A Companion to Greek Architecture by Miles Margaret M.;

Author:Miles, Margaret M.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2016-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

The pioneering techniques, set into place with a new defensive mindset, may be seen in the early fourth‐century BCE circuit wall at Syracuse. Dionysios I recognized the necessity of protecting the city from a threat that could come from the Epipolae plateau, located just above and to the west of the city, where a short while earlier Athenian forces had dug in against the Syracusans (Thuc. 6.96). He also saw the need for creating a refuge for the population of the chora. The result was a circuit wall that culminated at that strategic spot with a fortress that is now known as Castello Eurialo. The circuit wall came to be a celebrated enterprise, for writing later in the first century BCE, Diodorus Siculus gives a detailed account of its construction:

Wishing to complete the building of the walls rapidly, he gathered the peasants from the countryside, from whom he selected some sixty thousand capable men and parceled out to them the space to be walled. For each stade he appointed a master‐builder and for each plethron a mason, and the laborers from the common people assigned to the task numbered two hundred for each plethron. Besides these, other workers, a multitude in number, quarried out the rough stone, and six thousand yoke of oxen brought it to the appointed places … [A]s a result, contrary to expectation, the wall was brought to completion in twenty days. It was thirty stades in length and of corresponding height, and the added strength of the wall made it impregnable to assault; for there were lofty towers at frequent intervals and it was constructed of stones four feet long and carefully joined. (Diod. Sic. 14.18.1–6)

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