Temenite hill

We'll visit that rocket cone on the horizon in the next post.

This archaeological park, home to the 5th-century-BC Teatro Greco, provides a classicist wonderful insight to Greek culture.  Hewn out of the rocky hillside, this 16,000-seat amphitheater staged the playwrights Epicharmus, Phormis and Deinolocus.  Aeschylus put on "The Aitnans" probably in 456 BC.  Also The Persians, which had already been performed at Athens in 472 BC, may have been performed here.  A typical characteristic of Greek theatres, the celebration of the panoramic view, offered here a view of the bay, of the port, and the island of Ortygia.  It had a diameter of 138.6 meters, one of the largest in the Greek world, and originally had 67 rows of seating, mostly cut into the living rock, divided into nine sectors by access stairs.  The upper portion of the seating, now destroyed, was built up on top of an embankment held up by a retaining wall.   

The Grotta del Ninfeo

The Grotta del Ninfeo

Above the theatre there is a terrace, excavated in rock, accessible by a central stairway and by a recessed path, known as "Via dei Sepolcri" (Street of the Tombs).  Originally, the terrace had a large portico at the left.  In the center of the wall was a grotto, the grotta del Ninfeo, excavated in the rock.  At the entrance there were statues dedicated to the Muses.  Inside the room was a tub made of made of tiles broken up into very small pieces and mixed with mortar, into which water from the ancient Greek aqueduct flowed.  From here the water flowed into the hydraulic system of the theatre.  

During a trip to Syracuse in the late 1700s, the painter Jean-Pierre Houël depicted the Grotta del Ninfeo as he found it.

The Romans made important modifications to the theatre, the seating was modified to a semicircular form, typical of Roman theatres, rather than the horseshoe used in Greek theatres.  Remaining abandoned for centuries, under the Spanish it underwent degradation as they used the stone blocks to construct new fortifications on Ortygia. This process led to the destruction of the scene building and the upper part of the seating.  In late spring a season of classical theatre brings the theater to life.

A caper plant growing in the wall

la Latomia del Paradiso

Ear of Dionysius

After visiting the teatro, one can see la Latomia del Paradiso.  In Italian latomia means quarry so when it was functioning as such it certainly wasn't paradise.  Going there reminds me of a time as a math student, having just presented an elegant solution to a problem my professor asked to see how I arrived at it, then he laughed, and said, "that's like being shown a beautiful gem then asking to see the pile of dirt that was dug up to uncover it." So let's go look at some dirt.  The old limestone quarry is now an exuberant garden (hence pardiso) that houses the famous caves including Ear of Dionysius (Italian: Orecchio di Dionisio).  Arranged almost as an arc along the edge of a jagged rocky ridge, for about 1 , 5 km, bordered on the north by the ancient urban plan; and beyond them, it opened the wide plateau of Epipoli (literally: the area above the city), it provided, during the Greek period, no less than 850,000 cubic meters of limestone blocks used for building the ancient city.  They were probably dug as early as the fifth century BC, and used until Roman times. It's also where the 7000 survivors of the war between Syracuse and Athens in 413 BC were imprisoned. Cold winter and hot summer, to be imprisoned in the quarries was tantamount to a death sentence left to die of hunger and exhaustion, with no possibility of escape.  No amnesty in those days, either you die in battle or a few miserable years later.  

Ear of Dionysius

The bottom of latomia, with its original mining plan, was much deeper than the current one, which has formed by the accumulation of alluvial material and been covered by a citrus grove.  The blocks of rock were extracted normally open pit; but when the most compact layers - and thus more suitable material and valuable - extended below the surface crust, they dug into the rocky ridge creating enormous caves, with walls that sometimes reached 40 meters in height supported by rock pillars spared from the excavation.  Over time, and as a result of earthquakes that frequently affect Sicily, the roofs of these large caves collapsed, so that today the latomia presents itself as open air; but the original shape is shown by the large boulders collapsed on the floor, and the high rocky pier that stands still, lonely and suggestive, at the center of quarry.  Along the north wall, one can enter one of the large caves that were part of the system of grottoes of the latomia known as the Ear of Dionysius.  The painter Caravaggio coined the name in 1586. It refers to the tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse. According to legend, Dionysius used the cave as a prison for political dissidents, and by means of the perfect acoustics eavesdropped on the plans and secrets of his captives, or another legend claims that Dionysius carved the cave in its shape so that it would amplify the screams of prisoners being tortured in it.  Unfortunately, the sound focusing effect can no longer be heard because access to the focal point is no longer possible.  Because of its reputation for acoustic flawlessness, the Ear of Dionysius has also come to refer to a type of ear trumpet that has a flexible tube. The term 'Ear of Dionysius' can also refer to surveillance, specifically that for political gain.  There is a strong possibility that this feature is actually of natural origin. It lies on the down slope side of a substantial hill it could well be a 'slot' canyon cut by rainwater run-off in prehistoric times.  The highly polished sides also suggest that the phenomenon was created by water, not by quarrying.  At any rate the feature is 23 meters high and extends 65 meters into the cliff. 

Amphitheater Romano

Back outside this area you'll find the entrance to the 2nd-century Amphitheater Romano, originally used for gladiatorial combats and horse races. The Spaniards, little interested in archaeology, largely destroyed the site in the 16th century, using it as a quarry to build Ortygia's city walls. West of the amphitheater is the 3rd-century-BC Ara di Gerone II , a monolithic sacrificial altar to Heron II where up to 450 oxen could be killed at one time.

the 3rd-century-BC Ara di Gerone II , a monolithic sacrificial altar to Heron II