Ionian Sea, part of the Mediterranean Sea, S Europe, between Greece and S Italy. It is connected with the Adriatic Sea by the Strait of Otranto. The Gulf of Taranto and the Gulf of Corinth are...

Heraclea, ancient Greek city, in Lucania, S Italy, not far from the Gulf of Tarentum (Taranto). There Pyrrhus defeated the Romans in 280 B.C. Bronze tablets giving Roman municipal laws were fo...

Lucania, ancient region of S Italy. It was bounded on the east by the Gulf of Tarentum (now Taranto) and by Apulia, on the north by Samnium and Campania, on the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea, and...

Metapontum, ancient city of Magna Graecia, on the Gulf of Taranto, SE Italy. Settled by Greeks, c.7th cent. B.C., it flourished and gave refuge to Pythagoreans expelled from Crotona. Pythagora...

Tarantella, Neapolitan folk dance that first appeared in Taranto, Italy, in the 17th cent. It had rapid 6–8 meter with an increasing tempo and was thought to cure the bite of the tarantula, wh...

Sybaris, ancient city of Magna Graecia, S Italy, in Bruttium, on the Gulf of Tarentum (now Taranto). It was founded in 720 B.C. by Achaeans and people from Argolis, the Troezenians. It became ...

Thurii, ancient city of Magna Graecia, S Italy, in Bruttium, on the Gulf of Tarentum (now Taranto). It was founded by Pericles in 443 B.C. to replace ruined Sybaris. New Greek colonists came, ...

Livius Andronicus, fl. 3d cent. B.C., Roman poet, a Greek, b. Tarentum (Taranto). He was captured and made a slave at the fall of Tarentum and was freed by his master, a Livian noble, hence hi...

Apulia, Ital. Puglia, region (1991 pop. 4,031,885), 7,469 sq mi (19,345 sq km), S Italy, bordering on the Adriatic Sea in the east and the Strait of Otranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. I...

Appian Way, Lat. Via Appia, most famous of the Roman roads, built (312 B.C.) under Appius Claudius Caecus. It connected Rome with Capua and was later extended to Beneventum (now Benevento), Ta...