Syracuse

Mm-hmm.

It's about, it's about these two males who are from Syracuse, which apparently is a city or town or island, I don't know, in, from ancient Greece.

Okay.

And they have just recently defeated Athens at war.

Mm-hmm.

So these two fellows are Syracusan.

Athen- their people just defeated Athens, and now they've, they have all these prisoners of war on their little island in their little village-

Mm-hmm

When I waded in the river and opened it up, the water rushed forth and not a few Sunday clothes were spoiled.

Archimedes running naked through the streets of Syracuse and shouting Eureka at the top of his voice did not make a greater impression than myself.

I was carried on the shoulders and was the hero of the day.

Upon settling in the city I began a four years' course in the so-called normal school preparatory to my studies at the college or real gymnasium.

In the memoirs of the Etruscan Academy of Cortona is a drawing of a picture found in Herculaneum, representing a marriage at which a sorceress is practising divination with five stones.

The Syracusans, when about to enter the matrimonial state, used to go in procession to the temple of Diana, the goddess of chastity, preceded by chanters, musicians, and persons carrying flowers and vessels of incense, and accompanied by tame tigers, leopards, and the like animals.

The Acritus, in his second idyll, alludes to this custom.

End of chapter 2.

Still it bears some resemblance to them, and I wish it to suffice me for all of the little kind.

It is Hiero the Syracusan.

The man rose from a private station to be the prince of Syracuse, nor did he either owe anything to fortune but opportunity, for the Syracusans, being oppressed, chose him for their captain.

Afterwards he was rewarded by being made their prince.

He was of so great ability even as a private citizen that one who writes of him says he wanted nothing but a kingdom to be a king.

These methods are when, either by some wicked or nefarious ways, one ascends to the principality, or when by the favour of his fellow citizens a private person becomes the prince of his country.

And speaking of the first method, it will be illustrated by two examples, one ancient, the other modern, and without entering further into the subject, I consider these two examples will suffice those who may be compelled to follow them.

Agathocles, the Sicilian, became king of Syracuse, not only from a private but from a low and abject position.

On one occasion, when he noticed Plato at a very costly entertainment tasting some olives, he said, Oh, you wise man, why, after having sailed to Sicily for the sake of such a feast, do you not enjoy what you have before you? And Plato replied, By the gods, Diogenes, while I was there I ate olives, and all such good things a great deal.

Diogenes rejoined, What then did you want to sail to Syracuse for? Did not Attica at that time produce any olives? But Favorinus, in his Universal History, tells the story of Aristippus.

At another time he was eating dried figs when Plato met him, and he said to him, You may have a share of these.

And as he took some and ate them, he said, I said that you might have a share of them, not that you might eat them all.

On one occasion, when he noticed Plato at a very costly entertainment tasting some olives, he said, Oh, you wise man, why, after having sailed to Sicily for the sake of such a feast, do you not enjoy what you have before you? And Plato replied, By the gods, Diogenes, while I was there I ate olives, and all such good things a great deal.

Diogenes rejoined, What then did you want to sail to Syracuse for? Did not Attica at that time produce any olives? But Favorinus, in his Universal History, tells the story of Aristippus.

At another time he was eating dried figs when Plato met him, and he said to him, You may have a share of these.

And as he took some and ate them, he said, I said that you might have a share of them, not that you might eat them all.

Such were his hopes that he regarded Sicily as a mere beginning, and not, like the rest, as an end of the expedition.

So while Nicias was trying to divert the people from the capture of Syracuse as an undertaking too difficult for them, Alcibiades was dreaming of Carthage and Libya, and after winning these, of at once encompassing Italy and Peloponnesus.

He almost regarded Sicily as the ways and means provided for his greater war.

The young men were at once carried away on the wings of such hopes, and their elders kept recounting in their ears many wonderful things about the projected expedition.

This fell at that time, and little images like dead folk carried forth to burial were in many places exposed to view by the women, who mimicked burial rites, beat their breasts, and sang dirges.

Moreover, the mutilation of the Hermae, most of which in a single night had their faces and forms disfigured, confounded the hearts of many, even among those who usually set small store by such things.

It was said it is true that Corinthians had done the deed, Syracuse being a colony of theirs, in the hope that such portents would check or stop the war.

The multitude, however, were not moved by this reasoning, nor by that of those who thought the affair no terrible sign at all, but rather one of the common effects of strong wine, when dissolute youth in mere sport are carried away into wanton acts.