[139] Are you ignorant of the celebrated account which is given of that most sacred Sicilian strait, which in old times joined Sicily to the continent of Italy? [39] and where vast seas on each side being excited by violent storms met together, coming from opposite directions, the land between them was overwhelmed and broken away; from which circumstance the city built in the neighbourhood was called Rhegium, [40] and the result was quite different from what any one would have expected; for the seas which had formerly been separated now flowed together and were united in one expanse; and the land which had previously united was now separated into two portions by the strait which intersected it, in consequence of which Sicily, which had previously formed a part of the mainland, was now compelled to be an island.