Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/495

PREPARATIONS OF DTONYSIUS. 473 period) were prodigious in extent as well as elaborate in work- mansliip ; and the remains of them exhibit, even to modern ob- servers, the most complete specimen preserved to us of ancient fortification. 1 To bring them into such a condition must have occupied a longer time than twenty days. Even as to the wall, perhaps, twenty days is rather to be understood as indicating the time required for the essential continuity of its line, leaving tow- ers, gates, etc., to be added afterwards. To provide defence for Syracuse against a besieging army, how- ever, was only a small part of the extensive schemes of Diony- sius. What he meditated was aggressive war against the Cartha- ginians ; for which purpose, he not only began to accumulate pre- parations of every kind on the most extensive scale, but also mod- ified his policy both towards the Syracusans and towards the other Sicilian Greeks. Towards the Syracusans his conduct underwent a material change. The cruelty and oppression which had hitherto marked his dominion was discontinued ; he no longer put men to death, or sent them into banishment, with the same merciless hand as before In place of such tyranny, he now substituted comparative mild- ness, forbearance, and conciliation. 2 Where the system had be- fore been so fraught with positive maltreatment to many and alarm to all, the mitigation of it must have been sensibly as well as immediately felt. And when we make present to our minds the relative position of Dionysius and the Syracusans, we shall see that the evil inflicted by his express order by no means repre- sented the whole amount of evil which they suffered. He occu- pied the impregnable fortress of Ortygia, with the entire harbor, docks, and maritime means of the city. The numerous garrison in his pay, and devoted to him, consisted in great part of barbaric or non-Hellenic sol liers and of liberated slaves, probably also non- Hellenic. The Syracusans resident in the outer city and around were not only destitute of the means of defensive concert and 1 According to the testimony of Saverio Cavallari, the architect under whose directions the excavations were made in 1839, whereby these remains were first fully disclosed (Zur Topographic von Syrakus, p. 21). 3 Diodor. xiv, 45. 'ATrerttfero yap ijfy r<> iriKpov r^f rvpavvidof, KO.I fte~ rapaTilio/ievof tlr iirietKeiav, fyd.av&pu'KOTepov fypxc ~uv VTio~KrajiJ.Evuv, ovrt jovevuv, ovre (ftvyafiaf TTOLUV, Ka&airep eludti.