or HYDRES, now OTRANTO, in Ancient Geography, a sea-coast town of Calabria, at the mouth of the Adriatic, and the most easterly point of the heel of Italy. Of its early history little is known; but it seems to have been either a Greek city, or to have been at one time inhabited chiefly by Greeks. Till the rise of Brundusium, it was a place of considerable importance. The great Roman highway, the Via Appia, terminated there, pouring into the town all the traffic between Rome and Greece, to which it was the nearest Italian port. Passengers, however, afterwards came to prefer the Brundusian route as safer, though somewhat longer. In the time of Strabo, Hydruntum had dwindled down into an insignificant spot; but in the fourth century it once more became the favourite route to Greece, retaining its importance till the final overthrow of the Western Empire. The modern Otranto, though the see of a bishop, is a small decayed town, and seems never to have recovered from its siege and capture by the Turks in 1480. The antique remains recovered from its ruins are too trifling to require special notice. Under the French empire it gave the title of duke to Fouché, Napoleon's famous minister of police. Its present population is rather above 5000.