Sȳracuse

Sȳracuse (Gk. Syrakousai, Lat. Syracusae), the chief city of Sicily, founded as a colony by Corinth in 733 BC. It was a flourishing place by the end of the sixth century, and was raised to the position of first city in Sicily by Gelon, who became tyrant c.490 BC and won great glory by repelling a Carthaginian invasion in 480. Gelon was succeeded by his brother Hieron I (478–67), who added to the cultural splendour of Syracuse and was made famous by the Epinician Odes of Pindar and Bacchylides, and by the fact that Aeschylus and Simonides spent some time at his court. Xenophon wrote an imaginary dialogue between the latter and Hieron.

Soon after Hieron's death a democracy was set up at Syracuse, and internal dissensions were followed by external aggression against other Sicilian cities, a situation which Athens was led to believe she could turn to her own advantage; her hope of controlling some part of the island led to the disastrous Sicilian Expedition of 415. Its failure was followed by the rise of Dionysius (later Dionysius I), a man of demagogic power, who was sole ruler from 405 to 367. He made himself master of half Sicily and extended his conquests to the mainland of Italy, winning effective control over most of Magna Graecia. His rule brought prosperity to Syracuse, but was generally considered oppressive. Plato visited his court (see PLATO 1) but there is a legend that when Plato was leaving Syracuse Dionysius contrived to have him sold into slavery, from which Plato's friends rescued him. Dionysius had a taste for literature and bought for himself the writing tablets of Aeschylus. Thus inspired he actually won the prize at the Lenaea in 367 with a tragedy, the Ransoming of Hector; his death is said to have been caused by a drinking-bout in celebration of this victory. A surviving line from a play of his, ‘Alas, I've lost a useful wife’, rather confirms the ancients' poor view of his talent.

Dionysius II succeeded his father, but was expelled by his uncle and brother-in-law Dion, who was himself assassinated in 353. The relations of Plato with these tyrants form the subject of several of his Epistles (see PLATO 6). After Dion's death Syracuse became increasingly anarchic and decline began, though Dionysius II recovered his throne in 346. The Syracusans appealed for assistance against him to their mother-city Corinth, who in 344 sent them Timoleon. He restored peace to Sicily, introducing at Syracuse a moderately oligarchic government on the Corinthian model, but a further period of unrest followed under Agathoclēs (d. 289), a demagogue, who made himself first tyrant (317) and then king (305). He attacked other Sicilian cities, and fought against the Carthaginians, who occupied the west of the island. The reign of Hieron II (269–216), mild and just, celebrated by Theocritus in Idyll 16, was the last golden age of Syracuse. He had allied himself with Rome against Carthage in the First Punic War and contributed to her final victory. After his death Syracuse forsook Rome for Carthage, an act which signalled its final downfall. The city was besieged (213–211) and finally sacked by M. Claudius Marcellus; in their defence the Syracusans were substantially aided by Archimedes, who perished when the city was taken. Under Roman rule Syracuse retained its beauty and to some extent its importance, but it suffered at the hands of the governor Verrēs.