CAECI´NUS(Καικῖνος, Thuc.: where the older editions have Καϊκινός), a river of Bruttium, in the territory of Locri, between that city and Rhegium. It is mentioned by Thucydides (Thuc. 3.103), in relating the operations of Laches with an Athenian fleet on the southern coast of Italy in B.C. 426, when that commander defeated on its banks a body of Locrian troops. It is also referred to by Pausanias, who tells us that it was the boundary between the territories of Locri and Rhegium, and mentions a natural phenomenon connected with it, which is referred by other writers to the neighbouring river HALEX:—that the cicadae (τέττιγες) on the Locrian side were musical, and chirped or sang as they did elsewhere; but those in the Rhegian territory were mute. (Paus. 6.6.4.) Both Pausanias and Aelian relate that the celebrated Locrian athlete Euthymus disappeared in the stream of the Caecinus, in a manner supposed to be supernatural. (Paus. l. c.;Ael. VH 8.18.) Local antiquarians suppose the small stream called on Zannoni's map the F. Piscopio, which flows by Amendolea, and enters the sea about 10 miles W. of Cape Spartivento, to be the ancient Caecinus; but there is no authority for this, except its proximity to the Halex, with which it appears to have been confounded. (Romanelli, vol. 1. p. 137.)
The Caecinus of Pliny (Plin. Nat. 3.10. s. 15), which he places N. of Scyllacium, is a false reading of the early editors for Carcines or Carcinus, the form found in the MSS. both of Pliny himself and Mela (2.4). It is evident that the river designated is wholly distinct from the Caecinus of Thucydides.
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