Syracuse in Antiquity

ISBN 978186888407-0

CONTENTS A: THE BOOK

Acknowledgements......... vi

List of Abbreviations. . . . . ..  ... vii

List of Illustrations & Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  vii

Prologue: Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .1

Chapter 1: Urban Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Chapter 2: Chore. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Chapter 3: Temples & Theatres. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

Chapter 4: The Four Great Sieges of Syracuse . . . . . . . . 74

Chapter 5: Imperial Designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107

Chapter 6: A City in the Roman Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . .135

Appendices

1. The Chief Cities of Sicily in Antiquity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
2. The Size of the Athenian Camp .................................. 146
3. The Tellaro or the Assinaro? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
4. Dating the Monuments of Syracusan Imperialism . . ..150
5. The Proconsuls of Sicily (210-36 BC) ........................... 152

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .156

Index ........................................................... 162

CONTENTS B: THE CD Rom

Prologue

Chapter 1: Urban Space

Chapter 2: Chore

Chapter 3a: Temples

Chapter 3b: Theatres

Chapter 4: The Four Great Sieges

Chapter 5: Syracusan Imperialism

Epilogue: A City in the Roman Empire

Catalogue of the Stills, Maps & Video Clips

My first ever arrival in torrid summer temperatures was at the train station in the days when trains were invariably late and, this being no exception, it was the siesta when it should have been breakfast time. The station deserves a mention for it is a welcoming building of the nineteenth century, cool and inviting inside where the smell of coffee dominated; and still does today.3 My later arrivals, more or less fraught, have usually been by car in a country whose drivers all seem to aspire to Formula One fame. S

yracuse, like all Italian cities, is a forbidding place for foreign drivers unused to the congestion and abundant bad tempers. For all that, evenings on the island of Ortygia can be remarkably like those in Venice: peaceful, soporific, timeless. From the station the visitor passes through what was once the hotel quarter - then rather downmarket - now, like everywhere else here, staggering towards gentrification, to the chaotic Piazza Mazzini, which is easier to cross as a pedestrian than in a car. There is not much to commend this square but lying adjacent as it does to the rather seedy Faro Siracusana - another place where one wants to leave rather than to loiter - this is the centre of ancient Akradina. Here once stood, says Cicero (Verr 2.4.119), a great agora with a very fine colonnade, an attractive council building and a suitably impressive senate house, not to mention several other temples and numerous private houses beyond. Today some columns remain about two metres below ground level to remind the viewer of what is lost. The mole to Ortygia (for the land here is man-made) fulfilled the ambition of Dionysius I to provide space to house himself and his family in suitable grandeur (Diod. 14. 7 .1 ). This stretch of land leads, in six Victorian-looking apartment blocks, to the Darsena or channel and one of three bridges which carries traffic to and from the northern end of the island. Filled with fishing boats, boats for tourist excursions and diving schools, this channel is more substantial than it was in antiquity. The ancient city gate labelled 'Hellenistic' lies to the right of the newest bridge (opened April 2004) behind the restaurant (painted a startling pink) called 'Rambla'. The height of the island is hidden behind more modem buildings, as is the temple of Apollo two blocks to the left. The oldest bridge, the Ponte Umbertino leads via the Piazza Pancali directly to the temple, but the new one-way system does not allow this approach any longer except by foot. But none of the modem bridges gives a faithful entry onto ancient Ortygia. The bridge must have been closer to the Great Harbour on the extreme western side of the channel and funnelled traffic left towards the gateway.