Strabo, Geography

The intervening space, immediately after Cape Garganum, is taken up by a deep gulf; the people who live around it are called by the special name of Apuli, although they speak the same language as the Daunii and the Peucetii, and do not differ from them in any other respect either, at the present time at least, although it is reasonable to suppose that in early times they differed and that this is the source of the three diverse names for them that are now prevalent. In earlier times this whole country was prosperous, but it was laid waste by Hannibal and the later wars. And here too occurred the battle of Cannae, in which the Romans and their allies suffered a very great loss of life. On the gulf is a lake; and above the lake, in the interior, is Teanum Apulum,¹ which has the same name as Teanum Sidicinum. At this point the breadth of Italy seems to be considerably contracted, since from here to the region of Dicaearcheia² an isthmus is left of less than one thousand stadia from sea to sea. After the lake comes the voyage along the coast to the country of the Frentani and to Buca;³ and the distance from the lake either to Buca or to Cape Garganum is two hundred stadia. As for the places that come next after Buca, I have already mentioned them.⁴