University of Virginia Library

SYRACUSE.

Upon the eastern coast of Sicily, at the distance of
about twelve leagues from Catania, a broad neck of
land stretches into the Mediterranean, which divides
it by a very narrow channel from the shore, thus
justifying its claim to the appellation of an island.
This spot is covered with the compact buildings of
an ancient town, and being surrounded by a double
wall, and several lines of neat, though low ramparts,
presents to the approaching traveller a secure and
interesting appearance. This is the site of one of
the five cities, which together constituted the greatest
metropolis of the island, and one of the most
renowned of the ancient world. The adjacent plain
contains numerous, though, comparatively insignificant
remains of the other sections of that illustrious

region. Above, and around them, the tall grain and
scarlet poppy wave in the sea-breeze, and countless
fig-trees and low vines spread their broad leaves to
the sun, through the whole extent of eighteen miles,
once covered with magnificent dwellings, temples,
and streets, and so often alive with the tumult of
warfare. A long, bright day had passed with our
pilgrims as they traced the relics, and revived the
associations of Syracuse; and at its close, they sat by
the open window of the hotel, watching the sun's last
glow as it fell over the tranquil waters of the great
harbor—that beautiful and capacious bay upon
which the fleets of Athenians, Carthagenians, and
Romans had so often manœuvered, and which is now
so admirably adapted to secure to the city at whose
base it rolls the palm of commercial prosperity;
yet is scarcely stirred, save by the oars of the fisherman,
or the shallow keel of a Maltese speronare.
The same stagnation which has calmed its clear,
blue surface, broods over the old city, and as the
strangers gazed from their retired position, in the
soothing light of eventide, no sound of human enterprise
came up from the narrow streets, and they
dwelt upon the past without being conscious of the
present. It is one of the true delights of travelling,
that when the day's fatigues are over, we can recal
its experience denuded of the weariness and untoward
circumstances which may have marred its
just impressiveness. We can revoke the interesting
and forget the disagreeable. We can combine into
pleasant forms the light and shade, the relievo and
the back-ground of the actual picture, and transform
it to fairy-beauty in the magic glass of imagination.
It is delightful to converse and reflect upon the associations
of a memorable place when the locality is
fresh in the memory, when we are standing on the
hallowed ground, and breathing the inspiring air of a
scene whose history is written among Time's earliest
chronicles. Within the few preceding hours the
little party had traced the boundaries of Acradina,
Tyche, Neapolis, and Epipolæ. They were already
within Ortygia. They had ascended the narrow
mouth of the Anapus, and seen the ancient papyrus
growing on its banks. Frazier had measured the two
remaining columns of the temples of Olympic Jove, Isabel
had gathered from the walls of the celebrated prison
of the Syracusan tyrant, a bunch of that delicate
green weed which hangs in such graceful festoons
from the damp stones of ruins, called by the Italians
the hair of Venus, and Vittorio had lifted up there
his finely modulated voice, and called forth that marvelous
echo, which so often carried to the ears of
the listening tyrant the secret converse of his prisoners.
They had traced the wheel marks in the ancient
streets, and stood amid broken tombs whose
very ashes the breath of ages has long since scattered.
They had seen the moss-grown seats of the
amphitheatre and the crumbling arches of the aqueducts.
They had leaned over the triangular parapet
and gazed down upon a clear, shallow stream gurgling
over stones and filled with sun-burnt and barelegged
washerwomen, and tried to realize that it was
the fountain of Arethusa. They had roamed over
the field where the Roman army were so long encamped,
and they had looked upon Mount Hybla.
However disappointment might have cooled, as it
ever will, the zeal of the imaginative when they
compare the actual with the ideal, there was enough
in the mere outline of the day's observation to furnish
subjects for musing and discussion. “We have seen
to-day,” said Isabel, “the miserable relics of a once
splendid city. Let us now speak of those whose
names are identified with its history, and the remembrance
of whom constitutes, after all, the true romance
of this spot. Come, Count, I call upon you
for the classical retrospect. For notwithstanding
my limited acquaintance with such subjects,

“The prettiest fable,” replied he, “that I remember
connected with Syracuse is that of Arethusa. You
know she was one of Diana's attendant nymphs, and
returning from hunting, sat near the Alpheus and
bathed in its waters. The river-god was enamoured
of her, and pursued her till ready to sink with fatigue,
she implored the aid of her mistress who changed
her into a fountain. The unfortunate lover immediately
mingled his waters with hers. Diana opened
a passage for her under the sea and she rose near
Syracuse. The Alpheus pursued, and appeared near
Ortygia, so that it was said that whatever is thrown into

the Alpheus at Elis, rises in the Arethusa at Syracuse.
There are facts and real personages enough, however,
in Syracusian history, to obviate the necessity
of resorting to fable. And first, this place is indissolubly
associated with the memory of the most famous
tyrant of antiquity. It may be that his early
banishment from his native city awakened a spirit of
revenge and domination which was the germ of that
tyrannical spirit he afterwards so licentiously indulged.
When by successful policy he succeeded in
obtaining a command in the war then waging against
the Carthagenians, his first step was to intrigue
against his colleagues and flatter those below him,
until step by step, he succeeded in placing himself
in a position where he could establish that military
organization which is the legitimate enginery of
despotism. Once having assumed power, and triumphed
over the confidence of his countrymen, he
established the quarries and prison the remains of
which we have visited, and confirmed the authority
he had gained by policy through the blighting agency
of fear. His fierce wars with the Carthagenians prove
his courage and talent as a soldier. Yet we know
that he feared death, and was the victim of suspicion
to a degree the most weak and cowardly. He would
allow no one but his daughter to shave him, had his
bed surrounded by a trench and drawbridge, and
did not permit even his son or brother to approach
him unsearched. Such is the awful penalty which
men pay who violate the sacred rights of humanity.
With all his power and wealth he trembled at a
shadow. He felt himself cut off from human confidence.
Perhaps he feared the perpetuity of his title,
and anticipated that future ages would know him as
the tyrant of Syracuse. It may have been this feeling
which awoke literary ambition in his breast, and led
him, year after year, to send poems to the Olympic
games, and rejoice so greatly when his tragedy
gained the prize. Perhaps he hoped to vindicate his
right to a better fame, and obliterate the memory of
his thousand acts of capricious and cruel domination;
or, when he had tried to its full extent the value of
mere physical authority, and proved its worthlessness,
perhaps a higher ambition inspired him, and he longed
to obtain a conquest over men's minds, and establish a
heritage in the immortal kingdom of letters. If
such thoughts sprang up in his guilty heart, they
came too late or were too feebly cherished. His
ambition was a gross passion for dominion. Had it
but aimed at a nobler object how different would be
his remembrance! Had its gratification been sought
in the empire of the heart, and its end been human
good instead of destruction, the traveller, instead of
turning with pity from these sad trophies of cruelty,
would associate the name of Dionysius with those of
Gelon and Hiero — the beneficent rulers of this
realm.”

“There are brighter pictures,” said Frazier, “in
the annals of Syracuse. You remember the ruins of a
tomb by the road side, which we stopped to regard
just before entering the town. It is said to be the
sepulchre of Archimedes, who overcome a whole Roman

army with his machines, and was the scientific genius
of his age;—the Franklin of his day. These are
the characters I like to contemplate;—men who have
given a mighty impulse to science, discovered an
available truth, promulgated an universal law, and
thus practically proved themselves benefactors, compared
with whom the greatest generals are not
worthy of a thought, unless indeed they have exhibited
the noble feeling which swelled the heart of
Marcellus when he wept on this very spot, at the
thought of the suffering his army were about to inflict
upon the Syracusans. In that age, such a feeling
indicates that he, too, with the opportunity
might have been a philanthropist.”

“And do you not remember,” said Isabel, “that
this is the scene of that beautiful illustration of
human friendship which has been reverently handed
down from remote antiquity? I first read it as a
school-girl, with that genuine glow of the heart which
the story of true magnanimity awakens. And shortly
after the impression was deepened, by seeing it performed
on the stage in what, to my then untutored
judgment, seemed a style of superlative excellence.
I can now scarcely believe I am amid the scenes
of that noble story. Yet we can well imagine,
that on the site of one of the villas we passed, rose
the mansion of Damon, whence he tore himself from
the embraces of his wife to meet an undeserved and
ignominious fate, and that in one of the dismal prisons—perhaps
in the renowned Ear of Dionysius
itself—his trusting friend confidently awaited the

return of him whose hostage he had voluntarily become.
Over yonder hill, perhaps, as the light of day
was fading from the horizon, as at this hour, furiously
rushed the steed which bore the father and the
patriot to destruction, and over this calm bay, it may
be, echoed the shout of the multitude when, worn,
haggard, and covered with dust, the noble victim of
tyranny, sprang from his horse at the foot of the
scaffold, prepared to redeem his pledge. How anxiously
did the eyes of the devoted friends watch, on
that evening, the sun's decline! How did their very
breath quiver with his dying rays! What a world
of emotions must have lived in the bosoms of both
during those few hours of separation! What a thrill
of gladness must each have known, when the tyrant
himself, overcome by so rare an example of generosity,
reprieved his victim!” “And,” said the Count,
“how little did he think that this one act of virtue
would be the brightest spot in his heritage of fame,
or that this glorious example of friendship, in two
citizens, would outlive in the admiration of men the
renown of all his military achievements and deep-laid
policy! How little did he think that the future
explorer of the ruins of Syracuse, would turn with
contempt from the thought of Dionysius, at the pinnacle
of his power; and delightedly conjure up the
picture of Damon upon the fatal platform, hearing
him in fancy exclaim,

When, on the ensuing morning, they came upon the
carriage road which extends only to the distance of
a few miles from the walls, the quiet and solitude
which prevailed so near a well-peopled city excited
their observation. Reining their horses, they paused
upon a little eminence, and gave a farewell gaze to
Syracuse. Its capacious and finely-protected bay,
its thick grey bastions, and the trees which covered
the surrounding country, were all defined in the morning
light, with that relievo and vividness which every
object in the landscape assumes in the peculiarly
clear atmosphere of these regions. “Few cities of
antiquity,” observed Frazier, “were more visited by
illustrious men than this in the day of its glory.
Cicero was long proconsul here, and often alludes in
his writings, with no ordinary interest, to his residence.”

“Yes,” said the Count, “and a still more illustrious
personage no less than thrice dwelt here. He about

whose infant mouth the bees of Hymetus clustered,
and of whom Socrates dreamed that a cygnet rising
from an altar dedicated to Cupid took refuge in his
bosom, and then soared towards heaven singing
richly as he rose—presages of gifts and graces which
after age amply fulfilled; he who taught that our
highest emotions are but the beamings which memory
imparts of an existence antecedent to our
birth; he who had faith in the beautiful idea of an
original, native affinity between souls in which consisted
love; he who bade all men who would be true
to themselves reverence the dreams of their youth;
who, unenlightened by revelation, felt that the soul
was immortal, and with a capacity of thought beyond
his age, and a love of the spiritual which the mass
of beings around him could not appreciate, combined
with a spirit of divine philosophy, the truthful feeling
and winning simplicity of childhood. Yes, the favorite
pupil of Plato was Dion—a Syracusan.”

“There was, too,” said Isabel, “in a later age,
another noble being who for three days, we are told,
abode in Syracuse. One who cast aside the allurements
which superior education and social advantages
offered, and became the advocate of a despised
religion; one whose strength of mind and natural
gifts of intellect were only equalled by the fervor of
his feelings and the decision and dignity of his character;
one who was enthusiastic without extravagance
and zealous without passion; whose tones were
so deep, calm, and earnest, that the potentate before
whom he was arraigned, exclaimed that he too was

`almost persuaded to be a Christian,' and then Paul,
in what always seemed to me the most thrilling passage
of his history, standing in the midst of an inimical
assembly, and in the presence of regal authority,
surrounded by guards, and on trial for his life, raised
his calm countenance to the enthroned judge, and
lifting those arms which had so often moved in the
graceful gestures of scholastic eloquence, but on
which fetters now rankled, in firm, impassioned, and
clear accents replied, `I would to God that not only
thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both
almost and altogether such as I am, except these
bonds.' He walked where Plato had before trod, and
taught to the Syracusans that new religion which is
now the faith of Christendom.”

“It is not a little curious,” observed Frazier, “to
note the results of that ceaseless spirit of change,
which in this age, if never before, is so wizard-like,
that wonder itself is well nigh exhausted. As an instance,
consider the fact that the only event which
for many years has given a temporary activity to
the aspect and energies of Syracuse, was the wintering
of the American fleet there a few years since.
It is thought of and reverted to with a frequency and
emphasis which indicates how much it was considered.”

“Thus,” said the Count, “a few of the ships of a
people unknown to the ancient world, lying in that
fine harbor was a memorable circumstance in the
annals of a city once containing twelve hundred
thousand inhabitants,—the object of innumerable

wars, the seat of arts, and the mart of wealth; now
reduced to an inconsiderable and impoverished town,
sought rather by the curious traveller than the votary
of commerce, and its pavements more familiar
with the slow tread of the mendicant than the rapid
roll of luxurious equipages; and beneath this sky,
where once rose the hum of martial preparation, the
shout of triumph, the breath of song, the music of
eloquence, and the joyous laugh of prosperity, may
be heard the rustling of the bearded grain in its summer
fulness, or the wild moan of the ocean wind,
like the requiem breathed by Nature over the desolate
remains of human grandeur.”