Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/182

 166 APULIA. liave stood preeminent. Some of tlicse took part with the BomauB, others sided with the Samnites; and the war in Apulia was carried on in a desultory manner, as a sort of episode of the greater struggle, till B.C. 317, when all the principal cities submitted to Kome, and we are told that the subjection of Apulia was completed. (Li7. viii. 37, is. 12, 13 — 16, 20.) From this time, indeed, they appear to liave continued tranquil, with the exception of a faint demonstration in &your of the Samnites in B.C. 297 (Liv.x. 15), — until the arrival of Pyrrhus in Italy; and even when that monarch, in his se- cond campaign B. c. 279, carried his arms into Apulia, and reduced several of its cities, the rest continued stedfast to the Boman cause, to which some of them rendered efficient aid at the battle of Asculum. (Zonar. viii. 5 ; Dionys. zx. Fr. nov. ed. Didot) During the Second Punic War, Apulia became, for a long time, one of the chief scenes of the con- test between Hannibal and the Roman generals. In the second campaign it was ravaged by the Car- thaginian leader, who, aft«r his operations against Fabius, took up his quarters there for the winter; and the next spring witnessed the memorable defeat of the Remans in the plains of Cannae, b. c. 216. After this great disaster, a great part of the Apu- lians declared in favour of the Cartliaginians, and opened their gates to HannibaL The resources thus placed at his command, and the great fertility of the country, led him to establish his winter-quarters for several successive years in Apulia. It is im- possible to notice here the military operations of which that country became the theatre; but the result was unfavourable to Hannibal, who, though uniformly successful in the field, did not reduce a single additional fortress in Apulia, while the im- portant cities of Arpi and Solapia successively fell into the hands of the Romans. (Liv. xxiv. 47, xxvi. 38.) Yet it was not till B. c. 207, after the battle of Metaums and the death of Hasdrubal, that Hannibal finally evacuated Apulia, and with- drew into Bruttium. There can be no doubt that the revolted cities were severely punished by the Romans; and the whole province appears to have sufifered so heavily from ^e ravages and exactions of the contending armies, that it is from this time we may date the decline of its former prosperity. In the Sodal War, the Apulians were among the nations which took up arms against Borne, the important cities of Venusia and Canusium taking the lead in the de- fection; and, at first, great successes were obtained in this part of Italy, by the Samnite leader Vettius Judacilius, but the next year, B. c. 89, fortune turned against them, and the greater part of AptUia was reduced to submission by the praetor C. Cos- conius. (Appian. B. C. i. 39, 42, 52.) On this occasion, we are told that Salapia was destroyed, and the territories of Larinum, Asculum, and Venusia, laid waste; probably this second devastation gave a shock to the prosperity of Apulia from which it never recovered. It is certain that it appears at the close of the Republic, aud under the Roman Empire, in a state of decline and poverty. Strabo mentions Arpi, Canusium, and Luceria, as decayed cities; and adds, that the whole of this part of Italy had been desolated by the war of Haimibal, and those subsequent to it (vi. p. 285). Apulia was comprised, together with Calabria and the Hirpini, in the 2nd r^on of Augustus APULIA. (Plin. iii. 11. s. 16), and this arrangement appear^ to liave continued till the time df Constantino, except that the Hirpini were separated from the other two, and placed in the 1st region with Cam- pania and Latium. From the time of Coostantine, ApuHa and Calabria were united under the same authority, who was styled Corrector, and consti- tuted one province. (Lib. Colon, pp. 260—262; Notit. Dign. vol. ii. pp. 64, 125 ; P. Diac. ii. 21 ; Orelli, Imer. 1126, 3764.) After the faU of the Western Empre, the possession of Apulia was long disputed between the Byzantine empenars, the Ix>ml>ards, and the Sanu^ns. But the former ap- pear to have always retained some footing in tlus part of Italy, and in the 10th century were able to re-establish their dominion over the greater part of the province, which they governed by means of a magistrate termed a Catapan, from whence has been derived the modem name of the CapitanatOj — a corruption of Catapanata. It was finally wrested from the Greek Empire by tiie Normans. The principal rivers of Apulia, are : 1. the Ti- FERNUS, now called the BifemOj which, as already m<>ntioned, bounded it on the N., and separated it fix)m the Frentani ; 2. the Fkekto (now the For- tore), which bounded the territory of Larinmn on the S., and is therefore reckoned the northern limit of Apulia by tiiose writers who did not inclade I^rinum in that region ; 8. the Cerbalus of Pliny (iii. 11. 8. 16), still called the Ctrvaro, which rises in the mountains of the Hirpini, and fiows into the sea between Siptmtum and the lake of Salapia. It is probably this river which is designated by Strabo (vi. p. 284), but without naming it, as serring to convey com and other supplies from the interior to the coast, near Sipontum ; 4. the Aufidus ( Of onto), by far the largest of the rivers of this part of Italy. [Aufidus.] All these streams have nearly paraUcl courses from SW. to NE.; and all, except Uie Tifer- nus, partake more of the character of mountain torrents tlian regular rivers, bdng subject to sudden and violent inundations, while in the summer their waters are scanty and trifling. From the Aufidus to the limits of Calabria, and indeed to the ex- tremity of the lapygian promontory, there does not occur a single stream worthy of the name of river. The southem slope of the Apulian hills towards the Tarentine Gulf, on the contrary, is furrowed by several small streams; but the only one of which the ancient name is preserved to us, is, 5. the Bra- DAHUs (^Bradano), which forms the boundary be- tween Apulia and Lucania, and frdls into the sea close to Metapontum. The remarkable mountain promontory of Gar- GANUS is described in a separate article. [Gab- OASUB.] The prominence of this vast headland, which projects into the sea above 30 miles from Sipontum to its extreme point near Viestiy natu- rally forms two bays; the one on the N., called by Strabo a deep gulf, but, in reality, little marked by nature, was called the SiKUS Urias, frum the city of Urium, or Hybiuh, situated on its coast. (Mela, ii. 4; Strab. n. pp. 284, 285.) Of that on the S., now known as the Chdf of Manfrtdonia, no ancient appellation has been preserved. The whole coast of Apuha, with the exception of the Garganus, is low and fiat: and on each side of that great pro- montory are lakes, or pools, of considerable extent, the stagnant waters of which are separated frton the sea only by narrow strips of sand. That to the north of Garganus, adjoining the Sinus Unas (no-