SIPONTUM and SALAPIA belonged to the territory of Arpi. The name Sipontum (Σιποῦς) betrays its Tyrrhenian origin. All these places suffered severely during the Hannibalian war. When the Romans punished Arpi for its revolt, they deprived it of the dominion over these towns, and sent a colony to Sipontum. The neighbourhood of Sipontum is a salt plain and therefore unhealthy. LUCERIA was situated on the height between Arpi and Beneventum. It was an Apulian town, but was captured by the Samnites, as I have clearly ascertained, and was afterwards taken from them by the Romans, and changed into a Romano-Latin colony. The establishment of this colony in so distant a country is one of the bold measures of the Romans, whereby, after the long struggle, in which even the greatest exertions proved unsuccessful, they decided the final issue of their war against the Samnites. VENUSIA was another great creation of the Romans; it is uncertain whether it belonged to Apulia or Lucania, but it was situated at the foot of mount Vultur, which is probably the Oscan word for mountain in general. It was likewise a Romano-Latin colony, founded after the third Samnite war by the Romans, who were then on friendly terms with the Lucanians and ruled over Apulia. By this colony they prepared their future undertaking against Tarentum, as by it they completely cut off the communication between the Samnites and that city. In a fragment of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in the Excerpta of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the Romans are said to have sent 20,000 colonists to Venusia, that is 20,000 families, or at least 20,000 men capable of bearing arms: this number is incredible, there must be a mistake here. By admitting the neighbouring Oscan and Lucanian people, Venusia must, in the course of time, have become much estranged from Home, for, during the Social War, it was the only colony which, according to a statement in Appian, rose against Rome. From the expressions of Horace it may be inferred, that afterwards it became one of the military colonies of Caesar.[54] The town will ever be memorable as the birth-place of Horace.