And when the Messenians had got together at Cyllene, they resolved to winter there for that winter, and the people of Elis provided them with supplies and money: but directly Spring came they deliberated where they should go. And the view of Gorgus was that they should occupy Zacynthus beyond Cephallenia, and become islanders instead of dwelling on the mainland, and should sail in their ships to the maritime parts of Laconia and ravage their territory. Manticlus on the other hand exhorted them to forget Messene and their animosity to the Lacedæmonians, and sail to Sardinia and occupy that large and fertile island. Meantime Anaxilas sent a message to the Messenians inviting them to Italy. He was King at Rhegium, and fourth in descent from Alcidamidas, who had migrated from Messene to Rhegium, after the death of King Aristodemus and the capture of Ithome. This Anaxilas then invited the Messenians, and when they went to Rhegium he told them that the people of Zancle were at variance with him, and that they had a fertile country and a city in the rich part of Sicily, all which he said he would give them, and help them in conquering the country. And as they eagerly accepted his offer, Anaxilas conveyed them over into Sicily. Now Zancle was a place which had originally been occupied by pirates, and, as the land there was then unoccupied, they built a fort near the harbour, and made Zancle their headquarters for expeditions both by land and sea: and their leaders were Cratæmenes the Samian and Perieres from Chalcis. And eventually Perieres and Cratæmenes resolved to invite in other colonists from Greece. But now Anaxilas conquered the people of Zancle who put out to sea in their fleet, and the Messenians conquered them on land. And being blockaded by land by the Messenians and simultaneously by sea by the people of Rhegium, when their fort was taken, they fled for refuge to the altars of the gods and to the temples. Anaxilas however urged on the Messenians to slay the suppliants, though they prayed hard for quarter, and to enslave the rest together with their women and children. But Gorgus and Manticlus begged that Anaxilas would not compel them, who had been shamefully treated by their fellow-countrymen, to act with equal cruelty to Greeks. And after that they took the people of Zancle from the altars, and having mutually given and received pledges dwelt together as one people. But the name of the town they changed from Zancle to Messene. All this took place in the 29th Olympiad, in which Chionis the Laconian was victor the second time, and Miltiades was Archon at Athens. And Manticlus built a temple of Hercules for the new colony, and a statue of the god was placed outside the fort called Hercules Manticlus, just as Belus at Babylon got its name from an Egyptian called Belus, and Ammon in Libya from the name of the shepherd who built the temple. This was the end of the wandering of the Messenian exiles. CHAPTER XXIV.