Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 2 of 2)

Dissolved in ease and soft delights they lie,
Till every sun annoys, and every wind
Has chilling force, and every rain offends.

    Dyer, Ruins of Rome.
Sybaris was a town of Lucania, situated on the banks of the Bay of Tarentum. It was founded by a colony of Achaians; and in process of time became very powerful.

The walls of this city extend six miles and a half in circumference, and the suburbs covered the banks of the Crathis for seven miles.

Historians and orators, of all ages, have been guilty of praising heroes. “For my own part,” says Mr. Swinburne, “I cannot help feeling pity for the hard fate of the Sybarites, to whom we are indebted for the discovery of many most useful pieces of chamber and kitchen furniture. They appear to have been a people of great taste, and to have set the fashion, in point of dress, throughout all Greece. Their cooks, embroiderers, and confectioners, were famous over all the polite world; and we may suppose their riding-masters did not enjoy a less brilliant reputation, since we are told of their having taught their horses to dance to a particular tune. The public voice, however, of all ages, has been against them. Sybaris[255 - Rollin.] was ten leagues from Croton. Four neighbouring states, and twenty-five cities, were subject to it; so that it was alone able to raise an army of three hundred thousand men. The opulence of Sybaris was soon followed by luxury, and such a dissoluteness as is scarcely possible. The citizens employed themselves in nothing but banquets, games, shows, parties of pleasure, and carnivals. Public rewards and marks of distinction were bestowed on those who gave the most magnificent entertainments; and even to such cooks as were best skilled in the important art of making new refinements to tickle the palate. The Sybarites carried their delicacy and effeminacy to such a height, that they carefully removed from their city all such artificers whose work was noisy; and would not suffer any cocks in it, lest their shrill, piercing crow should disturb their slumbers.”

All these evils were heightened by dissension and discord, which at last proved their ruin. Five hundred of the wealthiest in the city having been expelled by the faction of one Telys, fled to Croton. Telys demanded to have them surrendered to him; and, on the refusal of the Crotonians to deliver them up, prompted to this generous resolution by Pythagoras, who then lived among them, war was declared. The Crotonians were headed by Milo, the famous champion; over whose shoulders a lion’s skin was thrown, and himself armed with a club, like another Hercules. The latter gained a complete victory, and made a dreadful havoc of those who fled, so that very few escaped; and Sybaris was depopulated.

About sixty years after this some Thessalians came and settled in it; however, they did not long enjoy peace, being driven out by the Crotonians. Being thus reduced to the most fatal extremity, they implored the succour of the Lacedæmonians and Athenians. The latter, moved to compassion at their deplorable condition, after causing proclamation to be made in Peloponnesus, that all who were willing to assist that colony were at liberty to do it, sent the Sybarites a fleet of ten ships, under the command of Lampon and Xenocrates. They built a city near the ancient Sybaris, and called it Thurium.

Two men, greatly renowned for their learning, the one an orator, and the other an historian, settled in this colony. The first was Lysias, at that time but fifteen years of age. He lived in Thurium, till that ill fate which befel the Athenians in Sicily, and then went to Athens.

The second was Herodotus. Though he was born in Halicarnassus, a city of Caria, he was considered as a native of Thurium, because he settled there with that colony. Divisions soon broke out in the city, on occasion of the new inhabitants, whom the rest would exclude from all public employments and privileges. But as these were much more numerous, they repulsed all the ancient Sybarites, and got the sole possession of the city. Being supported by the alliance they made with the people of Croton, they grew very powerful; and, having settled a popular form of government in their city, they divided the citizens into ten tribes, which they called by the names of the different nations whence they sprang.

Sybaris was destroyed five times; but had always the good fortune to be restored. It at length, however, fell into irredeemable decay; and, no doubt, justly, for every excess[256 - Lempriere.], whether of luxury or voluptuousness, could be found there. The indolence of the inhabitants was so great, that they boasted that they never saw the sun either rise or set. The greatest encouragement was liberally lavished on such as invented new pleasures; and, as a natural consequence, though the city enjoyed a long period of prosperity, not a single citizen’s name has been preserved to posterity, who is entitled to admiration, either for deeds of heroism, or the practice of milder virtues in private life.

There is, nevertheless, one anecdote recorded in their favour. Being enslaved by the Lucanians, and afterwards subjected to the Romans, they still retained a fond attachment to the manners of Greece; and are said to have displayed their partiality to their mother-country, in a manner that evinces both their taste and their feeling. Being compelled by the will of the conquerors, or by other circumstances, to adopt a foreign language and foreign manners, they were accustomed to assemble annually, on one of the great festivals of Greece, in order to revive the memory of their Grecian origin, to speak their primitive language, and to deplore, with tears and lamentations, their sad degradation. It would afford peculiar pleasure to discover some monument of a people of so much sensibility, and of such persevering patriotism.

Seventy days sufficed to destroy all their grandeur! Five hundred and seventy-two years before the Christian era, the Crotoniates, under the famous athlete Milo, as we have already related, defeated the Sybarites in a pitched battle, broke down the dams of the Crathis, and let the furious stream into the town, where it soon overturned and swept away every building of use and ornament. The inhabitants were massacred without mercy; and the few that escaped the slaughter, and attempted to restore their city, were cut to pieces by a colony of Athenians, who afterwards removed to some distance, and founded Thurium.

“Many ages, alas!” continues Mr. Swinburne, “have now revolved since man inhabited these plains in sufficient numbers to secure salubrity. The rivers have long rolled lawless over these low, desolated fields; leaving, as they shrink back to their beds, black pools and nauseous swamps, to poison the whole region, and drive mankind still farther from its ancient possessions. Nothing in reality remains of Sybaris, which once gave law to nations, and could muster even so large a force as 300,000 fighting men. Not one stone remains upon another[257 - Lempriere; Rollin; Swinburne; Eustace.]!”

NO. XXXVI. – SYENE

This was a town in the Thebais, nearly under the tropic of Cancer; greatly celebrated for the first attempt to ascertain the measure of the circumference of the earth by Eratosthenes, who, about the year 276 A. C., was invited from Athens to Alexandria, by Ptolemy Evergetes.

Juvenal, the poet, was banished there, on the pretence of commanding a cohort, stationed in the neighbourhood.

Its principal antiquities are a small temple, supposed to be the remains of Eratosthenes’ observatory, the remains of a Roman bridge, and the ruins of the Saracen town. The latter includes the city wall, built of unburnt bricks, and defended by square towers, and several mosques with lofty minarets, and many large houses in a state of wonderful preservation, still entire, though resting on very frail foundations.

“Syene, which, under so many different masters,” says a celebrated French geographer, “has been the southern frontier of Egypt, presents in a greater degree than any other spot on the surface of the globe, that confused mixture of monuments, which, even in the destinies of the most potent monarchs, reminds us of human instability. Here the Pharaohs, and the Ptolemies, raised the temple, and the palaces which are found half buried under the drifting sand. Here are forts and villas built by the Romans and Arabians; and on the remains of all these buildings French inscriptions are found, attesting that the warriors, and the learned men of modern Europe, pitched their tents, and erected their observatories on this spot. But the eternal power of nature presents a still more magnificent spectacle. Here are the terraces of reddish granite, of a particular character, hence called syenite, – a term applied to those rocks, which differ from granite in containing particles of hornblende. These mighty terraces, are shaped into peaks, across the bed of the Nile, and over them the river rolls majestically its impetuous foaming waves. Here are the quarries from which the obelisks and colossal statues of the Egyptian temples were dug. An obelisk, partially formed and still remaining attached to the native rock, bears testimony to the labours and patient efforts of human art. On the polished surfaces of these rocks, hieroglyphic sculptures represent the Egyptian deities, together with the sacrifices and offerings of this nation; which, more than any other, has identified itself with the country which it inhabited, and has, in the most literal sense, engraved the records of its glory on the terrestrial globe”[258 - Wilkinson; Malte-Brun.].

NO. XXXVII. – SYRACUSE

“The fame of states, now no longer existing, lives,” says Mr. Swinburne, “in books or tradition; and we reverence their memory in proportion to the wisdom of their laws, the private virtues of their citizens, the policy and courage with which they defended their own dominions, or advanced their victorious standards into those of their enemies. Some nations have rendered their names illustrious, though their virtues and valour had but a very confined sphere to move in; while other commonwealths and monarchies have subdued worlds, and roamed over whole continents in search of glory and power. Syracuse must be numbered in the former class, and amongst the most distinguished of that class. In public and private wealth, magnificence of buildings, military renown, and excellence in all arts and sciences, it ranks higher than most nations of antiquity. The great names recorded in its annals still command our veneration; though the trophies of their victories, and the monuments of their skill, have long been swept away by the hand of time.”

Syracuse is a city, the history of which is so remarkably interesting to all those who love liberty, that we shall preface our account of its ruins by adopting some highly important remarks afforded us by that celebrated and amiable writer to whose learning and genius we have been so greatly indebted throughout the whole of this work: – (Rollin). “Syracuse,” says he, “appears like a theatre, on which many surprising scenes have been exhibited; or rather like a sea, sometimes calm and untroubled, but oftener violently agitated by winds and storms, always ready to overwhelm it entirely. We have seen, in no other republic, such sudden, frequent, violent, and various revolutions: sometimes enslaved by the most cruel tyrants; at others, under the government of the wisest kings: sometimes abandoned to the capricious will of a populace, without either government or restriction; sometimes perfectly docile and submissive to the authority of law and the empire of reason; it passed alternately from the most insupportable slavery to the most grateful liberty; from convulsions and frantic emotions, to a wise, peaceable, and regular conduct. To what are such opposite extremes and vicissitudes to be attributed? Undoubtedly, I think, the levity and inconstancy of the Syracusans, which was their distinguishing characteristic, had a great share in them; but what I am convinced conduced the most to them, was the very form of their government, compounded of the aristocratic and democratic; that is to say, divided between the senate or elders, and the people. As there was no counterpoise in Syracuse to support a right balance between those two bodies, when authority inclined either to the one side or the other, the government presently changed, either into a violent and cruel tyranny, or an unbridled liberty, without order or regulation. The sudden confusion, at such times, of all orders of the state, made the way to the sovereign power easy to the most ambitious of the citizens. To attract the affection of their country, and soften the yoke to their fellow-citizens, some exercised that power with lenity, wisdom, equity, and popular behaviour; and others, by nature less virtuously inclined, carried it to the last excess of the most absolute and cruel despotism, under pretext of supporting themselves against the attempts of their citizens, who, jealous of their liberty, thought every means for the recovery of it legitimate and laudable. There were, besides, other reasons that rendered the government of Syracuse difficult, and thereby made way for the frequent changes it underwent. That city did not forget the signal victories it had obtained against the formidable power of Africa, and that it had carried its victorious arms and terror even to the walls of Carthage. Besides which, riches, the natural effect of commerce, had rendered the Syracusans proud, haughty, and imperious, and at the same time had plunged them into a sloth and luxury, that inspired them with a disgust for all fatigue and application. They abandoned themselves blindly to their orators, who had acquired an absolute ascendant over them. In order to make them obey, it was necessary either to flatter or reproach them. They had naturally a fund of equity, humanity, and good nature; and yet, when influenced by the seditious discourses of the orators, they would proceed to excessive violence and cruelties, which they immediately after repented. When they were left to themselves, their liberty, which at that time knew no bounds, soon degenerated into caprice, fury, violence, and even frenzy. On the contrary, when they were subjected to the yoke, they became base, timorous, submissive, and creeping like slaves. With a small attention to the whole series of the history of the Syracusans, it may easily be perceived, as Galba afterwards said of the Romans, that they were equally incapable of bearing either entire liberty or entire servitude; so that the ability and policy of those, who governed them, consisted in keeping the people to a wise medium between those two extremes, by seeming to leave them an entire freedom in their resolutions, and reserving only to themselves the care of explaining the utility, and facilitating the execution, of good measures. And in this some of its magistrates and kings were wonderfully successful; under whose government the Syracusans always enjoyed peace and tranquillity, were obedient to their princes, and perfectly submissive to the laws. And this induces one to conclude, that the revolutions of Syracuse were less the effect of the people’s levity, than the fault of those that governed them, who had not the art of managing their passions, and engaging their affection, which is properly the science of kings, and of all who command others.”

Syracuse was founded about seven hundred and thirty-two years before the Christian era, by a Corinthian named Archias; one of the Heraclidæ.

The two first ages of its history are very obscure; it does not begin to be known till after the age of Gelon, and furnishes in the sequel many great events for the space of more than two hundred years. During all that time it exhibits a perpetual alternation of slavery under the tyrants, and liberty under a popular government, till Syracuse is at length subjected to the Romans, and makes part of their empire.

The Carthaginians, in concert with Xerxes, having attacked the Greeks who inhabited Sicily, whilst that prince was employed in making an irruption into Greece, Gelon, who had made himself master of Syracuse, obtained a celebrated victory over the Carthaginians, the very day of the battle of Thermopylæ.

Gelon, upon returning from his victory, repaired to the assembly without arms or guards, to give the people an account of his conduct. He was chosen king unanimously. He reigned five or six years, solely employed in the truly royal care of making his people happy.

Gelon is said to have been the first man who became more virtuous by being raised to a throne. He was eminent for honesty, truth, and sincerity; he never wronged the meanest of his subjects, and never promised a thing which he did not perform.

Hiero, the eldest of Gelon’s brothers, succeeded him. The beginning of his reign was worthy of great praise. Simonides and Pindar celebrated him in emulation of each other. The latter part of it, however, did not answer the former. He reigned eleven years.

Thrasybulus, his brother, succeeded him. He rendered himself odious to all his subjects, by his vices and cruelty. They expelled him the throne and city, after a reign of one year.

After his expulsion, Syracuse and all Sicily enjoyed their liberty for the space of almost sixty years.

During this interval, the Athenians, animated by the warm exhortations of Alcibiades, turned their arms against Syracuse; this was in the sixth year of the Peloponnesian war. This event was fatal to the Athenians.

The reign of Dionysius the Elder is famous for its length of thirty-eight years, and still more for the extraordinary events with which it was attended.

Dionysius, son of the elder Dionysius, succeeded him. He contracted a particular intimacy with Plato, and had frequent conversations with him. He did not long improve from the wise precepts of that philosopher, but soon abandoned himself to all the vices and excesses which attend tyranny.

Besieged by Dion, he escaped from Sicily, and retired into Italy, where he was assassinated in his house by Callippus.

Thirteen months after the death of Dion, Hipparinus, brother of Dionysius the Younger, expelled Callippus, and established himself in Syracuse. During the two years of his reign, Sicily was agitated by great commotions.

Dionysius the Younger, taking advantage of these troubles, reascends the throne ten years after having quitted it. At last, reduced by Timoleon, he retires to Corinth. Here he preserved some semblance of his former tyranny, by turning schoolmaster, and exercising a discipline over boys, when he could no longer tyrannise over men. He had learning, and was once a scholar to Plato, whom he caused to come again into Sicily, notwithstanding the unworthy treatment he had met with from Dionysius’s father. Philip, king of Macedon, meeting him in the streets of Corinth, and asking him how he came to lose so considerable a principality as had been left him by his father, he answered, that his father had indeed left him the inheritance, but not the fortune which had preserved both himself and that; however, Fortune did him no great injury, in replacing him on the dunghill, from which she had raised his father.

Timoleon restored liberty to Syracuse. He passed the rest of his life there in a glorious retirement, beloved and honoured by all the citizens and strangers.

This interval of liberty was of no long duration. Agathocles, in a short time, makes himself tyrant of Syracuse. He commits unparalleled cruelties. He forms one of the boldest designs related in history, carries the war into Africa, makes himself master of the strongest places, and ravages the whole country. After various events, he perishes miserably, after a reign of about twenty-eight years[259 - He was, according to most historians, the son of a potter, but all allow him to have worked at the trade. From the obscurity of his birth and condition, Polybius raises an argument to prove his capacity and talents, in opposition to the slanders of Timæus. But his greatest eulogium was the praise of Scipio. That illustrious Roman being asked, who, in his opinion, were the most prudent in the conduct of their affairs, and most judiciously bold in the execution of their designs, answered, Agathocles and Dionysius. (Polyb. 1. xv. p. 1003, edit. Gronov.) However, let his capacity have been ever so great, it was exceeded by his cruelties. —Rollin.].

Syracuse took new life again for some time, and tasted with joy the sweets of liberty. But she suffered much from the Carthaginians, who disturbed her tranquillity by continual wars. She called in Pyrrhus to her aid. The rapid success of his arms at first gave him great hopes, which soon vanished. Pyrrhus, by a sudden retreat, plunged the Syracusans into new misfortunes. They were not happy and in tranquillity till the reign of Hiero II., which was very long, and almost always pacific.

Hieronymus scarce reigned one year. His death was followed with great troubles, and the taking of Syracuse by Marcellus.

Of this celebrated siege, since it was the ruin of Syracuse, it is our duty to give some account.

“The Romans carrying on their attacks at two different places, Syracuse was in great consternation, and apprehended that nothing could oppose so terrible a power, and such mighty efforts; and it had indeed been impossible to have resisted them, without the assistance of a single man, whose wonderful industry was every thing to the Syracusans – this was Archimedes. He had taken care to supply the walls with all things necessary to a good defence. As soon as his machines began to play on the land-side, they discharged upon the infantry all sorts of darts, and stones of enormous weight, which flew with so much noise, force, and rapidity, that nothing could oppose their shock. They beat down and dashed to pieces all before them.

“Marcellus succeeded no better on the side of the sea. Archimedes had disposed his machines in such a manner as to throw darts to any distance. Though the enemy lay far from the city, he reached them with his larger and more forcible balistæ and catapultæ. When they overshot their mark, he had smaller, proportioned to the distance, which put the Romans into such confusion as made them incapable of attempting any thing.

“This was not the greatest danger. Archimedes had placed lofty and strong machines behind the walls, which suddenly letting fall vast beams, with an immense weight at the end of them, upon the ships, sunk them to the bottom. Besides this, he caused an iron grapple to be let out by a chain; the person who guided the machine having caught hold of the head of a ship with this hook, by the means of a weight let down within the walls, it was lifted up and set upon its stern, and held so for some time; then, by letting go the chain either by a wheel or a pulley, it was let fall again with its whole weight either on its head or side, and often entirely sunk. At other times the machines dragging the ship towards the shore by cords and hooks, after having made it whirl about a great while, dashed it to pieces against the points of the rocks which projected under the walls, and thereby destroyed all within it. Galleys, frequently seized and suspended in the air, were whirled about with rapidity, exhibiting a dreadful sight to the spectators; after which they were let fall into the sea, and sunk to the bottom, with all that were in them.

“Marcellus, almost discouraged, and at a loss what to do, retired as fast as possible with his galleys, and sent orders to his land forces to do the same. He called also a council of war, in which it was resolved the next day, before sun-rise, to endeavour to approach the walls. They were in hopes by this means to shelter themselves from the machines, which, for want of a distance proportioned to their force, would be rendered ineffectual.

“But Archimedes had provided against all contingencies. He had prepared machines long before, as we have already observed, that carried to all distances a proportionate quantity of darts, and ends of beams, which being very short, required less time for preparing them, and in consequence were more frequently discharged. He had besides made small chasms or loop-holes in the walls at little distances, where he had placed scorpions, which, not carrying far, wounded those who approached, without being perceived but by that effect.

“When the Romans, according to their design, had gained the foot of the walls, and thought themselves well covered, they found themselves exposed either to an infinity of darts, or overwhelmed with stones, which fell directly upon their heads; there being no part of the wall which did not continually pour that mortal hail upon them. This obliged them to retire. But they were no sooner removed than a new discharge of darts overtook them in their retreat; so that they lost great numbers of men, and almost all their galleys were disabled or beat to pieces, without being able to revenge their loss in the least upon their enemies: for Archimedes had planted most of his machines in security behind the walls; and the Romans, says Plutarch, repulsed by an infinity of wounds, without seeing the place or hand from which they came, seemed to fight in reality with the gods.

“Marcellus, though at a loss what to do, and not knowing how to oppose the machines of Archimedes, could not, however, forbear pleasantries upon them. ‘Shall we persist,’ said he to his workmen and engineers, ‘in making war with this Briareus of a geometrician, who treats my galleys and sambucæ so rudely? He infinitely exceeds the fabled giants with their hundred hands, in his perpetual and surprising discharges upon us.’ Marcellus had reason for referring to Archimedes only; for the Syracusans were really no more than the members of the engines and machines of that great geometrician, who was himself the soul of all their powers and operations. All other arms were unemployed; for the city at that time made use of none, either defensive or offensive, but those of Archimedes.

“Marcellus at length renounced his hopes of being able to make a breach in the place, gave over his attacks, and turned the siege into a blockade. The Romans conceived they had no other resource than to reduce the great number of people in the city by famine, in cutting off all provisions that might be brought to them either by sea or land. During the eight months in which they besieged the city, there were no kind of stratagems which they did not invent, nor any actions of valour left untried, almost to the assault, which they never dared to attempt more. So much force, on some occasions, have a single man, and a single science, when rightly applied.

“A burning glass is spoken of, by means of which Archimedes is said to have burned part of the Roman fleet.

“In the beginning of the third campaign, Marcellus almost absolutely despairing of being able to take Syracuse, either by force, because Archimedes continually opposed him with invincible obstacles, or famine, as the Carthaginian fleet, which was returned more numerous than before, easily threw in convoys, deliberated whether he should continue before Syracuse to push the siege, or turn his endeavours against Agrigentum. But before he came to a final determination, he thought proper to try whether he could make himself master of Syracuse by some secret intelligence.