ACESINES
Eth.
ACESINES (
Ἀκεσίνης), a river of Sicily, which flows, into the sea to the south of Tauromenium. Its name occurs only in Thucydides (
4.25) on occasion of the attack made on Naxos by the Messenians in B.C. 425 : but it is evidently the same river which is called by Pliny (
3.8) ASINES, and by Vibius Sequester (p. 4) ASINIUS. Both these writers place it in the immediate neighbourhood of Tauromenium, and it can be no other than the river now called by the Arabic name of
Cantara, a considerable stream, which, after following throughout its course the northern boundary of Aetna, discharges itself into the sea immediately to the S. of
Capo Schizò, the site of the ancient Naxos. The
ONOBALAS of Appian (
App. BC 5.109) is probably only another name for the same river. Cluverius appears to be mistaken in regarding the
Flume Freddo as the Acesines : it is a very small stream, while the
Cantara is one of the largest rivers in Sicily, and could hardly have been omitted by Pliny. (Cluver.
Sicil. p. 93; Mannert, vol. ix. pt. ii. p. 284.)
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E.H.B]
