language of Spain, of France, and of Italy; and the laws of Athens,
rather than of Rome, might be the foundation of the law of the civilized
world."

The foregoing, the author's own selection, really sums up all that need
be said as to the importance of the great event so finely treated by
Creasy.)


Few cities have undergone more memorable sieges during ancient and
mediaeval times than has the city of Syracuse. Athenian, Carthaginian,
Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, Saracen, and Norman have in turns beleaguered
her walls; and the resistance which she successfully opposed to some of
her early assailants was of the deepest importance, not only to the
fortunes of the generations then in being, but to all the subsequent
current of human events. To adopt the eloquent expressions of Arnold
respecting the check which she gave to the Carthaginian arms, "Syracuse
was a breakwater which God's providence raised up to protect the yet
immature strength of Rome." And her triumphant repulse of the great
Athenian expedition against her was of even more widespread and enduring
importance. It forms a decisive epoch in the strife for universal
empire, in which all the great states of antiquity successively engaged
and failed.

The present city of Syracuse is a place of little or no military
strength, as the fire of artillery from the neighboring heights would
almost completely command it. But in ancient warfare its position, and
the care bestowed on its walls, rendered it formidably strong against
the means of offence which were then employed by besieging armies.