Adjoining to this district is the second region of Italy, which embraces the Hirpini, Calabria, Apulia, and the Salentini, extending a distance of 250 miles along the Gulf of Tarentum, which receives its name from a town of the Laconians so called, situate at the bottom of the Gulf, to which was annexed the maritime colony which had previously settled there. Tarentum[1661] is distant from the promontory of Lacinium 136 miles, and throws out the territory of Calabria opposite to it in the form of a peninsula. The Greeks called this territory Messapia, from their leader[1662]; before which it was called Peucetia, from Peucetius[1663], the brother of Œnotrius, and was comprised in the territory of Salentinum. Between the two promontories[1664] there is a distance of 100 miles. The breadth across the peninsula from Tarentum[1665] to Brundusium by land is 35 miles, considerably less if measured from the port of Sasina[1666]. The towns inland from Tarentum are Varia[1667] surnamed Apulia, Messapia, and Aletium[1668]; on the coast, Senum, and Callipolis[1669], now known as Anxa, 75 miles from Tarentum. Thence, at a distance of 32 miles, is the Promontory of Acra Iapygia[1670], at which point Italy projects the greatest distance into the sea. At a distance of 19 miles from this point is the town of Basta[1671], and then Hydruntum[1672], the spot at which the Ionian is separated from the Adriatic sea, and from which the distance across to Greece is the shortest. The town of the Apolloniates[1673] lies opposite to it, and the breadth of the arm of the sea which runs between is not more than fifty miles. Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, was the first who entertained the notion of uniting these two points and making a passage on foot, by throwing a bridge across, and after him M. Varro[1674], when commanding the fleet of Pompey in the war against the Pirates. Other cares however prevented either of them from accomplishing this design. Passing Hydruntum, we come to the deserted site of Soletum[1675], then Fratuertium, the Portus Tarentinus, the haven of Miltopa, Lupia[1676], Balesium[1677], Cælia[1678], and then Brundusium[1679], fifty miles from Hydruntum. This last place is one of the most famous ports of Italy, and, although more distant, affords by far the safest passage across to Greece, the place of disembarkation being Dyrrachium, a city of Illyria; the distance across is 225 miles. Adjoining Brundusium is the territory of the Pediculi[1680]; nine youths and as many maidens, natives of Illyria, became the parents of sixteen nations. The towns of the Pediculi are Rudiæ[1681], Egnatia[1682], and Barium[1683]; their rivers are the Iapyx (so called from the son of Dædalus, who was king there, and who gave it the name of Iapygia), the Pactius[1684], and the Aufidus, which rises in the Hirpinian mountains and flows past Canusium[1685].