THE SICILIAN GREEKS.
Before proceeding to the history of the downfall of Greece, and
her subjugation by a foreign power--a result that soon followed
the events just narrated--we turn aside to notice the affairs of
the Sicilian Greeks, as more especially presented in the history
of Syracuse, in all respects the strongest and most prominent
of the Sicilian cities.
HIERO.
On the death of Ge'lon, despot of Syracuse, a year after the
battle of Him'era, the government fell into the hands of his
brother Hi'ero, a man of great energy and determination. He
founded the city of Ætna, of which PINDAR says:
That city, founded strong
In liberty divine,
Measured by the Spartan line,
Has Hiero 'stablish'd for his heritage;
To whose firm-planted colony belong
Their mother-country's laws,
From many a distant age.
He also added many cities to his government, and his power was
not inferior to that of Gelon. The city of Cu'mæ, on the Italian
coast, being harassed by the Carthaginians, the aid of Hiero was
solicited by its citizens, and he sent a fleet which severely
defeated and almost destroyed the squadron of their enemies.
Says PINDAR of this event:
That leader of the Syracusan host,
With gallies swiftly-rushing, them pursued;
And they his onset rued,
When on the Cuman coast
He dashed their youth in gulfy waves below,
And rescued Greece from heavy servitude.
Hiero was likewise a liberal patron of literature and the arts,
inviting to his court many of the eminent poets and philosophers
of his time, including Pindar, Simon'ides, Epichar'mus, Æs'chylus,
and others; but his many great and noble qualities were alloyed
by insatiable cupidity and ambition, and he became noted for
"his cruel and rapacious government, and as the organizer of
that systematic espionage which broke up all freedom of speech
among his subjects." Although the eminent men who visited his
court have much to say in praise of Hiero, Pindar, especially, was
too honest and independent to ignore his faults. As GROTE says,
"Pindar's indirect admonitions and hints sufficiently attest the
real character of Hiero." Of these, the following lines from the
Pythian ode may be taken as a sample:
The lightest word that falls from thee, O King!
Becomes a mighty and momentous thing:
O'er many placed as arbiter on high,
Many thy goings watchful see.
Thy ways on every side
A host of faithful witnesses descry;
Then let thy liberal temper be thy guide.
If ever to thine ear
Fame's softest whisper yet was dear,
Stint not thy bounty's flowing tide:
Stand at the helm of state; full to the gale
Spread thy wind-gathering sail.
Friend! let not plausive avarice spread
Its lures, to tempt thee from the path of fame:
For know, the glory of a name
Follows the mighty dead.
--Trans. by ELTON.
Hiero was succeeded on his death, in 467 B.C., by his brother
Thrasybu'lus; but the latter's tyranny caused a popular revolt,
and after being defeated in a battle with his subjects he was
expelled from the country. His expulsion was followed by the
extinction of the Gelonian dynasty at Syracuse, and the institution
of a popular government there and in other Sicilian cities. These
free governments, however, gave rise to internal revolts and
wars that continued many months; and finally a general congress
of the different cities was held, which succeeded in adjusting
the difficulties that had disturbed the peace of all Sicily.
The various cities now became independent--though it is probable
that the governments of all of them continued to be more or less
disturbed--and were soon distinguished for their material and
intellectual prosperity. Syracuse maintained herself as the first
city in power; and in this condition of prosperity the Sicilian
cities were found at the breaking out of the Peloponnesian war.
DIONYESIUS THE ELDER.
Of the Athenian league and expedition against Syracuse we have
already given some account. Soon after the termination of this
contest the Constitution of Syracuse was rendered still more
democratic by the adoption of a new code of laws, prepared by
Di'ocles, an eminent citizen, who became the director of the
government. But the Carthaginians now again invaded Sicily, and
established themselves over its entire western half. Taking
advantage of the popular alarm at these aggressions, and of the
ill success of Diocles and the Syracusan generals in opposing
them, Diony'sius the Elder, then a young man, of low birth, but
brave, determined, and talented, having been raised by popular
favor to the generalship of the Syracusan army, subsequently
made himself despot of the city (405 B.C.). Dionysius ruled
vigorously, but with extreme tyranny, for thirty-eight years.
By the year 384 he had extended his power over nearly all Sicily
and a part of Magna Grecia, and under his sway Syracuse became
one of the most powerful empires on earth. PLUTARCH relates that
Dionysius boasted that he bequeathed to his son an empire "fastened
by chains of adamant." Like Hiero, Dionysius was a lover of
literature, and sought to gain distinction by his poetical
compositions, some of which won prizes at Athens. He also invited
Plato to his court; but the philosopher's moral conversations
were distasteful to the tyrant, who finally sold him into slavery,
from which he was redeemed by a friend.
It was during the reign of Dionysius the Elder that occurred
that memorable incident in the lives of Damon and Pythias by
which Dionysius himself is best remembered, and which has passed
into history as illustrative of the truest and noblest friendship.
Damon and Pythias were distinguished Syracusans, and both were
Pythagore'ans. Pythias, a strong republican, having been seized
for calling Dionysius a tyrant, and being condemned to death
for attempting to stab him, requested a brief respite in order
to arrange his affairs, promising to procure a friend to take
his place and suffer death if he should not return. Damon gave
himself up as surety, and Pythias was allowed to depart. Just
as Damon was about to be led to execution, Pythias, who had been
detained by unforeseen circumstances, returned to accept his
fate and save his friend. Dionysius was so struck by these proofs
of virtue and magnanimity on the part of the two friends that
he set both of them free, and requested to be admitted into their
friendship. The subject has been repeatedly dramatized, and has
formed the theme of numerous separate poems. Schiller has a ballad
on the subject; but he amplifies the incidents of the original
story, and substitutes other names in place of Damon and Pythias.
The following are the first three and the last three verses from
SCHILLER:
The Hostage.
The tyrant Di'onys to seek,
Stern Moe'rus with his poniard crept;
The watchful guards upon him swept;
The grim King marked his changeless cheek:
"What wouldst thou with thy poniard? Speak!"
"The city from the tyrant free!"
"The death-cross shall thy guerdon be."
"I am prepared for death, nor pray,"
Replied that haughty man, "to live;
Enough if thou one grace wilt give:
For three brief suns the death delay,
To wed my sister--leagues away;
I boast one friend whose life for mine,
If I should fail the cross, is thine."
The tyrant mused, and smiled, and said,
With gloomy craft, "So let it be;
Three days I will vouchsafe to thee.
But mark--if, when the time be sped,
Thou fail'st, thy surety dies instead.
His life shall buy thine own release;
Thy guilt atoned, my wrath shall cease."
* * * * *
The sun sinks down--the gate's in view,
The cross looms dismal on the ground--
The eager crowd gape murmuring round.
His friend is bound the cross unto.
Crowd--guards--all--bursts he through;
"Me! Doomsman, me," he shouts, "alone!
His life is rescued--lo, mine own!"
Amazement seized the circling ring!
Linked in each other's arms the pair--
Weeping for joy, yet anguish there!
Moist every eye that gazed: they bring
The wondrous tidings to the King--
His breast man's heart at last hath known,
And the Friends stand before his throne.
Long silent he, and wondering long,
Gazed on the pair. "In peace depart,
Victors, ye have subdued my heart!
Truth is no dream! its power is strong.
Give grace to him who owns his wrong!
'Tis mine your suppliant now to be:
Ah, let the band of Love--be THREE!"
--Trans. by BULWER.
Dionysius the Younger succeeded to the government of Syracuse
in 367, but he was incompetent to the task; and his tyranny and
debauchery brought about his temporary overthrow, ten years later,
by Dion, his father's brother-in-law. Dion had enjoyed unusual
favors under Dionysius the Elder, and was now a man of wealth
and high position, as well as of great energy and marked mental
capacities. For his talents he was largely indebted to Plato,
under whose teachings he became imbued "with that sense of
regulated polity, and submission of individual will to fixed
laws, which floated in the atmosphere of Grecian talk and
literature, and stood so high in Grecian morality." In one of
his letters Plato says, "When I explained the principles of
philosophy and humanity to Dion, I little thought that I was
insensibly opening a way to the subversion of tyranny!"
Long before the death of Dionysius the Elder, Dion had conceived
the idea of liberating Syracuse from despotism and establishing
an improved constitutional policy, originated by himself; and,
on becoming the chief adviser of the young Dionysius, he tried
to convince the latter of the necessity of reforming himself
and his government. Although at first favorably impressed with
the plans of Dion, the young monarch subsequently became jealous
of his adviser and expelled him from the country. Gathering a
few troops from various quarters, Dion returned to Sicily ten
years after, and, aided by a revolt in Syracuse, he soon made
himself master of the city. Dionysius had meanwhile retired to
Ortyg'ia, and soon left Sicily for Italy. But the success of
Dion was short-lived. "Too good for a despot, and yet unfit for
a popular leader, he could not remain long in the precarious
position he occupied." Both his dictatorship and his life came
to an end in 354. He became the victim of a conspiracy originating
with his most intimate friend, and was assassinated in his own
dwelling.
Dionysius soon after returned to Syracuse, from the government
of which he was finally expelled by Timo'leon, a Corinthian,
who had been sent from Corinth, at the request of some exiled
Syracusans, to the relief of their native city (343 B.C.). Timoleon
made himself master of the almost deserted Syracuse, restored it
to some degree of its former glory, checked the aspiring power
of Carthage by defeating one of its largest armies, crushed the
petty despots of Sicily, and restored nearly the whole island
to a state of liberty and order. The restoration of liberty to
Syracuse by Timoleon was followed by many years of unexampled
prosperity. Having achieved the purpose with which he left Corinth,
Timoleon at once resigned his command and became a private citizen
of Syracuse. But he became the adviser of the Syracusans in their
government, and the arbitrator of their differences, enjoying
to a good age "what Xenophon calls 'that good, not human, but
divine command over willing men, given manifestly to persons
of genuine and highly-trained temperance of character.'"
HIERO II.
In 317, Agath'ocles, a bold adventurer of Syracuse, usurped its
authority by the murder of several thousand citizens, and for
twenty-eight years maintained his power, extending his dominion
over a large portion of Sicily, and even gaining successes in
Africa. After his death, in 289, successive tyrants ruled, until,
in 270, Hiero II., a descendant of Gelon, and commander of the
Syracusan army, obtained the supreme power. Meantime the
Carthaginians had gained a decided ascendancy in Sicily, and in
265 the Romans, alarmed by the movements of so powerful a neighbor,
and being invited to Sicily to assist a portion of the people
of Messa'na, commenced what is known in history as the first
Punic war. Hiero allied himself with the Carthaginians, and the
combined armies proceeded to lay siege to Messana; but they were
attacked and defeated by Ap'pius Clau'dius, the Roman consul,
and Hiero, panic-stricken, fled to Syracuse. Seeing his territory
laid waste by the Romans, he prudently made a treaty with them,
in 263. He remained their steadfast ally; and when the Romans
became sole masters of Sicily they gave him the government of
a large part of the island. His administration was mild, yet firm
and judicious, lasting in all fifty-four years. With him ended
the prosperity and independence of Syracuse.
ARCHIME'DES.
It was during the reign of Hiero II. that Archimedes, a native
of Syracuse, and a supposed distant relation of the king, made
the scientific discoveries and inventions that have secured for
him the honor of being the most celebrated mathematician of
antiquity. He was equally skilled in astronomy, geometry, mechanics,
hydrostatics, and optics. His discovery of the principle of specific
gravity is related in the following well-known story: Hiero,
suspecting that his golden crown had been fraudulently alloyed
with silver, put it into the hands of Archimedes for examination.
The latter, entering a bath-tub one day, and noticing that he
displaced a quantity of water equal in bulk to that of his body,
saw that this discovery would give him a mode of determining
the bulk and specific gravity of King Hiero's crown. Leaping
out of the tub in his delight, he ran home, crying, "Eure'ka!
eureka!" I have found it! I have found it!
To show Hiero the wonderful effects of mechanical power, Archimedes
is said to have drawn some distance toward him, by the use of
ropes and pulleys, a large galley that lay on the shore; and
during the siege of his native city by the Romans, his great
mechanical skill was displayed in the invention and manufacture
of stupendous engines of defence. Later historians than Polybius,
Livy, and Plutarch say that on this occasion, also, he burnt
many Roman ships by concentrating upon them the sun's rays from
numerous mirrors. SCHILLER gives the following poetic account
of a visit, to Archimedes, by a young scholar who asked to be
taught the art that had won the great master's fame:
To Archimedes once a scholar came:
"Teach me;" he said, "the Art that won thy fame;
The godlike Art which gives such boons to toil,
And showers such fruit upon thy native soil;
The godlike Art that girt the town when all
Rome's vengeance burst in thunder on the wall!"
"Thou call'st Art godlike--it is so, in truth,
And was," replied the master to the youth,
"Ere yet its secrets were applied to use--
Ere yet it served beleaguered Syracuse.
Ask'st thou from Art but what the Art is worth?
The fruit? For fruit go cultivate the Earth.
He who the goddess would aspire unto
Must not the goddess as the woman woo!"
--Trans. by BULWER.
Among the discoveries of Archimedes was that of the ratio between
the cylinder and the inscribed sphere, and he requested his friends
to place the figures of a sphere and cylinder on his tomb. This
was done, and, one hundred and thirty-six years after, it enabled
Cicero, the Roman orator, to find the resting-place of the
illustrious inventor. The story of his visit to Syracuse, and his
search for the tomb of Archimedes, is told by the HON. R C. WINTHROP
in a lecture entitled Archimedes and Franklin, from which we quote
as follows:
Visit of Cicero to the Grave of Archimedes.
"While Cicero was quæstor in Sicily--the first public office
which he ever held, and the only one to which he was then eligible,
being but just thirty years old--he paid a visit to Syracuse,
then among the greatest cities of the world. The magistrates
of the city of course waited on him at once, to offer their
services in showing him the lions of the place, and requested
him to specify anything which he would like particularly to see.
Doubtless they supposed that he would ask immediately to be
conducted to some one of their magnificent temples, that he might
behold and admire those splendid works of art with which
--notwithstanding that Marcellus had made it his glory to carry
not a few of them away with him for the decoration of the Imperial
City--Syracuse still abounded, and which soon after tempted the
cupidity, and fell a prey to the rapacity, of the infamous Verres.
"Or, haply, they may have thought that he would be curious to
see and examine the Ear of Dionysius, as it was called--a huge
cavern, cut out of the solid rock in the shape of a human ear,
two hundred and fifty feet long and eighty feet high, in which
that execrable tyrant confined all persons who came within the
range of his suspicion, and which was so ingeniously contrived
and constructed that Dionysius, by applying his ear to a small
hole, where the sounds were collected as upon a tympanum, could
catch every syllable that was uttered in the cavern below, and
could deal out his proscription and his vengeance accordingly
upon all who might dare to dispute his authority or to complain
of his cruelty. Or they may have imagined, perhaps, that he would
be impatient to visit at once the sacred fountain of Arethusa;
and the seat of those Sicilian Muses whom Virgil so soon after
invoked in commencing that most inspired of all uninspired
compositions, which Pope has so nobly paraphrased in his glowing
and glorious Eclogue--the 'Messiah.'
"To their great astonishment, however, Cicero's first request
was that they would take him to see the tomb of Archimedes. To
his own still greater astonishment, as we may well believe, they
told him in reply that they knew nothing about the tomb of
Archimedes, and had no idea where it was to be found, and they
even denied that any such tomb was still remaining among them.
But Cicero understood perfectly well what he was talking about.
He remembered the exact description of the tomb. He remembered
the very verses which had been inscribed on it. He remembered the
sphere and the cylinder which Archimedes had himself requested
to have wrought upon it, as the chosen emblems of his eventful
life. And the great orator forthwith resolved to make search
for it himself. Accordingly, he rambled out into the place of
their ancient sepulchres, and, after a careful investigation, he
came at last to a spot overgrown with shrubs and bushes, where
presently he descried the top of a small column just rising above
the branches. Upon this little column the sphere and the cylinder
were at length found carved, the inscription was painfully
deciphered, and the tomb of Archimedes stood revealed to the
reverent homage of the illustrious Roman quæstor.
"This was in the year 76 before the birth of our Savior. Archimedes
died about the year 212 before Christ. One hundred and thirty six
years only had thus elapsed since the death of this celebrated
person, before his tombstone was buried beneath briers and brambles;
and before the place and even the existence of it were forgotten
by the magistrates of the very city of which he was so long the
proudest ornament in peace, and the most effective defender in
war. What a lesson to human pride, what a commentary on human
gratitude was here! It is an incident almost precisely like that
which the admirable and venerable DR. WATTS imagined or imitated,
as the topic of one of his most striking and familiar Lyrics:
"'Theron, among his travels, found
A broken statue on the ground;
And searching onward as he went,
He traced a ruined monument.
Mould, moss, and shades had overgrown
The sculpture of the crumbling stone;
Yet ere he passed, with much ado,
He guessed and spelled out, Sci-pi-o.
"Enough," he cried; "I'll drudge no more
In turning the dull Stoics o'er;
* * * * *
For when I feel my virtue fail,
And my ambitious thoughts prevail,
I'll take a turn among the tombs,
And see whereto all glory comes."
I do not learn, however, that Cicero was cured of his eager vanity
and his insatiate love of fame by this "turn" among the Syracusan
tombs. He was then only just at the threshold of his proud career,
and he went back to pursue it to its bloody end with unabated
zeal, and with an ambition only extinguishable with his life.'"