sieges of Syracuse
Syracuse, sieges of (416-413 and 213-210 bc). Syracuse was the principal city of the rich grain-producing area of Sicily, but it appears that it was an unhealthy spot, for both of these sieges were all but decided by the outbreak of epidemics. During the 431-404 bc Peloponnesian war against Sparta, Athens launched an expedition to seize Syracuse under Nicias, whom the Athenian historian Thucydides (see Greek historians) represents as both unwilling and incompetent. He also records that Nicias' force was ‘100 triremes and 5, 000 hoplites’, with archers and Cretan slingers in proportion. The Athenians cut off Syracuse with two forts, and began a twin circumvallation, but left their northern walls incomplete, which was to prove disastrous. After two attempts to build counter-walls were defeated, the Syracusans appealed for Spartan help, which was refused. But Gylippus, a Spartan general, managed to raise 3, 000 men for an independent relief effort and he landed and captured the unfinished northern fortifications, and built a wall from there to the city. Nicias changed the axis of his attack to the south and built three more forts, but an outbreak of disease forced him to give up the struggle. Since Gylippus had blockaded the harbour where the Athenian fleet lay, the Athenians attempted to escape overland, but were run down by Syracusan light troops and forced to surrender. This was Athens' greatest reverse and a turning point in the war.
During the second Punic war between Rome and Carthage, Syracuse was held by the mercenary Hippocrates for the Carthaginians. In 213 Marcellus, a renowned soldier but with only three legions at his disposal, began a siege. He directed his main attack on the Northern ‘Little Harbour’, deploying 60 quinqueremes for a naval assault. Pairs of galleys were lashed together to carry a sliding assault ladder called a sambuca (harp) invented by Heracleides of Taras. But the city was defended by Archimedes, a greater inventor, whose ‘burning glasses’ and other counter-engines destroyed the attackers' siege engines. Hearing the news of a Carthaginian relief force under Himilco, Hippocrates slipped out of the city to join him, but he was surprised by Marcellus and his forces dispersed. The following year Marcellus exploited the fact that the defenders were drunkenly celebrating the feast of Artemis to seize a gate and the dominant Epipolae plateau. A Carthaginian relief force was defeated in two assaults and then fell victim to disease, and Syracuse surrendered.
Bibliography
- Caven, B., The Punic Wars (London, 1980).
- Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War
— John M. Bourne
