Geography

​But we shall speak in common of what we have received, making no distinction because of this concerning those who inhabit the interior, both the Lucanians and the Samnites adjacent to them. Petelia, then, is considered the metropolis of the Lucanians and is adequately inhabited up to now. It is a foundation of Philoctetes, who fled Meliboea on account of a faction. And it is strong, so that even the Samnites once fortified it against the Thurians. Old Crimissa, in the same region, also belongs to Philoctetes. And Apollodorus, in his ‘On the Ships’, having mentioned Philoctetes, says that some tell how, having arrived in the Crotoniatis, he founded the promontory Crimissa, and Chone, a city above it, from which the Chones in this region were named, and that some sent by him to Sicily, around Eryx, fortified Aegesta along with Aegestus the Trojan. Both Grumentum and Vertinae are in the interior, as well as Calasarna and other small settlements up to Venusia, a noteworthy city; and I think that this and the subsequent Samnite cities for one going towards Campania belong to the Samnites. Above Thurii is also situated the so-called Tauriana territory. The Lucanians are Samnites by race, and having conquered the Poseidoniatae and their allies in war, they occupied their cities. In other times they had a democracy, but in times of war a king was chosen from those holding offices; but now they are Romans.

​The next coast is held by the Bruttians as far as the Sicilian strait for one thousand three hundred and fifty stadia. Antiochus, in his treatise ‘On Italy’, says that this was called Italy and that he writes concerning this, though it was previously called Oenotria. And he declares its boundary on the Tyrrhenian Sea to be the same as that which we said of the Bruttian land, the river Laüs, and on the Sicilian Sea, Metapontum. But the Tarentine territory, which is continuous with Metapontum, he names outside of Italy, calling the inhabitants Iapyges. And still earlier, he said that only those within the isthmus who slope towards the Sicilian strait were called Oenotrians and Italians. This isthmus itself is one hundred and sixty stadia between two gulfs, the Hipponiates, which Antiochus called Napetinus, and the Scylleticus. And the voyage around the enclosed land inside towards the strait is two thousand stadia. After this, he says that the name of Italy and that of the Oenotrians was extended up to the Metapontine and the Siritis territories; for the Chones, an Oenotrian tribe who were well-ordered, inhabited these regions, and named the land Chone. This writer, then, has spoken rather simply and in an archaic manner, without distinguishing anything concerning the Lucanians and the Bruttians. But Lucania is between the Tyrrhenian and the Sicilian coasts, the former from the Silaris to the Laüs, the latter from Metapontum to Thurii; and in the interior, from the Samnites to the isthmus from Thurii to Cerilli near Laüs; and this isthmus is three hundred stadia. Above these are the Bruttians, who inhabit a peninsula; and in this is enclosed another peninsula which has the isthmus from Scylletium to the Hipponiates gulf. The tribe was named by the Lucanians; for they call revolters “brettioi”; and they revolted, as they say, having previously acted as shepherds for them, and then, having asserted their freedom because of laxity, when Dion made war on Dionysius and threw everyone into confusion against everyone. These are the general things we have to say concerning the Lucanians and the Bruttians.