The earliest Greek colony in Sicily, founded by Chalcidians under Theocles (Thucles) about 734 BC. It lay on the east coast, south of Tauromenium, on what is now Cape Schisò. The adoption of the name of Naxos, after the island in the Aegean Sea, indicates there were Naxians among its founders. It soon founded other colonies at Leontini and Catana. After 461 BC, Naxos was in opposition to Syracuse, allied with Leontini (427) and Athens (415). In 403 BC, it was destroyed by Dionysius I, tyrant of Syracuse, and its territory given to the Sicels. Its Greek exiles at last found refuge in 358 at Tauromenium. Scanty traces of its walls are to be seen; there is evidence in the area for Neolithic huts, Bronze Age settlement, and a sanctuary area assigned to Aphrodite. Pottery is often distinctive in style, with Euboean and Cycladic reminiscences, and a potters' quarter (vicinity of Colle Salluzzo) with kilns, depositories, and antefix molds. Naxos coins (6th-5th centuries BC) carry a bearded Dioynysus with ivy, vine, and grape decoration, while later examples have his companion in revelry, Sinenus, who also on the local terra-cotta antefixes.