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this intrigue, and therefore refused to own Leotychides for his son; for which reason he was afterwards excluded the throne.

SECTION XI.

DESCRIPTION OF SYRACUSE.

As the siege of Syracuse is one of the most considerable in the Grecian history, the particular circumstances of which I thought proper to relate for that reason, in order to give my readers an idea of the manner of besieging by the ancients, I judged it necessary, before I enter into that detail, to give the reader a description and plan of the city of Syracuse, in which he will also find the different fortifications both of the Athenians and Syracusans mentioned in this siege.

'Syracuse stood on the eastern coast of Sicily. Its vast extent, its advantageous situation, the conveniency of its double harbour, its fortifications built with the utmost care and labour, and the multitude and wealth of its inhabitants, made it one of the greatest, the most beautiful, and most powerful among the Grecian cities. • We are told its air was so pure and serene, that there was no day in the year, how cloudy soever it might be, in which the sun did not display its beams.

y Cic. Verr. 6. n. 117-119.

z Urbem Syracusas elegerat, cujus hic situs atque hæc natura esse loci calique dicitur, ut nullus unquam dies tam magna turbulentaque tempestate fuerit, quin aliquo tempore solem ejus diei homines viderent. .Cic. Verr. 7. n. 26.

a

It was built by Archias the Corinthian, a year after Naxos and Megara had been founded on the

same coast.

When the Athenians besieged this city, it was divided into three parts, viz. the island, Achradina, and Tyche. Thucydides mentions only these three divisions. Two more, viz. Neapolis and Epipole, were afterwards added.

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The Island, situated to the south, was called " Nasos, signifying, in Greek, an island, but pronounced according to the Doric dialect; and Ortygia. It was joined to the continent by a bridge. It was in this island that the Syracusans afterwards built the citadel and the palace for their kings. This quarter or division of the city was of very great importance, because it might render those who possessed it, master of the two ports which surround it. It was for this reason the Romans, when they took Syracuse, would not suffer any Syracusans to inhabit the island.

There was in this island a very famous spring, called Arethusa. The ancients, or rather the poets, from reasons which have not the least shadow of probability, supposed that Alpheus, a river of Elis in Peloponnesus, rolled its waters either through or under the waves of the sea, without ever mixing with them, as far as the spring or fountain of Arethusa. It was this fiction gave occasion to the following lines of Virgil:

A. M. 3295. Ant. J. C. 709. Strab. 1. 6. p. 269.

< Cic. Verr. 7. n. 97..

Ο Νάσος.
Strab. I. vi. p. 270. Senec. Nat. Quæst. l. iii. c. 26.

Extremum hunc, Arethusa, mihi concede laborem.—
Sic tibi, cum fluctus subterlabere Sicanos,
Doris Amara suam non intermisceat undam.

VIRG. Eclog. 10.

Thy sacred succour, Arethusa, bring,
To crown my labour: 'Tis the last I sing.-
So may thy silver streams beneath the tide,
Unmix'd with briny seas, securely glide.

DRYDEN.

Achradina, situated entirely on the sea side towards the east, was the most spacious, the most beautiful, and best fortified quarter of the city.

Tyche, so called from the temple of Fortune, • which embellished that part of the city, extended along Achradina westward from the north towards the south, and was very well inhabited. It had a famous gate called Hexapylum, which led into the country, and was situated to the north of the city.

Epipole was a hill without the city, which it commanded. It was situated between Hexapylum and the point of Euryelus, towards the north and west. It was exceedingly steep in several places, and for that reason of very difficult access. At the time of the siege in question, it was not surrounded with walls, and the Syracusans defended it with a body of troops, against the attacks of the, enemy. Euryelus was the pass or entrance which led to Epipole. On the same hill of Epipole was a fort called Labdalon, or Labda. lum.

It was not till long after, under Dionysius the tyrant, that Epipole was surrounded with walls, and enclosed within the city, of which it formed a fifth

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part, but was thinly inhabited. A fourth division had been added before, called Neapolis, that is, the new city, which covered Tyche.

The river Anapis ran at almost half a league distance from the city. The space between them was a large and beautiful plain, terminated by two fens or moors, the one called Syraco, whence the city was named, and the other Lysimelia. This river emptied itself into the great harbour. Near its mouth, southward, was a kind of castle, called Olympia, from the temple of Jupiter Olympius standing there, and in which were great riches. It was five hundred paces from the city.

Syracuse had two harbours very near one another, and separated only by the isle, v iz. the great harbour, and the small one, called otherwise Laccus. According to the description which the Roman orator gives of them, both were surrounded with buildings as parts of the city.

The great harbour was a little above five thousand paces, or two leagues in circumference. It had a gulf called Dascon. The entrance of this port was but five hundred paces wide. It was formed on one side by the point of the island Ortygia, and on the other by the little island and cape of Plemmyrium, which was commanded by a fort or castle of the same

name.

Above Achradina was a third port, called the harbour of Trogilus.

f Plut. in Dionys. vit. p. 970.

8 Portus habet prope in ædificatione aspectuque urbis inclusos. Cic. Verr. 6. n. 117.

↳ According to Strabo, it is eighty stadia in circumference, which is twice its real extent; a plain proof that this passage of Strabo is corrupt. Cluver. p. 167.

SECTION XII.

NICIAS, AFTER SOME ENGAGEMENTS, BESIEGES SYRACUSE, &C. EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF THE WAR.

AT the end of the summer,i news was brought Nicias, that the Syracusans, having resumed courage, intended to march against him. Already their cavalry advanced with an air of insolence to attack him even in his camp; and asked with a loud laugh, whether he was come into Sicily to settle in Catana. These severe reproaches roused him a little, so that he resolved to sail for Syracuse. The enterprise was bold and dangerous. Nicias could not, without running the utmost hazard, attempt to land in presence of an enemy who waited for him with the greatest resolution, and would not fail to charge him the instant he should offer to make a descent. Nor was it safer for him to march his troops by land, because, as he had no cavalry, that of the Syracusans, which was very numerous, upon the first advice they should have of their march, would come to blows, and overpower him by the superiority of forces.

To extricate himself from this perplexity, and enable himself to seize, without opposition, upon an advantageous post, which a Syracusan exile had discovered to him, Nicias had recourse to stratagem. He caused a false piece of news to be given to the enemy, viz. that by means of a conspiracy, which was to take

i Thucyd. l. vi. p. 453-461. Plut. in Nic. p. 533, 534. Diod. 1. cxxxvii. cxxxviii.

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