Europe: A History (31 page)

Syrakousai
, queen of Greater Greece, was the largest, the most prosperous, and reputedly the most beautiful of all the Greek colonies in the West. Proudly independent in a hellenic age which had seen the subjugation of most city-states, it had asserted its supremacy over Athens long since, and had escaped the attentions of Alexander the Great. It had overhauled its sometime rival, the glorious Acragas, razed by the Carthaginians and never fully restored. In this third century
BC
it had upheld its profitable role astride the overlapping spheres of Rome and Carthage. It was the last major representative of unconquered Greek civilization.

Situated on the east coast of Sicily, half-way between the snowy slopes of Mt Etna and the island’s most southerly point at Cape Pachynum, Syracuse commanded a site of unequalled splendour, security, and convenience. It was the natural entrepôt for trade between the eastern and the western parts of the Mediterranean, and the most usual staging-post between Italy and Africa. Originally founded on a rocky offshore islet, the Ortygia, it had spread upwards onto the neighbouring seaside plateau, which was protected by an almost unbroken ring of cliffs and crags. The grand harbour, which curved southwards for almost five miles in a perfect bay, was screened by lofty mountains. On the other side of the Ortygia, a second harbour could also accommodate the largest fleet of ships. [See Map 7, opposite.]

The island of Ortygia, which served as the city’s acropolis, had been joined to the mainland by a fortified causeway in the sixth century. Watered by the marvellous freshwater spring of Arethusa, it was dominated by a huge Temple of Apollo which looked out across the harbour to the matching Temple of Zeus on the opposite headland at Olympieum. In the fifth century the entire plateau had been enclosed within a mighty length of stone walls which ran atop all the natural features. These walls, which stretched for over fifteen miles, were anchored to the castle of Euryalos at the foot of the mountains. They surrounded half a million citizens living in five distinct suburbs. The Achradina or ‘Upper City’, which possessed its own internal walls, contained the main Agora or Forum. Beyond that lay the residential suburbs of Tyche and Epipolae and, above them, the monumental buildings of Neapolis, the ‘New Town’, containing a hillside theatre, a nest of temples, and, in Hieron’s Altar, the largest sacrificial structure of the ancient world. In all this magnificent site there was only one blemish. An area of marshland astride the River Anapus, which flowed into the Grand Harbour, was a notorious source of summer pestilence. With that one proviso, Syracuse basked in unrivalled favours. According to Cicero, who was to govern there somewhat later, there was never a day when the sun failed to shine. The elevated plateau caught every breeze that blew across the wine-dark waves. Flowers bloomed on the cliffs, and still do, even in winter.

Prior to the arrival of the Roman army, Syracuse could boast more than 500 years of history. Founded by Corinthian colonists in 734
BC,
it was only twenty years younger than Rome, and had spread its influence through a network of daughter colonies. In 474, only six years after Salamis, it had been responsible for the destruction of the naval power of the Etruscans, thereby removing one of
the early obstacles to Roman fortunes. Like many city-states, it passed through phases of oligarchic, democratic, and monarchical government. It survived its supreme test in the successive sieges of 415–413 and 405–404, the former laid by the Athenians, the latter by the Carthaginians.

Map 7. Rome—Sicily—Carthage, 212
BC

For want of better information, the political history of ancient Sicily has to be written in terms of successive Syracusan tyrants, who ruled through a bloody
succession of coups and tumults.
²²
Dionysius the Elder (r. 405–367) was cited by Aristotle as an example of the type of tyrant ‘who gains power by demagogic appeals to the poorer classes’. His relative, Dion (r. 357–354), who had been personally tutored in the ways of a philosopher-king by Plato and the Academy, seized control of Syracuse after sailing from Greece in a pre-run of Garibaldi’s Thousand. Timoleon (r. 344–36), the Corinthian ‘son of liberty’, was another who triumphed with the aid of mercenaries; but he seems to have introduced democratic constitutions in many of the cities, and succeeded in fixing a boundary on the River Halycus between the Greek and the Carthaginian spheres. The cruel Agathocles (r. 317–289) was a plebeian potter who rose by marrying a wealthy widow. In 310
BC
he resolved the second Carthaginian siege of Syracuse by carrying the war into Africa. This self-styled ‘King of Sicily’ was said to have been paralysed by a poisoned toothpick and laid out on his funeral pyre alive. In the next generation Syracuse was saved from Rome’s expanding power by Pyrrhus, the adventurer-King of Epirus, who left the field clear for the long reign of his Syracusan supporter, King Hieron II (r. 269–215). Hieron II, patron of Archimedes, preserved the peace through an unbroken treaty with Rome and gave Syracuse its last spell of independent affluence. Hieron’s death, however, at a crucial moment in the Punic Wars, precipitated a struggle between pro-Roman and pro-Carthaginian factions. His grandson and successor, Hieronymus, abandoned the Roman alliance, only to be overthrown by a popular revolt that overwhelmed first the royal family and then the Roman party.

In 215 the election of two Carthaginians as ruling magistrates in Syracuse greatly aroused Roman anxieties. Shortly afterwards four Roman legions were transported to Sicily, and a
casus belli
was found in a border skirmish. Marcellus laid siege to Syracuse, by land and by sea, late in 214 or possibly in early 213. For the besiegers, the year was 538
AUC.
Their rivalry with Carthage was the central political feature of the era. It was a natural extension of Rome’s earlier conquest of southern Italy. Carthage was the established power, Rome the challenger. The First Punic War (267–241) had been provoked by Roman intervention in a local quarrel between Hieron of Syracuse and the city of Messana; and it had ended with Rome’s annexation of all Carthaginian possessions in Sicily. Carthage made up for its loss by the creation of a new colony in eastern Iberia, where in 227 Carthagonova (Cartagena) was founded. Rome watched these developments with intense suspicion; and the Second Punic War was provoked by Roman intervention at Saguntum in Iberia, despite a treaty recognizing Carthaginian rule up to the Ebro. Hannibal had then carried the war to the gates of Rome, causing a general conflagration in which the strategic control of the central Mediterranean was at stake. Syracuse was the pivot.

M. Claudius Marcellus (d. 208), five times consul, was a pious hero-warrior of the old Roman school. In his first consulship in 222 he had slain the King of the Insubrian Gauls in single combat on the plain near Milan, and had dedicated the whole of his Gallic spoils to the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. He was due to die in battle, ambushed by Hannibal. He earned himself a Life by Plutarch. By all
accounts, which include those of Livy and Polybius as well as Plutarch, the Roman siege of Syracuse was laid with high hopes of quick success. Marcellus was opposed by the unbreached walls and by confident defenders. Yet, in addition to three legions of perhaps 25,000 men, he was armed with 100 warships, a huge train of siege engines, and by the knowledge that Syracusan counsels were divided. He had reckoned on everything, writes Livy, except on one man.

That man was Archimedes,
unicus spectator caeli siderumque
, ‘that unrivalled observer of the heaven and the stars, even more remarkable as the inventor and engineer of artillery and engines of war’.
²³
Throughout the reign of Hieron II, Archimedes had been building an arsenal of ingenious anti-siege machines of every range and calibre.

Livy’s account of the scene when the Roman troops approached the sea-walls makes good reading:

The wall of Achradina… which is washed by the sea, was attacked by Marcellus with sixty-five quinquiremes. From most of the ships, archers and slingers… allowed hardly anyone to stand on the wall without being wounded.

Other five-bankers, paired and lashed together … and propelled by the outer banks of oars like a single ship, brought up siege-towers several storeys high, together with engines for battering the wall.

Against this naval equipment, Archimedes had lined the walls with artillery of various sizes. Ships lying offshore were bombarded with a regular discharge of stones of great weight. The nearer vessels were attacked with lighter but much more frequent missiles.

Finally, to let his men discharge their bolts without exposure to wounds, he opened up the wall from top to bottom with numerous loopholes about a cubit wide. Through these, without being seen, some shot at the enemy with arrows, others from small protected ‘scorpions’.
²⁴

Polybius relates that the floating siege-towers were called
sambucae
, since their shape resembled that of a musical instrument of that name, no doubt an ancestor of the modern Greek
bouzouki
.

Most disconcerting were Archimedes’ devices for lifting the attackers clean out of the water:

Huge beams were suddenly projected from the walls, right over the ships, which could then be sunk by great weights released from on high. Other ships were grabbed at the prow by iron claws, or beaks, like those of cranes, winched up into the air, then dropped stern first into the depths. Others again were spun round and round by means of machinery inside the city, and dashed on the steep cliffs … with great destruction of the fighting men on board … Frequently, a ship would be lifted into mid-air, and whirled hither and thither… until its crew had been thrown out in all directions…
²⁵

Marcellus recognized a superior adversary. ‘Let us stop fighting this geometrical giant,’ he exclaimed, ‘who uses our ships to ladle water from the sea.’ Or again, ‘Our sambuca band has been whipped out of the banquet.’ Plutarch commented, ‘The Romans seemed to be fighting against the Gods.’

With the assault abandoned, the siege turned into a blockade that lasted for two years. The Syracusans remained buoyant for many months. A Carthaginian relief
force set up camp in the valley of the Anapus, requiring Marcellus to bring a fourth legion from Panormus. A naval sortie left the harbour successfully, and returned with a fleet of reinforcements. In the interior of the island a Roman massacre of the citizens of Henna, a city sacred to Proserpina, turned the Sicilians against them. In the spring of 212 Marcellus mounted a night raid on the Galeagra Tower during the Festival of Artemis, and broke through the Hexapyloi Gate into the suburb of Epipolae. But the main fortresses held firm. In the summer the Carthaginian admiral, Bomilcar, gathered a vast fleet of 700 transports, protected by 130 warships. With clear superiority, he lay in wait for the Roman fleet off Cape Pachynum. At the last moment, for reasons unknown, he declined Marceilus’ offer of battle, stood out to sea, and sailed on to Tarentum.

In the end, the outcome of the siege was decided by plague and by treachery. The Carthaginians, who had been struck by the plague when attacking Syracuse two centuries earlier, were now decimated by the same disease when trying to defend it. Then, with parleys in progress, an Iberian captain called Moeriscus, one of three prefects of Achradina, decided to save his skin by letting the Romans in near the Fountain of Arethusa. On the agreed signal, during a diversionary attack, he opened the gate. After setting guards on the houses of the pro-Roman faction, Marcellus gave Syracuse to plunder.

Archimedes was counted among the many victims. Later tradition held that he was killed by a Roman soldier whilst working on a mathematical problem traced in the sand. Plutarch reviewed the various versions in circulation:

As it happened, Archimedes was on his own, working out some problem with the aid of a diagram. Having fixed his mind on his study, he was not aware of the Romans’ incursion.

Suddenly, a soldier came upon him with drawn sword, and ordered him to Marcellus. Archimedes refused until he had finished his problem… Whereupon the soldier flew into a rage, and despatched him.

Others say that the Roman… had threatened to kill him at once, and that Archimedes, when he saw him, had earnestly begged him to wait so that the result would not be left without demonstration. But the soldier paid no attention, and made an end of him there and then.

There is a third story, that some soldiers fell in with Archimedes as he was taking some of his scientific instruments to Marcellus, such as sun-dials, spheres, and quadrants. They slew him, thinking that he was carrying gold.

It is generally agreed, however, that Marcellus was greatly troubled by the death, and shunned the killer, seeking out the relatives of Archimedes and paying them his respects.
²⁶

Such was the impact when Greek civilization met Roman power.

At his own expressed wish, Archimedes was buried in a tomb designed as a sphere inside a cylinder. He once said that the ratio of 2 : 3, as expressed in a sphere and cylinder of similar length and diameter, offered the most pleasing of proportions.