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The Island of Ortygia Casa of Lucius Cornelius Flavius

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Ortygia.

A wide, sheltered harbour, an island detached from the mainland by the narrowest strip of sea, and on that island a fresh water spring: such was the site of the second Greek settlement in Sicily, a colony founded by Corinthians, destined to be one of the world's great cities. These early foundations, like seeds scattered at random, flourished or declined according to their geographical position. Naxos, for instance, the first Greek colony, was an injection which did not take. Good soil alone did not ensure the city's growth; sometimes rock was more favourable because it afforded protection; but above all it was grain sown beside a natural harbour that yielded an abundant harvest and increased a hundredfold. No place on the east and south coasts of the island--at this time the only area accessible to the Greeks--was naturally so strong or so well-sited for trade as Syracuse. The limestone formation which dominates the site to the north is continued downwards in the island of Ortygia, which resembles a hand pointing, the index finger showing south. To the west and south lies the port, sheltered at the south-east corner by a projecting ridge of land, which almost completes the circle, leaving only a space of half a mile between itself and Ortygia. The city site dominates a plain some ten miles in diameter, and is finally shut in by the Iblean Mountains. Its exceptional feature is the island which was later to be developed into a self-contained fortress. Here the first colonists, having driven out the Sicels who already held the site as a trading centre, founded their city, giving it the name of Ortygia, after one of the epithets of Artemis. Soon the city began to be known under the name of Syracuse, after a neighbouring marsh called Syraka, itself in turn derived from a Phoenician word meaning "western place," while the name Ortygia was reserved for the island which, except in time of war, was linked to the mainland by a dyke.

That sense of beauty which perhaps unconsciously guided the Greeks in their choice of city-sites was never more unerring than in the foundation of Syracuse. The spit of land which is Ortygia stretches out into the Ionian Sea like a great ship proceeding to sail away: the peninsula has all the scenic advantages of an island with none of the strategic disadvantages. To the west the impression is of an inland lake, dominated in the distance by the almost straight, low line of the Iblean hills, along which, immediately before it sinks, the sun lights a long beacon of forest fires. On the other side of Ortygia the prospect is unprotected: the sea breaks in spectacular waves against the sheer walls, for on this side the houses extend to the sea edge, and apart from the line of rocky coast stretching north the horizon is unbroken. From the mainland Ortygia has the appearance of an extended dyke, a single street lined with houses rising out of the sea. There are in fact some six streets down the length of the island, and twice that number across its breadth: narrow, winding alleys, traced in an irregular pattern as though by a drunkard and dividing chock-a-block houses that give the island the appearance of an over-loaded cargo-boat.

The new colonists found nothing in the fabulous island of Ortygia so difficult to explain as the freshwater spring which bubbles up in a continuous fountain at the south-east side, only a few feet from the sea edge, as though continually renewing the place, and it was this phenomenon which gave rise to a legend which linked the new colony with the mother country. Arethusa, so the story goes, a nymph attendant on Artemis, lived on the wild plains of Elis in the Peloponnese. One day as she was hunting she was seen by Alpheus, a river god of that country, who fell passionately in love with her. He gave chase to the nymph, but Arethusa ran away and, just as she seemed to be eluding the river god, reached the sea. Here she believed herself lost and in desperation called upon Artemis. The goddess took pity on her and gave the nymph the shape of a fountain; she leapt into the sea and continued to flow under the waves, preserving her own identity:

Under the bowers
Where the Ocean Powers
Sit on their pearlèd thrones;
Through the coral woods
Of the weltering floods,
Over heaps of unvalued stones.

Finally she arrived at the island of Ortygia, where she rose once more to the upper world. Alpheus, meanwhile, being a river god, was able to follow the nymph's course from the coast of Elis to Ortygia and, overtaking her, mingled his own fresh water with hers. Thus the two lovers are united in an eternal embrace, continually renewed. To corroborate the story Syracusans aver that in the harbour a short distance from shore there bubbles up a stream of fresh water, which they claim as the river god Alpheus.

The Fontana Aretusa is a pool of clear water, a wide well between high walls. Fish and geese preserve the water from weeds: crystal water that is ever changing, welling up at one side out of the rock and draining into the sea at the other. Around the edges grow papyrus p!ants in clumps, imported originally by the Arabs, thin reeds that explode in a network of intricate tendrils, fine as a spider's web. It is certain that at least until the end of the eighteenth century the water remained sweet, on the testimony of no less a man than Nelson. In June 1798 the admiral sailed into Syracuse with fourteen warships and remained five days, while from all around the Sicilians came to admire the ships, to fête the sailors and sell provisions. A fair was held for the crews and there was much revelry and rejoicing, for in the British Navy were placed all Sicily's hopes of avoiding domination by the detested French, memories of whose occupation five centuries before still haunted the Sicilians. In a letter to Lord Hamilton from Syracuse Nelson wrote that he had taken on provisions and fresh water, and since the water had been drawn from the fountain of Arethusa he would certainly gain a victory. The prophecy was realised, for his warships sailed out from Syracuse to win the battle of Aboukir. A generation earlier Brydone had visited Syracuse and mentioned that the fountain of Arethusa had been given over to washerwomen, who would have preferred even this hard, calcareous spring to salt sea water. Until the end of the eighteenth century, therefore, the legend still rang true, and if it was difficult to believe the corollary, that cups thrown into the waters of the river Alpheus in Greece had been found later in the Syracusan fountain the fresh water mysteriously welling up so near the sea seemed to authenticate at least the substance of the legend. Soon after Nelson's visit, however, earthquakes shook the island and the waters of Arethusa were discovered to be no longer sweet. Perhaps the earthquakes had killed the nymph or frightened her away; perhaps the rock which had separated fountain and sea was shattered. Now the waters of Arethusa are said to be salt, and since the fountain is guarded by lofty walls there is no way of discovering for sure. It is perhaps as well, for in the absence of personal proof, the Greek legend exerts its spell, so that it is difficult to believe that the waters are not fresh, that this is not in truth the nymph from Elis, transformed into another shape, continually renewing both her love and the ancient city.

The Articles of Ortygia.:

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