HALEX
HALEX (
Ἅληξ or
ALEX Ἄληξ: there is much discrepancy with regard to the aspirate), a small stream in the S. of Bruttium between Locri and Rhegium, which, according to Strabo (
vi. p.260), formed the boundary between the territories of the two cities. Thucydides tells us that the Locrians had a small fort or out-post (
περιτόλιον) on its banks, which was taken by the Athenians under Laches (3.99).
This has been magnified by geographers into a town of the name of Peripolium: but was evidently nothing more than a fortified post to guard the frontier. (See Arnold's note.) Strabo relates of the Halex the peculiarity assigned by other writers to the Caecinus, another river of Bruttium, that the cicadae on the one side of it were silent, and those on the other musical; and he cites from Timaeus a mythical explanation of the phenomenon. (
Strab. vi. p.260; Timaeus, ap. Antig. Caryst. 1; Conon.
Narrat. 5.) Diodorus gives another version of its origin, but describes the silence as extending to both confines, (4.22).
The river Halex still retains its name with little variation as the
Alice: its mouth is about 8 miles E. of the
Capo dell' Armi, the ancient Leucopetra, and 15 miles W. of
Cape Spartivento. [
E.H.B]
