The Greek Colony of Syracuse
Dewing 780
Reverse: head of Arethusa with four dolphins
Silver decadrachm from Syracuse, ca. 470 B.C.
from the Arthur S. Dewing Greek Numismatic Collection
The colony at Syracuse was founded in 734 B.C. by Corinthians led by Archias, who first consulted the oracle at Delphi. According to Strabo, the oracle asked Archias to choose between wealth and health, and he chose the former. The colony of Syracuse grew to be quite wealthy indeed, due to its excellent soil and harbors. Strabo also writes that "the men of Syracuse proved to have the gift of leadership" (Strabo, Geography 6.2.4), and the colony grew not only in wealth, but also in political influence through the 5th and 4th centuries. Syracuse founded many colonies, and won naval victories against the Carthaginians and Etruscans, enabling Greek dominance in the western Mediterranean.
Syracuse was seized in 485 B.C. by Gelon, the tyrant of Gela, and under his leadership and that of his brother Hieron, who succeeded him, the city entered a period of growth and prosperity.
Map showing the colonies of Syracuse, and Syracuse's mother-city, Corinth
Syracuse and Delphi
The Syracusans built one of the earliest treasuries at Delphi, dating from the middle of the 6th century (Dinsmoor 1975, 116). This building, with its sculptural metopes, probably influenced the architecture and decoration of the lavish and still well-preserved Athenian treasury, built almost 50 years later, directly across the Sacred Way.
The Syracusan treasury was demolished in 413 B.C. in order to build a newer dedicatory building. This second Syracusan treasury was erected from the spoils of the Syracusans' crushing naval defeat of Athens, which had mounted an expedition to Sicily, attracted by Syracusan wealth and the prospect of enlisting the Sicilian cities in their conflict against the Spartans. Today, little remains of the Syracusan treasury at Delphi but the scattered foundations.
Syracuse and Olympia
Syracuse built a small Doric treasury at Olympia which has been dated to 480 B.C. This treasury had several architectural peculiarities occasionally found in Sicilian buildings; for example, every other ridge (called an arris) between the column flutes was embellished with a single inset rib (an astragal) down the length of it. Also, the raindrop-like guttae, stone pegs hanging under the cornice, numbered only four per row, instead of the more usual six.
In his discussion of Olympia's river, the Alpheius, Pausanias recounts a legend which establishes a link between Syracuse and Olympia at a geographical level:
They say that there was a hunter called Alpheius, who fell in love with Arethusa, who was herself a huntress. Arethusa, unwilling to marry, crossed, they say, to the island opposite Syracuse called Ortygia, and there turned from a woman to a spring. Alpheius too was changed by his love into the river.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.7.2
Later, in book 8, Pausanias writes that the Alpheius River is especially unusual because it often disappears underground along its course. Pausanias reports that the river, flowing past Olympia,
...falls into the sea above Cyllene, the port of Elis. Not even the Adriatic could check its flowing onwards, but passing through it, so large and stormy a sea, it shows in Ortygia, before Syracuse, that it is the Alpheius, and unites its water with Arethusa.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.54.3
Ships and Sea Travel
Trade
Colonies
Ancient Travellers
...the Syracusans, after conquering in brilliant fashion men who had never before been subdued, sold the inhabitants into slavery and utterly destroyed the city, and the choicest of the booty they sent to Delphi as a thank-offering to the god.
Diodorus, Historical Library, 12.29.3 |
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