Syracuse

the Syracusans having, with the exception of Camarina, all the Dorian cities in alliance with them—for indeed these had joined the Lacedaemonian confederacy at the commencement of the war, though they had not taken any part in it with them—while the Leontines had the Chalcidian cities, and Camarina.

while the nobles entered into an arrangement with the Syracusans, and having abandoned and laid waste their own city, lived at Syracuse with the enjoyment of the franchise.

and the Selinuntines, having taken the Syracusans for their allies, were pressing them hard with hostilities both by land and sea.

At this time word came from home to the Syracusan generals that they had been banished by the democratic party.

Then, after most of the captains had taken oath that, when they returned to Syracuse, they would bring their generals back from exile, they sped them on their ways, commending them all;

and since he had once brought an accusation against Tissaphernes at Lacedaemon, in which Astyochus supported him as witness, and had been adjudged to speak the truth, he received money from Pharnabazus before he asked for it, and busied himself with collecting mercenaries and triremes with a view to his restoration to Syracuse.

for I hold in memory that Gaius Sulpicius Gallus, a most learned man, as you know, when this same thing was said to have been seen, and he chanced to be at the house of Marcus Marcellus, who had been consul with him, ordered to be brought out a celestial globe which the grandfather of that Marcellus had carried off from the captured city of Syracuse, that most wealthy and most adorned of cities—th …

it has not pleased us that there was a commonwealth at Syracuse, nor at Agrigentum, nor at Athens, when there were tyrants, nor here, when there were decemvirs;

That splendid city, which Timaeus calls the greatest of Greek cities and the fairest of all—its citadel worth seeing, its harbours flowing in even to the bosom of the town and to the foundations of the city, broad streets, porticoes, temples, walls—all these availed nothing the more, while Dionysius held it, to make it a commonwealth;

Thus Livy mentions the ornaments of the temples, which Marcellus brought from Syracuse to Rome, as acquisitions made by the right of war.

Cicero commends Marcellus for sparing the public and private edifices of Syracuse, as if he had come with his army to protect them, rather than to take the place by storm.

But once more we chose war instead of peace, Segesta instead of Syracuse;

Dionysius, indeed, the tyrant, driven from Syracuse, taught boys at Corinth:

And Eumelus the Corinthian, being older, is said to have overlapped Archias, the founder of Syracuse.

Both of them borrowed money in Syracuse.

After this Protus and I challenged him to go before the Syracusan authorities, and, if it should be shown that Protus had bought the grain, that the customs duties were recorded in his name, and that it was he who had paid the price, we demanded that Zenothemis be punished as a rascal;

However, if I may mention two instances to the exclusion of the rest, you gave your citizenship to Evagoras of Cyprus and to Dionysius of Syracuse, to them and their descendants.

And they freed Sicily too from the barbarians, and Syracuse from the tyrants.

But if there is some judging of a statue, such as they say happened in Syracuse — and the manner I shall not shrink from telling, throwing it in:

they voted, then, to break up the statues of the tyrants — and many of these were among them made of bronze — having made a judgment among them, who of them was worthy to be melted down and who not;

None of these cities, with the exception of Syracuse, escaped enslavement by Hippocrates;

When he had made Syracuse his own, he took less account of his rule over Gela, which he gave in charge to his brother Hiero;

By these means Gelon had grown to greatness as a tyrant, and now, when the Greek envoys had come to Syracuse, they had audience with him and spoke as follows:

Gylippus, by bringing aid to the Syracusans, not only saved them from destruction, but also captured the entire armament of the enemy, which dominated them both by land and by sea.

secondly, that Dionysius, the tyrant, taking charge of Sicily when the rest of it had been devastated by war and when his own country, Syracuse, was in a state of siege, not only delivered it from the dangers which then threatened, but also made it the greatest of Hellenic states;

Ortygia, scion of renowned Syracuse, bed of Artemis, sister of Delos!

If someone were an Olympic victor, and a guardian of the prophetic altar of Zeus at Pisa, and a fellow-founder of renowned Syracuse, what hymn of praise would that man fail to win, by finding fellow-citizens ungrudging in delightful song?

Tell them to remember Syracuse and Ortygia, which Hieron rules with his pure scepter and with good counsels, while he attends on the worship of Demeter of the red feet, and on the festival of her daughter with her white horses, and on the might of Aetnaean Zeus.

Come, take the Dorian lyre down from its peg, if the splendor of Pisa and of Pherenicus placed your mind under the influence of sweetest thoughts, when that horse ran swiftly beside the Alpheus, not needing to be spurred on in the race, and brought victory to his master, the king of Syracuse who delights in horses.

Great city of Syracuse!

And I would have gone on a ship, cleaving the Ionian waters, to the fountain of Arethusa and the presence of my Aetnaean host, the king who rules Syracuse, gentle to his citizens, bearing no envious grudge against good men, a marvellous father to his guests.

If someone should say to a man bound for Syracuse:

Come now, apply this image to the entrance upon life as a whole.

There will be Dionysius the tyrant there, the ruin of liberty, of justice, of the laws, greedy of domination even after Plato, of life even after exile!

so too the Corinthians, with Archias, fortify Syracuse.