Iapygia comprehended the South-east of Italy; according to the more ancient writers, from Metapontum, or, including that city, from the Siris, to mount Garganus, or, as the Greeks call it, mount Drion; where it is probable that, in their early geography, Ombrica immediately began. Even Polybius in his time, when enumerating the Italian forces, includes the Iapygians and Messapians under one head. It does not indeed anywhere appear that the Romans gave such an extent to Apulia: yet it certainly seems clear that Iapyx and Apulus are the same name.

In this large country the Greeks distinguished three tribes, the Messapians, Peucetians, and Daunians: the first on the peninsula to the east of Tarentum; the Peucetians to the north of them along the coast from Brundusium to Barium; hence as far as mount Garganus the Daunians. The first about the beginning of the fourth century were enemies of the Tarentines, the two latter tribes their allies. The Messapians however are divided, at least by Strabo, into two tribes, the Sallentines and the Calabrians; the former in Leuternia, on the eastern coast of the Tarentine gulph; the Calabrians from the Iapygian promontory northward, on the Adriatic.