Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1088

 1064 SYRACUSAE. was of considerable natural stren£;th, and seems to have been early fortified by a wall. It is not im- probable that, in the first instance, the name of Achradina was given exclusively to the heights *, and that these, as well as the island, had originally their own separate defences ; but as the city spread itself out in the plain below, this must also have been protected by an outer wall on the side towards the marshes. It has indeed been supposed (Grote's Greece, vol. vii. p. 556) that no defence existed on this side till the time of the Athenian expedition, when the Syracusans, for the first time, surrounded the suburb of Temenitis with a wall ; but no men- tion is found in Thucydides of .so important a fact as the construction of tliis new line of defence down to the Great Harbour, and it seems impossible to believe that this part of the city should so long have remained unprotected.f It is probable indeed (though not certain) that tlie Agora was akeady in this part of the city, as we know it to have been in later times ; and it is highly improbable that so im- portant a part of the city would have been placed in an unfortified suburb. But still more necessary would be some such defence for the protection of the naval arsenals or dockyards in the inner bight of the Great Harbour, which certainly existed before the Athenian invasion. It seems, therefore, far more natural to suppose that, though the separate defences of Ortygia and the heights of Achradina (Diod. xi. 67, 73) were not destroyed, the two were from an early period, probably from the reign of Gelon, united by a common line of defence, which ran down from the heights to some point near that where the island of Ortygia most closely adjoined the main- land. The existence of such a boundary wall from the time of the Athenian War is certain ; and there .seems little doubt that the name of Achradina, sup- posing it to have originally belonged to the heights or table-land, soon c;une to be extended to the lower area also. Thus Diudorus describes Dionysius on his return from Gela as arriving at the gate of Achra- dina, where the outer gate of the city is certainly meant. (Diod. xiii. 113.) It is probable that this gate, which was that leading to Gela, is the same as the one called by Cicero the Portae Agragianae, immediately outside of which he had discovered the tomb of Archimedes. (Cic. Tusc. Quaest. v. 23.) But its situation cannot be determined : no distinct traces of the ancient walls remain on this side of Syracuse, and we know not how they may have been modified when the suburb of Neapolis was included in the city. It is probable, however, that the wall (as suggested by Col. Leake) ran from the brow of the hill near the amphitheatre in a direct line to the Great Harbour. 5es), from which the name, as suggested by Leake, was probably derived. f Tlie argument against this, urged by Cavallari, and derived from the existence of numerous tombs, especially the great necropolis of the catacombs, in this part of the city, which, as he contends, must have been without the walls, would prove too nuich, as it is certain that these tombs were ultimately in- cluded in the city ; and if the ordinary custom of the Greeks was deviated from at all, it may have been so at an earlier period. In fact we know that in other cases also, as at Agrigentum and Tarentum, the custom was violated, and persons lubitually buried within the walls. SYRACUSAE. Of the buildings noticed by Cicero as still adorning Achradina in his day there are scarcely any vestiges ; but the greater part of them were certainly situated in the lower quarter, nearest to the island arid the two ports. The Forum or Agora was apparently directly opposite to the Pentapyla or fortified entrance of the island ; it was surrounded with porticoes by the elder Dionysius (Diod. xiv. 7), which are obviously those alluded to by Cicero (" pulcherrimae porticus," Veri: iv. 53). The temple of Jupiter Olympius, noticed by the orator, also adjoined the Agora ; it was built by Hieron II. (Diod. xvi. 83), and must not be confounded with the more celebrated temple of the same divinity on a hill at some distance from the city. The prytaneum, which was most richly adorned, and among its chief ornaments possessed a celebrated statue of Sappho, which fell a prey to the cupidity of Verres (Cic. Verr. iv. 53, 57), was probably also situated in the neighbourhood of the Agora ; as was certainly the Timoleonteum, or monument erected to the memory of Timoleon. (Pint. Timol. 39.) The splendid sepulchral monument which had been erected by the younger Dionysius in memory of his father, but was destroyed after his own expulsion, seems to have stood in front of the Pentapyla, opposite the entrance of the citadel. (Diod. xv. 74.) A single column is still standing on this site, and the bases of a few others have been discovered, but it is uncertain to what edifice they belonged. The only other ruins now visible in this quarter of the city are some re- mains of Roman baths of little importance. But beneath the surface of the soil there exist e.Ktensive catacombs, constituting a complete necropolis : these tombs, as in most similar cases, are probably the work of successive ages, and can hardly be referred to any particular period. There exist, also, at two points on the slope of the hill of Achradina, extensive quarries hewn in the rock, similar to tho.se found in Neapolis near the theatre, of which we shall presently speak. Traces of the ancient walls of Achradina, crowning the low cliffs which bound it towards the sea, may be found from distance to distance along the whole line extending from the quarries of the Cappuccini round to the little bay or cove of Sta Panagia at the NW. angle of the plateau. Recent researches have also discovered the line of the western wall of Achra- dina, which appears to have run nearly in a straight line from the cove of Sta Panagia, to the steep and narrow pass or hollow way that leads up from the lower quarter to the heights above, thus taking ad- vantage of the partial depression or valley already noticed. The cove oi Sta Panagia may perhaps be the PoiJTUS Teogiliorum of Livy (xxv. 23), though the similar cove of the Scala Greca, about half a mile further W., would seem to have the better claim to that designation. The name is evidently the same with that of Trogilus, mentioned by Thu- cydides as the point on the N. side of the heights towards which the Athenians directed their lines of circumvallation, but without succeeding in reaching it. (Thuc. vi. 99, vii. 2.) 3. Tycha (Tvxrj), so called, as we are told by Cicero, from its containing an ancient and celebrated temple of Fortune, was situated on the plateau or table-land W. of Achradina, and adjoining the northern face of the cliffs looking towards Jlegara. Though it became one of the most populous quarters of Syracuse, no trace of its existence is foimd at the period of the Athenian siege ; and it may fairly be assumed that there was as yet no considerable
 * These still abound in the wild pear-trees (axpti-