Syracuse

SYRACUSE, a city of Sicily (Gr. lvplucoucrat., Lat. Syra cusae, Ital. Siracusa), the capital of a province of the same name, situated on the east coast of the island, 54m. by rail S. by E. of Catania, and about 32m. direct. Pop. (1881), 21,739; (1906), 23,25o (town), 35,000 (commune); (town), 49,662 (commune); (1931) 23,631 (town), 50,096 (commune). Syracuse was the chief Greek city of ancient Sicily, and one of the earliest Greek settlements in the island. It was founded from Corinth, and Thucydides, who gives the date as the year after the foundation of Naxos (i.e., 734 B.c.), mentions that the leader Archias expelled the Sicel inhabitants from Ortygia. (See under SICILY.) Their presence there was definitely proved by the discovery of traces of huts and of a rock-cut tomb of the beginning of the second Sicel period on Ortygia, while similar tombs may be seen both on the north and south edges of the terrace of Epipolae, and on the peninsula of Plemmyrium. (For this and other prehistoric sites in the neighbourhood of Syracuse see SICILY, Archaeology.) Till the beginning of the 5th century B.C. our notices of Syra cuse history are fragmentary, and we do not even know when the mole connecting the island with the mainland was constructed. 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. In 663 it founded the settlement of Acrae, in 643 Casmenae, and in 598 Camarina, of which the first was unusually far inland. The three together se cured 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.

Gelon and Hieron.

Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela threatened the independence of Syracuse as well as of other cities, and it was saved only by the joint intervention of Corinth and Corcyra and by the cession of the vacant territory of Camarina. In 485 the Gamoroi, or landowners (i.e., the descendants of the original settlers, who formed an aristocratic body), who had been expelled by the Demos and the Sicel serfs and had taken refuge at Casmenae, craved help of Gelon, the successor of Hip pocrates, who took possession of Syracuse, without opposition, and made it the. seat of his power. He gave citizenship both to

mercenaries and to settlers from Greece and added to the popu lation the inhabitants of other cities conquered by him, so that Syracuse became a city of mixed population in which the new citizens had the advantage. He then extended the city by includ ing within the fortifications the low ground (or at any rate the western portion of the low ground) between Upper Achradina and the island and making the agora there; at the same time (probably) he was able to shift the position of the crossing to the island by making a new isthmus in the position of the pres ent one, the old mole being broken through so as to afford an out let from the Little Harbour on the east. The island thus became the inner city, the stronghold of the ruler. 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, Hieron (q.v.) kept up the power of the city and won himself a name by his encour agement of poets, especially Aeschylus and Simonides, and phi losophers ; while his Pythian and Olympian victories made him the special subject of the songs of Pindar and Bacchylides. But in his internal government he was suspicious, greedy and cruel. After family disputes the power passed to his brother Thrasy bulus, who was driven out next year by a general rising. Syra cuse thus became a democratic commonwealth. Renewed freedom was celebrated by a colossal statue of Zeus Eleutherius and by a yearly f east in his honour. But when the mercenaries and other new settlers were shut out from office new struggles arose. The mercenaries, as in the last rising, held Ortygia and Achradina. The people now walled in the suburb of Tyche to the west of Achradina. The mercenaries were at last got rid of in 461. Al though we hear of attempts to seize the tyranny and of an in stitution called petalism, like the Athenian ostracism, designed to guard against such dangers, popular government was not seri ously threatened for more than 5o years. The part of Syracuse in general Sicilian affairs has been traced in the article SICILY (q.v.). We hear of a naval expedition to the Etruscan coast and Corsica about 453 B.C. and of the great military and naval prep arations of Syracuse in 439.