AA
AA Inter harbour.
B. Outer harbour.
C. Spot where Caesar tried to block up the entrance of the inner harbour.
D. Modern city of
Brindisi.
E. Islands of
St. Andrea, the ancient Barra.
The modern city of
Brindisi is a poor and declining place, though retaining about 6000 inhabitants: it possesses very few vestiges of antiquity, except two lofty columns of
cipolline marble, one of which is still erect, and which appears to have been designed in ancient times to bear lights, and serve as beacons or lighthouses to guide ships into the inner harbour. Numerous fragments of an architectural kind also remain, and many inscriptions, but for the most part of little interest. They are collected by Mommsen (
Regni Neapolitani Inscript. Latinae, pp. 27--30). Many other remains of its ancient splendour are said to have been destroyed in the 16th century, when the modern castle was constructed by Charles V.
The territory of
Brindisi is still fertile, especially in olives; in ancient times also it was noted for its abundance of oil and wine, though the latter was of inferior quality. Strabo speaks of its territory as superior in fertility to that of Tarentum; but we learn from Caesar that it was in ancient, as well as modern times, an unhealthy neighbourhood, and his troops that were quartered there in the autumn of B.C. 49 suffered severely in consequence. (
Strab. vi. p.282; Caes.
B.C. 3.2; Varr.
R. R. 1.8.2; Swinburne,
l.c.; Giustiniani,
Diz. Geogr. vol. ii. pp. 360--380.)
The coins of Brundusium all belong to the period of the Latin colony.
Those with Greek legends cited by some early numismatists are false.
 |
| COIN OF BRUNDUSIUM. |
[
E.H.B]
[p. 1.447] 
