[1673] Anciently Apollonia, in Illyria, now called Pallina or Pollona.
[1674] This was M. Terentius Varro, called “the most learned of the Romans.” His design, here mentioned, seems however to have evinced neither learning nor discretion.
[1675] Now called Soleto. The ruins of the ancient city, described by Galateo as existing at Muro, are not improbably those of Fratuertium, or, perhaps more rightly, Fratuentum.
[1676] The modern Lecce is supposed to occupy its site.
[1677] Called Valetium by Mela. Its ruins are still to be seen near San Pietro Vernotico, on the road from Brindisi to Lecce. The site is still called Baleso or Valesio.
[1678] Ansart takes this to be the modern village of Cavallo, on the promontory of that name; but it is more probably the modern Ceglie, situate on a hill about twelve miles from the Adriatic, and twenty-seven miles west of Brindisi. Extensive ruins still exist there. There was another town of the same name in the south of Apulia.
[1679] Now Brindisi. Virgil died here. The modern city, which is an impoverished place, presents but few vestiges of antiquity. The distance to Dyrrhachium is in reality only about 100 miles.
[1680] They occupied probably a portion of the modern Terra di Bari.
[1681] Said by Hardouin to be the modern Carouigna or Carovigni; but Mannert asserts it to be the same as the modern Ruvo.
[1682] Or Gnatia, called by Strabo and Ptolemy a city of Apulia. It was probably the last town of the Peucetians towards the frontiers of Calabria. Horace, in the account of his journey to Brundusium (I. Sat. i. 97-100), makes it his last halting-place, and ridicules a pretended miracle shown by the inhabitants, who asserted that incense placed on a certain altar was consumed without fire being applied. The same story is referred to by Pliny, B. ii. c. [111], where he incorrectly makes Egnatia a town of the Salentini. Its ruins are visible on the sea-coast, about six miles S.E. of Monopali, and an old town still bears the name of Torre d’Agnazzo.