Walls of Syracuse
In 402 BC Dionysius I began building the Circuit Walls of Syracuse. They were completed in 397 BC and had the following characteristics:
- Length: 27 kilometers
- Width at base: 3.3 m to 5.35 m
- Number of known towers on circuit: 14 (including Euryalos)
- Largest tower: 8.5 m x 8.5 m
- Deepest ditch (at Euryalos fortress): 9 m
Building so big a fortress would have involved installing well over 300 tons of stone every day for 5 years.
Read more about this topic: Dionysius I Of Syracuse
Famous quotes containing the words walls of, walls and/or syracuse:
“a child who traced voyages
indelibly all over the atlas, who now in a far country
remembers the first river, the first
field, bricks and lumber dumped in it ready for building,
that new smell, and remembers
the walls of the garden, the first light.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“Yet, when the walls of flesh grow weak,
In such an hour it may well be,
Through mist and darkness, light will break,
And each anointed sense will see.”
—Ernest Christopher Dowson (1867–1900)
“The Dada object reflected an ironic posture before the consecrated forms of art. The surrealist object differs significantly in this respect. It stands for a mysterious relationship with the outer world established by man’s sensibility in a way that involves concrete forms in projecting the artist’s inner model.”
—J.H. Matthews. “Object Lessons,” The Imagery of Surrealism, Syracuse University Press (1977)