Geography

​Rhegium is a foundation of the Chalcidians, who, they say, having been dedicated as a tithe to Apollo according to an oracle because of a dearth, later emigrated here from Delphi, taking along others from their home. But as Antiochus says, the Zancleans sent for the Chalcidians and appointed Antimnestus as their founder. And the colony also included those of the Messenian exiles who had been overpowered in factional strife in the Peloponnese by those who were unwilling to pay the penalty for the violation of the maidens, which had occurred at Limnae to the Lacedaemonians, and they had violated these very maidens when they were sent to the sacred rites, and had killed those who came to their aid. The exiles, therefore, having withdrawn to Macistus, sent to the oracle of the god, complaining to Apollo and Artemis that they should meet with such a fate in return for avenging them, and asking how they might be saved, since they were ruined. And Apollo ordered them to set out with the Chalcidians to Rhegium and to be grateful to his sister; for they had not perished but were saved, since they were not going to perish along with their fatherland, which was to be captured a little later by the Spartans; and they obeyed. For this reason, the rulers of Rhegium were always appointed from the Messenian race down to Anaxilas. But Antiochus says that in ancient times Sicels and Morgetes inhabited this entire region, and having been expelled later by the Oenotrians, crossed over into Sicily. And some say that Morgantium also got its name from the Morgetes from this circumstance. The city of Rhegium grew extremely powerful and had many surrounding towns; and it was always a bulwark against the island, both in ancient times and recently in our own day, when Sextus Pompeius caused Sicily to revolt. And it was named Rhegium either, as Aeschylus says, because of the disaster that befell this country; for both others and he have said that Sicily was broken off from the continent by earthquakes, “whence indeed it is called Rhegium.” And they infer from the occurrences around Aetna, in other parts of Sicily, in Lipara and the islands around it, and also in Pithecussae and the entire adjacent coast opposite, that it is not improbable that this also happened. Now, indeed, because the orifices are open through which the fire is blown up and red-hot masses and waters are cast out, they say that the land about the strait is rarely shaken; but in those days, when all the passages to the surface were blocked, the fire and the wind smouldering under the earth produced violent earthquakes, and the regions, pried up by the violence of the winds, at length gave way, and being broken open, admitted the sea from both sides, both this sea and that between the other islands in this quarter. For Prochyte and Pithecussae are also fragments torn from the mainland, as are Capriae, Leucosia, the Sirens, and the Oenotrides. While some islands have actually risen from the deep sea, as even now happens in many places; for it is plausible that the open-sea islands were rather brought up from the bottom, but more reasonable to suppose that those lying off promontories and separated by a strait were broken off from there. However, whether the city got its name because of this, or because the Samnites, on account of their leaders having shared citizenship with the Romans and having for a long time used the Latin tongue, called it “regium” in the Latin speech because of the prominence of the city as though it were a royal palace, one may consider which of the two is the truth. At any rate, although it was a famous city, and had founded many cities, and had produced many noteworthy men, some for political virtue and others for learning, Dionysius razed it to the ground, bringing the accusation that when he had asked for a maiden in marriage, they had offered him the daughter of the executioner; but his son restored a part of the settlement and called it Phoebia. And in the time of Pyrrhus, the garrison of the Campanians broke their treaty and destroyed most of the inhabitants; and a little before the Marsic war, earthquakes also demolished much of the settlement. But Augustus Caesar, having expelled Pompeius from Sicily, seeing that the city was lacking in population, gave it some of the men from his fleet as co-settlers, and now it is sufficiently populous.