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ROUDIAI (Ancient city) PUGLIA
or Rudiae (Rhoudia, Ptol.; Rhodiai, Strab.: Eth. Rudinus: Rugge),
an ancient city of the Salentines, in the interior of the Roman province of Calabria,
and in the immediate vicinity of Lupiae (Lecce). (Strab. vi. p. 281; Ptol. iii.
1. § 76.) Strabo calls it a Greek city (polis Hellenis); but we have no other
indication of this fact, and all the other notices we find of it would lead us
to infer that it was a native Salentine or Messapian town. Under the Romans it
appears to have enjoyed municipal rank (an inscription has Municipes Rudini, Orell.
3858); but in other respects it was a place of little importance, and derived
its sole celebrity from the circumstance of its being the birthplace of the poet
Ennius. (Strab. l. c. Mel. ii. 4. § 7; Sil. Ital. xii. 393; Cic. de Or. iii. 4.
2) That author is repeatedly termed a Calabrian (Her. Carm. iv. 8; Ovid. A. A.
iii. 409; Sil. Ital. l. c.; Acron, ad Hor. l. c.), and these passages confirm
the accuracy of Ptolemy, who assigns Rhudiae to the Salentines, and therefore
to the Calabrians according to the Roman use of the name. Pliny and Mela, on the
contrary, enumerate Rudiae among the towns of the Pediculi together with Barium
and Egnatia, and the latter author expressly excludes it from Calabria (Plin.
iii. 11. s. 16; Mel. l. c.). But it seems impossible to reconcile this statement
with that of Strabo, who places it near Lupiae, in the interior of the peninsula,
or with the actual situation of Rudiae, which is clearly ascertained at a place
still called Rugge, though now uninhabited, about a mile from Lecce, where the
inscription above cited was discovered, as well as several others in the Messapian
dialect, and many vases and other objects of antiquity. The identity of this place
with the municipal town of Rudiae can therefore admit of no doubt ; nor is there
any reason to question the fact that this was also the birthplace of Ennius :
but considerable confusion has arisen from the mention in the Tabula of a place
called Rudae, which it places 12 miles W. of Rubi, on the road to Canusium. As
this place would have been within the limits of the Pediculi or Peucetii, it has
been supposed by some writers to be the same with the Rudiae of Pliny and Mela,
and therefore the birthplace of Ennius; but the claims of Rugge to this distinction
appear unquestionable. (Galateo, de Sit. Iapyg. p. 77; Romanelli, vol. ii. pp.
93-102; Mommsen, Unter Ital. Dialekte, p. 58.)
The Rudae or Rudiae of the Tabula, which is otherwise quite unknown,
must have been situated somewhere in the neighbourhood of the modern Andria.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Now Rotigliano or Rugge; a town of the Peucetii in Apulia, on the road from Brundusium to Venusia, was originally a Greek colony, and afterwards a Roman municipium. Rudiae is celebrated as the birthplace of Ennius.
A Messapic city ca. 2 km SW of Lupiae (Lecce), in a low-lying area called La Cupa. Although it is frequently mentioned by ancient writers, who call it the birthplace of the poet Ennius, nothing precise is known of its origins (Cic. Arch. 9.22; Sil.It. 12.397). Strabo (6.281) thought it was founded by the Rhodians, who, together with colonists from Crete, appear to have colonized the Salentine peninsula, according to a tradition handed down by Herodotos (2.222). The archaeological excavations have brought to light towered circuit walls and a ditch about 4 km long. A second, inner circuit wall surrounded a zone where the acropolis is thought to have been. The floruit of the city between the 5th c. and the 3d c. B.C. is corroborated by the rich tomb appointments, often painted and with Messapic inscriptions, which have been discovered in the vast necropolis surrounding the inhabited area. The city was a municipium (CIL IX, 23) in the Roman period and was perhaps enrolled in the tribus Fabia (CIL IX, p. 5). A series of large public buildings, perfectly paved streets, an amphitheater, and Latin inscriptions are among the numerous traces from that period which are visible in the zone of recent excavations and in the Museo Castromediano at Lecce. Numerous objects from the necropolis are also preserved there.
F. G. Lo Porto, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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