WAR WITH RHEGIUM. 475 But subsequent painful experience had taught them, tl/at to res idents in or near Sicily, Syracuse was the more formidable enemy of the two. The ruin of Naxus and Katana, with the great ex tension of Syracusan dominion northward, had filled them with apprehension from Dionysius, similar to the fears of Carthage, inspired to the Syracusans themselves by the disasters of Agri- gentum and Gela. Anxious to revenge their enslaved kinsmen, the Rhegines projected an attack upon Dionysius before his power should become yet more formidable ; a resolution, in which they were greatly confirmed by the instigations of the Syracu- san exiles (now driven from JEtna and the other neighboring cit- ies to Rhegium), confident in their assurances that insurrection would break out against Dionysius at Syracuse, so soon as any foreign succor should be announced as approaching. Envoys were sent across the strait to Messene, soliciting cooperation against Dionysius, upon the urgent plea that the ruin of Naxus and Katana could not be passed over, either in generosity or in prudence, by neighbors on either side of the strait. These rep- resentations made so much impression on the generals of Messene, that without consulting the public assembly, they forthwith sum- moned the military force of the city, and marched along with the Rhegines towards the Syracusan frontier, six thousand Rhe- gine and four thousand Messenian hoplites, six hundred Rhe- gine and four hundred Messenian horsemen, with fifty Rhegine triremes. But when they reached the frontiers of the Messenian territory, a large portion of the soldiers refused to follow their generals farther. A citizen named Laomedon headed the oppo- sition, contending that the generals had no authority to declare war without a public vote of the city, and that it was imprudent to attack Dionysius unprovoked. Such was the effect of these remonstrances, that the Messenian soldiers returned back to their city ; while the Rhegines, believing themselves to be inadequate to the enterprise single handed, went home also. 1 Apprised of the attack meditated, Dionysius had already led his troops to defend the Syracusan frontier. But he now recon- ducted them back to Syracuse, and listened favorably to proposi tions for peace which speedily reached him, from Rhegium and 1 Diodor. xiv, 40.
