strabo as one of the cities of Sicily that had disappeared
before his time. (Strab. vi. p. 272; Steph. B. s. v.) Silius Italicus, indeed,
speaks of it as if it still existed during the Second Punic War (xiv. 249); but
his accuracy on this point may well be questioned. It was probably situated on
the coast between Naxos and Messana.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
LOUPIAE (Ancient city) PUGLIA
Lupiae (Loupiai, Strab.; Loupia, Pans., Louppiai, Ptol.: Eth. Lupiensis:
Lecce), an ancient city of the Salentines, in the Roman province of Calabria.)
situated on the high road from Brundusium to Hydruntum, and just about 25 M.P.
distant from each of these cities (Itin. Ant. p. 118). It was about 8 miles from
the sea, whence Strabo correctly describes it as situated, together with Rhudiae,
in the interior of Calabria (Strab. v. p. 282), though both Pliny and Ptolemy
would lead us to suppose that it was a maritime town. (Plin. iii. 11. s. 16; Ptol.
iii. 1. § 14.) Appian also speaks of Octavian as landing there on his return to
Italy, immediately after Caesar's death, when he halted some days at Lupiae without
venturing to advance to Brundusium, until he received fresh information from Rome.
(Appian, B.C. iii. 10.) There seems, however, no doubt that the ancient Lupiae
occupied the same site as the modern Lecce, though it may have had a port or landing-place
of its own. The above passage of Appian is the only mention of it that occurs
in history; but a tradition preserved to us by Julius Capitolinus (M. Ant. 1.)
ascribed its foundation to a king of the Salentines, named Malennius, the son
of Dasumus. There is little doubt that it was really a native Salentine city;
nor is there any foundation for supposing it to have received a Greek colony.
Pausanias, in a passage which has given rise to much confusion, in treating of
the treasury of the Sybarites at Olympia, tells us that Sybaris was the same city
which was called in his time Lupia, and was situated between Brundusium and Hydruntum.
(Paus. vi. 19. § 9.) The only reasonable explanation of this strange mistake is,
that he confounded Lupia in Calabria (the name of which was sometimes written
Lopia) with the Roman colony of Copia in Lucania, which had in fact arisen on
the site of Thurii, and, therefore, in a manner succeeded to Sybaris. But several
modern writers (Romanelli, Cramer, &c.) have adopted the mistake of Pausanias,
and affirmed that Lupiae was previously called Sybaris, though it is evidently
of the well-known city of Sybaris that that author is speaking. We hear but little
of Lupiae as a Roman town, though it appears to have been a municipal town of
some importance, and is mentioned by all the geographers. The ager Lyppiensis
(sic) is also noticed in the Liber Coloniarum; but it does not appear that it
received a colony, and the inscriptions in which it bears the title of one are,
in all probability, spurious. Nor is there any ancient authority for the name
of Lycium or Lycia, which is assigned to the city by several local writers: this
form, of which the modern name of Lecce is obviously a corruption, being first
found in documents of the middle ages. (Lib. Colon. p. 262; Mel. ii. 4. § 7; Itin.
Ant. p. 118.)
The modern city of Lecce is a large and populous place, and the chief
town of the province called the Terra, di. Otranto. No ancient remains are now
visible ; but Galateo, writing in the 15th century, tells us that there were then
extensive subterranean remains of the ancient city - vast arches, covered galleries
and foundations of ancient buildings--upon which the modern city was in great
measure built. Numerous vases and other relics of antiquity have also been brought
to light by excavations, and an inscription in the Messapian dialect. (Galateo,
de Sit. Iapyg. pp. 8 -86; Romanelli, vol. ii. pp. 83-93; Mommsen, Unter Ital.
Dialecte, p. 59.)
This is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ROUDIAI (Ancient city) PUGLIA
or Rudiae (Rhoudia, Ptol.; Rhodiai, Strab.: Eth. Rudinus: Rugge),
an ancient city of the Salentines, in the interior of the Roman province of Calabria,
and in the immediate vicinity of Lupiae (Lecce). (Strab. vi. p. 281; Ptol. iii.
1. § 76.) Strabo calls it a Greek city (polis Hellenis); but we have no other
indication of this fact, and all the other notices we find of it would lead us
to infer that it was a native Salentine or Messapian town. Under the Romans it
appears to have enjoyed municipal rank (an inscription has Municipes Rudini, Orell.
3858); but in other respects it was a place of little importance, and derived
its sole celebrity from the circumstance of its being the birthplace of the poet
Ennius. (Strab. l. c. Mel. ii. 4. § 7; Sil. Ital. xii. 393; Cic. de Or. iii. 4.
2) That author is repeatedly termed a Calabrian (Her. Carm. iv. 8; Ovid. A. A.
iii. 409; Sil. Ital. l. c.; Acron, ad Hor. l. c.), and these passages confirm
the accuracy of Ptolemy, who assigns Rhudiae to the Salentines, and therefore
to the Calabrians according to the Roman use of the name. Pliny and Mela, on the
contrary, enumerate Rudiae among the towns of the Pediculi together with Barium
and Egnatia, and the latter author expressly excludes it from Calabria (Plin.
iii. 11. s. 16; Mel. l. c.). But it seems impossible to reconcile this statement
with that of Strabo, who places it near Lupiae, in the interior of the peninsula,
or with the actual situation of Rudiae, which is clearly ascertained at a place
still called Rugge, though now uninhabited, about a mile from Lecce, where the
inscription above cited was discovered, as well as several others in the Messapian
dialect, and many vases and other objects of antiquity. The identity of this place
with the municipal town of Rudiae can therefore admit of no doubt ; nor is there
any reason to question the fact that this was also the birthplace of Ennius :
but considerable confusion has arisen from the mention in the Tabula of a place
called Rudae, which it places 12 miles W. of Rubi, on the road to Canusium. As
this place would have been within the limits of the Pediculi or Peucetii, it has
been supposed by some writers to be the same with the Rudiae of Pliny and Mela,
and therefore the birthplace of Ennius; but the claims of Rugge to this distinction
appear unquestionable. (Galateo, de Sit. Iapyg. p. 77; Romanelli, vol. ii. pp.
93-102; Mommsen, Unter Ital. Dialekte, p. 58.)
The Rudae or Rudiae of the Tabula, which is otherwise quite unknown,
must have been situated somewhere in the neighbourhood of the modern Andria.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
YDROUS (Ancient city) PUGLIA
Hydruntum called in Greek and sometimes also in Latin Hydrus (Hudrous:
Eth. Hudrountios; Hydruntinus, but an inscription has Hudrentinus: Otranto), a
city of Calabria, on the coast of the Adriatic, and a port of considerable importance,
for which it was indebted to the circumstance of its being the nearest point of
Italy to the coast of Greece, the passage being shorter even than that from Brundusium.
(Cic. ad Att. xv. 2. 1) We have very little information as to its early history;
but it seems probable that it was a Greek city, or at least had received a Greek
colony, though the tradition related by Stephanus of Byzantium (s. v. Biennos),
which represented it as founded by Cretans, is probably connected with the legends
which ascribed a Cretan origin to the Sallentines and Messapians, rather than
to any historical Greek colony. But Scylax distinctly notices the port of Hydrus,
in a passage where he is speaking only of Greek towns (Scyl. p. 5. § 14); and
though he there seems to imply that it was not an independent city like Metapontum
or Tarentum, he elsewhere (p. 11. § 27) calls it polis en tei Iapugiai: hence
it seems highly probable that it was at that time merely a dependency of Tarentum.
Nor do we hear anything of Hydruntum for some time after it had fallen, with the
rest of the Messapian peninsula, under the Roman yoke; the establishment of the
Roman colony at Brundusium and the increasing importance of that port having,
doubtless, tended to throw Hydruntum into the shade. But as early as B.C. 191
we find that it was a customary place of landing in Italy, for those who came
from Greece and crossed over from Corcyra (Liv. xxxvi. 21); and this probably
continued to be a route much frequented, while Brundusium was the point of communication
with Apollonia and the coast of Epirus. Cicero, however, recognises the fact,
that the shortest passage from Italy to the opposite coast was from Hydruntum,
which for that reason he himself seems to have preferred to Brundusium; though
Pliny tells us that the latter route, though longer, was the safer of the two.
(Cic. ad Att. xv. 2. 1, xvi. 6, ad Fam. xvi. 9; Plin. iii. 11. s. 16.) All the
ancient geographers mention Hydruntum as situated at the mouth or entrance of
the Adriatic: Pliny states the width of the strait which separated it from the
opposite coast near Apollonia at 50 M. P., which is just about the truth; and
this accords also with Strabo's statement, that it was 400 stadia (50 M. P.) from
Hydruntum to the island of Sason near the Acroceraunian Promontory. Pliny adds
a strange story, that Pyrrhus had at one time formed the project of closing up
the passage with a bridge of boats, and that the same idea had been taken up at
a later time by M. Varro, in the war against pirates. (Plin. iii. 11. s. 16; Strab.
vi. p. 281; Mel. ii. 4. § 7; Ptol. iii. 1. § 14.) Strabo speaks of Hydruntum as
in his time but a small place (polichne); but it seems to have risen into a considerable
municipal town under the Roman empire (Orell. Inscr. 2570; Lib. Col. p. 262),
and increased gradually in importance as Brundusium declined. In the fourth century
it appears to have become the usual place of passage, not only to Greece, but
to Apollonia, Dyrrhachium, and thence to Constantinople; so that the Itineraries
all give the routes of communication between Italy and the East upon this supposition.
(Itin. Ant. pp. 115, 323, 329; Itin. Marit. p. 489; Itin. Hier. p. 609.) The same
state of things continued also after the fall of the Western Empire: hence, during
the wars of the Goths with Belisarius and Narses, Hydruntum as sumes an importance
very different from what it possessed in Roman times. (Procop. B. V. i. 1, B.
G. iii. 30, &c., where the name is corruptly written Druous. It was one of the
last cities in the S. of Italy which remained in the hands of the Greek emperors,
from whom it was not finally wrested till the 11th century. The modern town of
Otranto is a poor decayed place, though still the see of a bishop: it was taken
and plundered in 1480 by the Turks; a calamity which it has never recovered. Galateo,
a local historian, who saw it previous to that event, describes it as then a flourishing
and populous place, though, like Taranto, occupying only the citadel or arx of
the ancient city: the circuit of the ancient walls could be distinctly traced,
inclosing a space of 11 stadia, and fortified with towers; but, he adds, all this
is now levelled with the ground. Recent travellers have found no vestiges of antiquity
but the pavement of the Via Trajana, and some marble columns and mosaic pavements
in the present cathedral. A ruined church of St. Nicholas is supposed to occupy
site of an ancient temple. (Galateo, de Situ Iapygiae, pp. 47--50; Romanelli,
vol. ii. pp. 110, 111; Craven, Travels, pp. 142--144.) Though in such a decayed
condition, Otranto still gives name to the province, which is known as the Terra
di Otranto, and includes the whole of the Iapygian or Calabrian peninsula.
The little river Idro, the sluggish waters of which enter the harbour
of Otranto, is evidently the stream called in ancient times the Hydrus, whose
name has been preserved to us in a line of Lucan (v. 375).
This is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
KALLIPOLIS (Ancient city) PUGLIA
A town on the east coast of Sicily not far from Aetna.
ROUDIAI (Ancient city) PUGLIA
Now Rotigliano or Rugge; a town of the Peucetii in Apulia, on the road from Brundusium to Venusia, was originally a Greek colony, and afterwards a Roman municipium. Rudiae is celebrated as the birthplace of Ennius.
YDROUS (Ancient city) PUGLIA
or Hydrus (Hudrous). The modern Otranto. One of the most ancient towns of Calabria, situated on the southeast coast, near a mountain of the same name. It had a good harbour, from which persons frequently crossed over to Epirus.
KALLIPOLIS (Ancient city) PUGLIA
A city on the Gulf of Taranto, 48 km from the Japigio Promontory.
Considered by the ancients to be of Greek origin (Mela 2.4), it was founded by
the Lakedaimonian Leukippos, perhaps with the assistance of the Tarentines, for
whom it became an important port (Dion. 19.3). According to Pliny (HN 3.100) its
Messapian name would have been Anxa, but certainly the ancient city must have
occupied the site of modern Gallipoli. In the Roman period it had municipal regulation
and was perhaps ascribed to the tribus Fabia (CIL IX, 7-9). Archaeological finds
are in the Museo Civico.
F. G. Lo Porto, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
LOUPIAE (Ancient city) PUGLIA
An ancient city of Salento on the Via Traiana ca. 40 km S of Brindisi.
Strabo (6.282) places it, along with Rudiae, among the cities of the interior
as does Pliny (HN 3.101), but Ptolemy (3.1.12) considers it a coastal town, even
though it was ca. 12 km from the sea. In a passage (6.19.9) which has posed not
a few perplexing questions, Pausanias says that the city was originally called
Sybaris, perhaps confounding Lupia or Lopia with the Roman colony of Copia in
Lucania. However, it appears certain that the city now covered by modern Lecce
was originally a native center whose founding has been attributed by the ancients
to the king of the Salentini, Malennius, the son of Dasumnus (Iul. Cap. M. Ant.
1). The Romans probably founded Lupiae after the capture of Brindisi in 267 B.C.
Octavian spent some time there on his return to Italy after the death of Caesar
(App. BCiv. 3.10). The city was enrolled in the tribus Camilia, was raised to
the status of a municipium at an unknown date, and under the Antonines it had
the title of a colony. According to Pausanias (6.19.9), the harbor was most likely
constructed by Hadrian and must have been along the beach at San Cataldo where
the remains of a pier are visible.
Precise evidence for the first settlement comes especially from tombs
which date from the 5th c. to the 3d c. B.C. An Attic black-figure kylix (late
6th c. or early 5th c.) found at Lecce is, at the present stage of investigations,
the most ancient document of the commercial contacts of the city with the archaic
Greek world. Beginning in the second half of the 5th c. B.C. and particularly
in the 4th c., the city came under Tarentine influence, as attested by the relief
frieze of the well-known Palmieri hypogeum and by the frequency of the proto-Italic
and Apulian pottery finds of Tarentine workmanship. However, the language remained
Messapic, to judge from the numerous inscriptions gathered from the necropolis.
Imposing monuments of the Roman city have been preserved, such as
the amphitheater, the theater, and scattered remains of public and private buildings
from which have come marble statues, inscriptions, and mosaics. The amphitheater,
constructed between the 1st and 2d c. A.D., measured 102 by 83 m, with an arena
of 53 by 34 m. It had a seating capacity of ca. 25,000. Partially set into the
tufa and partially raised on arches in opus quadratum, it was of impressive proportions.
It had a double order of maeniana, largely restored today only on the lower order,
which was separated from the arena by a high wall with a parapet decorated in
relief (mostly preserved) with lively scenes of combat between men and animals.
Among the marbles which come from this monument, a copy of the Athena of Alkamenes
is noteworthy. It is kept in the Museo Castromediano. The theater is perhaps of
the Hadrianic period and not very large, measuring 40 m in diameter outside the
cavea. It is well preserved and had a seating capacity of 5,000. Also well-preserved
are the orchestra, paved with large, regular stone slabs, and one of the parodoi.
The stage, 7.7 m deep and 0.7 m above the orchestra floor, must have been richly
decorated. Some fragmentary marble sculptures have been found, generally copies
of Greek originals, such as the torso of an Amazon of the Berlin type, another
torso of the Borghese Ares, a likeness of Athena-Roma with a shield, and other
works collected in the Museo Provinciale.
F. G. Lo Porto, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
ROUDIAI (Ancient city) PUGLIA
A Messapic city ca. 2 km SW of Lupiae (Lecce), in a low-lying area
called La Cupa. Although it is frequently mentioned by ancient writers, who call
it the birthplace of the poet Ennius, nothing precise is known of its origins
(Cic. Arch. 9.22; Sil.It. 12.397). Strabo (6.281) thought it was founded by the
Rhodians, who, together with colonists from Crete, appear to have colonized the
Salentine peninsula, according to a tradition handed down by Herodotos (2.222).
The archaeological excavations have brought to light towered circuit walls and
a ditch about 4 km long. A second, inner circuit wall surrounded a zone where
the acropolis is thought to have been. The floruit of the city between the 5th
c. and the 3d c. B.C. is corroborated by the rich tomb appointments, often painted
and with Messapic inscriptions, which have been discovered in the vast necropolis
surrounding the inhabited area. The city was a municipium (CIL IX, 23) in the
Roman period and was perhaps enrolled in the tribus Fabia (CIL IX, p. 5). A series
of large public buildings, perfectly paved streets, an amphitheater, and Latin
inscriptions are among the numerous traces from that period which are visible
in the zone of recent excavations and in the Museo Castromediano at Lecce. Numerous
objects from the necropolis are also preserved there.
F. G. Lo Porto, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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