Naxos

, now Naxia , a celebrated island in the Ægean sea, the largest and most fertile of all the Cyclades, about 105 miles in circumference, and 30 broad. It was formerly called Strongyle , Dia , Dionysias , and Call i polis , and received the name of Naxos from Naxus, who was at the head of a Carian colony, which settled in the island. Naxos abounds with all sorts of fruits, and its wines are still in the same repute as formerly. The Naxians were anciently governed by kings, but they afterwards exchanged this form of government for a republic, and enjoyed their liberty till the age of Pis i stratus, who appointed a tyrant over them. They were reduced by the Persians; but in the expedition of Darius and Xerxes against Greece, they revolted and fought on the side of the Greeks. During the Peloponnesian war, they supported the interest of Athens. Bacchus was the chief deity of the island. The capital was also called Naxos; and near it, on the 20th Sept. , B.C. 377, the Lacedæmonians were defeated by Chabrias. Thucydides , bk. 1 , . — Hero dot us. — Diodorus , bk. 5 , . — Ovid , Metamorphoses , bk. 3 , li. 636 .— Virgil , Æneid , bk. 3 , li. 125 .— Pausanias , bk. 6 , ch. 16 .— Pindar. ――An ancient town on the eastern side of Sicily, founded 759 years before the christian era. There was also another town at the distance of five miles from Naxos, which bore the same name, and was often called, by contradistinction, Taurominium . Pliny , bk. 3 .— Diodorus , bk. 13 .――A town of Crete, noted for hones. Pliny , bk. 36 , ch. 7 .――A Carian who gave his name to the greatest of the Cyclades.