Part 223

"Syracuse was founded the year after Naxos, by Corinthians, under a leader named Archias, a Heracleid, and probably of the ruling caste, who appears to have been compelled to quit his country to avoid the effects of the indignation which he had excited by a horrible outrage committed in a family of lower rank. … Syracuse became, in course of time, the parent of other Sicilian cities, among which Camarina was the most considerable. … Forty-five years after Syracuse, Gela was founded by a band collected from Crete and Rhodes, chiefly from Lindus, and about a century later (B. C. 582) sent forth settlers to the banks of the Acragas, where they built Agrigentum."

_C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 12_.

The first settlement at Syracuse was on the islet of Ortygia. "Ortygia, two English miles in circumference, was separated from the main island only by a narrow channel, which was bridged over when the city was occupied and enlarged by Gelôn in the 72nd Olympiad, if not earlier. It formed only a small part, though the most secure and best-fortified part, of the vast space which the city afterwards occupied. But it sufficed alone for the inhabitants during a considerable time, and the present city in its modern decline has again reverted to the same modest limits. Moreover, Ortygia offered another advantage of not less value. It lay across the entrance of a spacious harbour, approached by a narrow mouth, and its fountain of Arethusa was memorable in antiquity both for the abundance and goodness of its water."

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 22._

SYRACUSE: B. C. 480. Defeat of the Carthaginians at Himera.

See SICILY: B. C. 480.

SYRACUSE: B. C. 415-413. Siege by the Athenians.

The Greek city of Syracuse, in Sicily, having been founded and built up by colonization from Corinth, naturally shared the deep hatred of Athens which was common among the Dorian Greeks, and which the Corinthians particularly found many reasons to cherish. The feeling at Athens was reciprocal, and, as the two cities grew supreme in their respective spheres and arrogant with the consciousness of superior power, mutual jealousies fed their passion of hostility, although nothing in their affairs, either politically or commercially, brought them really into contact with one another. But Syracuse, enforcing her supremacy in Sicily, dealt roughly with the Ionian settlements there, and Athens was appealed to for aid. The first call upon her was made (B. C. 428) in the midst of the earlier period of the Peloponnesian War, and came from the people of Leontini, then engaged in a struggle with Syracuse, into which other Sicilian cities had been drawn. The Athenians were easily induced to respond to the call, and they sent a naval force which took part in the Leontine War, but without any marked success. The result was to produce among the Sicilians a common dread of Athenian interference, which led them to patch up a general peace. But fresh quarrels were not long in arising, in the course of which Leontini was entirely destroyed, and another Sicilian city, Egesta, which Athens had before received into her alliance, claimed help against Syracuse. This appeal reached the Athenians at a time (B. C. 416) when their populace was blindly following Alcibiades, whose ambition craved war, and who chafed under the restraints of the treaty of peace with Sparta which Nicias had brought about. They were carried by his influence into the undertaking of a great expedition of conquest, directed against the Sicilian capital—the most costly and formidable which any Greek state had ever fitted out. In the summer of B. C. 415 the whole force assembled at Corcyra and sailed across the Ionian sea to the Italian coast and thence to Sicily. It consisted of 134 triremes, with many merchant, ships and transports, bearing 5,100 hoplites, 480 bowmen and 700 Rhodian slingers. The commanders were Nicias, Lamachus and Alcibiades. On the arrival of the expedition in Sicily a disagreement among the generals made efficient action impossible and gave the Syracusans time to prepare a stubborn resistance. {3055} Meantime the enemies of Alcibiades at Athens had brought about a decree for his arrest, on account of an alleged profanation of the sacred Eleusinian mysteries, and, fearing to face the accusation, he fled, taking refuge at Sparta, where he became the implacable enemy of his country. Three months passed before Nicias, who held the chief command, made any attempt against Syracuse. He then struck a single blow, which was successful, but which led to nothing; for the Athenian army was withdrawn immediately afterwards and put into winter quarters. In the following spring the regular operations of a siege and blockade were undertaken, at sea with the fleet and on land by a wall of circumvallation. The undertaking promised well at first and the Syracusans were profoundly discouraged. But Sparta, where Alcibiades worked passionately in their favor, sent them a general, Gylippus, who proved to be equal to an army, and promised reinforcements to follow. The more vigorous Athenian general, Lamachus, had been killed, and Nicias, with incredible apathy, suffered Gylippus to gather up a small army in the island and to enter Syracuse with it, in defiance of the Athenian blockade. From that day the situation was reversed. The besieged became the assailants and the besiegers defended themselves. Nicias sent to Athens for help and maintained his ground with difficulty through another long winter, until a second great fleet and army arrived, under the capable general Demosthenes, to reinforce him. But it was too late. Syracuse had received powerful aid, in ships and men, from Corinth, from Sparta and from other enemies of Athens, had built a navy and trained sailors of her own, and was full of confident courage. The Athenians were continually defeated, on land and sea, and hoped for nothing at last but to be able to retreat. Even the opportunity to do that was lost for them in the end by the weakness of Nicias, who delayed moving on account of an eclipse, until his fleet was destroyed in a final sea-fight and the island roads were blocked by an implacable enemy. The flight when it was undertaken proved a hopeless attempt, and there is nothing in history more tragical than the account of it which is given in the pages of Thucydides. On the sixth day of the struggling retreat the division under Demosthenes gave up and surrendered to the pursuers who swarmed around it. On the next day Nicias yielded with the rest, after a terrible massacre at the river Assinarus. Nicias and Demosthenes were put to the sword, although Gylippus interceded for them. Their followers were imprisoned in the Syracusan quarries. "There were great numbers of them and they were crowded in a deep and narrow place. At first the sun by day was still scorching and suffocating, for they had no roof over their heads, while the autumn nights were cold, and the extremes of temperature engendered violent disorders. Being cramped for room they had to do everything on the same spot. The corpses of those who died from their wounds, exposure to the weather, and the like, lay heaped one upon another. The smells were intolerable; and they were at the same time afflicted by hunger and thirst. During eight months they were allowed only about half a pint of water and a pint of food a day. Every kind of misery which could befall man in such a place befell them. This was the condition of all the captives for about ten weeks. At length the Syracusans sold them, with the exception of the Athenians and of any Sicilian or Italian Greeks who had sided with them in the war. The whole number of the public prisoners is not accurately known, but they were not less than 7,000. Of all the Hellenic actions which took place in this war, or indeed of all Hellenic actions which are on record, this was the greatest—the most glorious to the victors, the most ruinous to the vanquished; for they were utterly and at all points defeated, and their sufferings were prodigious. Fleet and army perished from the face of the earth; nothing was saved, and of the many who went forth few returned home. Thus ended the Sicilian expedition."

_Thucydides, History (translated by Jowett), books 6-7._

ALSO IN: _E. A. Freeman, History of Sicily, volume 3._

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapters 58-60._

_Sir E. Creasy, Fifteen Decisive Battles, chapter 2._

See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 415-413.

SYRACUSE: B. C. 397-396. Dionysius and the Carthaginians.

Eighteen years after the tragic deliverance of Syracuse from the besieging host and fleet of the Athenians, the Sicilian capital experienced a second great peril and extraordinary escape of like kind. The democratic government of Syracuse had meantime fallen and a new tyrant had risen to power. Dionysius, who began life in a low station, made his way upward by ruthless energy and cunning, practising skilfully the arts of a demagogue until he had won the confidence of the people, and making himself their master in the end. When the sovereignty of Dionysius had acquired firmness and the fortifications and armament of his city had been powerfully increased, it suited his purposes to make war upon the Carthaginians, which he did, B. C. 397. He attacked Motye, which was the most important of their cities in Sicily, and took it after a siege of some months' duration, slaughtering and enslaving the wretched inhabitants. But his triumph in this exploit was brief. Imilkon, or Himilco, the Carthaginian commander, arrived in Sicily with a great fleet and army and recaptured Motye with ease. That done he made a rapid march to Messene, in the northeastern extremity of the island, and gained that city almost without a blow. The inhabitants escaped, for the most part, but the town is said to have been reduced to an utter heap of ruins—from which it was subsequently rebuilt. From Messene he advanced to Syracuse, Dionysius not daring to meet him in the field. The Syracusan fleet, encountering that of the Carthaginians, near Katana, was almost annihilated, and when the vast African armament, numbering more than seventeen hundred ships of every description, sailed into the Great Harbor of Syracuse, there was nothing to oppose it. The city was formidably invested, by land and sea, and its fate would have appeared to be sealed. But the gods interposed, as the ancients thought, and avenged themselves for insults which the Carthaginians had put upon them. Once more the fatal pestilence which had smitten the latter twice before in their Sicilian Wars appeared and their huge army was palsied by it. "Care and attendance upon the sick, or even interment of the dead, became impracticable; so that the whole camp presented a scene of deplorable agony, aggravated by the horrors and stench of 150,000 unburied bodies. {3056} The military strength of the Carthaginians was completely prostrated by such a visitation. Far from being able to make progress in the siege, they were not even able to defend themselves against moderate energy on the part of the Syracusans; who … were themselves untouched by the distemper." In this situation the Carthaginian commander basely deserted his army. Having secretly bribed Dionysius to permit the escape of himself and the small number of native Carthaginians in his force, he abandoned the remainder to their fate (B. C. 394). Dionysius took the Iberians into his service; but the Libyans and other mercenaries were either killed or enslaved. As for Imilkon, soon after his return to Carthage he shut himself in his house and died, refusing food. The blow to the prestige of Carthage was nearly fatal, producing a rebellion among her subjects which assumed a most formidable character; but it lacked capable command and was suppressed.

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 82._

SYRACUSE: B. C. 394-384. Conquests and dominion of Dionysius.

"The successful result of Dionysios' first Punic War seems to have largely spread his fame in Old Greece," while it increased his prestige and power at home. But "he had many difficulties. He too, like the Carthaginians, had to deal with a revolt among his mercenaries, and he had to give up to them the town of Leontinoi. And the people of Naxos and Katanê, driven out by himself, and the people of Messana, driven out by Himilkôn, were wandering about, seeking for dwelling-places. He restored Messana, but he did not give it back to its old inhabitants. He peopled it with colonists from Italy and from Old Greece. … He also planted a body of settlers from the old Messenian land in Peloponnêsos," at Tyndaris. "Thus the north-eastern corner of Sicily was held by men who were really attached to Dionysios. And he went on further to extend his power along the north coast. … The Sikel towns were now fast taking to Greek ways, and we hear of commonwealths and tyrants among them, just as among the Greeks. Agyris, lord of Agyrium, was said to be the most powerful prince in Sicily after Dionysios himself. … With him Dionysios made a treaty, and also with other Sikel lords and cities." But he attacked the new Sikel town of Tauromenion, and was disastrously repulsed. "This discomfiture at Tauromenion checked the plans of Dionysios for a while. Several towns threw off his dominion. … And the Carthaginians also began to stir again. In B. C. 393 their general Magôn, seemingly without any fresh troops from Africa, set out from Western Sicily to attack Messana." But Dionysios defeated him, and the next year he made peace with the Carthaginians, as one of the consequences of which he captured Tauromenion in 391. "Dionysios was now at the height of his power in Sicily. … He commanded the whole east coast, and the greater part of the north and south coasts. … Dionysios and Carthage might be said to divide Sicily between them, and Dionysios had the larger share." Being at peace with the Carthaginians, he now turned his arms against the Greek cities in Southern Italy, and took Kaulônia, Hippônion, and Rhêgion (B. C. 387), making himself, "beyond all doubt, the chief power, not only in Sicily, but in Greek Italy also." Three years later (B. C. 384) Dionysios sent a splendid embassy to the Olympic festival in Greece. "Lysias called on the assembled Greeks to show their hatred of the tyrant, to hinder his envoys from sacrificing or his chariots from running. His chariots did run; but they were all defeated. Some of the multitude made an attack on the splendid tents of his envoys. He had also sent poems of his own to be recited; but the crowd would not hear them."

_E. A. Freeman, The Story of Sicily, chapter 10._

SYRACUSE: B. C. 383. War with Carthage.

See SICILY: B. C. 383.

SYRACUSE: B. C. 344. Fall of the Dionysian tyranny.

The elder Dionysius,—he who climbed by cunning demagoguery from an obscure beginning in life to the height of power in Syracuse, making himself the typical tyrant of antiquity,—died in 367 B. C. after a reign of thirty-eight years. He was succeeded by his son, Dionysius the younger, who inherited nothing in character from his father but his vices and his shameless meannesses. For a time the younger Dionysius was largely controlled by the admirable influence of Dion, brother-in-law and son-in-law of the elder tyrant (who had several wives and left several families). Dion had Plato for his teacher and friend, and strove with the help of the great Athenian—who visited Sicily thrice—to win the young tyrant to a life of virtue and to philosophical aims. The only result was to finally destroy the whole influence with which they began, and Dion, ere long, was driven from Syracuse, while Dionysius abandoned himself to debaucheries and cruelties. After a time Dion was persuaded to lead a small force from Athens to Syracuse and undertake the overthrow of Dionysius. The gates of Syracuse were joyfully opened to him and his friends, and they were speedily in possession of the whole city except the island-stronghold of Ortygia, which was the entrenchment of the Dionysian tyranny. Then ensued a protracted and desperate civil war in Syracuse, which half ruined the magnificent city. In the end Ortygia was surrendered, Dionysius having previously escaped with much treasure to his dependent city of Lokri, in southern Italy. Dion took up the reins of government, intending to make himself what modern times would call a constitutional monarch. He wished the people to have liberty, but such liberty as a philosopher would find best for them. He was distrusted,— misunderstood,—denounced by demagogues, and hated, at last, as bitterly as the tyrants who preceded him. His high-minded ambitions were all disappointed and his own character suffered from the disappointment. At the end of a year of sovereignty he was assassinated by one of his own Athenian intimates, Kallippus, who secured the goodwill of the army and made himself des·pot. The reign of Kallippus was maintained for something more than a year, and he was then driven out by Hipparinus, one of the sons of Dionysius the elder, and half-brother to the younger of that name. Hipparinus was presently murdered and another brother, Nysæus, took his place. Then Nysæus, in turn, was driven out by Dionysius, who returned from Lokri and re-established his power. The condition of Syracuse under the restored despotism of Dionysius was worse than it ever had been in the past, and the great city seemed likely to perish. {3057} At the last extremity of suffering, in 344 B. C., its people sent a despairing appeal to Corinth (the mother-city of Syracuse) for help. The Corinthians responded by despatching to Sicily a small fleet of ten triremes and a meagre army of 1,200 men, under Timoleon. It is the first appearance in history of a name which soon shone with immortality; for Timoleon proved himself to be one of the greatest and the noblest of Greeks. He found affairs in Sicily complicated by an invasion of Carthaginians, co-operating with one Hiketas, who had made himself despot of Leontini and who hoped to become master of Syracuse. By skilfully using the good fortune which the gods were believed to have lavished upon his enterprise, Timoleon, within a few months, had defeated Hiketas in the field; had accepted the surrender of Dionysius in Ortygia and sent the fallen tyrant to Corinth; had caused such discouragement to the Carthaginians that they withdrew fleet and army and sailed away to Africa. The whole city now fell quickly into his hands. His first act was to demolish the stronghold of tyranny in Ortygia and to erect courts of justice upon its site. A free constitution of government was then re-established, all exiled citizens recalled, a great immigration of Greek inhabitants invited, and the city revivified with new currents of life. The tyranny in other cities was overthrown and all Sicily regenerated. The Carthaginians returning were defeated with fearful losses in a great battle on the Krimesus, and a peace made with them which narrowed their dominion in Sicily to the region west of the Halykus. All these great achievements completed, Timoleon resigned his generalship, declined every office, and became a simple citizen of Syracuse, living only a few years, however, to enjoy the grateful love and respect of its people.

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapters 84-85._

ALSO IN: _Plutarch, Timoleon._

SYRACUSE: B. C. 317-289. Under Agathokles.

A little more than twenty years after Timoleon expelled the brood of the tyrant Dionysius from Syracuse, and liberated Sicily, his work was entirely undone and a new and worse despot pushed himself into power. This was Agathokles, who rose, like his prototype, from a humble grade of life, acquired wealth by a lucky marriage, was trusted with the command of the Syracusan army—of mercenaries, chiefly—obtained a complete ascendancy over these soulless men, and then turned them loose upon the city, one morning at daybreak (B. C. 317), for a carnival of unrestrained riot and massacre. "They broke open the doors of the rich, or climbed over the roofs, massacred the proprietors within, and ravished the females. They chased the unsuspecting fugitives through the streets, not sparing even those who took refuge in the temples. … For two days Syracuse was thus a prey to the sanguinary, rapacious, and lustful impulses of the soldiery; 4,000 citizens had been already slain, and many more were seized as prisoners. The political purposes of Agathokles, as well as the passions of the soldiers, being then sated, he arrested the massacre. He concluded this bloody feat by killing such of his prisoners as were most obnoxious to him, and banishing the rest. The total number of expelled or fugitive Syracusans is stated at 6,000." In a city so purged and terrorized, Agathokles had no difficulty in getting himself proclaimed by acclamation sole ruler or autocrat, and he soon succeeded in extending his authority over a large part of Sicily. After some years he became involved in war with the Carthaginians, and suffered a disastrous defeat on the Himera (B. C. 310). Besieged in Syracuse, as a consequence, he resorted to bolder tactics than had been known before his time and "carried the war into Africa." His invasion of Carthage was the first that the Punic capital ever knew, and it created great alarm and confusion in the city. The Carthaginians were repeatedly beaten, Tunes, and other dependent towns, as well as Utica, were captured, the surrounding territory was ravaged, and Agathokles became master of the eastern coast. But all his successes gained him no permanent advantage, and, after four years of wonderful campaigning in Africa, he saw no escape from the difficulties of his situation except by basely stealing away from his army, leaving his two sons to be killed by the furious soldiers when they discovered his flight. Returning to Sicily, the wonderfully crafty and unscrupulous abilities which he possessed enabled him to regain his power and to commit outrage after outrage upon the people of Syracuse, Egesta, and other towns, until his death in 289 B. C.

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 97._

SYRACUSE: B. C. 212. Siege by the Romans.

See PUNIC WARS: THE SECOND.

SYRACUSE: A. D. 279. Sacked by Franks.