To gain time for their arrival, by deluding and disarming the assailants, Dionysius affected to abandon all hope of prolonged defence, and sent to request permission to quit the city, along with his private friends and effects. Permission was readily granted to him to depart with five triremes. But as soon as this evidence of success had been acquired, the assailants without abandoned themselves to extravagant joy and confidence, considering Dionysius as already subdued, and the siege as concluded. Not merely was all farther attack suspended, but the forces were in a great measure broken up. The Horsemen were disbanded, by a proceeding alike unjust and ungrateful, to be sent back to Ætna; while the hoplites dispersed about the country to their various lands and properties. The same difficulty of keeping a popular force long together for any military operation requiring time, which had been felt when the Athenians besieged their usurpers Kylon and Peisistratus in the acropolis,[989] was now experienced in regard to the siege of Ortygia. Tired with the length of the siege, the Syracusans blindly abandoned themselves to the delusive assurance held out by Dionysius; without taking heed to maintain their force and efficiency undiminished, until his promised departure should be converted into a reality. In this unprepared and disorderly condition, they were surprised by the sudden arrival of the Campanians,[990] who, attacking and defeating them with considerable loss, forced their way through to join Dionysius in Ortygia. At the same time, a reinforcement of three hundred fresh mercenaries reached him by sea. The face of affairs was now completely changed. The recent defeat produced among the assailants not only discouragement, but also mutual recrimination and quarrel. Some insisted upon still prosecuting the siege of Ortygia, while others, probably the friends of the recently dismissed Horsemen, declared in favor of throwing it up altogether and joining the Horsemen at Ætna; a resolution, which they seem at once to have executed. Observing his opponents thus enfeebled and torn by dissension, Dionysius sallied out and attacked them, near the suburb called Neapolis or Newtown, on the south-west of Achradina. He was victorious, and forced them to disperse. But he took great pains to prevent slaughter of the fugitives, riding up himself to restrain his own troops; and he subsequently buried the slain with due solemnity. He was anxious by these proceedings to conciliate the remainder; for the most warlike portion of his opponents had retired to Ætna, where no less than seven thousand hoplites were now assembled along with the Horsemen. Dionysius sent thither envoys to invite them to return to Syracuse, promising the largest amnesty for the past. But it was in vain that his envoys expatiated upon his recent forbearance towards the fugitives and decent interment of the slain. Few could be induced to come back, except such as had left their wives and families at Syracuse in his power. The larger proportion, refusing all trust in his word and all submission to his command, remained in exile at Ætna. Such as did return were well treated, in hopes of inducing the rest gradually to follow their example.[991]
Thus was Dionysius rescued from a situation apparently desperate, and reëstablished in his dominion; chiefly through the rash presumption (as on the former occasion after the retreat from Gela), the want of persevering union, and the absence of any commanding leader, on the part of his antagonists. His first proceeding was to dismiss the newly-arrived Campanians. For though he had to thank them mainly for his restoration, he was well aware that they were utterly faithless, and that on the first temptation they were likely to turn against him.[992] But he adopted more efficient means for strengthening his dominion in Syracuse, and for guarding against a repetition of that danger from which he had so recently escaped. He was assisted in his proceedings by a Lacedæmonian envoy named Aristus, recently despatched by the Spartans for the ostensible purpose of bringing about an amicable adjustment of parties at Syracuse. While Nikoteles, who had been sent from Corinth, espoused the cause of the Syracusan people, and put himself at their head to obtain for them more or less of free government,—Aristus, on the contrary, lent himself to the schemes of Dionysius. He seduced the people away from Nikoteles, whom he impeached and caused to be slain. Next, pretending himself to act along with the people, and to employ the great ascendency of Sparta in defence of their freedom,[993] he gained their confidence and then betrayed them. The despot was thus enabled to strengthen himself more decisively than before, and probably to take off the effective popular leaders thus made known to him; while the mass of the citizens were profoundly discouraged by finding Sparta enlisted in the conspiracy against their liberties.
Of this renovated tide of success Dionysius took advantage, to strike another important blow. During the season of harvest, while the citizens were busy in the fields, he caused the houses to be searched, and seized all the arms found therein. Not satisfied with thus robbing his opponents of the means of attack, he farther proceeded to construct additional fortifications around the islet of Ortygia, to augment his standing army of mercenaries, and to build fresh ships. Feeling more than ever that his dominion was repugnant to the Syracusans, and rested only on naked force, he thus surrounded himself with precautions probably stronger than any other Grecian despot had ever accumulated. He was yet farther strengthened by the pronounced and active support of Sparta, now at the maximum of her imperial ascendency;[994] and by the presence of the mighty Lysander at Syracuse as her ambassador to countenance and exalt him.[995] The Spartan alliance, however, did not prevent him from enrolling among his mercenaries a considerable fraction of the Messenians, the bitter enemies of Sparta; who were now driven out of Naupaktus and Kephallenia, with no other possession left except their arms[996]—and whose restoration to Peloponnesus by Epaminondas, about thirty years afterwards, has been described in a preceding chapter.
So large a mercenary force, while the people in Syracuse were prostrate and in no condition for resistance, naturally tempted Dionysius to seek conquest as well as plunder beyond the border. Not choosing as yet to provoke a war with Carthage, he turned his arms to the north and north-west of the Syracusan territory; the Grecian (Chalkidic or Ionic) cities, Naxus, Katana, and Leontini—and the Sikels, towards the centre of Sicily. The three Chalkidic cities were the old enemies of Syracuse, but Leontini had been conquered by the Syracusans even before the Athenian expedition, and remained as a Syracusan possession until the last peace with the Carthaginians, when it had been declared independent. Naxus and Katana had contrived to retain their independence against Syracuse, even after the ruin of the Athenian armament under Nikias. At the head of a powerful force, Dionysius marched out from Syracuse first against the town of Ætna, occupied by a considerable body of Syracusan exiles hostile to his dominion. Though the place was strong by situation,[997] yet these men, too feeble to resist, were obliged to evacuate it; upon which he proceeded to attack Leontini. But on summoning the inhabitants to surrender, he found his propositions rejected, and every preparation made for a strenuous defence; so that he could do nothing more than plunder the territory around, and then advanced onward into the interior Sikel territory, towards Enna and Erbita. But his march in this direction was little more than a feint, for the purpose of masking his real views upon Naxus and Katana, with both which cities he had already opened intrigues. Arkesilaus, general of Katana, and Prokles, general of Naxus, were both carrying on corrupt negotiations for the purpose of selling to him the liberty of their native cities. Until the negotiations were completed, Dionysius wished to appear as if turning his arms elsewhere, and therefore marched against Enna. Here he entered into conspiracy with an Ennæan citizen named Aeimnestus, whom he instigated to seize the sceptre of his native town,—by promises of assistance, on condition of being himself admitted afterwards. Aeimnestus made the attempt and succeeded, but did not fulfil his engagement to Dionysius; who resented this proceeding so vehemently, that he assisted the Ennæans in putting down Aeimnestus, delivered him as prisoner into their hands, and then retired, satisfied with such revenge, without farther meddling. He next marched against Erbita, before which he passed his time with little or no result, until the bribes promised at Naxus and Katana had taken effect. At length the terms were fully settled. Dionysius was admitted at night by Arkesilaus into Katana, seized the city, disarmed the inhabitants, and planted there a powerful garrison. Naxus was next put into his hands, by the like corruption on the part of Prokles; who was rewarded with a large bribe, and with the privilege of preserving his kinsmen. Both cities were given up to be plundered by his soldiers; after which the walls as well as the houses were demolished, and the inhabitants sold as slaves. The dismantled site of Katana was then assigned to a body of Campanian mercenaries in the service of Dionysius, who however retained in his possession hostages for their fidelity;[998] the site of Naxus to the indigenous Sikels in the neighborhood. These captures struck so much terror into the Leontines, that when Dionysius renewed his attack upon them, they no longer felt competent to resist. He required them to surrender their city, to remove to Syracuse, and there to reside for the future as citizens; which term meant, at the actual time, as subjects of his despotism. The Leontines obeyed the requisition, and their city thus again became an appendage of Syracuse.[999]
These conquests of Dionysius, achieved mainly by corrupting the generals of Naxos and Katana, were of serious moment, and spread so much alarm among the Sikels of the interior, that Archonides, the Sikel prince of Erbita, thought it prudent to renounce his town and soil; withdrawing to a new site beyond the Nebrode mountains, on the northern coast of the island, more out of the reach of Syracusan attack. Here, with his mercenary soldiers and with a large portion of his people who voluntarily accompanied him, he founded the town of Alæsa.[1000]
Strengthened at home by these successes abroad, the sanguine despot of Syracuse was stimulated to still greater enterprises. He resolved to commence aggressive war with the Carthaginians. But against such formidable enemies, large preparations were indispensable, defensive as well as offensive, before his design could be proclaimed. First, he took measures to ensure the defensibility of Syracuse against all contingencies. Five Grecian cities on the south of the island, one of them the second in Sicily, had already undergone the deplorable fate of being sacked by a Carthaginian host; a calamity, which might possibly be in reserve for Syracuse also, especially if she herself provoked a war, unless the most elaborate precautions were taken to render a successful blockade impossible.
Now the Athenian blockade under Nikias had impressed valuable lessons on the mind of every Syracusan. The city had then been well-nigh blocked up by a wall of circumvallation carried from sea to sea; which was actually more than half completed, and would have been entirely completed, had the original commander been Demosthenes instead of Nikias. The prodigious importance of the slope of Epipolæ to the safety of the city had been demonstrated by the most unequivocal evidence. In my seventh volume, I have already described the site of Syracuse and the relation of this slope to the outer city called Achradina. Epipolæ was a gentle ascent west of Achradina. It was bordered, along both the north side and the south side, by lines of descending cliff, cut down precipitously, about twenty feet deep in their lowest part. These lines of cliff nearly converged at the summit of the slope, called Euryalus; leaving a narrow pass or road between elevated banks, which communicated with the country both north and west of Syracuse. Epipolæ thus formed a triangle upon an inclined plane, sloping upward from its base, the outer wall of Achradina, to its apex at Euryalus; and having its two sides formed, the one by the northern, the other by the southern, line of cliffs. This apex formed a post of the highest importance, commanding the narrow road which approached Epipolæ from its western extremity or summit, and through which alone it was easy for an army to get on the declivity of Epipolæ, since the cliffs on each side were steep, though less steep on the northern side than on the southern.[1001] Unless an enemy acquired possession of this slope, Syracuse could never be blocked up from the northern sea at Trogilus to the Great Harbor; an enterprise, which Nikias and the Athenians were near accomplishing, because they first surprised from the northward the position of Euryalus, and from thence poured down upon the slope of Epipolæ. I have already described, in my seventh volume, how the arrival of Gylippus deprived them of superiority in the field, at a time when their line of circumvallation was already half finished,—having been carried from the centre of Epipolæ southward down to Great Harbor, and being partially completed from the same point across the northern half of Epipolæ to the sea at Trogilus; how he next intercepted their farther progress, by carrying out, from the outer wall of Achradina, a cross wall traversing their intended line of circumvallation and ending at the northern cliff; how he finally erected a fort or guard-post on the summit of Euryalus, which he connected with the cross-wall just mentioned by a single wall of junction carried down the slope of Epipolæ.[1002]
Both the danger which Syracuse had then incurred, and the means whereby it had been obviated, were fresh in the recollection of Dionysius. Since the Athenian siege, the Syracusans may perhaps have preserved the fort erected by Gylippus near Euryalus; but they had pulled down the wall of junction, the cross-wall, and the outer wall of protection constructed between the arrival of Nikias in Sicily and his commencement of the siege, enclosing the sacred precinct of Apollo Temenites. The outer city of Syracuse was thus left with nothing but the wall of Achradina, with its two suburbs or excrescences, Tychê and Neapolis. Dionysius now resolved to provide for Syracuse a protection substantially similar to that contrived by Gylippus, yet more comprehensive, elaborate, and permanent. He carried out an outer line of defence, starting from the sea near the port called Trogilus, enclosing the suburb called Tychê (which adjoined Achradina to the north-west), and then ascending westward, along the brink of the northern cliff of Epipolæ, to the summit of that slope at Euryalus. The two extremities thus became connected together,—not as in the time of Gylippus,[1003] by a single cross-wall carried out from the city-wall to the northern cliff, and then joined at an angle by another single wall descending the slope of Epipolæ from Euryalus, but,—by one continuous new line bordering the northern cliff down to the sea. And the new line, instead of being a mere single wall, was now built under the advice of the best engineers, with lofty and frequent towers interspersed throughout its length, to serve both as means of defence and as permanent quarters for soldiers. Its length was thirty stadia (about three and a half English miles); it was constructed of large stones carefully hewn, some of them four feet in length.[1004] The quarries at hand supplied abundant materials, and for the labor necessary, Dionysius brought together all the population of the city and its neighborhood, out of whom he selected sixty thousand of the most effective hands, to work on the wall. Others were ordered to cut the stones in the quarry, while six thousand teams of oxen were put in harness to draw them to the spot. The work was set out by furlongs and by smaller spaces of one hundred feet each, to regiments of suitable number, each under the direction of an overseer.[1005]
As yet, we have heard little about Dionysius except acts of fraud, violence, and spoliation, for the purpose of establishing his own dominion over Syracuse, and aggrandizing himself by new conquests on the borders. But this new fortification was a work of different import. Instead of being, like his forts and walls in Ortygia, a guardhouse both of defence and aggression merely for himself against the people of Syracuse,—it was a valuable protection to the people, and to himself along with them, against foreign besiegers. It tended much to guarantee Syracuse from those disasters which had so recently befallen Agrigentum and the other cities. Accordingly, it was exceeding popular among the Syracusans, and produced between them and Dionysius a sentiment of friendship and harmony such as had not before been seen. Every man labored at the work not merely with good will, but with enthusiasm; while the despot himself displayed unwearied zeal, passing whole days on the spot, and taking part in all the hardship and difficulty. He showed himself everywhere amidst the mass, as an unguarded citizen, without suspicion or reserve, in marked contrast with the harshness of his previous demeanor,[1006] proclaiming rewards for the best and most rapid workmen; he also provided attendance or relief for those whose strength gave way. Such was the emulation thus inspired, that the numbers assembled, often toiling by night as well as by day, completed the whole wall in the space of twenty days. The fort at Euryalus, which formed the termination of this newly-constructed line of wall, is probably not to be understood as comprised within so short a period of execution; at least in its complete consummation. For the defences provided at this fort (either now or at a later period) were prodigious in extent as well as elaborate in workmanship; and the remains of them exhibit, even to modern observers, the most complete specimen preserved to us of ancient fortification.[1007] To bring them into such a condition must have occupied a longer time than twenty days. Even as to the wall, perhaps, twenty days is rather to be understood as indicating the time required for the essential continuity of its line, leaving towers, gates, etc., to be added afterwards.
To provide defence for Syracuse against a besieging army, however, was only a small part of the extensive schemes of Dionysius. What he meditated was aggressive war against the Carthaginians; for which purpose, he not only began to accumulate preparations of every kind on the most extensive scale, but also modified his policy both towards the Syracusans and towards the other Sicilian Greeks.