The ancient city, in its most prosperous times, was chiefly built on the
knob of land which projects into the sea on the eastern coast of Sicily,
between two bays; one of which, to the north, was called the Bay of
Thapsus, while the southern one formed the great harbor of the city of
Syracuse itself. A small island, or peninsula (for such it soon was
rendered), lies at the southeastern extremity of this knob of land,
stretching almost entirely across the mouth of the great harbor, and
rendering it nearly land-locked. This island comprised the original
settlement of the first Greek colonists from Corinth, who founded
Syracuse two thousand five hundred years ago; and the modern city has
shrunk again into these primary limits. But, in the fifth century before
our era, the growing wealth and population of the Syracusans had led
them to occupy and include within their city walls portion after portion
of the mainland lying next to the little isle, so that at the time of
the Athenian expedition the seaward part of the land between the two
bays already spoken of was built over, and fortified from bay to bay,
and constituted the larger part of Syracuse.

The landward wall, therefore, of this district of the city traversed
this knob of land, which continues to slope upward from the sea, and
which, to the west of the old fortifications, that is, toward the
interior of Sicily, rises rapidly for a mile or two, but diminishes in
width, and finally terminates in a long narrow ridge, between which and
Mount Hybla a succession of chasms and uneven low ground extends. On
each flank of this ridge the descent is steep and precipitous from its
summits to the strips of level land that lie immediately below it, both
to the southwest and northwest.

The usual mode of assailing fortified towns in the time of the
Peloponnesian war was to build a double wall round them sufficiently