ancient pre-Roman people of the southeastern part of the Italian peninsula (Calabria and Apulia) who, with the closely related Iapyges, probably penetrated Italy from the other side of the Adriatic Sea about 1000 BC. They spoke an Indo-European language, Messapic. They frequently fought the Greeks of the nearby Spartan colony of Tarentum (modern Taranto), but they supported Tarentum and Pyrrhus of Epirus in their wars against Rome (280–275 BC). In 266 the Messapii were conquered by Rome, and they rarely appeared in history after that.