Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Ionium Maré

（Ἰόνιος πόντος). The sea between Italy and Greece south of the Adriatic, beginning on the west at Hydruntum in Calabria, and on the east at Oricus in Epirus, or at the Ceraunian Mountains. In more ancient times the Adriatic was called the Ionian Gulf; while at a later time the Ionium Maré itself was included in the Adriatic. In its widest signification the Ionium Maré included the Maré Siculum, Creticum, and Icarium. Its name was usually derived by the ancients from the wanderings of Io, but it was more probably so called from the Ionian colonies which settled in Cephallenia and the other islands off the western coasts of Greece.