Syracusans

“ As to the supposed danger from the ambition of Syracuse, that was mere idle talk. The schemes of conquest, with which the Egestaeans had tried to alarm the Athenians, would keep the Syracusans busy at home, and prevent them from meddling in the affairs of Greece. "Leave the Greeks of Sicily alone," said Nicias with true prophetic insight; "and they will not trouble you. Do not disturb the prestige which belongs to a distant and unfamiliar power. If they once learn to know you, they may learn to despise you." ”

“ Besides which, riches, the natural effect of commerce, had rendered the Syracusans proud, haughty, and imperious, and at the same time had plunged them into a sloth and luxury, that inspired them with a disgust for all fatigue and application. They abandoned themselves blindly to their orators, who had acquired an absolute ascendant over them. In order to make them obey, it was necessary either to flatter or reproach them. They had naturally a fund of equity, humanity, and good nature ”

“ Yet if you can find in your hearts to assist us, the most inconsiderate and unfortunate of men, you may to your eternal honor again retrieve this unhappy city. But if the Syracusans can obtain no more pity nor relief from you, may the gods reward you for what you have formerly valiantly done for them, and for your kindness to Dion, of whom speak hereafter as one who deserted you not when you were injured and abused, nor afterwards forsook his fellow-citizens in their afflictions and misfortunes. ”

“ There, in front of the temple of Concord, which was situated there, Polyaenus, one of the prominent citizens, made a speech which breathed of freedom but at the same time counselled moderation. "Men," he said, "who have experienced the fear and the humiliation of slavery are stung to rage against an evil which they know well. What disasters civil discord brings in its train, you, Syracusans, have heard from your fathers rather than witnessed yourselves. ”

“ That he was indeed now besieging Syracuse for the third year, but not that the Romans might hold that state in a condition of slavery, but that the ringleaders of the deserters might not keep it in a state of thraldom and oppression. What the Syracusans could do was exemplified, either by the conduct of those Syracusans who were among the Roman troops, or that of the Spanish general, Mericus, who had delivered up the post which he was appointed to command, or, lastly, by the late but bold measure adopted by the Syracusans themselves. ”

“ The wide difference between the two characters, the slowness and want of energy of the Lacedaemonians as contrasted with the dash and enterprise of their opponents, proved of the greatest service, especially to a maritime empire like Athens. Indeed this was shown by the Syracusans, who were most like the Athenians in character, and also most successful in combating them. ”

“ As soon as the Syracusans heard that the Athenians were within their seas, they made three generals, invested with absolute power, Hermocrates, Sicanus, and Heraclides, who raised soldiers, and sent messengers through all the cities of Sicily, to press them with all earnestness to join with them in arms for the common safety of their country; for that the Athenians, under colour of a war against the Syracusans, had no other design but to subdue the whole island. To which the Agrigentines and Naxians answered, that they were resolved to abide firm in their league with the Athenians. ”

“ It tended much to guarantee Syracuse from those disasters which had so recently befallen Agrigentum and the other cities. Accordingly, it was exceeding popular among the Syracusans, and produced between them and Dionysius a sentiment of friendship and harmony such as had not before been seen. Every man labored at the work not merely with good will, but with enthusiasm; while the despot himself displayed unwearied zeal, passing whole days on the spot, and taking part in all the hardship and difficulty. ”

“ He advised, that they should proceed at once, without any delay, to attack Syracuse, and fight their battle under its walls. The Syracusans, he urged, were now in terror and only half-prepared for defence. Many of their citizens, and much [p. 192] property, would be found still lingering throughout the neighboring lands, not yet removed within the walls, and might thus be seized for the subsistence of their army; [284] while the deserted town and harbor of Megara, very near to Syracuse both by land and by sea, might be occupied by the fleet as a naval station. ”

“ But all along that slope from east to west, immediately in front or to the north of his position, stretched the counter-wall built by the Syracusans; beginning at the city wall on the lowest ground, and reaching up first in a northwesterly, next in a westerly direction, until it joined the fort on the upper ground near the cliff, where the road from Euryalus down to Syracuse passed. The Syracusans, as defenders, were on the north side of this counter-wall; he and the Athenians on the south side. ”

“ Respecting the servile classes in other Grecian states our information is very scanty: we simply know that the serfs of the Syracusans were denominated Killicyrii, [268] and exceedingly numerous, so that “more in number than the Killicyrii,” became a proverb. They would seem to have dwelt chiefly in the country like the Cretan Mnotæ. In process of time, however, their multitude inspired them with courage; they assaulted and drove out their masters, and, fortune favouring their enterprise, retained possession of Syracuse. ”

“ So nearly, indeed, had Nicias completed his beleaguering lines, and so utterly desperate had the state of Syracuse seemingly become, that an assembly of the Syracusans was actually convened, and they were discussing the terms on which they should offer to capitulate, when a galley was seen dashing into the great harbour, and making her way towards the town with all the speed that her rowers could supply. From her shunning the part of the harbour where the Athenian fleet lay, and making straight for the Syracusan side, it was clear that she was a friend ”

“ Attacking in this way in considerable disorder, the Syracusans were defeated in battle at Epipolae and retired to the town, with a loss of about three hundred killed, and Diomilus among the number. After this the Athenians set up a trophy and restored to the Syracusans their dead under truce, and next day descended to Syracuse itself; and no one coming out to meet them, reascended and built a fort at Labdalum, upon the edge of the cliffs of Epipolae, looking towards Megara, to serve as a magazine for their baggage and money, whenever they advanced to battle or to work at the lines. ”

“ Since the Athenian siege, the Syracusans may perhaps have preserved the fort erected by Gylippus near Euryalus; but they had pulled down the wall of junction, the cross-wall, and the outer wall of protection constructed between the arrival of Nikias in Sicily and his commencement of the siege, enclosing the sacred precinct of Apollo Temenites. The outer city of Syracuse was thus left with nothing but the wall of Achradina, with its two suburbs or excrescences, Tychê and Neapolis. ”

“ The Syracusans opened all their gates to Marcellus, and sent deputies to him with instructions to demand nothing further from him than the preservation of the lives of themselves and their children. Marcellus having assembled his council, and some Syracusans who were in his camp, gave his answer to the deputies in their presence:—‘That Hiero, for fifty years, had not done the Roman people more good than those who have been masters of Syracuse some years past had intended to do them harm ”

“ This island comprised the original settlement of the first Greek colonists from Corinth, who founded Syracuse two thousand five hundred years ago; and the modern city has shrunk again into these primary limits. But, in the fifth century before our era, the growing wealth and population of the Syracusans had led them to occupy and include within their city walls portion after portion of the mainland lying next to the little isle; so that at the time of the Athenian expedition the seaward part of the land between the two bays already spoken of was built over, and fortified from bay to bay ”

“ The three Chalkidic cities were the old enemies of Syracuse, but Leontini had been conquered by the Syracusans even before the Athenian expedition, and remained as a Syracusan possession until the last peace with the Carthaginians, when it had been declared independent. Naxus and Katana had contrived to retain their independence against Syracuse, even after the ruin of the Athenian armament under Nikias. At the head of a powerful force, Dionysius marched out from Syracuse first against the town of Ætna, occupied by a considerable body of Syracusan exiles hostile to his dominion. ”

“ The Syracusans constructed an entirely new wall around the inner and outer city, and which also extended across the whole space from the outer sea to the great harbor, so that it would be difficult for the Athenians, in the coming siege, to draw lines of circumvallation around the city. Syracuse also sent envoys to Corinth and Sparta for aid, while Alcibiades, filled now with intense hatred of Athens, encouraged the Lacedæmonians to send a force to the Sicilian capital. ”

“ Amilcar, upon intelligence of the approach of the enemy, sent forth against them the Iberians and Campanians, and no less than forty thousand out of the rest of the army. When the Syracusans had passed the river Himera, they were net by the barbarians: upon which battle was joined, and after the dispute had continued a long time, at length the Syracusans got the day, who routed the whole army, with the slaughter of above six thousand men, and pursued the rest to the very city. ”

“ As for the Syracusans, when the war was ended with the Athenians, they rewarded the Lacedæmonians their confederates, of whom Gylippus was general, with the spoils taken in the war, and sent with them five-and-thirty gallies to assist them against the Athenians, of which Hermocrates, a great man among the citizens, was admiral. Then all the booty and prey was brought together, and out of the spoils they adorned the temples, and rewarded every soldier according to his merit. ”

“ Never had the Greek race in Sicily been reduced to straits so desperate. Only one city remained to it, and this closely invested. Syracuse was like Jerusalem as Isaiah describes her in the height of the Assyrian invasion, "a cottage in a vineyard, a lodge in a garden of cucumbers."
Then the tide began to turn. The Syracusans obtained some successes at sea. Some corn ships carrying supplies to the Carthaginian camp were captured, and a squadron of men-of-war which attempted to recover them defeated with a loss of more than half its number, including the admiral's ship. ”

“ Having made a treaty by which the king bound himself to give up his prisoners to the Romans without ransom, and in addition to this to pay them a hundred talents, the Romans henceforth treated the Syracusans as allies and friends. King Hiero having placed himself under the protection of the Romans, continued to furnish them with the resources of which they stood in urgent need, and ruled over Syracuse henceforth in security, treating the Greeks in such a way as to win from their crowns and other honours. ”

“ They here landed their hoplites, and placed their fleet in safety under cover of a palisade across the narrow isthmus of Thapsus, before day and before the Syracusans had any intimation of their arrival. Their hoplites immediately moved forward with rapid step to ascend Epipolæ, mounting seemingly from the northeast, by the side towards Megara and farthest removed from Syracuse; so that they first reached the summit called Euryalus, near the apex of the triangle above described. From hence they commanded the slope of Epipolæ beneath them, and the town of Syracuse to the eastward. ”

“ The other Athenian generals, who remain with the expedition, will endeavor to carry out these plans. And be sure that without your speedy interference they will all be accomplished. The Sicilian Greeks are deficient in military training; but still, if they could at once be brought to combine in an organized resistance to Athens, they might even now be saved. But as for the Syracusans resisting Athens by themselves, they have already, with the whole strength of their population, fought a battle and been beaten; they cannot face the Athenians at sea ”

“ You must, therefore, in Sicily, fight for the safety of Peloponnesus. Send some galleys thither instantly. Put men on board who can work their own way over, and who, as soon as they land, can do duty as regular troops. But, above all, let one of yourselves, let a man of Sparta, go over to take the chief command, to bring into order and effective discipline the forces that are in Syracuse, and urge those who at present hang back to come forward and aid the Syracusans. The presence of a Spartan general at this crisis will do more to save the city than a whole army. ”

“ Now, at Syracuse the besieged took the offensive both by sea and land, and were worsted on the water, but captured some of the Athenian forts, commanding the entry to the besiegers' lines--a serious disaster. By the time that Demosthenes with his reinforcements reached Sicily nearly the whole island had come over to the side of Syracuse. Before this, the Syracusans had again challenged an engagement both by sea and land, with results indecisive on the first day but distinctly in their favour on the second. ”

“ AND BE SURE THAT IF ANY ENEMY DOES COME, THE STATE WILL KNOW HOW TO DEFEND ITSELF IN A MANNER WORTHY OF THE NATIONAL HONOUR."
Such assertions pleased the Syracusan assembly; and their counterparts find favour now among some portion of the English public. But the invaders of Syracuse came; made good their landing in Sicily; and, if they had promptly attacked the city itself, instead of wasting nearly a year in desultory operations in other parts of the island, the Syracusans must have paid the penalty of their self-sufficient carelessness in submission to the Athenian yoke. ”