Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/180

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

164 APULIA.


year 7000 more, who had been in the first instance sniiered to remain, were removed by the coosnl Fnlvios to join their countrymen. We meet with them long afterwards among the " popnli" cf Sam- nium, subsisting as a separate community, under the name of *' Ligures Comeliani ct Baebiani," as late as the reign of Trajan. (Liv. xxjdx. 2, 20, 32, xl. I, 38, 41; Plin. iii. II. s. 16; Lib. Colon, p. 235; Henzen. Tab. Alim, p. 57.) There is no au- thority for the existence of a dty of the name of Apua, as assumed by some writers. [E. H. B.]

APU'LIA ('Airoi;Xfa), a Jfrovince, or region, in the SE. of Italy, between the Apennines and the Adriatic Sea, which was bounded by the Frentani on the N., by Calabria and Lucania on the S., and by Samnium on the W. It is stated by most mo- dem geographers (Mannert, Cramer, Forbiger) that the name was sometimes applied to the whole SE. portion of Italy, including the peninsula of Mes- sapia, or, as the Romans termed it, Calabria. But though this extension was giren in the middle ages, as well as at the present day, to the term of PugUa^ it does not appear that the Romans ever used the name with so wide a signification; and even when united for admimstrative purposes, the two regions preserved their distinct appellations. Thus we find, even under the later periods of the Roman Empire, the '* provinda Apuliae et Calabriae ^ (Lib. Colon, p. 261; Treb. Poll Tetric. 24), "Corrector Apuliae et Calabriae" (Notit Dign. ii. p. 64.), &c The Greeks sometimes used the name of lapygia, so as to in- clude Apulia as well as Messapia (Herod, iv. 99; Pol. iii. 88); but their usage of this, as well as all the other local names applied to this part of Italy, was very fluctuating. Strabo, after describing the Messapian peninsula (to which he confines the name of lapygia) as inhabited by the Salentini and Cala- bri, aidds that to the north of the Calabri were the tribes called by the Greeks Peucetians and Daunians, but that all this tract beyond the Calcibrians was called by the natives Apulia, and that the appel- lations of Daunians and Peucetians were, in his time, wholly unknown to the inhabitants of this part of Italy (vL pp. 277, 283). In another pas- sago he speaks of the " Apulians properly so called," as dwelling around the gulf to the N. of Mt. Gar- ganiu; but says that they spoke the same language with the Daunians and Peucetians, and were in no respect to be distinguished from them." (p. 285.) The name of Daunians is wholly imknown to the Roman writers, except such as borrowed it from the Greeks, while they apply to the Peucetians the name of Pediculi or Poediculi, which appears, from Strabo, to have been their national appellation. Ptolemy divides the Apulians into Daunians and Peucetians Q'Airoukoi Aavyiot and "AirovKot ITcv- Hirioi, iii. 1. §§ 15, 16, 72, 73), including oil the southern Apulia under the latter head; but it ap- pears certjiin that this was a mere geographical arrangement, not one founded upon any national ditferenoes still subsisting in his time. Apulia, therefore, in the Roman sense, may be considered as bounded on the SE. by a line drawn from sea to sea, across the bthmus of the Messapian peniasula, from the Gulf of Tarentum, W. of that city, to the nearest point of the opposite coast be- tween Egnatia and Brundusium. (Strab. vi. p. 277; Mela, ii. 4.) According to a later distribution of the provinces or regions c( Italy (apparently under Vespasian), the Umlts of Calabria were extended so as to include the greater part, if not the whole APULIA. of the territory inhabited by the Poedicdi, or Peucetians (Lib. Colon. L c), and the extent of Apulia proportionally diminished. But this arrange* roent does not appear to have been geoerallj adopted. Towards Lucania, the river Bnidsnos appears to have formed the boundary, at least in the lower part of its course; while on the W., to- wards the Hirpni and Samnium, there was no natural frontier, but only the lower slopes or nnder- £dls of the Apennines were included in Apulia; all the higher ridges of thoee mountains belonging to Samnium. On the N. the river Tifemus appean to have been the recognised boundary of Apulia in the time of Mela and Pliny (Mela, I.e.; P)in.iii. 11. s. 16), though the territory of Larinnm, ex* tending fnxn the Tifemus to the Frento, was, by many writers, not included in Apulia, but was either regarded as constituting a separate district (Caes. B. C. i. 23), or included in the territofy of tiie Frentani. (PtoL iiL 1. § 65.) Apulia, as thns defined, comprehended nearly the same extent with the two provinces of the kingdom of Naples now called the Capitanata and Terra di Bari. The physical features of Apulia are sbtnglj marked, and must, in all ages, have materially in- fluenced its history. The northern half of the pro- vince, from the Tifemus to the Aufidus, consirts almost entirely of a great phiin, slopng gently finm the Apennines to the sea, and exteniing between the mountain ranges of the former — of which only some of the lower slopes and ofl&hoots were inclndcd in Apulia, — and the isolated mountan mass of Mt Gaiiganus, which has been not inaptly termed the Spur of Italy. This portion is now commonly known as " Puglia piana^ in oontmdistinctiQn to the southern part of the province, called " Aj^ia petrosa" from a brood chain of rocky hills, which branch off from the Apennines, near Vennsia, and extend eastward towards the Adriatic, which they reach near the modern Oetunij between Egnatia and Brundusium. The whole of this hilly tract is, at the present day, wild and thinly inhabited, great part of it being covered with forests, or given up to pasture, and the same seems to have been the case in ancient times also. (Strab. vi. p. 283.) Bnt between these barren hills and the t>ea, there inter- venes a narrow strip along the coast extending aboat 50 miles in length (from Barletta to Monopoli)^ and 10 in breadth, remarkable for its fertility, and which was studded, in ancient as well as modern times, with a number of small towns. The great plains of Northern Apulia are described by Strabo as of great fertility (xdifiipopSs tc iral irol^>opos, vi. p. 284), but adapted especially for the rearing of horses and sheep. The hitter appear in all a^ to have been one of the chief productions of Apulia, and their wool was reckoned to surpass all others in fineness (Plin. viii. 48. s. 73), but the pastures become so parched in summer that the flocks can no longer find subiiiistence, and hence they are driven at that season to the mountains and upland >*alliea of Samnium; while, in return, the plains of Apulia afford abundant pasturage in winter to the flocks <>f Samnium and the Abrttasi, at a season when their own mountain pastures are covered with snow. This arrangement, originating in the mutual ne- cessities of the two regions, probably dates fn»n a very early period (Niebuhr, vol. iii. p. 191); it is alluded to by Varro (rf« jR. jR. ii. 1) as custom£ry in his day; and under the Roman empire became the subject of legislative enactment — a veetiffalf or