Rhegium - International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

RHEGIUM

re-ji-um:

This city (@Rhegion] (Acts 28:13), the modern Reggio di Calabria) was a town situated on the east side of the Sicilian Straits, about 6 miles South of a point opposite Messana (Messina). Originally a colony of Chalcidian Greeks, the place enjoyed great prosperity in the 5th century BC, but was captured and destroyed by Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, in 387 BC, when all the surviving inhabitants were sold into slavery (Diodorus xiv. 106-8, 111, 112). The city never entirely recovered from this blow, althouah it was partially restored by the younaer Dionysius. On the occasion of the invasion of Italy by Pyrrhus, the people of Rhegium had recourse to an alliance with Rome (280 BC) and received 4,000 Campanian troops within their walls, who turned out to be very unruly guests. For, in imitation of a similar band of mercenaries across the strait in Messana, they massacred the male inhabitants and reduced the women to slavery (Polybius i.7; Orosius iv.3). They were not punished by the Romans until 270 BC, when the town was restored to those of its former inhabitants who still survived. The people of Rhegium were faithful to their alliance with Rome during the Second Punic War (Livy xxiii.30; xxiv. 1; xxvi.12; xxix.6). At the time of the Social War they were incorporated with the Roman state, Rhegium becoming a municipality (Cicero Verr. v.60; Pro Archia, 3).

The ship in which Paul sailed from Melita to Puteoli encountered unfavorable winds after leaving Syracuse, and reached Rhegium by means of tacking. It waited at Rhegium a day for a south wind which bore it to Puteoli (Acts 28:13), about 180 miles distant, where it probably arrived in about 26 hours.

George H. Allen

Bibliography Information
Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. "Entry for 'RHEGIUM'". "International Standard Bible Encyclopedia". 1915.