example, that Aristodemus, though ready to appease the wrath of the gods by the blood of his own daughter,(622) yet was unable to effect his purpose; that the damsel was put to death in vain; and upon this, recognising the will of the gods that Messenia should fall, and being terrified by portentous omens, he slaughtered himself upon the tomb of his murdered child.(623) The war seems to have been confined chiefly to the vicinity of Ithome, which stronghold, situated in the midst of the country, commanded both the plain of Stenyclarus and that of the Pamisus. The reduction of this fortress necessarily entailed the subjugation of the whole country, and many of the Messenians began to emigrate. With this event the Doric colony of Rhegium is connected. Heraclides of Pontus(624) merely relates, that some Messenians (who happened to be at this time at Macistus in Triphylia, in consequence of the violation of some Spartan virgins) united themselves to the Chalcidian founders of this town (who had been sent out from Delphi). He probably means those Messenians who wished to make a reparation for the violation of the Spartan virgins in the temple of Artemis Limnatis, and were in consequence expelled by their own countrymen.(625) But, according to Pausanias,(626) even this body of Messenians received the district of Hyamia; and the Messenians did not migrate to Rhegium until after the taking of Ithome under Alcidamidas, and again after the second Messenian war under Gorgus and Manticlus, son of Theoclus, one of the Iamidæ.(627) Anaxilas the tyrant (who lived after Olymp. 70) afterwards derived his family from the Messenians,(628) who constituted in general the first nobility of the town of Rhegium.(629) The establishment of Tarentum is connected with the history of the first Messenian war; but it is wrapped up in such unintelligible fables (chiefly owing perhaps to an ignorance of Lacedæmonian institutions), that all we can learn from them is, that Tarentum was at that time founded from Sparta.(630)