Founding of Syracuse (733 BC): Corinth's Great Colony in Sicily

Syracuse was founded in 733 BC, according to tradition, by settlers from Corinth led by Archias. They landed on the island of Ortygia off the south-east coast of Sicily and drove out the native Sicels. Within three centuries Syracuse had become the largest and most powerful Greek city in the west, able to defeat both Carthage and Athens.

The foundation

The historian Thucydides, writing in the late 5th century BC, gives the key account. He says that Archias, a Corinthian of the family of Heracles, founded Syracuse one year after the Chalcidians founded Naxos, the first Greek colony in Sicily, in 734 BC. The settlers began by expelling the Sicels from Ortygia, which, he notes, was by his own day no longer entirely surrounded by sea; later the city spread onto the mainland.

Archias belonged to the Bacchiads, the aristocratic clan that ruled Corinth. Later writers claimed he left Corinth after a scandal involving the death of a young man, but this story may be invented. In the same years, according to Strabo, another Corinthian expedition under Chersicrates founded Corcyra, modern Corfu, on the route to the west.

Strabo also tells a story that Archias and Myscellus, the founder of Croton, consulted the Oracle of Delphi together, and the god asked whether each wanted wealth or health. Archias chose wealth and Myscellus health, explaining the riches of Syracuse and the healthy climate of Croton. The tale is a later legend, but it reflects Syracuse’s reputation.

Why the site was chosen

Ortygia was ideal for a colony. It was a defensible island with a famous freshwater spring, the fountain of Arethusa, and lay between two natural harbours, the small harbour to the north and the large Great Harbour to the south. Behind it stretched fertile plains for farming.

Archaeology confirms Greek occupation of Ortygia from the later 8th century BC, with Corinthian pottery in the earliest levels. Syracuse is a classic example of the wider movement of Greek colonization in the archaic period.

Early growth

Power in early Syracuse lay with the gamoroi, the landowners descended from the first colonists, who divided the best land among themselves. Native Sicels worked much of it as dependants. Syracuse soon founded its own colonies in south-east Sicily, including Akrai around 663 BC, Kasmenai around 643 BC and Kamarina around 598 BC.

By about 565 BC Syracuse had built the Temple of Apollo on Ortygia, the oldest major Doric stone temple in Sicily. An inscription on its steps names a man called Kleomenes, who probably commissioned or built it.

The rise to power

Around 491–485 BC the gamoroi were driven out in a popular uprising. In 485 BC they invited Gelon, tyrant of Gela, to restore them; instead he made himself master of Syracuse, moved much of the population of other cities there and made it the leading city of Sicily. In 480 BC Gelon defeated a large Carthaginian army at Himera.

His brother Hieron I defeated the Etruscan fleet off Cumae in 474 BC and was a patron of poets such as Pindar and Aeschylus. Later, Syracuse became a democracy, and in 413 BC it destroyed a huge Athenian invasion force, as described in the article on the Sicilian Expedition.

Under Dionysius I, tyrant from 405 to 367 BC, Syracuse built walls about 27 kilometres long around the Epipolae plateau and became one of the largest cities of the Greek world.

Key people

• Archias of Corinth: Bacchiad aristocrat and traditional founder (oikistes) of Syracuse, honoured there as the city’s hero.
• Gelon: tyrant of Gela who seized Syracuse in 485 BC and made it the dominant power in Sicily.
• Hieron I: Gelon’s brother and successor (478–467 BC), victor over the Etruscans at Cumae and patron of poets.
• Dionysius I: tyrant from 405 to 367 BC, who fought long wars against Carthage and fortified the city on a vast scale.

Myths and facts

Myth: the 733 BC date is exact. It is a calculation. Thucydides dates Sicilian foundations relative to one another, and ancient chronographers converted them into years in different ways, giving 734 or 733 BC. Archaeology supports a date in the later 8th century BC but cannot confirm a precise year.

Fact: Syracuse was not the first Greek city in Sicily. Naxos, founded by Chalcidians from Euboea, came a year earlier, but Syracuse soon outgrew all its neighbours.

Legacy

Syracuse remained independent until the Second Punic War. Rome besieged the city from 214 to 212 BC, when its defences were strengthened by the engines of Archimedes, but it finally fell to Marcus Claudius Marcellus in 212 BC.

The modern city still centres on Ortygia, where the Doric columns of the 5th-century BC Temple of Athena stand inside the cathedral. Syracuse and its rock necropolis of Pantalica were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2005.

Timeline

• 734 BC: Chalcidians found Naxos, the first Greek colony in Sicily.
• 733 BC: traditional date for the foundation of Syracuse by Archias of Corinth.
• c. 663–598 BC: Syracuse founds Akrai, Kasmenai and Kamarina.
• c. 565 BC: the Temple of Apollo is built on Ortygia.
• 485 BC: Gelon takes control of Syracuse.
• 480 BC: Gelon defeats Carthage at Himera.
• 413 BC: the Athenian expedition is destroyed at Syracuse.
• 212 BC: Rome captures Syracuse.

Why it matters

The foundation of Syracuse created the leading Greek power of the western Mediterranean. For five centuries it was the main rival of Carthage, a centre of Greek culture in Sicily and a key player in the struggles that shaped the Mediterranean before Rome.