Add to ORKGThe first part of the paper discusses the questions raised by the references, in Herodotus'' work, to the presence, in late-archaic Greek poleis in Taranto Gulf, of two '' royal figures'' : Aristophilidès, the '' basileus of the Tarentines'', and Telys, whom the Historian qualifies once as basileus, and another time as tyran nos of the Sybarites. These figures, and their powers, have to be read in the aristocratie context signalled by their social practices and those of their milieu. Then I question the real existence of a '' national monarchy'' in archaic and classical Messapian world, once suggested by sources which refer to kings and dynasts, such as the '' basileus Iapygon'' Opis or the dynastes Artas. Among them, the anonymous dynastes...