Road station
Urbius
Oria
Listen to the story
Vrbius is a garbled Uria, now Oria, a Messapian hill town between Tarentum and Brundisium, whose citadel crowned the highest of its hills. The Greek geographer Strabo calls it the ancient capital of the Iapygians, founded by Cretans who had come with King Minos, and the Greek historian Herodotus seems to know it as Hyria. Its own coins name it Orra, and remains of settlements going back to the eighth century BC have been found.