'Adtollit se diva Lacinia contra,
Caulonisque arces, et navifragum Scylaceum.'

(iii. 552-3.)]

[Sidenote: The Greek city.]

According to Cassiodorus, this Greek city was founded by Ulysses after
the destruction of Troy. Strabo[9] attributes the foundation of it to
the almost equally widespread energy of Menestheus. The form of the
name makes it probable that the colonists were in any case of Ionian
descent; but in historic times we find Scylletion subject to the
domineering Achaian city of Crotona, from whose grasp it was wrested
(B.C. 389) by the elder Dionysius. It no doubt shared in the general
decay of the towns of this part of Magna Graecia consequent on the
wars of Dionysius and Agathocles, and may very probably, like Crotona,
have been taken and laid waste by the Bruttian banditti in the Second
Punic War. During the latter part of this war Hannibal seems to have
occupied a position near to, but not in, the already ruined city, and
its port was known long after as Castra Hannibalis[10].

[Footnote 9: p. 375: ed. Oxon. 1807.]

[Footnote 10: Pliny (Hist. Nat. iii. 10) says: 'Dein sinus Scylacius
et Scyllacium, Scylletium Atheniensibus, cum conderent, dictum: quem
locum occurrens Terinaeus sinus peninsulam efficit: et in eâ portus
qui vocatur Castra Annibalis, nusquam angustiore Italia XX millia
passuum latitudo est.']

[Sidenote: The Roman colony.]