The Messapians & Sallentini in 218 B.C.

The Messapians & Sallentini — Roman Republic › Socii (Italic Allies).

The Salentine peninsula — the heel of Italy — was held by the Messapians and Sallentini, peoples of Iapygian stock who were neither Italic nor Greek but an ancient nation of their own, speaking a tongue brought from across the Adriatic. Walled towns like Uria, Rudiae and Hydruntum dotted their flat, fertile country. Subdued by Rome in the 260s and bound as allies, the heel guarded the shortest crossing to Greece — the strategic gateway by which Roman power reached east across the sea.