Anaxilas

Anaxilas or Anaxilaus (), son of Cretines, was a tyrant of Rhegium (modern Reggio Calabria) in Magna Graecia. He was originally from Messenia, a region in the Peloponnese.

==Life== Anaxilas was master of Rhegium in 494 BC, when he encouraged the Samians and other Ionian fugitives to seize Zancle, a city across the strait in Sicily which was then under the rule of the tyrant Scythes. Shortly after the Samian takeover, Anaxilas besieged the city himself, drove the Samians out, peopled it with fresh inhabitants, and changed its name to Messana, after his native Messene. thumb|left|In 484 or 480 BC, Anaxilas won the mule Chariot|biga event at the Olympic games, and struck this [[tetradrachm to commemorate his success.]] Pausanias tells a somewhat different story. After the second war with the Spartans, Anaxilas assisted the refugees from Messina in the Peloponnese to take Zancle in Sicily.