Ear of Dionysius

Step out of the Sicilian sun and into the shadow of the rock. The air drops several degrees in a few paces. The ground under your feet is pale, dusty limestone, and the walls rise so steeply above you that the sky shrinks to a narrow strip of blue. Somewhere inside, a voice echoes. Then another. You have just walked into the Ear of Dionysius.

Before any legend, look at the opening itself. It is tall and thin, like a tear in the cliff, wider at the bottom and narrowing to a point high above. This is not a natural cave. Every surface around you was cut by human hands. The cavern is roughly twenty metres high or more, and it runs back into the rock for around sixty-five metres. It does not run straight. It curves, gently, in a shape a little like the letter S.

That curve is the key to everything. Stand still for a moment and listen. A cough near the entrance seems to travel up the walls and come back to you, larger than before. A whisper from deep inside can reach someone standing far away. The tall, curved walls catch sound and carry it. Many visitors test this almost at once. Go ahead and try it, softly, and hear how the stone answers.

Now, where does the name come from? The story most often told is that Caravaggio gave it. The great Italian painter spent time in Syracuse in the early seventeenth century, and it is widely reported that a local scholar showed him this cave. The painter is said to have noticed that the opening looked like a human ear. The name stayed. It is a good story, and it is the version you will hear most, though it comes to us through later writers rather than through a signed record.

The second half of the name belongs to Dionysius the First. He was a tyrant of Syracuse who ruled in the late fifth and early fourth centuries before Christ. In his time Syracuse was one of the most powerful Greek cities in the Mediterranean. Dionysius had a reputation for suspicion and cruelty. Ancient writers described him as a man who feared plots everywhere, and that reputation is the seed of the legend you are about to hear.

Legend has it that Dionysius kept prisoners here. According to the popular tale, he hid at a small opening near the top of the cave. From there, the walls carried every word his captives spoke, even their quietest whispers. In this way, the story says, he learned their secrets and their plans. It is a gripping image. But it is folklore, not documented history. No ancient source confirms that the tyrant ever listened here, and the tale seems to have grown up long after his death.

So what was this place really? The honest answer is simpler, and in its own way just as striking. This was a quarry. The surrounding area is called the Latomia del Paradiso. Latomia is the local word for these great stone quarries, from an old Greek term for a stone cut. Ancient Syracuse was built from limestone exactly like the rock around you. Temples, walls, houses and the great theatre nearby all needed stone, and much of it came out of pits like this one.

Look closely at the walls, and you can still see how the work was done. Here and there the surface shows rows of small marks and grooves. These are the traces of tools. Quarry workers cut downward and inward, following good layers of stone. Some historians think the tall, tapering shape of the Ear came simply from this method — the workers followed a seam of rock deeper and deeper, and the cavern took the shape of their path.

The quarries of Syracuse also carry a darker memory, and this one is well recorded. In 413 BC, a huge Athenian army that had come to conquer Syracuse was defeated. The ancient historian Thucydides wrote that thousands of captured Athenians were held in the city's stone quarries. They suffered terribly from heat by day, cold by night, hunger and thirst. We cannot say that they stood in this exact cave. But the quarries around you belong to the same landscape of stone and suffering.

Walk back out into the open quarry and the mood changes. Today the Latomia del Paradiso is a garden. The quarry floor is green with trees and shrubs, and in season you may notice citrus and the sweet smell of flowers. Swallows and pigeons nest in the high cliffs, and you can hear them above you. Once, much of this quarry had a stone roof held up on great columns of rock. Over the centuries, parts of that roof collapsed, and the old caverns opened to the sky.

As you look around, keep an eye out for a second cave close by. This is the Grotta dei Cordari, the Cave of the Ropemakers. For generations, local ropemakers worked in its cool, damp shade, because the moisture in the air kept their fibres supple. That cave is usually closed to visitors for safety, but you can often see its dark mouth from the path. Notice the moss and the green stains on the rock around it — signs of the water that made it useful.

The whole quarry sits inside the Neapolis Archaeological Park. Neapolis means new city in Greek, and this was once a busy district of ancient Syracuse. A short walk from here is the Greek theatre, carved into the hillside, and the remains of a great Roman amphitheatre. When you visit the Ear, you stand at the meeting point of all these stories — the workers who cut the stone, the city that rose from it, and the legends that grew up afterwards.

Before you leave, go back to the mouth of the cave one last time. Look up at that narrow, pointed opening, and at the light falling down its walls. Listen to the voices inside, now joined with your own. Whether or not a tyrant ever pressed his ear to this rock, people have stood exactly where you are standing for centuries, testing the echo and wondering. As you walk out through the garden, notice how the sound fades behind you... and how quiet the old stone becomes.