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Rudiae is presently an archaeological park beside the Via San Pietro in Lama that runs south-west from the city of Lecce. The place was identified as the former home of the poet Ennius by the Renaissance Humanist, Antonio de Ferraris.
The ancient site of the city was first settled from the late ninth or early eighth centuries BCE by the Messapians. In the late sixth century BCE it developed in importance and, even after it had been partially Hellenised during the period of Magna Graecia, it still retained its native traditions. According to Aulus Gellius, the poet Ennius referred to the linguistic and cultural heritage given him by the city in asserting that he had 'three hearts', Greek, Oscan and Latin (Quintus Ennius tria corda habere sese dicebat, quod loqui Graece et Osce et Latine sciret).
Rudiae is identified with the archaeological remains found in the immediate outskirts of Lecce. These comprise traces of an amphitheatre, a necropolis and two city walls built of tuff. In the past the walls were towered and defended by a ditch 4 km long. Judging by the extent of these, its entire area covered some 100 hectares, twice the size of nearby Lupiae (as Lecce was then called) in the Roman period. Later the city lost importance and by the first century CE, according to Silius Italicus, was reduced to a modest village even as its neighbour was growing in size and importance.
From the archaeological standpoint, however, Rudiae seems to have played the role of stylistic and distribution centre for funerary pottery over a considerable period. It is recognised as the most important site for both quantity and quality of such vases used in the Messapian region. Almost all local discoveries are housed in the Sigismondo Castromediano Museum in Lecce.
References:Goryōkaku (五稜郭) (literally, 'five-point fort') is a star fort in the Japanese city of Hakodate on the island of Hokkaido. The fortress was completed in 1866. It was the main fortress of the short-lived Republic of Ezo.
Goryōkaku was designed in 1855 by Takeda Ayasaburō and Jules Brunet. Their plans was based on the work of the French architect Vauban. The fortress was completed in 1866, two years before the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate. It is shaped like a five-pointed star. This allowed for greater numbers of gun emplacements on its walls than a traditional Japanese fortress, and reduced the number of blind spots where a cannon could not fire.
The fort was built by the Tokugawa shogunate to protect the Tsugaru Strait against a possible invasion by the Meiji government.
Goryōkaku is famous as the site of the last battle of the Boshin War.