A colony, mainly of Chalcidians, partly of Messenians from the Peloponnesus, settled at Regium in the 8th century B.C. About 494 B.C. Anaxilas, a member of the Messenian party, made himself master of Regium (apparently—from numismatic evidence, for the coins assignable to this period are modelled on Samian types—with the help of the Samians: see Messina) and about 488 joined with them in occupying Zancle (Messina). Here they remained. (See C. H. Dodd in Journal of Hellenic Studies, xxviii. (1908) 56 sqq.) This coinage was resumed after the establishment of the democracy about 461 B.C., when Anaxilas sons were driven out. In 433 Regium made a treaty with Athens, and in 427 joined the Athenians against Syracuse, but in 415 it remained neutral. An attack which it made on Dionysius I. of Syracuse in 399 was the beginning of a great struggle which in 387 resulted in its complete destruction and the dispersion of its inhabitants as slaves. Restored by the younger Dionysius under the name of Phoebias, the colony soon recovered its prosperity and resumed its original designation. In 280, when Pyrrhus invaded Italy, the Regines admitted within their walls a Roman garrison of Campanian troops; these mercenaries revolted, massacred the male citizens, and held the city till in 270 they were besieged and put to death by the Roman consul Genucius. The city remained faithful to Rome throughout the Punic wars, and Hannibal never succeeded in taking it. Up till the Social War it struck coins of its own, with Greek legends. Though one of the cities promised by the triumvirs to the veterans, Regium escaped through the favour of Octavius (hence it took the name Regium Julium). It continued, however, to be a Greek city even under the Empire, and never became a colony. Towards the end of the Empire it was made the chief city of the Bruttii.
Of ancient buildings hardly anything remains at Regium, and nothing of the archaic Greek period is in situ, except possibly the remains of a temple of Artemis Phacelitis, which have not yet been explored, though various inscriptions relative to it have been found. The museum, however, contains a number of terra-cottas, vases, inscriptions, &c., and a number of Byzantine lead seals. Several baths of the Greek period, modified by the Romans, have been found, and the remains of one of these may still be seen. A large mosaic of the 3rd or 4th century A.D. with representations of wild animals and the figure of a warrior in the centre was found in 1904 and covered up again. The aqueduct and various cisterns connected with it have been traced, and some tombs of the 5th or 4th century B.C. (or even later) were found in 1907.
See Notizie degli scavi, passim; P. Larizza, Rhegium Chalcidense (Rome, 1905).
(T. As.)
REGIUM DONUM, or Royal Gift, an annual grant formerly made from the public funds to Presbyterian and other Nonconformist ministers in Great Britain and Ireland. It dates from the reign of Charles II., who, according to Bishop Burnet, after the declaration of indulgence of 1672 ordered sums of money to be paid to Presbyterian ministers. These gifts or pensions were soon discontinued, but in 1690 William III. made a grant of £1200 a year to the Presbyterian ministers in Ireland as a reward for their services during his struggle with James II. Owing to the opposition of the Irish House of Lords the money was not paid in 1711 and some subsequent years, but it was revived in 1715 by George I., who increased the amount to £2000 a year. Further additions were made in 1784 and in 1792, and in 1868 the sum granted to the Irish Presbyterian ministers was £45,000. The Regium Donum was withdrawn by the act of 1869 which disestablished the Irish church. Provision Was made, however, for existing interests therein, and many Presbyterian ministers commuted these on the same terms as the clergy of the church of Ireland. In England the Regium Donum proper dates from 1721, when Dr Edmund Calamy (1671–1732) received £500 from the royal bounty “for the use and behalf of the poor widows of dissenting ministers.” Afterwards this sum was increased to £1000 and was made an annual payment “for the assisting either ministers or their widows,” and later it amounted to £1695 per annum. It was given to distributors who represented the three denominations, Presbyterians, Baptists and Independents, enjoying the grant. Among the Nonconformists themselves. however, or at least among the Baptists and the Independents, there was some objection to this form of state aid, and in 1851 the chancellor of the exchequer announced that it would be withdrawn. This was done six years later.
See T. Stoughton, History of Religion in England (1901); J. S; Reid, History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (Belfast, 1867); and E. Calamy, Historical Account of my own Life, edited by J. T. Rutt (1829–30).
REGLA, formerly an important suburb of Havana, Cuba,
opposite that city, on the bay; now a part of Havana. Pop.
(1899) 11,363. It was formerly the scene of the Havana bullfights.
The church is one of the best in Cuba; the building
dates substantially from 1805, but the church settlement goes
back to a hermitage established in 1690. Regla is the shipping point
of the Havana sugar trade. It has enormous sugar and
tobacco warehouses, fine wharves, a dry dock, foundries and an
electric railway plant. It is the western terminus of the eastern
line of the United Railways of Havana, and is connected with
the main city of Havana by ferry. A fishing village was established
here about 1733. At the end of the 18th century Regla
was a principal centre of the smuggling trade, and about 1820
was notorious as a resort of pirates. It first secured an ayuntamiento (city council) in 1872, and after 1899 was annexed to Havana.
REGNARD, JEAN FRANÇOIS (1655–1709), French, comic dramatist, was born in Paris on the 7th of February 1655. His father, a rich shopkeeper, died when Regnard was about twenty, leaving him master of a considerable fortune. He set off at once for Italy, and, after a series of romantic adventures, he journeyed by Holland, Denmark. and Sweden to Lapland, and thence by Poland, Turkey, Hungary and Germany back to France. He returned to Paris at the end of 1683, and bought the place of treasurer of France in the Paris district; he had a house at Paris in the Rue Richelieu; and he acquired the small estate of Grillon near Dourdan in the department of Seine-et-Oise, where he hunted, feasted and wrote comedies. This latter amusement he began in 1688 with a piece called Le Divorce, which was performed at the Théatre Italien. In four slight pieces of the same nature he collaborated with Charles Riviere Dufresny. He gained access to the Theatre Français on the 19th of May 1694 with a piece called Attendez-moi sous l'orme, and two years later, on the 19th of December 1696, he produced there the masterly comedy of Le Joueur. The idea of the play was evolved in collaboration with Dufresny, but the authors disagreed in carrying it out. Finally they each produced a comedy on the subject, Dufresny in prose, and Regnard in verse. Each accused the other of plagiarism. The plot of Regnard's piece turns on the love of two sisters for Valére, the gambler, who loves one and pretends to love the other, really deceiving them both, because there is no room for any other passion in his character except the love of play. Other of his plays were La Sérénade (1694), Le Bourgeois de Falaise (1696), Le Distrait(1697), Démocrite (1700), Le Retour impréwu (1700), Les Folies arnoureuses (1704), Les Ménechmes (1705), a clever following of Plautus, and his masterpiece, Le Légataire universal (1708).
Regnard's death on the 4th of September 1709 renews the doubtful and romantic circumstances of his earlier life. Some hint at poison, but the truth seems to be that his death was hastened by the rate at which he lived.
Besides the plays noticed above and others, Regnard wrote miscellaneous poems, the autobiographical romance of La Provencale, and several short accounts in prose of his travels, published posthumously under the title of Voyages. Regnard had written a reply to the tenth satire of Boileau, Contre les femmes, and Boileau had retorted by putting Regnard among the poets depreciated in his epistle Sur mes vers. After the appearance of Le Joueur the poet altered his opinion and cut out the allusion. The saying attributed to Boileau when some one, thinking to curry favour, remarked that Regnard was only a mediocre poet, “Il n'est pas médiocrement gai,” is both true and very appropriate. His French style, especially in his purely prose works, is not considered faultless. He is often unoriginal in his plots, and, whether Dufresny was or was not justified in his complaint about Le Joueur, it seems likely that Regnard owed not a little to him and to others; but he had a thorough grasp of
