BASTA
(Vaste) Apulia, italy.
This Messapian center was placed by Pliny (
HN 3.100) between Hydruntum (modern Otranto) and the Japigio Promontory (modern Capo di Leuca). Its name is preserved in the
village of Vaste, near Poggiardo, where there remain the
ruins of megalithic city walls. Archaeological documentation of a settlement of the 9th-8th c. B.C. is preserved
in the National Museum at Taranto. The Provincial Museum at Lecce contains much funerary material of the
4th-3d c. B.C. from the necropolis of the city, as well as
interesting Messapian inscriptions of the same age.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
W. Smith,
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, I (1856) 380 (E. H. Bunbury);
RE III.1
(1897) 110 (Hüllsen); M. Mayer,
Apulien (1914) 76;
K. Miller,
Itineraria Romana (1916) 223; M. Bernardini,
Panorama archeologico dell'estremo Salento (1955) 50;
O. Parlangeli,
Studi Messapici (1960) 179.
F. G. LO PORTO
