Note 743 — Chapter XXII · WESTERN COLONIES OF GREECE — IN EPIRUS, ITALY, SICILY, AND GAUL.

Skylax does not mention at all the name of Italy; he gives to the whole coast, from Rhegium to Poseidonia on the Mediterranean, and from the same point to the limit between Thurii and Herakleia on the gulf of Tarentum, the name of Lucania (c. 12-13). From this point he extends Iapygia to the Mount Drion, or Garganus, so that he includes not only Metapontium, but also Herakleia in Iapygia.

Antiochus draws the line between Italy and Iapygia at the extremity of the Metapontine territory; comprehending Metapontium in Italy, and Tarentum in Iapygia (Antiochus, Frag. 6, ed. Didot; ap. Strabo, vi, p. 254).

Herodotus, however, speaks not only of Metapontium but also of Tarentum, as being in Italy (i, 24; iii, 136; iv, 15).

I notice this discrepancy of geographical speech, between the two contemporaries Herodotus and Antiochus, the more especially, because Niebuhr has fallen into a mistake by exclusively following Antiochus, and by saying that no writer, even of the days of Plato, would have spoken of Tarentum as being in Italy, or of the Tarentines 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 Thucydidês,—for the passage of the latter, which Niebuhr produces, does not sustain his inference. (Niebuhr, Römische Geschichte, vol. i. pp. 16-18, 2d edit.)