Naxos
（
Νάξος).
1.
Now Naxia; an island in the Aegaean Sea, the largest of the Cyclades, especially celebrated
for its wine. It is about eighteen miles in length and twelve in breadth. It was also called
Dia,
Strongyle, and Dionysias. Here Dionysus is said
to have come to Ariadné after she had been deserted by Theseus. (See
Ariadné.) It was colonized by Ionians, who
had emigrated from Athens. After the Persian Wars, the Naxians were the first of the allied
States whom the Athenians reduced to subjection (B.C. 471). The chief town of the island was
also called Naxos. See Dugit,
De Insula Naxo (Paris, 1867); and
Tozer,
Islands of the Aegean (Oxford, 1890).
2.
A Greek city on the eastern coast of Sicily, founded B.C. 735 by the Chalcidians of Euboea,
and the first Greek colony established in the island. In B.C. 403 the town was
destroyed by Dionysius of Syracuse; but nearly fifty years afterwards (358 B.C.) the
remaining Naxians scattered over Sicily, were collected by Andromachus, and a new city was
founded on Mount Taurus, to which the name of Tauromenium was given. See
Tauromenium.
