Anaxilas or Anaxilaus (Gr. Ἀναξίλας or Ἀναξίλαος), son of Cretines, was a tyrant of Rhegium (modern Reggio Calabria), and of Messenian origin. [1] He was master of Rhegium in 494 BC, when he instigated the Samians and other Ionian fugitives to seize Zancle, a city across the strait in Sicily that was then under the rule of the tyrant Scythes.[2] Shortly after the Samian takeover, Anaxilas besieged the city himself, drove the Samians out, peopled it with fresh inhabitants, and changed its name to Messina, after his native Messene.[3][4]
Pausanias tells a somewhat different story of this Anaxilas, that, after the second war with the Spartans, he assisted the refugees from Messana in the Peloponnese to take Zancle in Sicily.[5]
Anaxilas married Cydippe, daughter of Terillus, tyrant of Himera.[2] In 480 BC he obtained the assistance of the Carthaginians for his father-in-law, who had been expelled from his city by Theron, tyrant of Agrigentum.[6] It was this auxiliary army that Gelo defeated at Himera. Anaxilas wanted to destroy the Locrians, but was prevented by Hiero I of Syracuse, as related by Epicharmus.[2]
The daughter of Anaxilas was married to Hiero.[7] Anaxilaus died in 476 BC, leaving Micythus guardian of his children, who obtained possession of their inheritance in 467, but was soon afterwards deprived of the sovereignty by the people.[8]
References
- ^ Smith, William (1867), "Anaxilaus (4)", in Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1, Boston, pp. 164, http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0173.html
- ^ a b c Larcher, Pierre Henri (1844). Larcher's Notes on Herodotus: Historical and Critical Comments on the History of Herodotus. London: Whittaker & Co.. pp. 315–323. http://books.google.com/books?id=8gIubwJJAC4C&pg=PA316.
- ^ Herodotus, vi. 22, 23
- ^ Thucydides, vi. 4; compare Aristotle, Politics v. 10. § 4
- ^ Bentley, Richard; Alexander Dyce (ed.) (1836). The Works of Richard Bentley. London: Francis MacPherson. pp. 205–223. http://books.google.com/books?id=DAoPAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA208.
- ^ Herodotus, vii. 165
- ^ Scholiast, ad Pind. Pyth. i. 112
- ^ Diodorus Siculus, xi. 48, 66, 76
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).
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