9/28/24: Siracusa's Dynamic Greek & Roman Ruins!

After touring Sicily's northern Tyrrhenian coast and most of the eastern coast, Steven and I arrived in Siracusa on the southeastern part of the island. A travel writer penned that "... to experience Sicily at its most beautiful, ...  explore (this portion of the island for) stunning Baroque-style towns that seem to glow in the evening sun, unspoiled beaches where you can swim almost all year round, and hidden hillsides full of olive groves and wild herbs." We'd already discovered spectacularly beautiful areas of the island, so we'd be hard-pressed in my mind to discover "the most beautiful" part in the southeast in the ensuing days. 

Before planning the Sicily segment of our fall trip, I hadn't known that Siracusa, or Syracuse to its English speakers, was one of the great ancient capitals of Western civilization. Founded in 734 BC by colonists from Corinth, Greece, it soon rivaled and even overshadowed Athens in power and grandeur. Siracusa became the West's largest and wealthiest city-state and the epitome of Greek civilization. The most highly cultured Greeks  - among them, the philosopher Plato and playwrights Euripides and Aeschylus -  made their homes there. Athenians, jealous of Siracusa's prominence, sought to conquer it but failed in one of the ancient world's greatest military campaigns in 413 BC. The Romans, however, successfully conquered the prosperous city-state two centuries later.

As Siracusa is most renowned for its dramatic Greek and Roman ruins, we headed first to the Parco Archeologico della Neapolis, considered by many to be some of the best archaeology sites in all of Italy. 

It didn't take long to be hugely impressed. Before the park's ticket booth, we encountered the Ara di Ierone, the largest altar in the Greek world and one of the most important monuments from the 3rd century BC. The Greeks used the altar for spectacular sacrifices involving hundreds of animals.

The park's chief monument was the Teatro Greco because it is the most complete Greek theater surviving from antiquity. The architect Damocopos carved it out of the hillside rock in the 5th century. The theater hosted the premieres of Aeschylus' plays, and Greek tragedies are still performed here every summer. However, it was disappointing that modern seating had been built over the original stone seats. It was hard to imagine 15,000 rapt spectators agog at the plays unfolding on the stage. 

The Grotticelle Necropolis, overlooking the theater, was the site of the first burials, which began in the Bronze Age but peaked in the 3rd century BC.

Even though the park is a UNESCO landmark, there were no signs in any language, which was frustrating for tourists who weren't accompanied by guides. I asked one what we were seeing and learned that one of the tombs belonged to Archimedes, the famous 3rd-century BC mathematician. 

I Googled the necropolis site to learn that the limestone necropolis's rock face featured niches and votive squares, where objects such as tablets, paintings, and epitaphs were placed.

According to Wikipedia, this was the Grotta del Ninfeo, an artificial cavity in the rock of Temenite Hill named after the Greek temenos, meaning "sacred precinct." At the entrance, statues dedicated to the Muses were placed, and they are now located in the park museum.

The Latomia del Paradiso, or Quarry of Paradise, was now a lush tropical garden full of citrus and palm trees. However, the stone quarries served as prisons for the defeated Athenians during the Greek period.

At the quarry entrance was one of thirty mammoth sculptures throughout the park by Polish artist Igor Mitoraj, called Lo Sguardo - Humanitas & Physis. The two figures in the Nascita di Venus, or Birth of Venus, symbolized the relationship between man and nature. 

Among huge boulders triggered by the collapse of the enormous stone quarry vault centuries ago were sculptures of the three faces and three bodies of Ikaro.

The 2,730 kg sculpture of Daedalus, the builder of the most legendary of prisons, the Labyrinth, was aptly placed near a maze. It was described as being " ...a symbol of the prisons we ourselves construct in a contemporary world ..."

The broken face of the Iron Shadows sculpture rested on stone and was surrounded by stone in a large niche. Its purpose was to remind viewers of the harsh reality in the quarry, which was a theater of captivity and labor for the Greeks as they built Siracusa. 

The famous Orecchio di Dionisio was an artificial cave with an ear-shaped entrance named by the famous Italian painter Caravaggio. Initially, there appeared to be nothing inside the dark cave until we saw another amazing sculpture deep inside. The cave had unusual acoustics, which we noticed when people clapped their hands. The legend is that Dionysius used to listen at the top of the quarry to hear what the enslaved Athenians were plotting below.

More photos of Mitoraj’s massive works in the Grotto as they gazed toward the Mediterranean Sea, which linked the destinies of explorers and represented his obsessive search for beauty and harmony.

Looking at the well-preserved Roman Amphitheater, which was largely in its natural state, it was much easier to imagine it in Roman times, except for the Eros Blindfolded sculpture! The Roman arena was built around the 2nd century AD and is one of the largest of its kind.

While the drama in the Greek Theater was a form of religious ritual, the spectacle of combative sports and the circus were emphasized in the Roman Amphitheater. 

The Couple for Eternity:

It was amazing that the corridor where beasts and gladiators entered the ring was still intact. Because of the distance, though, we couldn't see the names of the occupants, which were still visible on some of the seats. Huge limestone slabs had been hauled in to construct the seats on-site.  

We were lucky we had chosen to visit the archaeological park in late September, as it was very hot - I can't imagine being there in midsummer. 

The Catacomba di San Giovanni, one of the earliest known Christian sites in Siracusa, was not far from the archaeological park. Arriving by ship from the East, Christians founded in Siracusa one of the largest communities in the Western world announcing the Gospel through words, but above all, through images. Over time, they compressed the mythical elements already present in pagan Greek culture and added new truths about faith, giving life to new religious symbols and even new images of God. 

On the guided tour, the only way to view the catacombs, we learned that numerous earthquakes tried to destroy the Basilica of San Giovanni, which the Byzantines had built. Each time, however, the church was reborn more beautiful. With its two facades, the Norman and the Baroque, still perfectly visible from the outside, it fit seamlessly into the system of modern buildings overlooking the square.

The church's twelve columns represented the twelve apostles.

St. Marciano, who founded the oldest Christian community in the Western world in 39 AD, is said to have prepared the ideal conditions for welcoming the Apostle Paul, who arrived in Siracusa in 61 AD. Through a passage dug into the rock behind the Basilica, we entered the main gallery of the Catacombs, a tunnel almost one hundred meters long with walls dotted with small burial niches.

The guide informed us that the faces had been blacked out because they couldn't celebrate their Christian faith.

The capitals on the arches represented each of the four apostles. 

The small Chapel of St. Paul with the fresco above the altar:

The catacombs were opened to the city's residents during WW II when German bombings took place. We also were shown what had been the final resting place for 10,000 people before their remains were moved to two common graves in Siracusa. 

Unlike some catacombs we'd seen previously, these were not hiding places for Christians fleeing persecution nor sad museums of death like the one in Palermo. Instead, they told a fascinating story experienced almost two thousand years ago.

A faint depiction of a peacock on the fresco represented eternal life. 

Small crevices were for bones or babies. 

One of the most evocative scenes was the depiction of the first Christmas, which is represented in the upper right-hand corner of a marble stone placed in front of a grave.

The most captivating aspect for me as a visitor was that the sacred stones in the catacombs represented the evangelization of Sicily, thereby making the crypt an important point of reference for the entire Western Christian world. Caravaggio, during his brief stop in Syracuse, spent time in the catacombs, which later influenced his paintings.

Steven and I had hoped to then visit the island of Ortigia, the ancient city first inhabited by Greeks, which was connected to the mainland by two small bridges in the Ionian Sea. Unfortunately, the bridges were closed to cars that Saturday because, we suspected,  too many cars were there already.

Next post: Surrounding Siracusa was the Val di Noto, whose towns have all been declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites!

Posted on New Year's Day, 2025, from back home in Denver after so many time zone changes in the last three weeks and more coming up in the weeks ahead! Wishing you and your loved ones a Happy and, especially, a healthy New Year, whatever you do and wherever you go.