The Zeus of Ugento, made by Greek artisans in a center of Hellenic culture, reproduces the iconography of the supreme divinity of the Greeks but was intended for an indigenous sanctuary. This is not surprising, since the Messapi of present-day Salento, already in the archaic era, worshiped a divinity whose attributes make it the local equivalent of Zeus. It is the Zis Batas or Batias whose name, starting from the sixth century BC, is graffitied on the walls of the Porcinara Cave in the bay of Leuca, an emporium sanctuary frequented by natives and Greeks: a Zeus "Thunderbolt", this is probably the meaning of the epithet Batas, which associates him with Zeus Kataibates to whom the Tarantini, as we learn from the sources, sacrificed to atone for the atrocities committed in the wars against the Messapians, who presided over atmospheric phenomena, dispensing fruitfulness with the rains and protecting the sailors.