Anaxilas

Anaxilas or Anaxilaus (Ancient Greek: Ἀναξίλας, Ἀναξίλαος), son of Cretines, was a tyrant of Rhegium (modern Reggio Calabria) in Magna Graecia.

[1] 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.

After the second war with the Spartans, Anaxilas assisted the refugees from Messina in the Peloponnese to take Zancle in Sicily.

[2] In 480 BC he obtained the assistance of the Carthaginians for his father-in-law, who had been expelled from his city by Theron, tyrant of Agrigentum.

Anaxilas wanted to destroy the Locrians, but was prevented by Hiero I of Syracuse, as related by Epicharmus.