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.

Syracuse was founded the next year by Archias, of the family of Hercules at Corinth, after he had first expelled the Sicels from the island;

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 …

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;

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;

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.

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;

Both of them borrowed money in Syracuse.

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;

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:

After this stroke of good fortune, Gelon brought back from the town of Casmena to Syracuse both the so-called landed gentry of Syracuse, who had been driven into exile by the common people, and their slaves, the Cyllyrians.

Straightway that city grew and became great, for not only did Gelon bring all the people of Camarina to Syracuse and give them its citizenship, razing the township of Camarina, but he did the same thing to more than half of the townsmen of Gela, and when the Megarians in Sicily surrendered to him on terms after a siege, he took the wealthier of them, who had made war on him and expected to be put …

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;

After this declaration, if anyone should have said he wished to enter Syracuse, could he have any just complaint against anyone but himself, who had not fallen into those troubles, but had come knowing and aware?

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!

You will see the fountain Arethusa, most celebrated in song, pouring forth its waters most cold, of a pool most clear and transparent to the bottom—whether it found those waters there first springing up, or restored, whole, a river that had glided beneath the earth and, passing under so many seas, was kept unmixed with the worse water.

so too the Corinthians, with Archias, fortify Syracuse.