coast. They were not strictly colonies but outposts; Camarina indeed was destroyed after a revolt against the ruling city (Thuc. v. 1). Whether the inland Sicel town of Henna was ever a Syracusan settlement is doubtful. It is extremely probable that Acrae was not founded until after two obvious outposts had already been occupied-a post guarding the road to Acrae itself, and including the sacred enclosure of Apollo, which later, when it became a quarter of the city, acquired the name Temenites; and another post on the road to the north, in the upper part of the region known as Achradina. The latter was defended on the north and east by the sea, on the west by a. long straight cutting of the rock serving as a scarp on which the wall stood (see below), and on the south by extensive quarries (Freeman ii. 43, 139, 144). About the middle of the 6th century B.C.[1] the island was connected with the mainland by a mole (Freeman ii. 140, 505). At the beginning of the 5th century B.C. Syracusan history becomes far more clear. Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela (498–491), threatened the independence of Syracuse as well as of other cities, and it was saved only by the joint intervention of Corinth and Corcyra and by the cession of the vacant territory of Camarina. In 485 the Gamori, who had been expelled by the Demos and the Sicel serfs, and had taken refuge at Casmenae, craved help of Gelo, the successor of Hippocrates, who took possession of Syracuse without opposition, and made it the seat of his power. He gave citizenship both to mercenaries and to settlers from Greece, and added to the population the inhabitants of other cities conquered by him, so that Syracuse became a city of mixed population, in which the new citizens had the advantage. He then extended the city by including within the fortifications the low ground (or at any rate the western portion of the low ground) between Upper Achradina and the island, and making the Agora there[2]; at the same time (probably) he was able to shift the position of the crossing to the island by making a new isthmus in the position of the present one, the old mole being broken through so as to afford an outlet from the Little Harbour on the east (Lupus, p. 91). The island thus became the inner city, the stronghold of the ruler, so that, despite its low level., it is often spoken of as the “ acropolis.” Gelo's general rule was mild, and he won fame as the champion of Hellas by his great victory over the Carthaginians at Himera. He is said to have been greeted as king; but he does not seemgto have taken the title in any formal way.,
Gelo's brother and successor, Hiero (478-467), kept up the power of the city; he won himself a name by his encouragement of poets, especially Aeschylus and Simonides, and philosophers; and his Pythian and Olympian victories made him the special subject of the songs of' Pindar and Bacchylides; among the recently discovered works of the latter are three Odes (iii.-v.) written for him. He appeared also as a Hellenic champion in the defence of Cumae against the Etruscans, and he attempted after the victory to found a Syracusan colony on the island of Aenaria, now Ischia." But his internal government, unlike that of Gelo, was suspicious, greedy and cruel. After some family disputes the power passed to his brother Thrasybulus, who was driven out next year by a general rising. In this revolution Thrasybulus and his mercenaries held the fortified quarters of Ortygia and Achradina; the revolted people held the unwalled suburbs, already, it is plain, thickly inhabited. Thrasybulus yielded to the common action of Siceliots and Sicels. Syracuse thus became a democratic commonwealth. Renewed freedom was celebrated by a colossal statue of Zeus Eleutherius and by a yearly feast in his honour. But when the mercenaries and other new settlers were shut out from office[3] new struggles arose. The mercenaries again held Ortygia and Achradina. The people now walled in the suburb of Tyche to the west of Achradina (Freeman iii. 306, 312, 456). The mercenaries were at last got rid of in 461. Although we hear of attempts to seize the tyranny and of an institution called petalism, like the Athenian ostracism, designed to guard against such dangers, popular govern ment was not seriously threatened for more than fifty years. The part of Syracuse in general Sicilian affairs has been traced in the article Sicily (q.v.); but one striking scene is wholly local, when the defeated Ducetius took refuge in the hostile city (451), and the common voice of the people bade “ spare the suppliant.” We hear of a naval expedition to the Etruscan coast and Corsica about 453 B.c. and of the great military and naval preparations of Syracuse in 439 (Diod. xii. 30). Yet all that we read of Syracusan military and naval action during the former part of the Athenian siege shows how Syracuse had lagged behind the cities of old Greece, constantly practised as they were in warfare both by land and sea.
The Athenian siege (415–13) is of the deepest importance for the topography of Syracuse, and it throws some light on the internal politics. At first complete incredulity prevailed as to the Athenian expedition (Thuc. vi. 32). Hermocrates, the best of counsellors for external affairs, is suspected, and seemingly with reason, of disloyalty to the democratic constitution. Yet he is, like Nicias and Phocion, the official man, head of a board of fifteen generals, which he persuades the people to cut down to three. Athenagoras, the demagogue or opposition speaker, has an excellent exposition of democratic principles put into his mouth by Thucydides (vi. 36–40). Through the whole siege[4] there was a treasonable party within the city, which—for what motives we are not told—kept up a correspondence with the besiegers. When the Athenian fleet under Nicias, Alcibiades and Lamachus was at Rhegium in Italy, after the discovery of the trick that had been played by the Segestans, the question for the commanders was whether they should seek to strengthen themselves by fresh alliances on the spot or strike the blow at once. Lamachus was for immediate action, and there can hardly be a doubt that Syracuse must have fallen before a sudden attack by so formidable an armament in the summer of 415. The Syracusans were neither united nor adequately prepared for effectual defence, and it is perfectly clear that they owed their final deliverance to extraordinary good fortune. Athens had the prize within her grasp, and she lost it wholly through the persistent dilatoriness and blundering of Nicias (q.v.). It was at his advice that the summer and autumn of 415 were frittered away, and the siege not begun till the spring of 414. By that time the Syracusans were both in better spirits and better prepared; their troops were better organized, and they had built a wall from north to south across Epipolae, taking in Tyche and Ternenites, so as to screen them from attack on the side of Epipolae on the north-west. The effect of this was to bar the enemy's approach and push back his blockading lines, which had to be carried over an inconveniently large extent of ground. They did not, however, occupy Euryelus, at the western extrernity of the high ground of Epipolae, and this omission allowed the Athenians to obtain possession of the whole plateau, and to begin the investment of the city. The Syracusans had been at first thoroughly cowed; but they were cowed no longer, and they even plucked up courage to sally out and fight the enemy on the high ground of Epipolae. They were beaten and driven back; but at the suggestion of Hermocrates they carried a counter-work up the slope of Epipolae, which, if completed, would cut in two the Athenian lines and frustrate the blockade. At this point Nicias showed considerable military skill. The Syracusans' work was destroyed by a prompt and well-executed attack; and a second counter-work carried across marshy ground some distance to the south of Epipolae and near to the Great Harbour was also demolished after a sharp action, in which Lamachus fell, an irretrievable loss. However, the blockade on the land side was now almost
- ↑ Holm and Cavallari (cf. Lupus, Topographie von Syrakus, 91) make the construction of the mole and of the wall across it contemporary with the fortification of Achradina in the middle of the 7th century B.C. They also consider that the original west boundary of Achradina ran down to the Little Harbour, so that the southern boundary of Achradina was the sea itself.
- ↑ Holm and Cavallari (see Lupus, p. 99) are inclined to attribute to him the addition of Tyche to the city.
- ↑ Diod. xi. 72; cf. Arist. Pol. v. 3, 10.
- ↑ The chief authorities for the siege are Thucydides (bks. vi. and vii.), Diodorus (bk. xiii.) and Plutarch, Nicias.
