Ancient times Several traditions concern its founders; one claims it was founded by the legendary hero
Diomedes. The geographer
Strabo says that it was colonized from
Knossos in
Crete. Brindisi was originally a
Messapian settlement predating the
Roman expansion. The Latin name , through the Greek , is a corruption of the Messapian meaning "deer's head" and probably referring to the shape of the natural harbour. According to other sources, in 267 BC (245 BC), it was conquered by the Romans and became a Latin colony. The peninsula of the Punta lands, which is located in the outer harbor, has been identified as a
Bronze Age village (16th century BC) where a group of huts, protected by a barrier of stones, yielded fragments of
Mycenaean pottery.
Herodotus spoke of the Mycenaean origin of these populations. The
necropolis of Tor Pisana (south of the old town of Brindisi) returned
Corinthian jars in the first half of the 7th century BC. The Brindisi
Messapia certainly entertained strong business relationships with the opposite side of the Adriatic and the Greek populations of the
Aegean Sea. After the
Punic Wars, it became a major center of Roman naval power and maritime trade. In the
Social War, it received Roman citizenship and was made a free port by
Sulla. It suffered, however, from a siege conducted by
Caesar in 49 BC, part of
Caesar's Civil War (
Bell. Civ. i.) and was again attacked in 42 and 40 BC, with the latter giving rise to the
Treaty of Brundisium between
Octavian,
Mark Antony and
Lepidus in the autumn of the same year. The poet
Pacuvius was born here about 220 BC, and here the famous poet
Virgil died in 19 BC. Under the Romans, Brundisium – a large city in its day with some 100,000 inhabitants – was an active port, the chief point of embarkation for
Greece and the East, via
Dyrrachium or
Corcyra. It was connected with Rome by the
Via Appia and the
Via Traiana. The termination of the Via Appia, at the water's edge, was formerly flanked by two fine pillars. Only one remains, the second being misappropriated and removed to the neighbouring town of
Lecce.
Middle Ages and modern times Later, Brindisi was conquered by the
Ostrogoths and reconquered by the
Byzantine Empire in the 6th century AD. In 674, it was destroyed by the
Lombards led by
Romuald I of Benevento, but such a fine natural harbor meant that the city was soon rebuilt. In the 9th century, a Saracen settlement existed in the city's neighborhood, stormed in 836 by pirates. In 1070, it was conquered by the Normans and became part of the
Principality of Taranto and the
Duchy of Apulia, and was the first rule of the Counts of
Conversano. After the baronial revolt of 1132, owned by the will of
Roger II of Sicily, the city recovered some of the splendor of the past during the period of the
Crusades, when it regained the
Episcopal See, saw the construction of
the new cathedral and a castle with an essential new arsenal, and became a privileged port for the
Holy Land. In 1156, a siege of Brindisi by the
Byzantine Empire ended in
a battle in which the besiegers were decisively defeated by the Sicilian Normans, ending the Byzantines' hopes of conquering Southern Italy. It was in the cathedral of Brindisi that the wedding of King
Roger III of Sicily took place.
Emperor Frederick II married Queen
Isabella II of Jerusalem on 9 November 1225 here and started from the port of Brindisi in 1227 for the
Sixth Crusade. Frederick II erected a castle, with massive round towers, to guard the inner harbour; it later became a convict prison. Like other Pugliese ports, Brindisi, for a short while, was ruled by
Venice, but was soon reconquered by Spain. A plague devastated Brindisi in 1348; it was plundered in 1352 and 1383; and an earthquake struck the city in
1456. On 19 May 2012, a bomb made of three gas cylinders,
detonated in front of a vocational school in Brindisi, killing a 16-year-old female student. ==Geography==