Syracuse was, according to the Roman orator and
philosopher, Cicero, ‘one of the most important and certainly the most
beautiful city of the Greek world’. Archimedes, the great natural philosopher
and engineer was born and practiced there. Plato went there twice to try to
teach the un-teachable Dion, nephew of Tyrant Dionysus II, just political
science. Syracuse definitely was a prominent spot on the map of the classical
world and the ruins underscore this.
During the latter half of the brutal twenty seven
year Peloponnesian Greek civil war involving Athens and Sparta and their allies
(431-404 BCE), Syracuse became the stage for one of that war’s most decisive
battles. The most riveting account of this battle is from the Greek historian
and political scientist, Thucydides, in his classic, ‘the Peloponnesian War’.
What I saw when viewing the site gave me goose bumps, as its geography was
exactly what Thucydides had described. I saw what is left of this great ancient
city, its theaters and then the quarry where the Athenians and her allies, who
finally would lose the war, had been imprisoned.
Also, here you also will find a couple of pictures
of modern Syracuse, a city where I think I could enjoy a long visit.
Theatre with a capacity of well over twenty thousand. The low-tech acoustics can be demonstrated to work with precision:
‘Theatre in the Round’, designed by the Romans for their gladiatorial games:
The quarry where the defeated Athenians and allies were imprisoned:
Inside the quarry:
Eroded quarry sandstone:
Central square of modern Syracuse:
