RHU´DIAE
RHU´DIAE or
RU´DIAE (
Ῥουδία, Ptol.;
Ῥωδίαι, 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. 3.1.76.) Strabo calls it a
Greek city (
πόλις Ἑλληνίς); 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. 2.4.7;
Sil. Ital. 12.393;
Cic. de Or. 3.4. 2) That author is repeatedly termed
a Calabrian (Her.
Carm. 4.8; Ovid.
A. A. 3.409; 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. Nat. 3.11. 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 clearlyascertained 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. [
E.H.B]
