The Athenian siege (415-413) is of the deepest importance for the topography of Syracuse. (The chief authorities for the siege are Thucydides [bks. vi. and vii.] , Diodorus [bk. and Plutarch, Nicias.) Through the whole
siege there was a treasonable party within the city, which kept up a correspondence with the besiegers. When the Athenian fleet under Nicias, Alcibiades and Lamachus was at Rhegium in Italy, Athens had the prize within her grasp, and she lost it wholly through the persistent dilatoriness and blundering of Nicias (q.v.). It was at his advice that the summer and autumn of 415 were frittered away, and the siege not begun till the spring of
By that time the Syracusans had built a wall from north to south across Epipolae, taking in Tyche and Temenites, so as to screen them from attack on the side of Epipolae on the north west. They did not, however, occupy Euryelus, at the western extremity of the high ground of Epipolae, and this omission allowed the Athenians to obtain possession of the whole plateau and to begin the investment of the city. The Syracusans then carried a counterwork up the slope of Epipolae, which, if com pleted, would cut in two the Athenian lines and frustrate the blockade. At this point Nicias showed considerable military skill. The Syracusans' work was destroyed by a prompt and well-exe cuted attack; and a second counterwork carried across marshy ground some distance to the south of Epipolae and near to the Great Harbour was also demolished of ter a sharp action, in which Lamachus fell, an irretrievable loss. However, the blockade on the land side was now almost complete, and the Athenian fleet had at the same time entered the Great Harbour. The citizens began to think of surrender, and Nicias was so confident that he neg lected to push his advantages. He left a gap to the north of the circular fort which formed the centre of the Athenian lines, the point where Epipolae slopes down to the sea, and he omitted to occupy Euryelus. He made a final and irretrievable blunder in letting the Spartan Gylippus first land in Sicily and then march at the head of a small army, across the island, and enter Syracuse by way of Epipolae, past Euryelus. Just before his arrival a few ships from Corinth had made their way into the harbour with the news that a great fleet was already on its way to the relief of the city. The tables were now completely turned. The military skill of Gylippus enabled the Syracusan militia to meet the Athenian troops on equal terms, to wrest from them their forti fied position on Plemmyrium, which Nicias had occupied as a naval station shortly after Gylippus's arrival, and thus to drive them to keep their ships on the low beach between their double walls, to take Labdalum, an Athenian fort on the northern edge of Epipolae, and make a third counterwork right along Epipolae in a westerly direction, to the north of the circular fort. The Athenians were thus reduced to such a plight that, as Nicias said in his despatch towards the close of 414, they were themselves besieged rather than besieging. The naval preparations of the Syracusans, under the advice of Hermocrates, had led them, too, to confidence in their powers of giving battle to the Athenian fleet. In the first sea-fight, which took place simultaneously with the capture of Plemmyrium, they had been unsuccessful ; but in the spring of 413 they actually won a victory over the Athenians in their own element.
On the very next day, however, a second Athenian fleet arrived under Demosthenes and Eurymedon, with 73 ships of war and a large force of heavy infantry and light troops. Demosthenes decided at once to make a grand attack on Epipolae, with a view to recovering the Athenian blockading lines and driving the Syracusans back within the city walls. The assault was made by night by way of Euryelus under the uncertain light of the moon, and this circumstance turned what was very nearly a successful surprise into a ruinous defeat. The army was now thoroughly out of heart and Demosthenes was for at once breaking up the camp, embarking the troops, and sailing back to Athens. But Nicias could not bring himself to face the Athenian people at home, nor could he be prevailed on to retire promptly to some position on the coast, such as Catania or Thapsus. He dallied till the end of August, many weeks after the defeat, when the coming of Syracusan reinforcements decided him to depart; but on
27 was an eclipse of the moon, on the strength of which
nsisted on a delay of almost another month. The Syracusans
now blocked the mouth of the Great Harbour, and the Athenian fleet, after a frantic effort to break out and a desperate conflict, was utterly defeated and half destroyed. The broken and de moralized army, its ranks thinned by fever and sickness, at last began its hopeless retreat, attempting to reach Catania by a cir cuitous route ; but, harassed by the numerous Syracusan cavalry and darters, after a few days of dreadful suffering it was forced to lay down its arms. The Syracusans sullied the glory of their triumph by putting Nicias and Demosthenes to death.
great deliverance and victory naturally stirred up the energies of Syracuse at home and abroad. Syra cusan and Selinuntine ships under Hermocrates now play a dis tinguished part in the warfare between Sparta and Athens on the coast of Asia. Under the influence of Diocles the constitution became a still more confirmed democracy, some at least of the magistracies being filled by lot. Diocles appears also as the author of a code of laws of great strictness. Under these influ ences Hermocrates was banished in 409. In 407 he was slain in an attempt to enter the city, and with him was wounded Dio nysius, son of another Hermocrates and an adherent of the aristo cratic party, but soon afterwards a demagogue, though supported by some men of rank, among them the historian Philistus. By accusing the generals engaged at Acragas in the war against Carthage, by obtaining the restoration of exiles, by high-handed proceedings at Gela, he secured his own election as sole general with special powers. He next procured from a military assembly at Leontini a vote of a bodyguard; he hired mercenaries and in 406-405 came back to Syracuse as tyrant of the city. Dionysius kept his power till his death 38 years later (367). But it was well-nigh overthrown before he had fully grasped it. After his defeat before Gela (see Sicii,v) his enemies in the army reached Syracuse before him, plundered his house, and horribly maltreated his wife. He came and took his vengeance, slaying and driving out his enemies, who established themselves at Aetna. In 397 Syracuse had to stand a siege from the Carthaginians under Himilco, who took up his quarters at the Olympieum, but his troops in the marshes below suffered from pestilence, and a mas terly combined attack by land and sea by Dionysius ended in his utter defeat. Dionysius, however, allowed him to depart with out further pressing his advantage. This revolution and the peace with the Carthaginians confirmed Dionysius in the possession of Syracuse, and left it the one great Hellenic city of Sicily, which, however enslaved at home, was at least independent of the bar barian. Dionysius was able, like Gelon, though with less success and less honour, to take up the role of the champion of Hellas.
During the long tyranny of Dionysius the city grew greatly in size, population and grandeur. Syracuse absorbed the popula tion of Gela, Camarina and Acragas, and received large acces sions from some of the Greek cities of southern Italy, from Hip ponium on its west and Caulonia on its east coast, both of which Dionysius captured in 389 B.C. There had also been an influx of free citizens from Rhegium. Dionysius largely extended the fortifications of Syracuse. The island (Ortygia) had been pro vided with its own defences, converted, in fact, into a separate stronghold. Dionysius, to make himself perfectly safe, drove out a number of the old inhabitants and turned the place into a barracks, he himself living in the citadel. Profiting by the ex perience gained during the Athenian siege, he included in his new lines the whole plateau of Epipolae, with a strong fortress at Euryelus, its apex on the west; the length of the outer lines (ex cluding the fortifications of the island) is about i2m. Syracuse was now the most splendid and the best fortified of all Greek cities. Its naval power, too, was vastly increased; the docks were en larged, and 200 new warships were built. The fleet of Dionysius was the most powerful in the Mediterranean. It was doubtless fear and hatred of Carthage, from which city the Greeks of Sicily had suffered so much, that urged the Syracusans to acquiesce in the enormous expenditure which they must have incurred under the rule of Dionysius. Much, too, was done for the beauty of the city as well as for its strength and defence. Several new temples were built, and gymnasia erected outside the walls.