46

RAMPARTS OF ORTYGIA.

tomb; but his grandson having been executed for rebellion, they were removed to the royal palace at Palermo. In the vicinity of this castle, excavations having been made, some foundations were discovered, belonging probably to those stupendous granaries mentioned by Livy*, which, together with the admirable walls and towers, with which Dionysius surrounded the island, and the impregnable fortress which he built upon the isthmus, rendered Ortygia so strong, that its possessor was always master of Syracuse, however the rest of the city, with its immense population, might be disposed of: by its means the elder Dionysius preserved his authority till his death; and even his weak, tyrannical son and successor held it for a long time in perfect security, though each other quarter of the city was in possession of a separate enemy. Marcellus himself, having subdued Acradina, Tycha and Neapolis, was indebted to treachery for the reduction of the island; and so conscious was that great commander of its natural and artificial strength, that he would allow no Syracusan citizen to dwell within its wallst.

From the Castello di Maniace, I followed the course of the ramparts, computed at about two miles in circuit, observing that they still retain near the base considerable remains of the old Greek masonry, formed of immense blocks, and closely joined without cement: I also remarked several ancient wells, cut in the rock, between the fortifications and the sea. When I returned to the hotel, after this excursion, I felt very unwell, and retired to bed with all the symptoms of an approaching fever: by proper precautions, however, and an immediate application of the remedies with which a medical friend in England had kindly supplied me, I kept off this enemy, and in two days was able to proceed with my companion in our researches. Our first care, after my

* Locus saxo quadrato septus atque arcis in modum emunitus, l. xxiv.

+ "Ille vir clarissimus summusque Imperator M. Marcellus cujus virtute captæ misericordiaque conservatæ sunt Syracusa, habitare in eâ parte urbis, quæ Insula est, Syracusanum neminem voluit." Cic. Act. in Ver. ii. 1. v.

VISIT TO D. GIUSEPPE CAPODIECI.

47

convalescence, was to wait upon that worthy ecclesiastic and oracular antiquarian of Syracuse, D. Giuseppe Capodieci, chaplain of the Military Hospital, arcadian of Rome, member of the Society del Buon Gusto of Palermo, secretary and sub-conservator of the antiquities of the Val Demoni and Val di Noto, &c. &c. &c. After several fruitless attempts, we succeeded in gaining an audience of this dignified antiquarian, whom we found immersed in a multiplicity of duties, not the least of which was that of embodying the history of his native city in forty-four volumes folio! There was something indescribably curious in his appearance, seated like the very genius of antiquarian lore, in his sanctum-sanctorum, clothed in a flowered dressing-gown, with a nightcap on his head, and surrounded by an interminable chaos of broken vases, monumental tablets, ancient weapons, old books, and skins of reptiles. The old gentleman, who, from long poring over antiquities, had contracted some portion of their rust, received us with ceremonious gravity; and in his conversation alluded chiefly to the multiplicity and importance of his own occupations: continuing to write in a large folio which lay open before him, he informed us, that this was but one out of forty-four volumes which he intended to compose upon the Antiquities of Syracuse; and when time had been given us to digest this pithy fact, he raised his eyes to the ceiling, and waving both his hands up and down, as if impressed with the magnitude of the design, exclaimed several times, in a ludicrous tone of voice and elevation of eyebrow, "Quaranta quattro tomi, Signori, quaranta quattro tomi *!" We found some difficulty in withstanding such a temptation of our risible faculties but as I found our laborious compiler endeavouring to exhaust the history of this greatest and most beautiful of Grecian cities, with a very slender knowledge of the ancient languages, I assisted him in translating a few inscriptions; nor did Mr. Parker please him less by purchasing some antique lamps and pateræ, at a very handsome price. In the good humour thus produced, he promised to lay aside the forty

* "Forty-four volumes, Sirs, forty-four volumes !."

four volumes for one morning, and conduct us through the public library and museum. Accordingly, next day he made his appearance at the Leon d'oro, with all his decorations of silver keys, golden crosses, and other badges of distinction.

In slow and solemn state we thence proceeded to the library, the doors of which, even though it was a festival, flew open at his approach. The room is very handsome, but its finely painted ceiling is half obliterated by the damp: it possesses few MSS. but is well stored with a choice collection of classics: at the head of the staircase lies a broken monument, curious only from containing the name of Hierocles, father of Hiero II., but valuable from its having allayed a stormy controversy about this important fact amongst the antiquarians of modern Syracuse.

From the library we adjourned to the museum, not without signs of great satisfaction from our conductor, who considers that as the arena upon which his prowess is most advantageously displayed: he looks upon it in the light of a foster-child, and spends in it all the time he can spare from his multifarious occupations: it certainly bore evident marks of his arranging hand, for the same lucid order ran through it which was so conspicuous in his own repository of arts. In the strange mixture of things, ancient and modern, sacred and profane, our eyes were chiefly attracted by an exquisite torso of Venus, discovered in the year 1804 by the Cavaliere Landolina, whilst he was excavating some baths in Acradina. The goddess appears in the act of ascending from the bath, and drawing gracefully with her left hand the folding drapery around her body: the head and right arm are unfortunately broken, but the position of the latter was evidently across the bosom : her emblems, a dolphin and a concha marina, appear sculptured upon the pedestal. The height of this statue, which is of the finest Parian marble, was six feet, and the beauty of its design, the delicacy of its attitude, the roundness and voluptuous grace of its limbs, and its high finish, mark it as one of the first order, as a fine example of that beau ideal in which the Greeks excelled every other nation, when they col

STATUES OF ESCULAPIUS, APOLLO, &c.

49

lected and concentrated in one object those charms which are found diffused over the species, elevating and adorning even the laws of Nature herself. Our antiquarian guide expatiated largely upon this torso: he had formed a decided opinion in his own mind, from which no arguments could turn him, that it was the identical statue mentioned in Athenæus (lib. xii.) as dedicated to Venus, surnamed Callipyges*, from the agreeable adventure of the two Syracusan damsels there related: but the ancient sculptors, when they represented the goddess under this title, always turned the head gracefully behind, as if to indicate the origin of the appellation. There is a greater chance of this being the statue.upon which Theocritus composed one of his most beautiful epigrams, the statue of Venus Urania, dedicated by the chaste Chrysogonat.

Another monument, discovered by the Cavaliere Landolina, is a statue of Esculapius, about three feet and a half high, more antique than the Venus, but inferior to it in sculpture, though the drapery is excellent. The right arm alone is broken; but as part of the club remains, with the tail of an entwined serpent, andon the pedestal appears an hemisphere, covered by a reticulated veil representing the cortina spread over the oracular tripod, this statue has offered no bone for connoisseurs to pick, but is decided at once to be a genuine son of Apollo. A mutilated image of the beardless father himself, imberbis Apollo‡, [though the son, by some unaccountable freak, has this ornament of the

* Και Καλλιπύγῳ θύεσι Συρακόσιοι ἢ Νίκανδρος ὁ ποιητὴς καλλίγλυτόν πυ κέκληκεν. Cl. Alex. V. II. p. 33. Havercamp thinks that some of the beautiful heads which decorate the Syracusan coins, and are thought to represent Arethusa, are to be rather attributed to this goddess, on account of the Polypus on the reverse, which animal was peculiarly dedicated to Venus: for the reason see Oppian. lib. Halíeut. I.

536.

+ Vide Theoc. Epig. v.

Dionysius I., whose wit at least equalled his tyranny, when in want of money, is said to have carried off a magnificent golden beard from the Epidaurian Esculapius, under plea of this unequal distribution between the father and son. The statue mentioned in the text was discovered in a bath, where, indeed, it would be most appropriately placed. The bath of Hippias, described by Lucian, was similarly adorned. Και εικόνες ἐν ἀντῷ λίθω λευκᾶ τῆς ἀρχαίας ἐργασίας, ἡ μὲν Υγείας ἡ δε Ασκληπιό. Hippias, § 5.

50

MARBLE SARCOPHAGI-GREEK PAINTINGS.

face a foot in length,] lies neglected on the floor of the museum, by the side of a goddess of plenty: they were discovered, with five others, now lost, on the site of Hiero's palace, which, as it is supposed, they once adorned: these, together with a colossal head, found near the same spot, and thought to have belonged to a statue of "Jupiter the Deliverer," erected by the Syracusan people after the expulsion of Thrasybulus*, are the only fragments in the museum (for there is not one entire statue) which are worthy of notice. Extensive excavations, promoted either by spirited individuals, or by a liberal and enlightened government, would probably bring to light treasures of ancient art sufficient to extort for this museum the admiration of Europe, Syracuse, like other Grecian cities, abounded in baths, which were repositories of the choicest sculpture; not one of these has hitherto been opened without amply † repaying the expense and trouble of excavation.

At the end of the room stand two fine marble sarcophagi, the largest of which measures seven feet and a half in length, by three feet three inches in breadth: it was found in the year 1616, near the site of the Olympiæum; it contained a human skeleton with a fine terra-cotta lamp, and on the outside, at each corner of the lid, stood a beautiful alabaster vase, with handles in the shape of lions; two of these vases were tainted with smoke and full of ashes, but they were all unfortunately broken by the discoverer, an ignorant peasant, in his eager expectation of finding a treasure within.

Suspended on the walls are some old and curious specimens of Greek painting, works of the middle ages, whilst this art was more

* It was inscribed AII EAEYOEPI, and the people established an annual festival, called the Eleutheria, binding themselves by a vow to sacrifice each year 450 bulls to Jupiter the Deliverer (Diod. Sic. 1. vi. and xii.)--See Torremuzza, Sicil. Numis. Vet. Tab. lxx. 1, 2.

+ One would rejoice to see this museum adorned by the statue of the glorious Gelo, which was alone permitted to rest upon its pedestal by an infuriated Syracusan populace after the expulsion of Dionysius II.: they had good taste and good feeling enough to spare this memorial of a brave and virtuous prince in their indiscriminate rage against their other kings and tyrants. What different treatment did Henri IV. receive from the French revolutionists!