Siracusa, Sicily
Today we crossed the Ionian Sea from Greece to Sicily. The winds were light and the weather was crystal clear. The sea is the deep blue so characteristic of the Mediterranean. It is 2500 meters deep here and there is very little life in the ocean to lighten its color. Even so, we passed a line of at least a dozen loggerhead sea turtles spread out along our course.
In the late afternoon we took our pilot and entered the ancient harbor of Siracusa, passing the walled island fortress of the old island city of Ortygia and docking in the center of town.
Siracusa was founded by the Corinthians in 734 B.C. It was an important steppingstone in the Greek expansion into the western Mediterranean. In the afternoon we heard a presentation by historian Bob Hohfelder, our National Geographic representative on board and expert in the ancient history of the Mediterranean cultures, on the Athenean siege of Siracusa in 414-413 B.C. Led by the political “chameleon” Alcibiades, the Atheneans brought the full force of their navy, which had achieved so much success against the Persians at the battle of Salamis in the Gulf of Saronikos, where they defeated Xerxes’ superior forces in 480 B.C. This time, through a series of mistakes and poor planning, the Atheneans were soundly defeated and put to rout.
Two hundred years later, the Romans attacked the Greek settlement in Siracusa, by that time home to Archimedes, who was famous for, among many other inventions, machines which gave the Greeks an advantage in military encounters. During the seige, so the story goes, a Roman soldier was sent to arrest Archimedes. Finding him in his garden drawing geometrical figures in the sand, the Roman tried to take him into custody, causing Archimedes to utter as his last words, the admonition, “Don’t disturb my circles.”
This stop is one more in our travel through time from the Egyptians, through the Greeks, then through the Romans and on to the Crusades and beyond. We can watch history unfold before us as we visit these magnificent sites where the history of the ancient world was made.
Today we crossed the Ionian Sea from Greece to Sicily. The winds were light and the weather was crystal clear. The sea is the deep blue so characteristic of the Mediterranean. It is 2500 meters deep here and there is very little life in the ocean to lighten its color. Even so, we passed a line of at least a dozen loggerhead sea turtles spread out along our course.
In the late afternoon we took our pilot and entered the ancient harbor of Siracusa, passing the walled island fortress of the old island city of Ortygia and docking in the center of town.
Siracusa was founded by the Corinthians in 734 B.C. It was an important steppingstone in the Greek expansion into the western Mediterranean. In the afternoon we heard a presentation by historian Bob Hohfelder, our National Geographic representative on board and expert in the ancient history of the Mediterranean cultures, on the Athenean siege of Siracusa in 414-413 B.C. Led by the political “chameleon” Alcibiades, the Atheneans brought the full force of their navy, which had achieved so much success against the Persians at the battle of Salamis in the Gulf of Saronikos, where they defeated Xerxes’ superior forces in 480 B.C. This time, through a series of mistakes and poor planning, the Atheneans were soundly defeated and put to rout.
Two hundred years later, the Romans attacked the Greek settlement in Siracusa, by that time home to Archimedes, who was famous for, among many other inventions, machines which gave the Greeks an advantage in military encounters. During the seige, so the story goes, a Roman soldier was sent to arrest Archimedes. Finding him in his garden drawing geometrical figures in the sand, the Roman tried to take him into custody, causing Archimedes to utter as his last words, the admonition, “Don’t disturb my circles.”
This stop is one more in our travel through time from the Egyptians, through the Greeks, then through the Romans and on to the Crusades and beyond. We can watch history unfold before us as we visit these magnificent sites where the history of the ancient world was made.
