IAPYG1ANS AND TAREXTINS. 391 tines are spoken of as emigrants from Krete, akin to the Minoian cr primitive Kretans ; and we find a national genealogy which recognizes lapyx son of Da'daius, an emigrant from Sicily. But the story told to Herodotus was, that the Kretan soldiers who had accompanied Minos in his expedition to recover Daedalus from Kamikus in Sicily, were on their return home cast away on the shores of lapygia, and became the founders of Hyria and other Messapian towns in the interior of the country. 1 Brundusium also, or Brentesion, as the Greeks called it,- inconsiderable in the days of Herodotus, but famous in the Roman times afterwards, ss the most frequented seaport for voyaging to Epirus, was a
- Iessapian town. The native language spoken by the lapygiau
Messapians was a variety of th^ Oscan : the Latin poet Ennius, a native of Rudire in the lapygian peninsula, spoke Greek, Latin, and Oscan, and even deduced his pedigree from the ancient national prince or hero Mossapus. 3 AVe are told that during the lifetime of Phalanthus, the Taren- tine settlers gained victories over the Mcssapians and Peuketians, which they commemorated afterwards by votive offerings at Del- phi, and that they even made acquisitions at the expense of the inhabitants of Brundusium,' 1 a statement difficult to believe, if we look to the distance of the latter place, and to the circum- stance that Herodotus, even in his time, names it only as a harbor. Phalanthus too, driven into exile, is said to have found a hospit- able reception at Brundusium, and to have died there. Of the history of Tarentum, however, during the first two hundred and temporaries Herodotus and Antiochus, the more especially, because Nlebuhr has fallen into a mistake by exclusively following Antiochus, and by saying that no icriter, even of the days of Plato, would have spoken of Tarentum as being in Italy, or of the Tarentincs as Italiots. This is perfectly true respecting Antiochus, but is certainly not true with respect to Herodotus ; nor can it be shown to be true with respect to Thucydides, for the passage of the latter, which Niebuhr produces, does not sustain his inference. (Niebuhr, Romische Gcschichte, vol. i. pp. 16-18, 2d edit.) ' Herodot. vii. 170; Pliny, H. N. iii, 16 : Athense. xii, p. 523; Servius ad Virgil. jEneid. viii, 9.
- Herodot. iv, 99.
- Servius ad Virgil. JEncid. vii, 691. Polybius distinguishes lapygiani
fitim Messapians (ii, 24). 4 Fausanias. x, 10, 3 ; x, 13, 5 ; Strabo, vi, p 282 : Justin, iii, 4.
