The Apulians & Daunians in 218 B.C.

The Apulians & Daunians — Roman Republic › Socii (Italic Allies).

The Apulians of the southeast — the Daunians of the northern plain, the Peucetii of the centre, and the Messapian peoples beyond — held the broad, level grain country between the Apennines and the Adriatic, famous for its horses and its harvests. Arpi (Argyripa), the greatest Daunian city, traced its founding to the hero Diomedes; alongside Canusium and the coastal ports it bound the region to Rome by treaty. In 218 the Apulian roads will soon carry Roman armies south; the plain of the river Aufidus, by the little town of Cannae, lies just ahead as the ground of the war’s greatest catastrophe.