Messāna

, an ancient and celebrated town of Sicily, on the straits which separate Italy from Sicily. It was anciently called Zancle , and was founded 1600 years before the christian era. The inhabitants, being continually exposed to the depredation of the people of Cuma, implored the a istance of the Me enians of Peloponnesus, and with them repelled the enemy. After this victorious campaign, the Me enians entered Zancle, and lived in such intimacy with the inhabitants that they changed their name, and a umed that of the Me enians, and called their city Me an a. Another account say that An axil a us tyrant of Rhegium made war against the Zancleans, with the a istance of the Me enians of Peloponnesus, and that after he had obtained a decisive victory, he called the conquered city Me an a in compliment to his allies, about 494 years before the christian era. After this revolution at Zancle, the Mamertini took po e ion of it, and made it the capital of the neighbouring country. See: Mamertini . It afterwards fell into the hands of the Romans, and was for some time the chief of their po e ions in Sicily. The inhabitants were called Me an i i, Me anienses, and Mamertini. The straits of Me an a have always been looked upon as very dangerous, especially by the ancients, on account of the rapidity of the currents, and the irregular and violent flowing and ebbing of the sea. Strabo , bk. 6 .— Mela , bk. 2 , ch. 7 .— Pausanias , bk. 4 , ch. 23 .— Diodorus , bk. 4 .— Thucydides , bk. 1 , . — Hero dot us , bk. 6 , ch. 23 ; bk. 7 , ch. 28 .