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The site of the ancient city, now entirely covered by the modern one,
lies on the SE coast of Sicily and once comprised a small island, Ortygia, which
has yielded evidence of prehistoric life starting in the Early Paleolithic period.
The Corinthians, led by Archias of the family of the Bacchiads, routed the Sikels
and founded the colony in 734 B.C. The foundation of sub-colonies--Akrai in 664,
Kasmenai in 624, Kamarina in 559--indicate that the city flourished. Gelon brought
to the city a period of splendor and political power. In the battle of Himera
in 480 B.C., Gelon and Theron of Akragas won a great victory over the Carthaginians,
while the naval battle of Cumae in 474, which Hieron I won against the Etruscans,
ensured the city's control over the S basin of the Mediterranean. Arts and letters
flourished; philosophers and poets, among whom were Aeschylus, Simonides, and
Pindar, came here to live. In 466 B.C. with the expulsion of Thrasyboulos, the
successor of Hieron I, the city adopted a democratic government and for ca. 40
years enjoyed prosperity and power. Successes against the Etruscans and against
Ducetius greatly enlarged the city's sphere of influence and prestige throughout
Sicily.
In the last quarter of the 5th c., in answer to Segesta's request
for help by Leontinoi against Syracuse, Athens sent a fleet which was defeated
in the Great Harbor. About this time Dionysios, an extremely able politician who
had managed to concentrate all power into his own hands and who had negotiated
peace with Carthage, transformed Ortygia into a well-provided fortress, and began
the fortification of Syracuse, which included the large plateau of the Epipolai.
After his death, the city lived under the rule of mediocre men until the arrival
of Timoleon, who was sent from Corinth at the head of an expedition. He conquered
the city and began the reorganization and rebuilding not only of Syracuse but
of Greek cities that had been subject to Carthage. He was succeeded by Agathokles,
son of a potter, who defeated (310 B.C.) and laid siege to Syracuse. He was successful
also in Magna Graecia, thus securing for Syracuse a large territorial domain.
After his death, the Carthaginians were fended off by Pyrrhos, king of Epeiros
and Agathokles' father-in-law.
In 275 B.C. Hieron II seized control of the city and ruled for 54
years. He was succeeded by his grandson Hieronimos, under whose rule the city
became an ally of Carthage and fell to Rome.
The city declined under Roman rule until Augustus sent a colony there
in 21 B.C. The city's recovery lasted through the first centuries of the empire.
St. Paul stopped in Syracuse on his trip to Rome, staying with the Christian community,
which must have enjoyed considerable prestige in Sicily. Syracuse was served by
two excellent natural harbors: the Great Harbor, formed by a large bay closed
by Ortygia and the Plemmyrion (the modern peninsula of the Maddalena) into which
flow the Anapo and the Ciane rivers, and the Small Harbor or Lakkios, delimited
by Ortygia and the shoreline of Achradina. The five districts of the ancient city
were Ortygia, Achradina, Tyche, Neapolis, and Epipolai. In Ortygia, which was
supplied with fresh water (Arethusa fountain) and was easily defensible, the Corinthian
colonists created the first urban nucleus. This must have soon extended to the
mainland, in the area immediately beyond the isthmus, where another district was
formed, Achradina, containing the agora and surrounded by the earliest cemeteries
of the city (the necropolis of Fusco, of the former Spagna Garden, and of Via
Bainsizza) which thus gave us the approximate limits of the district. Achradina
early acquired a fortification wall. Tyche, the district which corresponds approximately
to the modern S. Lucia, must have clustered around the sanctuary of the deity
after whom it was named. Neapolis developed to the NW of Achradina, that is, to
the W of the modern highway to Catania and as far as the Greek theater; in the
Hellenistic period it received a complex of important public buildings of monumental
nature and expanded into the area formerly occupied by the archaic necropoleis.
Epipolai represents the vast plateau, triangular in shape, which extends to the
N and W of the city and culminates in the Euryalos Fort. In the closing years
of the 5th c. the plateau was encircled by a huge fortification wall that united
it with the urban area solely for defense.
Ortygia retains vestiges of the earliest sacred buildings erected
by the Greek colonists. The Temple of Apollo, at the point of access into Ortygia,
goes back to the beginning of the 6th c. B.C. and has considerable importance
for the history of Doric architecture in the West.
The temple, discovered in 1862 and completely excavated in 1943,
was repeatedly transformed through the centuries. It has an elongated plan, a
stereobate (crepidoma) with four steps and is hexastyle with 17 columns on the
flanks. In front of the cella there is a second row of six columns; the cella,
preceded by a distyle-in-antis pronaos, was divided into three naves by two rows
of columns in two levels; its W end contained the closed area of the adyton.
The columns of the peristyle, all set very close together, lack entasis,
and are marked by 16 very shallow flutes; they are surmounted by heavy capitals
with strongly compressed abaci, on which rests an unusually high epistyle. The
temple frieze had tall triglyphs and narrow metopes, which took no account whatever
of the spacing of the columns. Fragments of terracotta revetments with lively
polychrome decoration are also preserved. The lack of equilibrium among the temple
parts, the marked elongation of its forms, the depth of the front of the building,
the presence of the adyton, the lack of coordination among the spatial elements
of the peristyle, are the most obvious traits of the architecture of this temple.
An inscription on the stylobate of the E facade attests that the building was
dedicated to Apollo and was the work of Kleomenes son of Knidios.
Another temple, on a small elevation S of the city, was dedicated
to Zeus Olympios; it resembles the Apollonion but shows improved correlations
among its parts. A section of the crepidoma survives, together with two incomplete
shafts of the monolithic columns of the peristasis. The temple was divided into
pronaos, cella, and adyton, and had 6 columns on facade and 17 on the sides. There
are remains of two other impressive temples on the highest elevation of the island.
Of the earlier, which was begun in the second half of the 6th c., the structures
of the stereobate and several architectural members have recently been exposed.
It is the only Ionic temple known in Sicily. It must have had 6 columns on the
facade and 14 on the sides; it was left unfinished, presumably on the arrival
of the Deinomenids. At the beginning of the 5th c. B.C., a second temple was erected
parallel to the Ionic temple on the S. An Athenaion, it was probably built after
Gelon's victory over the Carthaginians at Himera in 480 B.C. It was constructed
within a large sacred area which already comprised sacred structures, altars and
votive deposits dating from the beginning of the 6th c. The temple, hexastyle
with 14 columns on the sides, contains cella, pronaos and opisthodomos, both distyle
in antis. The building, constructed of local limestone and surmounted by tiles
and sima in Greek marble, conforms fully with developed Doric.
The Athenaion was transformed into a Christian church and in the
8th c. Bishop Zosimo transferred to it the episcopal see; it is even now a cathedral.
The transformation of the temple into a church required the screening of the intercolumniations
and the opening of arches into the isodomic outer walls of the cella. Of the Greek
temple, the facades are no longer extant, but clearly visible are a good deal
of the peristyle (both from within and from without the cathedral), a segment
of the entablature on the N side and the general structure of the cella. No other
important ancient remains survive in Ortygia.
In Achradina, which must have been surrounded by a defensive system,
almost nothing is left of the important civic buildings, for instance the stoas,
the chrematisteria, the prytaneion, which are mentioned by the ancient sources.
The only monumental complex partly preserved is the so-called Roman gymnasium
S of the agora area. This architectural complex, comprising a small theater facing
a marble temple and set within a large quadriportico, is of the 1st c. A.D.
Neapolis is the district preserving the most conspicuous complex
of ancient monumental buildings, among which the theater is particularly well
known. The form of the existing theater may be 3d c. B.C., but probably there
was an earlier theater by Damokopos on the site (early 5th c. B.C.?) where Aeschylus
produced The Persians and The Women of Aetna, and where Epicharmos' comedies
were performed. What remains of the theater today is only what was cut into the
rock of the hill from which this impressive and unified structure was almost entirely
derived. The cavea, ca. 134 m in diameter, is divided vertically into nine cunei
separated by klimakes and horizontally by a diazoma that breaks it into summa
cavea and ima cavea. Each section, at the level of the diazoma, presents inscriptions,
partially preserved, which give the names of the divinities or of the members
of the ruling family to which the section was dedicated. The central cuneus was
dedicated to Zeus Olympios, two of the sections toward E to Demeter and Herakles,
and those toward W are inscribed to Hieron II, his wife Philistis, his daughter-in-law
Nereis, and his son Gelon II. These inscriptions, which must be dated between
238 and 215, are instrumental in establishing a precise chronology for the building
of the theater. As for the orchestra and the whole stage building, of which almost
nothing is preserved above ground level, innumerable cuttings and trenches are
preserved in the rocky scarp; they are variously interpreted by scholars and bear
witness to the many alterations, adaptations, and phases of this part of the theater.
The remains of the stage, belonging to the period of Hieron II, are
few and badly fragmented; it was probably of the type with paraskenia, as in the
theaters at Tyndaris and Segesta. The interpretation of some markings before the
stage of the Greek scene building (a long trench and a series of cuttings in the
rock) has suggested the use of a wooden stage which might have been employed to
perform phlyakes. More consistent evidence, especially the long foundation built
with limestone blocks, further suggests a major alteration in the stage building
in the Late Hellenistic period: the facade was probably provided with thyromata.
In the Roman period the whole monumental stage building was moved forward toward
the cavea. This move involved the covering over of the earlier parodoi, which
were replaced by passageways in cryptae above which were built tribunalia. The
theater was also adapted for ludi circenses and for variety shows during the Late
Empire. A vast terrace overlooks the cavea and in antiquity housed two stoas set
at right angle to each other.
To the W of the theater an altar, bases for stelai and votive offerings,
seem to provide evidence for the Sanctuary of Apollo Temenites whose area was
crossed by the last retaining wall of the theater cavea.
Not far from the sanctuary, a short distance to the SE of the theater,
lies the so-called Altar of Hieron II. It is 198 m long and retains only an enormous
rock-cut podium, with two large ramps leading to the central part of the structure
where public sacrifices were offered by the city. The whole area in front of the
monument was planned to impress: a vast square extended the length of the altar
and hal a rectangular pool in the center; it was bordered by porticos with propylaia
of the Augustan period.
The amphitheater, probably dating from the 3d c. A.D., is one of
the largest known (external dimensions 140 m and 199 m). The entire N half was
cut out of the rock, and the opposite half built on artificial fill. It had two
large entrances to the arena on the N and S, three corridors leading to the steps,
and a service passage around the arena. In the center of the arena is a large
pool serviced by two canals. In the area of the steps a podium is bordered by
a marble parapet inscribed with the names of the people for whom the seats were
reserved. Outside the amphitheater a large area was flanked by retaining walls
and provided with entrances, rooms of various types, and water tanks; it was connected
with the S entrance to the building.
These monumental structures of Neapolis are bordered on the N by
a series of quarries which provided the blocks for the ancient buildings. The
so-called Ear of Dionysios, the Grotto of the Ropemakers, the Grotto of Saltpeter
are famous for their acoustical properties and their picturesque appearance.
The Epipolai, the rocky plateau of roughly triangular shape which
dominates the immediate hinterland of Syracuse, was incorporated into the city
for defensive reasons at the end of the 5th c. B.C. At the time of the war against
Athens (416-413 B.C.), only Achradina was fortified. Dionysios fortified the Epipolai
between 402 and 397 B.C. against the threat of Carthage. He produced an immense
defensive system: 27 kms of fortification walls deployed at the edge of the limestone
terrace and culminating at its highest point in the Euryalos Fort, one of the
most grandiose defensive works in dimensions and conception to have survived from
antiquity. Three huge ditches were dug into the rock to prevent a massive frontal
attack against the keep of the fortress. Between the second and third ditch a
defensive apparatus was accessible by means of a stepped tunnel opening onto the
bottom of the third ditch; from this moat, the veritable nerve center of the entire
defensive system, a network of passageways and galleries branched off and connected
all the various parts of the fort. At the S end of this third ditch rose three
powerful piers which supported a drawbridge. In the space between the third ditch
and the main body of the fortress is a pointed bastion, S of which are the remains
of a structure linking the drawbridge with the fort proper. This latter is in
two parts; the first is almost rectangular in shape, defended by five towers connected
by wall curtains and protected on the S by a ditch; the second part, an irregular
trapezoid, contains three cisterns for the water supply of the castle; it had
the function of connecting the fortress to the main defensive system. To the NE
of this section of the fortress a town gate with two arches, built according to
the pincer system, was protected by towers and external cross walls which channeled
traffic into narrow passageways close to the wall curtains from which defense
was easy.
Not all the parts of this defensive system, brilliantly engineered
under Dionysios, were contemporary but were gradually perfected through the 4th
and 3d c. B.C. to conform with the changing requirements of the art of war. Transformations
and adaptations were also carried out in the Byzantine period, especially in the
rectangular section of the fortress.
The Archaeological Museum includes among its exhibits much material
of the Classical period.
G. Voza, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Sep 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains 127 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
(Surakousai or Surakossai, Ion. Surekousai, also Surakousai, Surakouse). Now Siracusa
in Italian; Syracuse in English: the wealthiest and most populous town in Sicily.
It was situated on the south part of the east coast, 400 stadia north of the promontory
Plemmyrium, and ten stadia northeast of the mouth of the river Anapus, near the
lake or marsh called Syraco (Surako), from which it derived its name. It was founded
B.C. 734, one year after the foundation of Naxos, by a colony of Corinthians and
other Dorians, led by Archias the Corinthian. The town was originally confined
to the island Ortygia lying immediately off the coast; but it afterwards spread
over the neighbouring mainland, and at the time of its greatest extension under
the elder Dionysius it consisted of five distinct towns, each surrounded by separate
walls. Some writers indeed describe Syracuse as consisting of four towns, but
this simply arises from the fact that Epipolae was frequently not reckoned a portion
of the city.
These five towns were:
(1) Ortygia (Ortugia), frequently called simply the Island (Nasos or Nesos), an
island of an oblong shape, about two miles in circumference, lying between the
Great Harbour on the west and the Little Harbour on the east. It was, as has been
already remarked, the portion of the city first built, and it contained the citadel
or Acropolis, surrounded by double walls, which Timoleon caused to be destroyed.
In this island also was the celebrated fountain of Arethusa. It was originally
separated from the mainland by a narrow channel, which was subsequently filled
up by a causeway; but this causeway must at a still later time have been swept
away, since we find in the Roman period that the island was connected with the
mainland by means of a bridge.
(2) Achradina (Achradine) occupied originally the high ground of the peninsula
north of Ortygia, and was surrounded on the north and east by the sea. The lower
ground between Achradina and Ortygia was at first not included in the fortifications
of either, but was employed partly for religious processions and partly for the
burial of the dead. At the time of the siege of Syracuse by the Athenians in the
Peloponnesian War (415), the city censisted only of the two parts already mentioned,
Ortygia forming the inner and Achradina the outer city, but separated, as explained
above, by the low ground between the two.
(3) Tyche (Tuche), named after the temple of Tyche or Fortune, and situated northwest
of Achradina, in the direction of the port called Trogilus. At the time of the
Athenian siege of Syracuse it was only an unfortified suburb, but it afterwards
became the most populous part of the city. In this quarter stood the Gymnasium.
(4) Neapolis (Nea polis), nearly southwest of Achradina, was also, at the time
of the Athenian siege of Syracuse, merely a suburb, and called Temenites, from
having within it the statue and consecrated ground of Apollo Temenites. Neapolis
contained the chief theatre of Syracuse, which was the largest in all Sicily,
and many temples.
(5) Epipolae (hai Epipolai), a space of ground rising above the three quarters
of Achradina, Tyche, and Neapolis, which gradually diminished in breadth as it
rose higher, until it ended in a small conical mound. This rising ground was surrounded
with strong walls by the elder Dionysius, and was thus included in Syracuse, which
now became one of the most strongly fortified cities of the ancient world. The
highest point of Epipolae was called Euryelus (Euruelos), on which stood the fort
Labdalum (Labdalon).
After Epipolae had been added to the city, the circumference of Syracuse
was one hundred and eighty stadia, or upward of twenty-two English miles; and
the entire population of the city is supposed to have amounted to five hundred
thousand souls at the time of its greatest prosperity.
Syracuse had two harbours. The Great Harbour, still called Porto
Maggiore, is a splendid bay about five miles in circumference, formed by the island
Ortygia and the promontory Plemmyrium. The Small Harbour, also called Laccius
(Lakkios), lying between Ortygia and Achradina, was capacious enough to receive
a large fleet of ships of war. There were several stone quarries (lautumiae) in
Syracuse, which are frequently mentioned by ancient writers, and in which the
unfortunate Athenian prisoners were confined. These quarries were partly in Achradina,
on the descent from the higher ground to the lower level towards Ortygia, and
partly in Neapolis, under the southern cliff of Epipolae. From these was taken
the stone of which the city was built (Thucyd. vii. 86). The so-called "Ear
of Dionysius", in which the tyrant was supposed to overhear the conversation
of his captives, is probably an invention of a mediaeval writer. The city was
supplied with water from an aqueduct, which was constructed by Gelon and improved
by Hieron. It was brought through Epipolae and Neapolis to Achradina and Ortygia.
The modern city of Syracuse is confined to the island. The remaining quarters
of the ancient city are now uninhabited, and their position marked only by a few
ruins. Of these the most important are the remains of the great theatre, and of
an amphitheatre of the Roman period.
The government of Syracuse was originally an aristocracy; and the
political power was in the hands of the landed proprietors, called Geomori or
Gamori. In course of time the people, having increased in numbers and wealth,
expelled the Geomori and established a democracy. But this form of government
did not last long. Gelon espoused the cause of the aristocratic party, and proceeded
to restore them by force of arms; but on his approach the people opened the gates
to him, and he was acknowledged without opposition tyrant or sovereign of Syracuse,
B.C. 485. Under his rule and that of his brother Hieron, Syracuse was raised to
an unexampled degree of wealth and prosperity. Hieron died in 467, and was succeeded
by his brother Thrasybulus; but the rapacity and cruelty of the latter soon provoked
a revolt among his subjects, which led to his deposition and the establishment
of a democratic form of government. The next most important event in the history
of Syracuse was the siege of the city by the Athenians, which ended in the total
destruction of the great Athenian armament in 413. This affair, known in history
as the Sicilian Expedition, was the turning point in the Peloponnesian War. The
expedition set out from Athens in B.C. 415 under Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus,
and at first won a number of successes, so that Nicias, in 414, had seized Epipolae
and begun the complete investment of Syracuse. The arrival of Gylippus, the Spartan
general, turned the tide. The Syracusans defeated the Athenians, annihilated the
invading army, and took Nicias and his later colleague Demosthenes prisoners.
The democracy continued to exist in Syracuse till B.C. 406, when the
elder Dionysius made himself tyrant of the city. After a long and prosperous reign,
he was succeeded in 367 by his son, the younger Dionysius, who was finally expelled
by Timoleon in 343. A republican form of government was again established; but
it did not last long; and in 317 Syracuse fell under the sway of Agathocles. This
tyrant died in 289; and the city being distracted by factions, the Syracusans
voluntarily conferred the supreme power upon Hieron II., with the title of king,
in 270. Hieron cultivated friendly relations with the Romans; but on his death
in 216, at the advanced age of ninetytwo, his grandson Hieronymus, who succeeded
him, espoused the side of the Carthaginians. A Roman army under Marcellus was
sent against Syracuse; and after a siege of two years, during which Archimedes
assisted his fellow-citizens by the construction of various engines of war, the
city was taken by Marcellus in 212. From this time Syracuse became a town of the
Roman province of Sicily.
This text is cited Sep 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Total results on 10/4/2001: 1000 Syracuse, 769 Syracusans
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