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 CHAPTER II. DEFEAT OF THE ATHENIANS AT SYRACUSE, B.C. 413.

cities have undergone more memorable sieges during ancient and mediæval times than has the city of Syracuse. Athenian, Carthaginian, Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, Saracen, and Norman, have in turns beleaguered her walls; and the resistance which she successfully opposed to some of her early assailants, was of the deepest importance, not only to the fortunes of the generations then in being, but to all the subsequent