← back
Strabo · c. 20 CE (Books I–VI likely composed/available by this period)
primary
passage 238 of 384 · BOOK I. > CHAPTER III. (1/8)
in brief
Strabo shifts to southern Italy, describing Messapia/Iapygia (Messapians, Salentini, Calabri, Peucetii, Daunii), the geography of the Tarentum gulf, and Tarentum’s harbor and monuments, including Jupiter’s colossus and later destruction.
- Having previously passed over the regions of ancient Italy as far as
Metapontium, we must now proceed to describe the rest. After it
Iapygia[2383] comes next in order; the Greeks call it Messapia, but the inhabitants, dividing it into cantons, call one the Salentini,[2384]
that in the neighbourhood of the Cape[2385] Iapygia, and another the
Calabri;[2386] above these towards the north lie the Peucetii,[2387] and those who are called Daunii[2388] in the Greek language, but the inhabitants call the whole region beyond the Calabri, Apulia. Some of these people are called Pœdicli,[2389] especially the Peucetii. Messapia forms a peninsula; the isthmus extending from Brentesium[2390] to
Tarentum, which bounds it, being 310 stadia, and the circumnavigation round the Iapygian promontory[2391] about [one thousand][2392] four hundred. [Tarentum[2393]] is distant from Metapontium[2394] about two hundred and [twenty[2393]] stadia. The course to it by sea runs in an easterly direction. The Gulf of Tarentum is for the most part destitute of a port, but here there is a spacious and commodious [harbour[2395]], closed in by a great bridge. It is 100 stadia[2396] in circuit. This port, at the head of its basin which recedes most inland, forms, with the exterior sea, an isthmus which connects the peninsula with the land.
The city is situated upon this peninsula. The neck of land is so low that ships are easily hauled over it from either side. The site of the city likewise is extremely low; the ground, however, rises slightly towards the citadel. The old wall of the city has an immense circuit, but now the portion towards the isthmus is deserted, but that standing near the mouth of the harbour, where the citadel is situated, still subsists, and contains a considerable city. It possesses a noble gymnasium and a spacious forum, in which there is set up a brazen colossus of Jupiter, the largest that ever was, with the exception of that of Rhodes. The citadel is situated between the forum and the entrance of the harbour, it still preserves some slight relics of its ancient magnificence [CAS. 278] and gifts, but the chief of them were destroyed either by the Carthaginians[2397] when they took the city, or by the Romans[2398] when they took it by force and sacked it. Amongst other booty taken on this occasion[2399] was the brazen colossus of
Hercules, the work of Lysippus, now in the Capitol, which was dedicated as an offering by Fabius Maximus, who took the city.
topics:
conquest, plunder, and captives · geography and the description of places · monarchy and royal succession
The Geography of Strabo, Volume 1 (of 3) · Strabo · 20
HKB