page_title: Iapygians
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Iapygians / Culture / Religion
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Stèle anthropomorphe en calcaire à décor gravé. Civilisation daunienne (610-550). Musée de Mariemont.
context_page_description: The Iapygians or Apulians were an Indo-European people, dwelling in an eponymous region of the southeastern Italian Peninsula named Iapygia between the beginning of the first millennium BC and the first century BC. They were divided in three tribes: the Daunians, Peucetians and Messapians. After their lands were gradually colonized by the Romans from the late 4th century onward and eventually annexed to the Roman Republic by the early 1st century BC, Iapygians were fully Latinized and assimilated into Roman culture.
context_section_description: The late pre-Roman religion of Iapygians appears as a substrate of indigenous beliefs mixed with Greek elements. The Roman conquest probably accelerated the hellenisation of a region already influenced by contacts with Magna Grecia from the 8th century BC onward. Aphrodite and Athena were thus worshipped in Iapygia as 'Aprodita' and 'Athana', respectively. Some deities of native origin have also been highlighted by scholars, such as Zis ('sky-god'), Menzanas ('lord of horses'), Venas ('desire'), Taotor ('the people, community'), and perhaps Damatura ('mother-earth').
  Pre-Roman religious cults have also left few material traces. Preserved evidence indicate that indigenous Iapygian beliefs featured the sacrifices of living horses to the god Menzanas, the fulfilling of oracles for anyone who slept wrapped in the skin of a sacrificed ewe, and the curative powers of the waters at the herõon of the god Podalirius, preserved in Greek tales. Several cave sanctuaries have been identified on the coast, most notably the Grotta Porcinara sanctuary (Santa Maria di Leuca), in which both Messapian and Greek marines used to write their vows on the walls.
  It is likely that Peucetians had no civic cult requiring public buildings, and if urban sanctuaries have been identified in Daunia (at Teanum Apulum, Lavello, or Canosa), no conspicuous buildings are found before the Romanization period.
caption: Anthopomorphic stelae from Daunia (610–550 BC).
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