Lautumiae
or
Latomiae. A name properly denoting a quarry, and derived from the
Greek
λᾶας, “a stone,” and
τέμνω, “to cut” or “quarry.”
This appellation was particularly applied to certain quarries near Syracuse, one of which
still bears the name of “The Ear of Dionysius,” because it is said to have
been used by that tyrant for a prison, and to have been so constructed that all the sounds
uttered in it converged to and united in one particular point, termed, in consequence, the
tympanum. This point communicated with an apartment (the famous “Ear of
Dionysius”), where Dionysius placed himself, and thus overheard all that was said by
his unsuspecting captives. There is no doubt that these quarries actually served as places of
imprisonment, and Cicero reproaches Verres with having employed them for this purpose in the
case of Roman citizens (
Verr. v. 27). Aelian informs us that some of the
workmen in the quarries near Syracuse remained so long there as to marry and rear families in
them, and that some of their children, having never before seen a city, were terrified on
their coming to Syracuse, and beholding for the first time horses and oxen (Aelian,
V.
H. xii. 44). See
Carcer, p. 278.
