Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
This treatise was written a short time before the events which gave rise to the first Philippic. Cicero obtained an honorary lieutenancy, with the intention of visiting his son at Athens; on his way towards Rhegium he spent an evening at Velia with Trebatius, where he began this treatise, which he finished at sea, before he arrived in Greece.
With regard to Capua, Hannibal did not evince such obstinate perseverance in raising the siege of it as the Romans did in pressing it; for quitting Lucania, he came into the Bruttian territory, and marched to the strait and Rhegium with such rapidity, that he was very near taking the place by surprise, in consequence of the suddenness of his arrival.
With the exception of Rhegium, which pined under the oppression of the Campanian mutineers, the whole of the Greek cities joined the king, and Locri even voluntarily delivered up to him the Roman garrison; in his case they were persuaded, and with reason, that they would not be abandoned to the Italians.
It was these Campanian equites, whose refusal to take part in the great Latino-Campanian insurrection of 414 mainly contributed to its failure, and whose brave swords decided the day in favour of the Romans at Sentinum in 459; whereas the Campanian infantry at Rhegium was the first body of troops that in the war with Pyrrhus revolted from Rome.
In vain Hannibal had tried to counteract the impression of this news on his allies by the capture of Rhegium or of the citadel of Tarentum. His forced march to surprise Rhegium had yielded no result.
The troops at Rhegium were a body of eight thousand men, mostly deserters: and the most worthless of those disgraced soldiers whom Marcellus brought from Sicily, so that their loss would not cause any sorrow or harm to Rome; while he hoped that by throwing them out as a bait to Hannibal he might draw him away from Tarentum, as indeed he did.
In the meantime came in from all quarters to the Syracusans, as well as from their own officers sent to reconnoitre, the positive tidings that the fleet was at Rhegium; upon which they laid aside their incredulity and threw themselves heart and soul into the work of preparation.
It first had the name of Zancle given it by the Sicels, because the place is shaped like a sickle, which the Sicels call zanclon; but upon the original settlers being afterwards expelled by some Samians and other Ionians who landed in Sicily flying from the Medes, and the Samians in their turn not long afterwards by Anaxilas, tyrant of Rhegium, the town was by him colonized with a mixed population, and its name changed to Messina, after his old country.
At last the signal smokes again ascended, and Beric, taking Aemilia with him, made his way to the farmhouse, where he learned that Nepo had been there with a message that he desired to see Beric in Rhegium. This was sufficient to show that Muro's mission had been to some extent successful, and after resting for an hour or two at the farmhouse they descended the hill.
Even the threefold body of the giant which ran together in the region of the stomach, felt the might of the deadly arrows and was forced to yield. With glorious adventures Hercules continued his way home, driving the cattle across country through Iberia and Italy. At Rhegium in lower Italy one of his oxen got away and swam across the strait to Sicily.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking