Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/902

 8S2 SALENTINI. ]iad as early as this pushed their arms into the lapyijian peninsula, and it is probable that the Salentines are liere confounded with the Peucetians, with whom, according to some accounts, they were closely connected. (Plin. iii. 11. s. 16.) But the name is used with still greater laxity shortly after, when Li' speaks of Thuriae as " urbem in Sallen- tinis " (x. 2), if at least, as there seems httle doubt, the place there meant is the well-known city of Thurii in Lucania [TiiuRii]. The name of the Sallentines does not again occur in history till the Fourth Samnite War, when they joined the confederacy formed by the Samnites and Tarentines against Rome; and shared in their defeat by the consul L. Aemilius Barbula in b. c. 281, as we find that general celebrating a triumph over the Tarentines, Samnites, and Sallentines. (^Fast. Capit. ann. 473.) For some time after this the appear- ance of Pyrrhus in Italy drew off the attention of the Romans from more ignoble adversaries, but when that monarch had finally withdrawn from Italy, and Tarentum itself had fallen into the hands of the Romans, they were left at leisure to turn their arms against the few tribes that still maintained their independence. In b. c. 267 w'ar was declared against the Salentines, and both consuls were em- ployed in their subjugation. It was not likely that they could offer much resistance, yet their final conquest was not completed till the following year, when both consuls again celebrated triumphs '• de Jlessapiis Sallentinisque." (^Fast. Capit. ; Zonar. viii. 7; Liv. Fpit. xv; Floras, i. 20; Eutrop. ii. 17.) All the Roman writers on this occasion mention the Salentines alone; the Triumphal Fasti, however, re- cord the name of the Jlessapians in conjunction with them, and it is certain that both nations were included both in the war and the conquest, for Brundusium, which is called by Florus " caput regionis," and the occupation of which was evidently the main object of the war (Zonar. I. c), seems to have been at that period certainly a Me.ssapian city. The Salentines are again mentioned as revolting to Hannibal during the Second Punic War (b.c. 213), but seem to have been again reduced to subjection without difficulty. (Liv. sxv. 1, xsvii. 36, 41.) From this time their name disappears from history, and is not even found among the nations of Italy that took up arms in the Social War. But the " Sallentinus ager " continued to be a recognised term, and the people are spoken of both by Pliny and Strabo as distinct from their neighbours the Calabii. (Strab. vi. p. 277; Plin. iii. 11. s. 10; Ptol. iii. 1. § 13; Mel. ii. 4; Cic. 2'>'0 Hose. Am. 46.) The " regio Salentina" is even mentioned as a distinct portion of Calabria as late as the time of the Lom- bards. (P. Diac. Hist. Lang. ii. 21.) The physical character and topography of the country of the Salentines are given in the article Cauvbria. The following towns are assigned by Pliny to the Salentines, as distinguished from the Calabrians, strictly so called : Aletium, Basta, Neretum, Uxentum, and Veretum. All these are situated in the extreme southern end of the lapygian peninsula. The list given by Ptolemy nearly agrees with that of Pliny; but he adds Ilhudiae, which was con.siderably further N., and is reckoned on good authority a Calabrian city [Riiu- piae]. The place he calls Banota is probably the Basta of Pliny. To these inland towns may proba- bly be added the seaports of Calupolis, Castrum JIiNKRVAE, and perhaps Hydrtjntum also, though SALERNUM. the last seems to have early received a Greek colony. But it is probable that at an earlier perind the territory of the Salentines was considerably more extensive. Stephanus of Byzantium speaks of a city of the name of Sallentia, from which was derived the name of the Sallentines, but no mention of this is found in any other writer, and it is proba- bly a mere mistake. [E. H. B.] SALERNUM (SaAepyof: Etli. Salernitanus : 5a- lerno), a city of Campania, but situated in the territory of the Picentini, on the N. shore of the gulf of Posidonia, which now derives from it the name of the Gulf of Salerno. We have no account of its origin or early history ; it has been supposed that it was like the neighbouring Marcina a Tyrrhenian or Pelasgic settlement [Marcina] ; but there is no authority for this, and its name is never mentioned in history previous to the settlement of a Roman colony there. But when this was first decreed (in b. c. 197, it was not actually founded till B. c. 194), Livy speaks of the place as Castrum Salerni, whence we may infer that there was at least a fortress previously existing there (Liv. xxxii. 29, xxxiv. 45; Veil. Pat. i. 14: Strab. v. p. 251.) The Roman colony was established, as we are expressly told by Strabo, for the purpo.se of holding the Picen- tines in check, that people having actively espoused the cause of Hannibal during the Second Punic War (Strab. I. c.) Their town of Picentia being destroyed, Salernum became the chief town of the district; but it does not appejir to have risen to any great im- portance. In the Social War it was taken by the Samnite general C. Papius (Appian. B. C. i. 42): but this is the only occasion on which its name is mentioned in history. Horace alludes to it as having a mild climate, on which account it had apparently been recommended to him for his health (Hor. Fp. i. 15. 1.) It continued to be a municipal town of some consideration under the Roman Empire, and as we learn from inscriptions retained the title of a Colonia (Plin. iii. 5. s. 9 ; Ptol. iii. 1. § 7 ; Itin. Ant. ; Tab. Pent.; Mommsen, Insc7'. R. N. pp. 9 — 12.) But it was not till after the Lombard con- quest that it became one of the most flourishing cities in this part of Italy; so that it is associated by Paulus Diaconus with Caprea and Neapolis among the " opulentissimae urbes " of Campania (P. Diac. Hist. Lang. ii. 1 7). It retained this consideration down to a late period of the middle ages, and was especially renowned for its school of medicine, which, under the name of Schola Salernitana, was long the mo.st celebrated in Europe. But it seems certain that this was derived from the Arabs in the 10th or 11th century, and was not transmitted from more ancient times. Salerno is still the see of an archbishop, with a population of about 12,000 inhabitants, though greatly fallen from its mediaeval grandeur. The ancient city, as we learn from Strabo (v. p. 251), stood on a hill at some distance from the sea, and this is confirmed by local writers, who state that many ancient remains liave been found on the hill which rises at the back of the modern city, but no ruins are now extant. (Romanelli, vol. iii. p. 612.) From the foot of this hill a level and marshy plain extends without interruption to the mouth of the Silaras, the whole of which seems to have been in- cluded in the municipal territory of Salernunn, as Lucan speaks of the Silarus as skirting the culti- vated lands of that city (Lucan, ii. 425.) Tiie distance from Salernum itself to the mouth of the