Tell me about the Siege of Syracuse
November 8, 2011 12:26 AM Subscribe
I have a whole bunch of questions about the Siege of Syracuse during the Second Punic War...
Feel free to point me towards books and other sources -- I'm having trouble finding things past the basics online.
What would the Syracusan soldiers have been wearing? What about working people inside the city? Was it anything like contemporaneous Roman fashion? Archimedes is often depicted wearing a toga; how accurate is this?
Where the Syracusans relying completely on stored food? What was happening with their ships? I'm aware of Marcellus' fleet outside the sea-facing walls of Syracuse, but I can't seem to determine if that was a complete blockade or not. Did Syracuse have a navy at all?
Do you know where I could find a fairly detailed historical map of Syracuse?
Thanks!
Feel free to point me towards books and other sources -- I'm having trouble finding things past the basics online.
What would the Syracusan soldiers have been wearing? What about working people inside the city? Was it anything like contemporaneous Roman fashion? Archimedes is often depicted wearing a toga; how accurate is this?
Where the Syracusans relying completely on stored food? What was happening with their ships? I'm aware of Marcellus' fleet outside the sea-facing walls of Syracuse, but I can't seem to determine if that was a complete blockade or not. Did Syracuse have a navy at all?
Do you know where I could find a fairly detailed historical map of Syracuse?
Thanks!
Best answer: IANAC (classicist) -- I have a little casual knowledge based upon my looking into Archimedes' life a number of years back.
My memory is that Polybius and Plutarch (Life of Marcellus) gave accounts of the siege itself, and Livy gave a more broad history of Syracuse... but you've probably already seen those, and they're probably not getting into the details you need.
This, too, is from memory, but I think that yes, Syracuse had a navy, but I don't recall reading about how it performed during the siege. Presumably, it would have been destroyed or rendered ineffective. (I think the siege went on for several months.) I would also assume that there was an attempt at a complete blockade, but I'd guess it would've been pretty porous -- I don't remember reading anything about deprivation/starvation of Syracusans, which you typically get in the accounts of tight sieges.
I always assumed Syracuse was pretty standard post-Alexander, pre-Rome Hellenic, but I could be wrong about that.
Maybe something like Polyaenus would give you some details about military tactics of the time.
posted by cgs06 at 3:35 AM on November 8, 2011
My memory is that Polybius and Plutarch (Life of Marcellus) gave accounts of the siege itself, and Livy gave a more broad history of Syracuse... but you've probably already seen those, and they're probably not getting into the details you need.
This, too, is from memory, but I think that yes, Syracuse had a navy, but I don't recall reading about how it performed during the siege. Presumably, it would have been destroyed or rendered ineffective. (I think the siege went on for several months.) I would also assume that there was an attempt at a complete blockade, but I'd guess it would've been pretty porous -- I don't remember reading anything about deprivation/starvation of Syracusans, which you typically get in the accounts of tight sieges.
I always assumed Syracuse was pretty standard post-Alexander, pre-Rome Hellenic, but I could be wrong about that.
Maybe something like Polyaenus would give you some details about military tactics of the time.
posted by cgs06 at 3:35 AM on November 8, 2011
Best answer: I'm pretty sure Archimedes never wore a toga - I believe the Greeks considered it a ludicrous garment. A tunic, maybe with a cloak, would be more like it.
posted by Segundus at 4:54 AM on November 8, 2011
posted by Segundus at 4:54 AM on November 8, 2011
Best answer: For your first question, yep, Greeks would wear a tunic and cloak. Togas are very very Roman, although to a layperson all the draping cloth can look pretty much the same. Of course, the Roman soldiers besieging Syracuse would certainly not be in toga (that would be like modern soldiers going into battle in business suits)-- they'd also be wearing tunics, with some armor.
I can't say anything about the Syracusan navy, other than that it would have been tiny compared to the Roman and Carthaginian ones.
posted by oinopaponton at 5:21 AM on November 8, 2011
I can't say anything about the Syracusan navy, other than that it would have been tiny compared to the Roman and Carthaginian ones.
posted by oinopaponton at 5:21 AM on November 8, 2011
Best answer: Democracy in Syracuse
Ancient Greek water supply a study of Syracuse and Acragas
posted by Blasdelb at 6:35 AM on November 8, 2011
Ancient Greek water supply a study of Syracuse and Acragas
posted by Blasdelb at 6:35 AM on November 8, 2011
Best answer: Plutarch's account of the Siege of Syracuse, in English
On the question of togae - Plutarch describes a Sicilian (not a Syracusan, but an inhabitant of the environs) at the time of the Roman siege as wearing a "χιτωνίσκος," that is, a "little frock / tunic" worn as an undergarment, not unlike the Roman tunica, as well as a "ἱμάτιον" - an outer garment (Marcellus, 20.5). This is the standard semi-formal male dress of most of the Greco-Roman world in Hellenistic period, and the Roman toga is viewed by Greeks as a variant of this. In fact, Plutarch, writing in the 1st century AD, in Roman Greece, also uses "ἱμάτιον" to translate "toga" into Greek - Camillus 20.1, where ἱμάτιον is used to describe the (explicitly civilian, as opposed to martial) garments of Faleria, a city very near Rome in the 5th century BC (recall the toga's origin as an Etruscan garment), and in Brutus 17.2 Brutus tears Caesar's ἱμάτιον before he stabs him in the Senate (where Caesar certainly would have been wearing specifically a toga rather than some other variety of cloak). Lucian, writing a century later, differentiates; there is a " ἱμάτιον Ἑλληνικὸν" - a "Greek cloak" - which is visibly different from the toga; I'm not sure how (De Mercede Conductis 25).
More or less, the civilian dress of an upper-class Syracusan would probably have been quite similar to the civilian dress of an upper-class Roman, with Greek audiences identifying the Roman toga as a subset of the cloak, rather than as a substantively different garment; a Roman or Greek would have focused on the details that marked differences, but to the modern eye, as oinopaponton points out, a toga and a Greek cloak would be indistinguishable - as, say, a dinner jacket, cummerbund, and black bowtie would be opposite a grey flannel suit and tie. Moreover, the toga as a cultural institution is still forming at this point in Roman history; only in the Imperial period, 200 years later, does it ossify into its final and precise form as court dress.
posted by Oxydude at 10:05 AM on November 8, 2011
On the question of togae - Plutarch describes a Sicilian (not a Syracusan, but an inhabitant of the environs) at the time of the Roman siege as wearing a "χιτωνίσκος," that is, a "little frock / tunic" worn as an undergarment, not unlike the Roman tunica, as well as a "ἱμάτιον" - an outer garment (Marcellus, 20.5). This is the standard semi-formal male dress of most of the Greco-Roman world in Hellenistic period, and the Roman toga is viewed by Greeks as a variant of this. In fact, Plutarch, writing in the 1st century AD, in Roman Greece, also uses "ἱμάτιον" to translate "toga" into Greek - Camillus 20.1, where ἱμάτιον is used to describe the (explicitly civilian, as opposed to martial) garments of Faleria, a city very near Rome in the 5th century BC (recall the toga's origin as an Etruscan garment), and in Brutus 17.2 Brutus tears Caesar's ἱμάτιον before he stabs him in the Senate (where Caesar certainly would have been wearing specifically a toga rather than some other variety of cloak). Lucian, writing a century later, differentiates; there is a " ἱμάτιον Ἑλληνικὸν" - a "Greek cloak" - which is visibly different from the toga; I'm not sure how (De Mercede Conductis 25).
More or less, the civilian dress of an upper-class Syracusan would probably have been quite similar to the civilian dress of an upper-class Roman, with Greek audiences identifying the Roman toga as a subset of the cloak, rather than as a substantively different garment; a Roman or Greek would have focused on the details that marked differences, but to the modern eye, as oinopaponton points out, a toga and a Greek cloak would be indistinguishable - as, say, a dinner jacket, cummerbund, and black bowtie would be opposite a grey flannel suit and tie. Moreover, the toga as a cultural institution is still forming at this point in Roman history; only in the Imperial period, 200 years later, does it ossify into its final and precise form as court dress.
posted by Oxydude at 10:05 AM on November 8, 2011
« Older What are some interesting places to eat in... | Tony-Robbins-Style Motivational audio/video for... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
Wheaton has copies, if that's the most convenient.
posted by dd42 at 1:58 AM on November 8, 2011