Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/850

 814 SYRACUSE great temple of Olympian Zeus stood in Polichne and that (Plut., Nic., 14) the register of Syracusan citizens was kept there. Earliest Till the beginning of the 5th century B.C. our notices of histori- Syracusan history are quite fragmentary. Almost the only cal. question is whether, as some stray notices (Athen., i. 56; P ' see Miiller's Dorians, i. 161, Eng. tr.) might suggest, the primitive kingship was retained or renewed at Syracuse, as it certainly was in some other Greek colonies. A king Pollis is spoken of ; but nothing is known of his actions. It is far more certain that Syracuse went through the usual revolutions of a Greek city. The descendants of the original settlers kept the land in their own hands, and they gradually brought the Sicel inhabitants to a state not unlike villainage. Presently other settlers, perhaps not always Greek, gathered round the original Syracusan people; they formed a distinct body, Sr^nos or plebs, personally free, but with an inferior political franchise or none at all. The old citizens thus gradually grew into an exclusive or aristocratic body, called ydfj.opoi or land- owners. We hear incidentally of disputes, seditions, and changes, among others the banishment of a whole gens (Thuc., v. 5 ; Arist., Pol., v. 3, 5, 4, 1 ) ; but we have no dates or details till we have entered the 5th century B.C. In its external development Syracuse differed somewhat from other Sicilian cities. Although it lagged in early times behind "both Gela and Acragas (Agrigentum), it very soon began to aim at a combination of land and sea power. Between 663 and 598 it founded the settlements of Acrse, Casmenae, and Camarina, of which the first was unusually far inland. The three together secured for Syracuse a continuous dominion to the south-east coast. They were not strictly colonies but outposts ; Camarina indeed was destroyed after a revolt against the ruling city (Thuc., v. 1). That the inland Sicel town of Henna was ever a Syracusan settlement there is no reason to believe. Of this early time some architectural monuments still remain, as the two temples in Ortygia, one of which is now the metropolitan church, and the small remains of the Olym- pieum or temple of Zeus in Polichne, all of course in the ancient Doric style. The second period of Syracusan history, which roughly begins with the 5th century, is far better ascertained. It is a period of change in every way. The aristocratic com- monwealth becomes in turn a tyranny and a democracy ; and Syracuse becomes the greatest Greek city in Sicily, the mistress of other cities, the head of a great dominion, for a moment, of the greatest dominion in Hellas. Strange Gelon. to say, all this growth begins in subjection to the ruler of another city. Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela, held the chief power in eastern Sicily at the beginning of the 5th century B.C. (498-491). He threatened Syracuse as well as other cities, and it was delivered only by the joint intervention of Corinth and Corcyra, and by the cession of the vacant territory of Camarina. In 485 the Syracusan Svy/tos or plebs joined with the Sicel serf population to drive out the gamoroi, the ruling oligarchs. These last craved help of Gelon, the successor of Hippocrates, who took possession of Syracuse without opposition, and made it the seat of his power. Syracuse now grew by the depopulation of other cities conquered by Gelon. He gave citizenship both to mercenaries (Diod., xi. 73) and to settlers from old Greece (Paus., v. 27, 16, 17; Find., Olymp., vi.), so that Syracuse became a city of mingled race, in which the new citizens had the advantage. The town spread to the mainland : the new town of Achradina, with separate fortifications, arose on the eastern part of the adjoining peninsula (Diod., xi. 73), while Ortygia became the inner city, the stronghold of the ruler. Indeed in the form of unwalled suburbs the city seems to have spread even beyond Achradina (Diod., xi. 61, 68, 72). Gelon's general rule was mild, and he won fame as the champion of Hellas by his great victory over the Carthaginians at Himera. He is said to have been greeted as king ; but he does not seem to have taken the title in any formal way. Gelon's brother and successor Hiero (478-467) kept up the power of the city ; he won himself a name by his encouragement of poets and philosophers ; and his Pythian and Olympian victories made him the special subject of the songs of Pindar. He appeared also as a Hellenic champion in the defence of Cumse, and he attempted to found a Syracusan colony on the island of ^Enaria, now Ischia. But his internal government, unlike that of Gelon, was suspicious, greedy, and cruel. After some family dis- putes the power passed to his brother Thrasybulus, who was driven out next year by a general rising (see SICILY, p. 16). In this revolution Thrasybulus and his mercen- aries held the fortified quarters of Ortygia and Achradina ; the revolted people held the unwalled suburbs, already, it is plain, thickly inhabited. Thrasybulus yielded to the common action of Siceliots and Sicels. Syracuse again became a free commonwealth, and, as the effect of the tyranny had been to break down old distinctions, it was now a democratic commonwealth. Renewed freedom was celebrated by a colossal statue of Zeus Eleutherius and by a yearly feast in his honour. But when the mercenaries and other new settlers were shut out from office J new struggles arose. The mercenaries again held Ortygia and Achradina. The people now walled in the suburb of Tyche to the west of Achradina (Diod., xi. 73). The mercenaries were at last got rid of in 461. Although we hear of attempts to seize the tyranny and of an institution called petalism, like the Athenian ostracism, designed to guard against such dangers, popular government was not seriously threatened for more than fifty years. The part of Syracuse in general Sicilian affairs has been traced in the article SICILY (q.v.) ; but one striking scene is wholly local, when the defeated Ducetius took refuge in the hostile city (451), and the common voice of the people bade " spare the suppliant." We have but one solitary notice of the great military and naval strength of Syracuse in 439 (Diod., xii. 30). Yet all that we read of Syracusan military and naval action during the former part of the Athenian siege shows how Syracuse had lagged behind the cities of old Greece, constantly practised as they were in warfare both by land and sea. The Athenian siege(415-413) is of the deepest importance for the topography of Syracuse, and it throws some light on the internal politics. Hermocrates, the best of counsellors for external affairs, is suspected, and seemingly with reason, of disloyalty to the democratic constitution. Yet he is, like Nicias and Phocion, the official man, head of a board of fifteen generals, which he persuades the people to cut down to three. Athenagoras, the demagogue or opposition speaker, has the best possible exposition of democratic principles put into his mouth by Thucydides (vi. 36-40). Through the whole siege 2 there was a treasonable party within the city, which for what motive we are not told kept up a correspondence with the besiegers. The speech of Athenagoras is that of a very clever demagogue ; it sums up very forcibly all that can be said against oligarchy, and it may have been perfectly sincere. But his views were overruled, and preparation was made in earnest for the city's defence. When the Athenian fleet under Nicias and Lamachus was at Rhegium in Italy, the question for the commanders was whether they should seek to strengthen themselves by fresh alliances on the spot or strike the blow at once. Lamachus was for immediate action, and there can hardly be a doubt that Syracuse must have fallen before a sudden attack by so formidable an armament in the summer of 1 Diod., xi. 72 ; cf. Arist., Pol., v. 3, 10, and Grote's note, v. 319. 2 The chief authorities for the siege are Thucydides (bks. vi. and vii.), Diodorus (bk. xiii.), and Plutarch, Life of A'ictus. Gelon's succes- sors. Atheniar siege.