SYRACUSE
(Siracusa) Sicily.
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.
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Gymnasium 6 (1969).
G. VOZA