Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "CALABRIA Region ITALY".
The peninsula in the southeast of Italy extending from Tarentum to the Promontorium Iapygium, and forming part of Apulia
Messapia, was the name commonly given by the Greeks to the peninsula
forming the SE. extremity of Italy, called by the Romans Calabria. But the usage
of the term was very fluctuating; Iapygia and Messapia being used sometimes as
synonymous, sometimes the latter considered as a part only of the former more
general designation. (Pol. iii. 88; Strab. vi. pp. 277,282.) The same uncertainty
prevails, though to a less degree, in the use of the name of the people, the Messapii
(Messapioi), who are described by Herodotus (vii. 170) as a tribe of the Iapygians,
and appear to be certainly identical with the Calabri of the Romans, though we
have no explanation of the origin of two such different appellations. The ethnical
affinities of the Messapians have already been discussed, as well as their history
related, under the article Calabria.
Italian topographers in general admit the existence of a town of the
name of Messapia, the site of which is supposed to be marked by the village now
called Mesagne, between Oria and Brindisi; but the passage of Pliny, in which
alone the name is found, appears to be corrupt; and we should probably read, with
Cluverius and Mommsen, Varia (Uria) cui cognomen ad discrimen Apulae Messapia.
(Plin. iii. 11. s. 16. § 100; Cluver, Ital. p. 1248; Mommsen, Die Unter. Ital.
Dialekte, p. 61.)
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
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