Greek Texts & Translations

the whole region beyond the Calabri, Apulia. Some of these people are called Poedicli, ^note especially the Peucetii. Messapia forms a peninsula; the isthmus extending from Brentesium ^note to Tarentum, which bounds it, being 310 stadia, and the circumnavigation round the Iapygian promontory ^note about [one thousand] ^note four hundred. [Tarentum ^note] is distant from Metapontium ^note about two hundred and twenty ^note] stadia. The course to it by sea runs in an easterly direction. The Gulf of Tarentum is for the most part destitute of a port, but here there is a spacious and commodious [harbour ^note], closed in by a great bridge. It is 100 stadia ^note in circuit. This port, at the head of its basin which recedes most inland, forms, with the exterior sea, an isthmus which connects the peninsula with the land. The city is situated upon this peninsula. The neck of land is so low that ships are easily hauled over it from either side. The site of the city likewise is extremely low; the ground, however, rises slightly towards the citadel. The old wall of the city has an immense circuit, but now the portion towards the isthmus is deserted, but that standing near the mouth of the harbour, where the citadel is situated, still subsists, and contains a considerable city. It possesses a noble gymnasium and a spacious forum, in which there is set up a brazen colossus of Jupiter, the largest that ever was, with the exception of that of Rhodes. The citadel is situated between the forum and the entrance of the harbour, it still preserves some slight relics of its ancient magnificence