Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/181

 APULIA. tax, boBf levied oo an sheep and cattle tbos mi- gratnif. Hie ealcanooa natore of the soQ rendeis tbeee ApoSan pUns altogether different in character fno the rich allmrad tncts of the North of Italj; the tardtj of inter resulting firam this cause, and the pvched and thxrrtj aspect of the coontiy in r, are repeatedly alluded to bj Horace (Pau- Carm, iii. 30. 11; SiHaUaiae JpJiae, Epod. 3. 16), and haye been feelingly de- soibed bjr modem tnTellera. But notwithstonding in azjditj, the aoil is well adapted for the growth cf wheat, and imder a better system o^ irrigation sad agricuhiuns may have fully merited the en- oandnm of Stnbo. The southern portions of the pnmnoe, in common with the neighbouring region of CaJabfia, are especially fiivourable to the growth of tbeo&Te. The popalatko of Apulia was of a very mixed hxAf and great confusion exists in the accounts transnutted to us concerning it by ancient writers. Box. on the whole, we may cUstinguish pretty clearly tiiree distXDck national elements. I. The Apuli, or A{nfiaos properly so called, were, in all proba- bility, a member of the great Oscan, or Ausonian, aee; their name is considered by plulologera to eontain the same elements with Opicus, or Opscus. (Xxebohr, VoHrage vber LSader u. Volher, p. 489). It seems eertaln that they were not, like their ■i^^dwara the Lucanians, of Sabellian race; on the they appear on hostile terms with the who were pressing upon them from the iatariar of the coontry. Staiabo speaks of them as dindfing in the northern part of the province, about the Snns Unas, and Pliny (Iii. 11. s. 16) appeals to indirat^ the riTcr Cerbalus (Cercaro) as having tened the fimit between than and the Daunians, a utatemmt which can only refer to scnne veiy early fenod, aa in hia time the two races were certainly ooDfilelelT intennixed.* 2. The Dauniaks were pnittbly a Pelasgian race, like their neighbours the Peaccbaas, and the other earliest inhabitants of SoBtbesik Itafy. Th^ appear to have settled in Uie great plains akng the coast, leaving the Apulians in pasBeasian of the more inland and mountainous well as of the northern district ahready This is the view taken by the Greek who represent lapyx, Daunius, and I three sons of Lycaon, who settied in this part of Italy, and having expelled the Ausonians to the three tribes of the lapygians or Daunians, and Peucetians. (Nicander api ABtaohL Liberal. 31.) The same notion is con- tained in the statement tibat Dannus came originally fi«n niyria (FceL «. v, Daunia), and is confirmed by other arguments. The legends so prevalent mmang the Gieeks with regard to the settlement of Diooed in these r^ons, and ascribing to him the fanndatinn of all the principal cities, may probably, as in oCber similar cases, have had their origin in the hei of this Pehsgian descent of the Daunians. The same cxreomstanoe nught explain the facility with which the inhabitants of this part of Italy, at a kier period, adopted the arts and mannen of their Gre^ nei^iboorB. But it is certain that, whatever may have originally existed between the APULU. 165 and Apulians, the two races were, from the thne when they first appear in history, ss com- P&y just before gires the name of " Teani," but the juswage ia hop^ssly confosed. pletely blended into one as were the two component elements of the Latin nation. 3. The Peucetiaks, or PoEDicuu (ncvfc^ioi, Strab. et al. : IIoiStKAof, Id.), — two names which, however different in ap- pearance, are, in fiu^, only varied forms of the same, — appear, on the contrary, to have retained a separate nationality down to a comparatively late period. Their Pelasgian origin is attested by the legend already cited; another ibrm of the some tradition represents Peucetius as the brother of Oenotrus. (Pherecyd. ap. Dion. Hal. i. 13; Plin. iii. 11. 8. 16.) The hypothesis that the inhabitants of the south-eastern extremity of Italy should have come directly from the opposite coast of the Adriatic, from which they were separated by so narrow a sea, is in itself a very probable one, and derives strong confirmation fix>m the recent investigati<ms of Mommsen, which show that the native dialect spoken m this part of Italy, including a portion of Peucetia, as well as Messapia, was one wholly dis- tinct from the Sabellian or Oscan language, and closely related to the Greek, but yet sufficiently different to exclude the supposition of its being a mere corruption of the language of the Greek colonists. (Die Unter-Italiachen JHdUkte, pp. 43 — 98. Concerning the origin and relations of the Apulian tribes generally, see Niebuhr, vol. i. pp. 146 — 154; Vortrage uber Lander «. Volker, p. 489 — 498.) We have scarcely any information concerning the history of Apulia, previous to the time when it first appears in connection with that of Rome. But we learn incidentally from Strabo (vi. p. 281), that the Daunians and Peucetians were under kingly govern- ment, and had each their separate ruler. These appear in alliance with the Tarentines against the Messapians; and there seems much reason to believe that the coimection with Tarentum was not a casual or temporary one, but that we may ascribe to this source the strong tincture of Greek civilization which both people had certainly imbibed. We have no account of any Greek colomes^ properly so called, in Apulia (exclusive of Calabria), and the negative testimony of Scykx (§ 14. p. 170), who enumerates all those in lapygia, but mentions none to the N. of them, is conclusive on this point. But the ex- tent to which the cities of Peucetia, and some of those of Daunia also, — especially Arpi, Canusiuni, and Salapia, — had adopted the arts, and even the language of their Greek neighbours, is proved by the evidence of their coins, almost all of which havo pure Greek inscriptions, as well as by the numerous bronzes and painted vases, which have been brought to light by recent excavations. The number of these last which has been discovered on the sites of Canusium, Rubi, and £gnatia, is such as to vie with the richest deposits of Campania; but their style is inferior, and points to a declining period of Greek art. (Mommsen, Ic. pp. 89, 90; Gerhard, Rapporto dei Van Vokenti, p. 118; Bunscn, in Ann. dell, Inst 1834, p. 77.) The first mention of the Apulians in Soman his- tory, is on the outbreak of the Second Samnite War, in B. c. 326, when they are said to have concluded an alliance with Rome (Liv. viii. 25), notwithstand- ing which, they appear shortly afterwards in arms against her. They seem Jiot to have constituted at this time a regular confederacy or national league like the Samnites, but to have been a mere aggre- gate of separate and independent cities, among which Arpi, Canusium, Luceria, and Teanum, appear to M 3
 * It is, perhaps, to these northern Apulians that