66 COMPENDIOUS HISTORY OF SYRACUSE. princes, derived from almost every royal house in Europe, till it has sunk into its present state of decrepitude, under the most feeble branch of the house of Bourbon. At the present period it is reckoned to contain 12,000 inhabitants, seven parish churches, besides the cathedral, ten convents of monks, and seven of nuns, a seminary for the priesthood, and a college for general studies. Its streets are narrow and dirty, its nobles poor, its commonalty ignorant, superstitious, idle, and addicted to festivals; much of its fertile land is become a pestilential marsh, and that commerce which once filled the finest port in Europe with the vessels of Italy, Rhodes, Alexandria, Carthage, and every other maritime power of the Mediterranean, is confined to a petty trade carried on by a few small trabaccole. Such is modern Syracuse! Yet the sky which canopies it is still brilliant and serene; the golden grain is still ready to spring almost spontaneously from its fields; the blue waves still beat against its walls to send its navies over the main; nature is still prompt to pour forth her bounties with a prodigal hand: but man, alas! is changed; his liberty is lost; and with that the genius and prosperity of a nation rises, sinks, and is extinguished. Site of Acradina-Cicero's Description-Temple of Jupiter-ForumPrytaneum-Plunder of the fine Arts in Syracuse by the RomansSmall Harbour and Vestiges of Buildings-House of ArchimedesCapuchin Convent-Beautiful Gardens in a Lautomia or ancient Stone Quarry-Church of Santa Lucia-Shrine and Image of the SaintSupposed Ruins of the Hexacontaclinos, and Construction of a curious Arch-Baths excavated by the Cavaliere Landolina-Traces of the principal Street of Acradina-Church of St. John-Sepulchre of St. Marcian-Votive Offerings-Descent into the Catacombs--Illumination of ditto-General Remarks upon ditto-Return to SyracuseSecond Visit to Acradina-Circuit of the Walls-Gateways-Broad Street of Separation between Acradina and the upper City-Turris Galeagra-Return again to Syracuse-Visit to Signor CapodieciExpedition to Tycha-Temenites-Apollo and Diana-Ancient Sepulchres-Few Remains of Antiquity in Tycha-Athenian Wall of Circumvallation-Wall of Dionysius-Fortress of Hexapylon-Marcellus weeping over Syracuse-Reflections thereon-Battle with a Snake -Labdalus-Ancient Masonry-Species called Emplecton-Castle of Euryelus upon Epipola-Difference of Generalship between Nicias and Marcellus-Tremila and Villa of Timoleon-His Character, &c.Lysimelia-Olympiaum-Jupiter Urios-River Anapus and Fountain Cyane-Papyrus-Syracusan Festival-Visit to Neapolis-Lautomia called “Il Paradiso"-Ear of Dionysius-Character of that Prince misrepresented by the Ancients-Great Theatre-Street of the Tombs— Tomb of Archimedes-Ancient Aqueduct Amphitheatre - Pollian Wine-Dangerous Ascent to the Chamber of Dionysius-Reflections on the Antiquities of Syracuse-Departure. FROM the contemplation of present misery, we gladly turned to inspect the remains of former splendor. In the morning, therefore, we rose with the sun, and having mounted the best mules which Syracuse afforded, execrable cattle! all the flesh upon whose bones would not have made a meal for half a dozen dogs, we advanced through the fortifications into the deserted site of Acradina, being preceded by a consequential little cicerone, upon a mule as big as a camel: the animals on which we rode stumbled nearly at every step, so that we had the prospect of a delightful excursion over one continued platform of rugged rock my friend, however, had the only fall, which occurred in the street, and was occasioned by the slippery pavement in that totalité de la rue, which is so agreeable to our continental neighbours. The quarter of Acradina is called by Cicero "The second City, containing a spacious forum, a beautiful portico, an ornamented prytaneum, a commodious senate-house*, and a magnificent temple of Olympian Jupiter, its different parts being connected by a broad * Curia Syracusis, quem locum illi Buleuterium vocant.-Cic Act, ii, in Ver. TEMPLE OF JUPITER-FORUM-PRYTANEUM. 69 street, running completely across it, intersected by many oblique ones." This is, however, but a small part of the ancient magnificence of Acradina-merely as much as the orator had occasion to mention. Vast and massive as these edifices once were, scarcely a trace now remains to mark the spot on which they stood. The temple of Jupiter, built by Hiero, in which he suspended the Gallic and Illyrian spoils presented to him by the Roman senate, is supposed to have adorned the site of the present church of San Giovanni. The forum was probably upon or very near to the isthmus*, for the mutual convenience of the two quarters of the city first built; indeed we have the authority of Cicero in placing it near the great harbour, who, in his oration against Verres, severely upbraids that effeminate prætor, for allowing a piratical corsair to sail with impunity into the port and penetrate even up to the very forum (Act. ii. l. v. c. 37). At a little distance from the isthmus we observed some columns which had lately been discovered, and placed upright upon their pedestals. These, it is thought, belonged to that Prytaneum†, from whose ornaments Verres stole an inimitable statue of Sappho, the chef d'œuvre of Silanion, which left the Syracusans inconsolable for their loss. The despair of the unfortunate inhabitants at this cruel spoliation of their city, is strongly marked by that characteristic sensibility which distinguished the Greeks, and is described in very affecting terms by Cicero. Their public mystagogi sighed as they conducted foreigners to view, not the superb monuments of their city, but the vacant places from whence they had been torn by sacrilegious hands; those monuments, the only solace of their servitude, to which they were • We may conjecture this from Livy, 1. xxiv. " Luce prima, patefactis Insula portis, in Forum Acradinæ venit." This was the grand forum of Syracuse, but it rests upon more than mere conjecture, that each quarter had also a forum of its own. + The chief purpose of a prytaneum was to afford a place in which the magistrates and others eminent for their public services might take their meals; and the perpetual fire of Vesta was kept therein. Livy, lib. xli. observes, "Cyzici in Prytaneum (id est penetrale urbis) ubi publicè, quibus is honos est, vescuntur." 70 PLUNDER OF THE FINE ARTS BY THE ROMANS. attached not more by a love of the fine arts than by the sacred ties of patriotism and religion; for by them strangers were instructed in the annals of their country; by them the virtues and talents of their patriots, diffused over different nations, were transmitted to posterity; and by them their reverence of the gods was shewn. In all the calamities of Greece, says the orator, the people bore nothing so grievously as this plunder of their sacred and profane edifices: nor is there an instance upon record of any city in Greece or Asia Minor selling a statue, painting, or any public ornament, whilst it preserved its freedom. Nay, Pliny assures us, that the people of Cnidus indignantly rejected the proposal of Nicomedes, who offered to discharge all the public debts with which that state was then overloaded, for a single statue, the pride indeed of their island, the original Cupid of Praxiteles. Those forced sales and compulsatory compliances, extorted from them by their Roman conquerors, added a poignancy to their grief which was almost insupportable; for in such cases they were obliged to inscribe the apparently shameful transaction in the public register, and thus hand down their own disgrace to future ages. In our own days we have witnessed a more than Roman barbarity in the deportation of the fine arts from the Rhine and Scheld, the Arno and the Tiber, to the banks of the Seine: but we have also seen the triumph of justice in her day of retribution. We commenced our route along the side of the small harbour, under whose calm transparent waves may be observed the foundations of many buildings jutting into the water, similar to those which are seen in the Bay of Baiæ, where the poet, in a strain somewhat ludicrous, complains of this encroachment upon the manor of the fish. Contracta pisces æquora sentiunt Following the inclination of the coast, we came to a recess in the rock |