City
Regio
Reggio di Calabria
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Regio is today Reggio di Calabria, on the Italian shore of the Strait of Messina. The Roman writer Pliny explains that the Greeks called the town Rhegion, from a word for breaking apart, because here the sea had torn Sicily from the mainland. Settlers from Chalcis and Messana founded it in the eighth century BC, and after navy men were settled there under Augustus it became the Roman colony of Regium Iulium. A Roman road inscription, the stone of Polla, records a highway built from here to Capua, three hundred and twenty-one miles long, and a Roman register of routes notes the crossing to Messana.