MESSAPII, the name of an ancient tribe which inhabited, in historical times, the south-eastern peninsula or "heel" of Italy, known variously in ancient times as Calabria, Messapia, and Iapygia. Their chief towns were Uzentum, Rudiae, Brundisium, and Uria. They are mentioned (Herod. vii. 170) as having inflicted a serious defeat on the Greeks of Tarentum in 473 B.C. Herodotus adds a tradition which links them to the Cretan sub jects of "King Minos." Their language is preserved for us in a scanty group of perhaps 5o inscriptions, of which only a few contain more than proper names, and in a few glosses in ancient writers. Very few originals of the inscriptions are still in exist ence, though some few remain in the museum at Taranto.
The inscriptions, so far as it is safe to judge from the copies of the older finds and from facsimiles of the newer, are all in the Tarentine-Ionic alphabet. For limits of date, 400-15o B.C. may be regarded as probable. The genitival character of the endings aihi and ihi and the conjunctional value of inthi have been ascertained. Even now, hardly more than a few words can be said to have been separated and translated with certainty kalatoras (masc. gen. sing.), "of a herald" (written upon a herald's staff which was once in the Naples Museum) ; aran (acc. sing. fem.), "arable land"; mazzes, "greater" (neut. acc. sing.), the first two syllables of the Latin maiestas; while tepise (3rd sing. aorist indic.), "placed" or "offered"; and forms correspond ing to the article (ta- = Greek TO) seem also reasonably prob able.
Some phonetic characteristics of the dialect may be regarded as quite certain: (I) the change of the original short ei to (2) of final -m to -n; (3) of -ni- -ti- -si- respectively to -nn- -10 and -ss-; (4) the loss of final d, and probably of final t; (5) the change of original dh to d (anda=Gr. 'Oa) and bh to b; (6)
-au- before (at least some) consonants becomes -a-. (7) The form penkaheh is probably identical with the Oscan stem pompaio, which is a derivative of the Indo-European numeral *penque The proper names in the inscriptions show the regular Italic system of gentile nomen preceded by a personal praenomen ; and some inscriptions show the interesting feature which appears in the Tables of Heracleia of a crest or coat of arms, such as a triangle or an anchor, peculiar to particular families. The same reappears in the Iovilae (q.v.) of Capua and Cumae.
For a discussion of the important ethnological question of the origin of the Messapians see W. Helbig, Hermes, xi. 257 ; P. Kretschmer, Einleitung in die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache, pp. 262 sqq., 272 sqq.; H. Hirt, Die sprachliche Stellung der Illyrischen (Festschrift fur H. Kiepert, pp. /79-188). Reference should also be made to the discussion of their relation to the Veneti by C. Pauli in Die Venter, p. 413 sqq., especially p. 437 ; and also to R. S. Conway, Italic Dialects, i. 15.