Syracuse: A Sentimental Dictionary of a City

By Giuseppina Norcia

Wherever we go when we travel, we always hope to find a friend, or a friend of a friend, who can tell us what only a local would know about the place, share its secrets, facts, anecdotes, its inhabitants’ daily habits. When we are accompanied by someone who knows the city intimately, the journey changes color and every corner becomes a welcoming, homey place. It is only then that a journey takes flight.
This book is a narrative travel guide, a view of Syracuse through the eyes of a knowledgeable and passionate inhabitant, a woman born and raised there, who knows that Syracuse is an ancient, unique city, where the main street is named after Gelo instead of Vittorio Emanuele, where children are put to bed with Hesiod’s Greek myths rather than Grimm’s fairy tales.
This sentimental guide is meant to inspire. Arethusa, Dionysius, Ecstasy, Envy, the Dead: all are themes chosen to explore the city and narrate it through an exquisite and magical tapestry of notions, emotions and feelings

• Language: English
• Publisher: VandA edizioni
• Release date: Feb 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9788868992415

Giuseppina Norcia

Giuseppina Norcia è nata a Siracusa nel 1973. Ama la musica, il mare, la buona cucina e i racconti intorno al fuoco. Da anni si occupa di divulgazione culturale, con particolare riferimento al teatro antico, alla cultura classica e alle sue “persistenze” nella contemporaneità. Ha realizzato progetti didattici con università italiane e straniere e ha lavorato per oltre dieci anni presso la Fondazione INDA (Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico). Negli ultimi anni ha tenuto corsi di drammaturgia antica e coordinato laboratori per ragazzi sul teatro classico, la lingua italiana e la trasformazione creativa dei conflitti. È autrice di contributi, di taglio sia scientifico sia divulgativo, relativi alla storia di Siracusa e alla messinscena contemporanea della tragedia greca, pubblicati su riviste specializzate (tra cui Dioniso), e di articoli sulla filosofia e sulla religione buddista. Con Giovanni Di Maria ha realizzato l’audiovisivo Le Ragioni di Antigone (Videoscope, 2006), monografia dedicata all’Antigone di Sofocle e ad alcune “riscritture novecentesche” del mito; è autrice del libro L’Isola dei miti. Racconti della Sicilia al tempo dei Greci (VerbaVolant, 2013).

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A sentimental note

by Maria Grazia Ciani

Syracuse: A Sentimental Dictionary of a City is not quite a tour guide. It is a description of a city and a record of historical memory; a revelation transformed into a new epiphany; a dialogue between the past that winks at you from the street corners and the present that is tinged with nostalgia; a testimonial of irresistible passion; a fatal love affair.

The beautiful, mysterious Syracuse that these pages describe is like a fleeting nymph who never truly reveals herself. Singing stones whisper and threaten, and the city conceals muffled echoes, vanishing shadows, unanswered pleas and unsolved riddles in a crossroads of stories, languages, styles, like the ever-listening ear of Dionysius. The city is a labyrinth of a thousand temptations and never-ending spells, where everything is lost and found in the blink of an eye. Life and death of the soul.

To Felicetta, my grandmother,

for our unforgettable afternoons.

To Ikeda Sensei,

who taught me courage.

Prologue

I could tell you many things about Syracuse, but that would be like saying nothing at all, because the city of my dreams always drifts into the real one mutating it, shaping it and reinventing it to the point that I myself don’t even know where the truth lies.

The way we talk about a city is nothing but a mirror held to our soul.

I have dreamt of being happy here, a mosaic of endless stories healing an ailing land.

But I also saw different cities under the same name, absentmindedly following in each other’s footsteps, indifferent and unaware. I heard the sound of solitude, an imaginary escape and an unbridgeable distance. Therefore, I can hardly tell whether Syracuse is a happy city or a sad one.

Luminous Syracuse, a city to which many faces have been given across the ages, holds in her substance and her very nature the key to her fortune or her demise. And, if the following generations reshape her again, hoping to possess her, the very last word will still be hers.

Syracuse the indomitable. I have had to watch her from afar, through the dizziness of a windy day of sailing in Newport, in order to see her as a whole. Because, although a fulcrum is enough to move the world, you also need to find the right distance and a lever long enough to lift that world in order to see it float weightlessly above.

Then I inhabited Syracuse, again. And I let her inhabit me.

I searched for her soul, the one that is revealed when she removes her mask, which prevents her light from slipping into the elusive underworld. Life surfaces from the markings on her body of water and stone, from the carved rock, from the graffiti on walls that look like a lifeline held by a gigantic hand.

Leaning on the shell of her heart, I heard the whisper of her secret alphabet.

A

Arethusa

Alpheus and Arethusa: water with water, the spring that gushes from the earth, the current that rises from the depths of the sea, the meeting of two nymphs who have travelled far.

Roberto Calasso,

The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony

Arethusa. This beautiful Greek nymph has made her home in the very heart of Ortigia. The Fontana di Diana (Diana’s – or Artemis – Fountain), in Piazza Archimede, tells her story, almost like a book carved in stone, introducing its characters one by one. In the middle, the hunting goddess Artemis1 wields a bow and arrow, a crescent on her head to symbolize her secret and mysterious nature. At her feet, a young girl lifts her arm as if to protect her face: it is Arethusa, running from her suitor Alpheus, whose muscular, nimble body is leaning forward to seize her.

There is a very peculiar lightness in this fountain that the sculptor Giulio Moschetti2 created in the early 20th century. The carnal sea creatures inhabiting it – the mermaids and mermen whose sinuous figures culminate in double tail fins – do not appear to be made of wood and concrete, as they are. Instead, they seem spirited and lithe: ready to dive into the sea or the flowing waters of a river.

Arethusa. Everything here speaks of her, to the extent that the city engraved her face on a Greek coin,3 making her one of its emblems. Syracusan women love to wear her image, her curly, wavy hair among the dolphins, on silver medallions or other forms of jewelry sporting representations of her profile.

To hear the nymph’s voice one must walk across Piazza Duomo – which tilts like a boat on the Ionian Sea – towards the sea to Via Picherali and lean over the balustrade overlooking the Fonte Aretusa pool, with its stalks of papyrus undulating in the wind like strands of green hair. Nowadays, the spring resides inside a 19th-century pool; in earlier times, its waters, teeming with fish, flowed freely from a hollow in the rocks, covering an incredibly large area near the shoreline. Paintings and sketches by Grand Tour travelers still depict it this way, crowded by women washing their laundry in an atmosphere that is both domestic and romantic.

This part of Ortigia is full of hidden underground channels converging in reservoirs where water was collected; these channels were carved out of the softer rock in a form very similar to that of the quarries (latomie) from the classical era, suggesting that they probably date back to this period. They were then used by leather tanneries between the 16th and 17th centuries.4 They still exist, at Largo Aretusa and at number 6 and 11 of Lungomare Alfeo, hidden and unknown even to those who spend their afternoons and summer evenings in the many cafes and venues on the waterfront.

Diana’s (or Artemis) Fountain, by Giulio Moschetti.

Diana’s (or Artemis) Fountain, by Giulio Moschetti.

Photo by Mario Dondero

Ortigia has rock-solid flanks and a heart of fresh water.

If you are lucky, and if you’re not in a hurry to devour the city’s beauty in a carousel of touch-and-go visits, Arethusa herself will tell you her story, as she told it to the poet Ovid when he briefly stopped here, most likely after visiting Athens, which was the educational destination of choice for the offspring of Roman high society at that time. She must have revealed everything about herself to the young author of Metamorphoses,5 who had no way of knowing what the future had in store for him: the double misery of experiencing both success and exile, to Tomis on the Black Sea – far from the Mediterranean light – where he would eventually die in melancholic segregation.

Arethusa is my name, and I am Greek; a stranger in this land now dearer to me than any other. In Achaia I was one of Artemis’ nymphs; I loved running in the woods. I was young and beautiful, although this gave me more toil than pleasure.

As I was returning from the Stymphalian forest, on a day made even more exhausting by the heat and my weariness, I found a stream, without any eddies. It was so transparent I could see clear to the pebbles at the bottom, such that each one might be counted. More than a river, it seemed to be a garden that mirrored itself, thanks to the green shelter of the shadow offered by the surrounding willow and poplar.

I approached, hung my garments on a branch and dived. It was only then that I heard an indistinct and most unusual murmuring that terrified me, causing me to jump onto the edge of the nearest bank. It was the River Alpheus speaking from an eddy, with a hoarse voice that set me running naked. Like a dove chased by a hawk, I ran through fields and over mountains covered with trees, jumping over rocks and crags. Faster and faster I ran, my heart pounding, my eyes blurry; I ran like I’d never ran before, not even in pursuit of a deer. I ran almost without touching the ground: I was motion, breath, exertion; I could feel my racing heart beating in every part of my body.

As soon as I slowed down, exhausted, a gigantic shadow of the river in the form of a man appeared before my eyes; I could hear his breath in my hair. – Help! – I cried. A sudden silence fell upon me such that I became invisible. The Goddess Artemide had pity on me and hid me behind a cloud. Although he did not see me, the River Alpheus did not surrender; he continued to circle around me, confident, as though he knew exactly where the object of his desire was hidden.

I was stalked, besieged, afraid he might hear even the beating of my heart. Such was my fear that I started sweating, and azure-colored drops distilled upon my trembling body, tight as a bow: my soft hair, my long-fingered hands, my nimble legs weary from the flight. They all began losing substance, as if they were melting, and this feeling infused me with a strange, sudden peace.

I had ceased to be contained in substance, and I had become water.

But not even that saved me from my untiring pursuer. Alpheus could see inside of me; he felt my essence and recognized me still. So he laid aside the mortal body he had assumed and returned to being a river in order to join me.

Thereupon Artemis came to my aid for the last time, breaking ground, allowing me to escape from Greece, through dark, underwater caverns. I saw Hades and his melancholy bride Persephone and the entire kingdom of the dead wandering without destination. Life’s shadow passed in front of my absconding eyes. Bursting into Ortigia was like drawing an immense breath in a night full of stars; and here in Syracuse my journey came to an end.

Syracuse, detail of Diana’s (or Artemis) Fountain by Giulio Moschetti. Photo by Mario Dondero

Syracuse, detail of Diana’s (or Artemis) Fountain by Giulio Moschetti. Photo by Mario Dondero

This was more or less what the nymph told the poet.

And yet, there are some in Greece who would swear they saw Alpheus vanish near Olympia and resurface through hidden, subterranean passages to mingle with the Sicilian waves right here,6 in Ortigia; on your mouth, Arethusa…

B

Bagno ebraico

(Jewish Bath): miqweh

A spring, however, or a cistern

for collecting water remains clean.

Leviticus 11, 36

When that time of the month came, every Jewish woman would inform her husband and he would distance himself from her and refrain from touching her for the duration of her menstruation. Touching her was forbidden, and he could neither eat with her nor drink from her cup. When her cycle ended, she would bathe, cut her nails, comb her hair, change the bed sheets and wait seven more days before heading to the miqweh, the ritual bath, for purification. Only then was she finally allowed to rejoin her husband and conceive a new life. A strict mathematical order marked the cycle of death and rebirth that ruled a woman’s existence through a constant pendulum from impurity to fertility, with no room for exceptions or sentimental distractions.

Let us use our imagination to follow her as she walks the streets of Giudecca, the Jewish quarter of Ortigia, along Platea Parva and Ruga delli Bagni. She descends three flights of stairs that will take her to a square room carved into the rock, 18 meters underground. Here, stripped of her garments, she immerses herself completely in the chilly water of the ritual pool so that she may stand purified before her husband, prepared for the mystery of creation.7

We can still see this very special place, which is perfectly preserved, in the hypogeum of Casa Bianca. It is the miqweh of the second largest Sicilian Jewish community (after Palermo) in the Middle Ages.

Palazzo Montalto, detail: the Star of David.

Palazzo Montalto, detail: the Star of David.

Photo by Daniele Aliffi

Via Alagona n° 52. Stepping across the threshold of the building, we encounter a treasure which has been hidden for centuries. When the Jews were expelled from Syracuse in 1492, they buried the hypogeum in order to prevent its defilement. It has remained concealed, unfathomable even to the erudite and scholars (Logothete, Politi, Capodieci) who unveiled fragments and partial views of it in the 18th and 19th century. Only in recent times was the hypogeum unearthed from heaps of debris in all its magic and historical relevance, thanks largely to the interest and dedication of Amalia Daniele (owner of the building which is now a stylish residence for tourists).

As we enter the hypogeum, we descend down a stairway that still sports intact niches for oil lamps. Eventually we reach a square hall, the miqweh, where four pillars carved from the rock support a groin vault and the barrel vaults of four ambulacra.

There, in the center of the room, arranged in a cloverleaf pattern and approximately three fathoms deep, lie the three ritual pools that drew fresh water from an underground spring. The women would descend the steps carved into the stone, and the ambulacra led to two separate, more secluded pools.

Those very same underground waterways flowing below Ortigia, the ones that the Greeks thought were inhabited by nymphs and demi-gods, became the source of purification from sin; anointment for conversion or rebirth; new life accessed by ritual bath. The whole body had to be touched, in all its recesses, by water; wearing even the smallest ring could compromise the purification so that the ritual had to be repeated.

The same ritual purification was used for dishes and tableware, as recounted by the image of three veiled women portrayed from above on an engraving in the Haggadah8 kept at the British Museum. Ceramic fragments found in the pools clearly indicate that the Ortigia miqweh was also used for that practice.

The water gathering – miqweh – had to meet extremely specific requirements: the water had to flow by itself, from a natural source, or fall (as rain) from above; it could not be imported but had to originate in the womb of the earth or the sky.

Before we return to the surface, let us glance once again at this grave-like room. In this hypogean place one enters a dimension of non-life, or quasi-latency, in order to emerge from it anew. By looking closely, we can very clearly understand that the miqweh does not speak solely of Giudecca and the Jewish community that lived there until the end of the 15th century. There is an even more distant past surfacing and emanating from these stones. The mastery of its powerful and sharp forms recalls the latomie of the classical age and the steps of the Greek Theater carved into the side of the Temenites hill, as if the city was not built but hewn from the rock and breathing within it, transforming its underwater wells and waterways over the centuries into Christian catacombs, necropolises, hideaways, fabled caves, bomb shelters…

Syracuse, a living sculpture.

The miqweh hall and the ritual pools.

The miqweh hall and the ritual pools.

Photo by Daniele Aliffi

C

Caves: the latomie

Then, from the mouths of the latomie a breath smelling of rotting earth and spoilt flowers arose.

Gesualdo Bufalino, Light and Mourning

There are places that take your breath away, and the latomie (stone quarries) are among them. You cannot even begin to understand Syracuse without seeing her stone quarries, because they are the matter of which she is made. The limestone shapes her and makes the city white, the land bright, almost unbearably beautiful.

The influence of the limestone is especially evident if you arrive from Catania, the city of black lava stone, volcanic and sensual, earthly and nether-worldly. The contrast is stark. The two cities are completely different yet intimately close, as if one were there to validate the other. Sicily is a land of striking contrasts and, at the same time, of such pristine clarity that leave room to no doubt.

The latomie9 hold the key to it all. From these stones buildings and temples, pillars and fortresses were born. The slabs and blocks that built the theater on the Temenite hill were also quarried from the latomie.

What now looks like a stone arch spanning over a mile and riddled with caves must have once been a huge crag overlooking the Porto Grande (Main Harbor). It eventually became a quarry from which millions of cubic meters of limestone were extracted. The caves can be viewed from west to east: the Latomie del Paradiso (comprised of the Ear of Dionysius, the Grotta dei Cordari and the Grotta del Salnitro), the Latomie dell’Intagliatella, the Latomie di Santa Venera and, finally, the Latomie del Casale, along which a narrow, almost concealed road widens into a secret, deserted spot within the throbbing heart of the city.

The last of the urban caves ends in the Latomie dei Cappuccini, right beside the Capuchin Friars’ convent. These latomie are the most stunning, along with the Latomie del Paradiso.

Syllables of shadows and leaves / resting on the grass / the dead love one another10 the poet Quasimodo wrote, inspired by these places.

It looks as if time has stopped in Viale Paradiso, the road that runs along the spectacular limestone quarry of the same name. Seeing the latomia from above, as one climbs down the road overlooking the quarry’s ivy-covered entrances, is a profound experience. The tree-lined road continues to descend as oleanders, sprawling and merging from opposite sides, curve into a verdant vault, cool and welcoming even on summer afternoons.

These caves are a two-faced creature with a strange genius loci. This place was once a prison (a maximum-security one, according to Cicero),11 a place of torture and punishment that today appears so far removed from pain and suffering as to have become a kind of sanctuary, a sanatorium for the soul. In and of itself, no place is pure or impure. It all comes down to the hearts, thoughts, and actions of the people who inhabit it.

These caves were certainly used from the VI century B.C., but the first concrete date was provided by the historian Thucydides12 who describes them as the place where seven thousand Athenian prisoners languished following the defeat they suffered at the hands of the Syracusans in 413 B.C.

Two years earlier, 130 ships had sailed from Athens towards Syracuse. They were helmed by three military strategists: Alcibiades, Nicias and Lamachus. Although they claimed to be coming to support their ally Segesta, the Athenians’ true motive was to seize the most powerful Greek city-state of the West. But just as the protracted siege was about to bring the city – locked in by land and sea – to its knees, and the Syracusans were almost ready to surrender, the arrival of their Dorian allies – with a Spartan contingent and a Corinthian fleet – unexpectedly turned the tide of the war. The Athenian fleet was defeated in an epic battle in the waters of the Syracuse harbor. The Athenian prisoners and their allies were gathered together and their armor was hung on the tallest and most beautiful trees while the victors wore garlands of flowers. They decorated their own steeds and mercilessly cut the manes of the defeated soldiers’ mounts, extending the humiliation to animals and things without respect or reason.

Some men were clandestinely sold as slaves. Like cattle, they were forced to endure the physical outrage of being branded on their foreheads with a horse-shaped mark.

The Athenian generals were sentenced to death. Their subordinates and allies were thrown into the latomie, where thousands died from starvation and hardship. Many perished, but some survived.

If we are to believe what Plutarch13 tells us, some of the Athenians survived thanks to Euripides. Apparently the Greeks of Sicily were particularly fond of the Athenian playwright but, as plays were performed only once at that time,14 they had to rely exclusively on memory or the occasional verses brought by the odd Athenian traveler.

The captives recited whatever they could manage to remember to their captors, instilling into those Euripidean lines their own fears and longing for freedom. Perhaps they told tales of war, such as the one they had just experienced and that had taken such a heavy toll on them, or tales of cruelty, of misery, to elicit fear and pity in the same way that administering a modicum of poison can result in an antidote. They