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Updated: June 11, 2025
By this time the Syracusan counterwork had almost passed the end of the Athenian wall, and if it were carried a few yards further, the siege of Syracuse would be brought to a standstill. Roused by the imminence of the crisis, Nicias determined to make one more effort to regain his mastery in the field, and led his troops to the attack.
Stranger, the Syracusan Orthon lays this behest on thee; go never abroad in thy cups on a night of storm. For thus did I come by my end, and far from my rich fatherland I lie, clothed on with alien soil. IX The Death of Cleonicus. Man, husband thy life, nor go voyaging out of season, for brief are the days of men!
I have seen green veils climbing the Pyramids; I have seen green veils diving down into the dark mines of the Oural; I have seen an English gentleman perched like a chamois on the top of St. Bernard, hat in hand, roaring "God save the Queen." I have seen some sipping Syracusan wine, puffing a comfortable cloud from obese cigars, most irreverently seated in the big nose of St. Carlo Borromeo.
It seems to me the most enduring monument of Syracusan glory survives in the eloquent protest of Nicolaus against her cruelty; especially when we recollect that it came from one who, of all others, had most to forgive.
The water which they used was scarce and had to be fetched from far, and the sailors could not go out for firewood without being cut off by the Syracusan horse, who were masters of the country; a third of the enemy's cavalry being stationed at the little town of Olympieum, to prevent plundering incursions on the part of the Athenians at Plemmyrium.
No course was left to the consul except to undertake a siege; but the skilful conduct of the defence, in which the Syracusan engineer Archimedes, celebrated as a learned mathematician, especially distinguished himself, compelled the Romans after besieging the city for eight months to convert the siege into a blockade by sea and land.
Nicias and Demosthenes were put to death in cold blood, and their men either perished miserably in the Syracusan dungeons or were sold into slavery to the very persons whom, in their pride of power, they had crossed the seas to enslave. All danger from Athens to the independent nations of the West was now forever at an end.
In the extremity of their sufferings, several of the Syracusan exiles appealed for aid to Corinth, their mother-city. The application was granted, and Timoleon was appointed to command an expedition destined for the relief of Syracuse. Timoleon was distinguished for gentleness as well as for courage, but towards traitors and despots his hatred was intense.
Cicero finishes his catalogue by telling us of the manifold robberies committed by Verres in Syracuse, especially from the temples of the gods; and he begins his account of the Syracusan iniquities by drawing a parallel between two Romans whose names were well known in that city: Marcellus, who had besieged it as an enemy and taken it, and Verres, who had been sent to govern it in peace.
This crafty manoeuvre was due to a suggestion of Ariston, the most skilful of the Corinthian seamen, by whose advice provisions had been brought down to the beach, so that the Syracusan crews were kept together, and ready to renew the action, after a brief interval for repose and refreshment.
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