396 HISTORY OF GREECE. It was about the year after the battle of Issus that the Molos sian Alexander undertook his expedition into Italy ; ' doubtless instigated in part by emulation of the Asiatic glories of his nephew and namesake. Though he found enemies more fonnid- able than the Persians at Issus, yet his success was at first con- siderable. He gained victories over the Messapians, the Luca- nians, and the Samnites ; he conquered the Lucanian town of Consentia, and the Bruttian town of Tereina ; he established an alliance with the Poediculi, and exchanged friendly messages with the Romans. As far as we can make out from scanty data, he seems to have calculated on establishing a comprehensive do- minion in the south of Italy, over all its population — over Greek cities, Lucanians, and Bruttians. He demanded and ob- tained three hundred of the chief Lucanian and Messapian femi- lies, whom he sent over as hostages to Epirus. Several exiles of these nations joined him as partisans. He farther endeavored to transfer the congress of the Greco-Italian cities, which had been usually held at the Tarentine colony of Herakleia, to Thurii ; intending probably to procure for himself a compliant synod like that serving the purpose of his Macedonian nephew at Corinth. But the tide of his fortune at length turned. The Tarentines became disgusted and alarmed ; his Lucanian parti- sans proved faithless ; the stormy weather in the Calabrian Apennines broke up the communication between his different detachments, and exposed them to be cut off in detail. He him- self perished, by the hands of a Lucanian exile, in crossing the river Acheron, and near the town of Pandosia. This was held to be a memorable attestation of the prophetic veracity of the oracle ; since he had received advice from Dodona to beware of Pandosia and Acheron ; two names which he well knew, and therefore avoided, in Epirus — but which he had not before known to exist in Italy .^ The Greco-Italian cities had thus dwindled down into a prize to be contended for between the Epirotic kings and the native ' Livy (viii. 3-24) places the date of this expedition of the Molossian Alexander eight years earlier; but it is universally recognized that this ia a mistake.
- Livv, viii. 17-24" .Justin, xii. 2; Strabi, vi. p. 2M
