366 HISTORY OF GREECE. be mentioned, though we cannot assign the exact date of it. The town of Zankle (now Messina), on the strait between Italy and Sicily, was at first occupied by certain privateers or pirates from Cumsc, the situation being eminently convenient for their ope- rations. 35 ut the success of the other Chalkidic settlements im- parted to this nest of pirates a more enlarged and honorable character : a body of new settlers joined them from Chalkis and other towns of Euboea, the land was regularly divided, fJid two joint rekists were provided to qualify the town as a member of the Hellenic communion Perieres from Chalkis, and Kratre- menes from Cumas. The name Zankle had been given by the prim- itive Sikel occupants of the place, meaning in their language a sickle; but it was afterwards changed to Messene by Anaxilas, despot of Rhegium, who, when he conquered the town, intro- duced new inhabitants, in a manner hereafter to be noticed. 1 Besides these emigrations direct from Greece, the Hellenic colonies in Sicily became themselves the founders of sub-colo- nies. Thus the Syracusans, seventy years after their own settle- ment (B. c. 664), founded Akrae Kasmense, twenty years after- wards (B. c. 644), and Kamarina forty-five years after Kasmencc (B. c. 599) : Daskon and Menekolus were the ockists of the lat- ter, which became in process of time an independent and consid- erable town, while Akne and Kasmense seem to have remained subject to Syracuse. Kamarina was on the south-western side of the island, forming the boundary of the Syracusan territory towards Gela. Kallipolis was established from Naxos, and Eu- boea (a town so called) from Leontini. 2 Hitherto, the Greeks had colonized altogether on the territory of the Sikels ; the three towns which remain to be mentioned were all founded in that of the Sikans, 3 Agrigentum or Akra- gas, Selinus. and Himera. The two former were both on the Bouth-western coast, Agrigentum bordering upon Gela on the one side, and upon Selinus on the other. Himera was situated 1 1'hucydid. vi, 4. 2 Strabo, vi, p. 272. 3 Stephanas Byz. "SiKavia, TJ irf>lxupo<: 'AxpayaiTivcjv. Hcrodot. vii, 170; Diodor. iv, 78. Vcssa, the most considerable among the Sikanian townships or villages, fcith its prince Teutus, is said to have been conquered by Phalaris despot of Agrigentum, through a mixture of craft and force (Polyacn. r, 1, 4).
