Dionysius I of Syracuse
The territory of the Veneti came to the notice of the Greeks in the 4th c. BC. Strabo records that Dionysius I of Syracuse (c. 432 – 367 BC), desiring the famed horses of the Veneti, founded trading colonies along the Adriatic coast. The Sicilian tyrant favored the town of Adria as a trading partner, helping it build canals which linked it to the sea and broke the trading monopoly of Spina.