Rhedŏnes. See: [Redones].
Rhegium, now Rheggio, a town of Italy, in the country of the Brutii, opposite Messana in Sicily, where a colony of Messenians under Alcidamidas settled, B.C. 723. It was originally called Rhegium, and afterwards Rhegium Julium, to distinguish it from Rhegium Lepidi, a town of Cisalpine Gaul. Some suppose that it received its name from the Greek word ῥηγνυμι, to break, because it is situate on the straits of Charybdis, which were formed when the island of Sicily, as it were, was broken and separated from the continent of Italy. This town has always been subject to great earthquakes, by which it has often been destroyed. The neighbourhood is remarkable for its great fertility, and for its delightful views. Silius Italicus, bk. 13, li. 94.—Cicero, For Archias, ch. 3.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 14, lis. 5 & 48.—Justin, bk. 4, ch. 1.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 4.—Strabo, bk. 6.
Rhegusci, a people of the Alps.
Rhemi. See: [Remi].
Rhene, a small island of the Ægean, about 200 yards from Delos, 18 miles in circumference. The inhabitants of Delos always buried their dead there, and their women also retired there during their labour, as their own island was consecrated to Apollo, where Latona had brought forth, and where no dead bodies were to be inhumated. Strabo says that it was uninhabited, though it was once as populous and flourishing as the rest of the Cyclades. Polycrates conquered it, and consecrated it to Apollo, after he had tied it to Delos, by means of a long chain. Rhene was sometimes called the small Delos, and the island of Delos the great Delos. Thucydides, bk. 3.—Strabo, bk. 10.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 7.
Rheni, a people on the borders of the Rhine.
Rhenus, one of the largest rivers of Europe, which divides Germany from Gaul. It rises in the Rhætian Alps, and falls into the German ocean. Virgil has called it bicornis, because it divides itself into two streams. The river Rhine was a long time a barrier between the Romans and the Germans, and on that account its banks were covered with strong castles. Julius Cæsar was the first Roman who crossed it to invade Germany. The waters of that river were held in great veneration, and were supposed by the ancient Germans to have some peculiar virtue, as they threw their children into it, either to try the fidelity of the mothers, or to brace and invigorate their limbs. If the child swam on the surface, the mother was acquitted of suspicion, but if it sunk to the bottom, its origin was deemed illegitimate. In modern geography the Rhine is known as dividing itself into four large branches; the Waal, Lech, Issel, and the Rhine. That branch which still retains the name of Rhine loses itself in the sands above modern Leyden, and is afterwards no longer known by its ancient appellation, since the year 860, A.D., when inundations of the sea destroyed the regularity of its mouth. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 2, li. 258.—Strabo, bk. 4.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 3; bk. 5, ch. 2.—Cæsar, Gallic War, bk. 4, ch. 10.—Tacitus, Annals, bk. 2, ch. 6.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 8, li. 727.——A small river of Italy, falling into the Po on the south, now Rheno. Silius Italicus, bk. 8, li. 600.—Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 16; bk. 16, ch. 36.
Rheomitres, a Persian who revolted from Artaxerxes, &c. Diodorus, bk. 15.——A Persian officer killed at the battle of Issus. Curtius, bk. 2, ch. 5.
Rhesus, a king of Thrace, son of the Strymon and Terpsichore, or, according to others, of Eioneus by Euterpe. After many warlike exploits and conquests in Europe, he marched to the assistance of Priam king of Troy, against the Greeks. He was expected with great impatience, as an ancient oracle had declared that Troy should never be taken if the horses of Rhesus drank the waters of the Xanthus, and fed upon the grass of the Trojan plains. This oracle was well known to the Greeks, and therefore two of their best generals, Diomedes and Ulysses, were commissioned by the rest to intercept the Thracian prince. The Greeks entered his camp in the night, slew him, and carried away his horses to their camp. Homer, Iliad, bk. 10.—Dictys Cretensis, bk. 2.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 3.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 1, li. 473.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 13, li. 98.
Rhetogĕnes, a prince of Spain, who surrendered to the Romans, and was treated with great humanity.