(anc. Syracuse), a Greek city in Sicily, memorable in ancient history. It was, with the exception of Naxos, the earliest of all the Greek colonies in the island, having been founded by a band of Corinthians under Archias, in the year 734 B.C. The original settlers established themselves on the small island of Ortigia, at the mouth of the capacious bay which afterwards formed the great harbour of Syracuse; and for a long time the city did not extend beyond its narrow limits. The name was most probably derived from the neighbouring marsh or lake of Syraco. The new city rose steadily if not rapidly in power and prosperity; and founded several colonies of its own, among which were Acrae, Cassamara, and Camarina. But we know little of its history previous to the fifth century, B.C. In the beginning of that century the government was oligarchical, in the hands of a class called the Gamori, probably the descendants of the original settlers. Meanwhile a democratic party by degrees grew up, who, in 486, effected a revolution, and expelled the Gamori from the city. The latter, however, applied for aid to Gelon, tyrant of Gela, who immediately put himself at their head and took possession of Syracuse. Perceiving the superior advantages of this city over Gela, he resolved to make it his capital; and in order to increase its size and importance, he demolished the neighbouring city of Camarina, and transplanted the inhabitants to Syracuse. Soon afterwards, entering into a war with the Megareans, he defeated them, took and razed their city, and in like manner transplanted the people. Syracuse thus became powerful, and full of inhabitants; and the friendship of Gelon was courted by Athens and Lacedaemon at the time of the Persian invasion. But in the meantime the Carthaginians had entered into a treaty with the Persians; by which it was agreed, that the former should attack the Greeks in Sicily and Italy, in order to divert them from assisting their countrymen at home. Sicily was accordingly invaded by the Carthaginians with a vast army; but they were utterly overthrown by Gelon, as is related under the article Carthage. After this victory, the people out of gratitude obliged him to assume the title of king, which till that time he had refused.

Gelon died in the year 478 B.C., and was succeeded by his brother Hiero, whose character is differently drawn by different historians. He is highly celebrated in the odes of Pindar; and it is certain that his court was the resort of men of letters, whom he treated in the most courteous manner and with the greatest liberality. In 467 B.C. Hiero was succeeded by Thrasylus; who proving a tyrant, was in ten months deposed, and a popular government restored, which continued for the space of about sixty years.

After the establishment of free government, Syracuse, along with the other Greek cities in Sicily, made rapid progress in wealth and power; and it was probably about this time that it reached its highest pitch of prosperity. But during this period also it incurred the greatest danger it had yet experienced; in a contest with Athens at the very height of her power. The memorable siege of Syracuse, which in the end proved fatal to Athens, began in the spring of 414 B.C. The Athenians under Nicias landed to the north of the town, and established their naval station at a place called Thapsus. The city had by this time far extended beyond its original limits; the plateau of Achradina to the north of the harbour was densely peopled, but was commanded by the heights of Epipole to the west. The latter were at once seized by the besiegers as an important position, and secured by the erection of a fort on a hill called Labdalum. They then proceeded to construct a line of trenches across the plateau in order to shut in the city; and the rapid progress of this work so alarmed the Syracusans, that they made several attempts to stop it by counterworks. These were, however, all destroyed by the Athenians; and their fleet having sailed into the great harbour, they were able to carry the circumvallation down to the shore, leaving only a small part of it towards the north of the plateau in an unfinished state. Hitherto the Athenians had been successful in all their operations, and in all the contests that had taken place in the course of them; but the arrival of Glyippus from Sparta with reinforcements for the Syracusans turned the tide of affairs. He forced his way through the Athenian lines where they were incomplete, and entered the city. Then, directing all his efforts to prevent the completion of the circumvallation, he first surprised the Athenian fort of Labdalum, and afterwards proceeded to intersect their lines by a cross wall running out from that of the city. This he succeeded in carrying out quite beyond the line of circumvallation, so as to render it impossible to enclose the city. Nicias, after an unsuccessful attempt to capture this outwork, wrote to Athens for assistance, and meanwhile strengthened his position on the harbour by fortifying the headland of Plemyrium which commanded its entrance. But the Syracusans, making a simultaneous attack by sea and land, captured this fort, and subsequently defeated the Athenian ships in the harbour. A strong fleet arriving from Athens under Demosthenes and Eurymedon revived for a time the hopes of the besiegers. They attacked once more the Syracusan outworks on the heights, but were repulsed with great loss. It was now evident that all hope of capturing the city was gone; and the Athenians would have been wise had they immediately raised the siege. But the counsel of Nicias for delay prevailed against that of Demosthenes, and they speedily found their position changed from that of besiegers to being themselves besieged. Their fleet was blockaded in the harbour, and finally destroyed; and the army attempting to retreat by land, after suffering great losses, was forced to lay down their arms. This siege was scarcely ended when a new and formidable invasion by the Carthaginians took place; but the event of that expedition was as unfortunate to its authors as the former had been. (See Carthage.) In the meantime, a considerable revolution had happened in Syracuse. Dionysius, a man of great valour and address, by various insidious stratagems, succeeded in gaining unlimited power, and assumed the title of king of Syracuse in the year 404 B.C. The Syracusans did not tamely submit to their new master; but Dionysius managed matters so well, that their frequent revolts answered no other purpose than more certainly to entail slavery on themselves; and he was allowed to possess the throne without much opposition till his death, which happened in the year 367 B.C. The wars which this monarch carried on with the Carthaginians, and their unsuccessful attack on Syracuse in 397 B.C., are narrated in the article Carthage.

On the death of Dionysius, he was succeeded by his son, likewise called Dionysius. He no sooner ascended the throne, than Dion, his uncle, succeeded in gaining an ascendancy over his mind by the help of the philosopher Plato, under whose care he placed the young king. But the courtiers, dreading the effects of the philosopher's instructions, prevailed on the king to banish Dion, and to keep Plato himself in a kind of imprisonment in the citadel. At last, however, he set him at liberty; and Plato then returned to his own country.

In 356 B.C., Dion resolved at once to avenge himself on the tyrant for the wrongs he had suffered at his hands, and to deliver his country from the oppression under which it groaned. He raised a body of troops, landed in Sicily, and Syracuse, taking advantage of the tyrant's absence, proceeded to Syracuse. On his march he prevailed on the inhabitants of Agrigentum, Gela, Camarina, and other cities, to join him. As soon as he entered the territories of Syracuse, multitudes flocked to him; and as nobody appeared to oppose him, he boldly entered the capital, where he soon found himself at the head of 50,000 men. Dionysius returning to the city, after some attempts at resistance, betook himself to flight. But in 350 B.C. he again made himself master of Syracuse; and being exasperated by his past misfortunes, became more tyrannical than ever. The Syracusans first had recourse to Icetas, tyrant of Leontini; but as the Carthaginians in alliance with this monarch took this opportunity to assail them with a powerful fleet and army, they were obliged to apply to the Corinthians. By them Timoleon, a celebrated commander, was sent to the assistance of the Syracusans, whom he found in a very distressed situation; Icetas being master of the city, the Carthaginians of the harbour, and Dionysius of the citadel. As all parties were equally the enemies of Dionysius, he found it impossible to resist, and therefore surrendered himself to Timoleon in 343 B.C.

After the departure of the tyrant, Timoleon succeeded in expelling both Icetas and the Carthaginians from Syracuse, and obtaining possession of the whole city. By sound of trumpet, he invited the inhabitants to come and assist in demolishing the citadel and other castles, which he called the nests of tyrants; after which he caused edifices for the administration of justice to be erected in the place where the citadel had stood. He found the city in a most miserable condition; for many having perished in the wars and seditions, and others having fled to avoid the oppression of tyrants, Syracuse, once so wealthy and populous, was now become almost a desert. Timoleon supplied the city with inhabitants from Corinth and other cities of Greece, and at the same time great multitudes from Italy and the other parts of Sicily resorted thither.

For twenty years the Syracusans enjoyed the fruits of Timoleon's victories; but new disturbances arising, in a short time another tyrant started up, who exceeded all that had gone before him in cruelty and other vices. This was the celebrated Agathocles, of whose exploits against the Carthaginians a full account is given under the article Carthage. He was poisoned by one Moeron in the year 289 B.C., after having reigned twenty-eight and lived ninety-five years. A succession of tyrants followed, till at last the city being held by two rivals, Tension and Sosistratus, who made war within the very walls, Pyrrhus king of Epirus, was invited into Sicily, in order to put an end to these distractions, and to deliver the island from the Carthaginians. He willingly complied with the invitation, and was everywhere received with loud acclamations, as the deliverer, not only of Syracuse, but of all Sicily. As he had a fine army of 30,000 foot and 5000 horse, with a fleet of 200 sail, he drove the Carthaginians from place to place, till he left them only the two strong posts of Eryx and Lilybeum. So sanguine were his anticipations, that he caused his son to assume the title of king of Sicily; but in the mean time, having displeased the Sicilians by his arbitrary behaviour, they deserted from him in such numbers that he was glad to set out for Italy in 275 B.C. After his departure, Hiero, a descendant of Gelon, the first king of Syracuse, first as general and afterwards as king, succeeded, during a long period of peace, in raising Syracuse to a high degree of wealth and prosperity. He preserved internal tranquillity, promoted agriculture and commerce, and adorned the city Syracuse, with many splendid buildings. The most important war carried on by Hiero was with the Mamertines of Messana, whom he reduced to such straits that they were obliged to call in the Romans to their assistance. The consequences of this have been fully related under the articles Rome and Carthage. Hiero, who had allied himself with the Carthaginians, being himself defeated by the Romans, and finding his allies unable to protect him against the power of that republic, concluded an alliance with them, and continued faithful to them even in the time of the second Punic war, when they were in the greatest distress. In his reign flourished the celebrated mathematician Archimedes, whose genius he employed in fortifying the city of Syracuse, by innumerable machines, in such a manner as rendered it almost impregnable by any method of attack known at that time.

Hiero died about 211 B.C. and was succeeded by his grandson Hieronymus; but he imprudently forsook the counsels of his grandfather, and entered into an alliance with the Carthaginians. He was soon afterwards murdered, in consequence of his tyranny and cruelty; and the greatest disorders took place in the city, which Hannibal, though then in Italy, found means to foment, in hopes of keeping the Syracusans in his interest. This indeed he effected; but as his own affairs in Italy began to decline, he could not prevent Marcellus from landing in Sicily with a formidable army, which the Sicilians had no means of resisting; Syracuse was invested in 214 B.C.; but the machines invented by Archimedes baffled all attempts to take it by assault. The immense preparations which the consul had made for taking the city by storm, could not have failed to accomplish his purpose, had not the place been defended by the genius of Archimedes.

The consul, finding himself defeated in every attempt, turned the siege into a blockade, and at last made himself master of Syracuse in 212 B.C. He took the opportunity of a festival, when the soldiers and citizens had drunk plentifully, to make a detachment scale the walls of the quarter called Tyche, in that part of it which was nearest to Epipolar, and which was ill guarded. He speedily possessed himself of Epipole; and the inhabitants of Neapolis as well as of Tyche then sent deputies to offer their submission. Marcellus granted life and liberty to all of free condition, but gave up those quarters of the city to be plundered. The other quarters still held out, and an attempt was made by the Carthaginians to relieve the place, but this proving unsuccessful, they left the citizens to their own resources. The Romans, having obtained by treachery a landing in the island of Ortygia, succeeded in carrying by assault a part of Achradina, and on this the remainder of the city was given up to them. In the confusion of the assault Archimedes was killed.

The city of Syracuse continued subject to the western empire till its fall, when the island of Sicily, being ravaged by barbarian tribes, the capital also underwent various revolutions, till, at last, in the ninth century, it was so destroyed by the Saracens that very few traces of its ancient grandeur are now to be seen. The ancient city, in its most extended condition, was of a triangular form, and consisted of five parts. These were Ortygia, or the Island, which was the oldest part, Achradina, Tyche, Neapolis, and Epipole. The circuit, according to Strabo, amounted to 180 stadia, or 22 English miles and 4 furlongs. For an account of the modern Syracuse see Sicilies, Theo. Its population is 18,000.