Heracleia

Heracleia, an ancient city of Magna Græcia, situated near the river Aciris, about 3 miles from the Gulf of Tarentum. It was founded about 432 B.C., and under the Romans became a prosperous and refined city, though it never acquired any historical prominence. Near it, however, Pyrrhus defeated the Romans in 280 B.C. In the neighbourhood, besides a large number of coins, ranking among the very finest relics of antiquity, there have been discovered (1753) two bronze tablets (Tabulæ Heracleenses), containing a copy of the Lex Julia Municipalis (45 B.C.), and forming one of the principal authorities for a knowledge of the municipal law of ancient Italy. This inscription has been published by Muratori, Savigny, and others. Two other cities of this name deserve mention: (1) HERACLEIA MINOA, between Agrigentum and Selinus, on the south coast of Sicily, originally a Phœnician town; and (2) HERACLEIA PONTICA, on the coast of the Black Sea in Bithynia, destroyed by Cotta in the Mithridatic war.