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] 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], 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]!”
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].
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].
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 sunrise, 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.