Zancle

, a town of Sicily, on the straits which separate that island from Italy. It received its name from its appearing like a scythe, which was called ξανκλον in the language of the country, or, as others say, because the scythe with which Saturn mutilated his father fell there, or because, as Diodorus reports, a person named Zanclus had either built it or exercised its sovereignty. Zancle fell into the hands of the Samians 497 years before the christian era, and three years after it was recovered by An axil a us the Me enian tyrant of Rhegium, who gave it the name of his native country, and called it Me an a . It was founded, as most chronologers support, about 1058 years before the christian era, by the pirates of Cumæ in Italy, and peopled by Samians, Ionians, and Chalcid i ans. Strabo , bk. 6 .— Diodorus , bk. 4 .— Silius Italic us , bk. 1 , li. 662 .— Ovid , Fasti , bk. 4 , li. 499 ; Metamorphoses , bk. 14 , li. 6 ; bk. 15 , li. 290 .— Pausanias , bk. 4 , ch. 23 .