This modest bit of Sicilian landscape has an infamous history. This is the Latomia dei Cappuccini, an ancient stone quarry on the north side of the city of Syracuse. In 413 BCE, the Athenian attempt to capture Syracuse collapsed, and the entire Athenian army, its allies, and 200 ships were forced to surrender.
The captives were confined to a stone quarry on this site. (You can see the stone galleries on the cliffs in back of the photo) While the non-Athenians were enslaved and sold off, the Athenians were forced to remain in the quarry until they died (which didn’t take long). Only a few escaped to bring their story home to Athens.
I had always pictured the site as a quarry open to the sky, but in fact it was all underground, and the captives crowded into tunnels without light. A massive earthquake dropped the roof into the quarry centuries ago, which is why the green land in the foreground of the picture is at a lower level than the rest, and explains why the galleries in the hill behind are open to view.
It’s now a very pleasant place to stroll, with visitors wandering among the acanthus, citrus groves, agave, and oleander, and exploring the ancient tunnels where an entire army died.
(2023)
