Syracuse II: Hieron I to Hieron II

Back to field trips after our midterm break (with trips ranging from Salzburg to Barcelona — thanks to all for showing slides yesterday) we went to Syracuse for the second time, this time to the outskirts, the Euryalus fortress and the archaeological park, which contains the theater (used as early as the 470s for Hieron’s performance of Aeschylus’ Persians, but redone considerably by various kings and tyrants culminating in Hieron II in the 3rd century) and the Ear of Dionysius (a rather beautiful cave created by quarrying, but used for imprisoning the Athenian captives after the failure of the Sicilian expedition):

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The weather was glorious and Sicily’s wild flowers were in fine form:

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And the ear of Dionysius rang not with the groans of captive Athenians, but with ICCS verses of Euripides and a melodious medley of Sound of Music hits…

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Meanwhile the theater was once again the scene for the Persians…

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For more pictures of these sites, see here and here

Next week the long trip to Tunisia and northwestern Sicily, beginning Thursday and ending Wednesday.

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