Magna Graecia · 733-367 BC

Syracuse: the Greek giant of Sicily

The richest Greek city in the west was not in Greece at all. Students explore Syracuse, from its founding by Corinth to the tyrant Dionysius, who built the largest fortress in the Greek world and whose engineers invented the catapult.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
11–14
On the map
3 steps, 733 BC to 400 BC
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

The richest Greek city in the west was not in Greece at all. Students explore Syracuse, from its founding by Corinth to the tyrant Dionysius, who built the largest fortress in the Greek world and whose engineers invented the catapult.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Locate Syracuse, Akragas, Himera and the Carthaginian west of Sicily.
  • Explain how tyrants such as Gelon and Dionysius I ruled Syracuse and why its people put up with them.
  • Describe one invention or building from Syracuse and why it mattered.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

733 BC

Ortygia

Open the map in 733 BC and zoom in on Syracuse. The first settlers from Corinth took the small island of Ortygia, with its freshwater spring of Arethusa and two harbors. Turn on the Cities layer. Why start a city on an island a stone's throw from the shore?

Open this view on the map
b

480 BC

Greek Sicily and Punic Sicily

Jump to 480 BC and zoom out over Sicily. The east and south were Greek, the west Carthaginian, with the native Sicels in between. That year Gelon of Syracuse beat a Carthaginian army at Himera. Find Himera on the north coast and Akragas (Agrigento), the Greek city of temples, in the south.

Open this view on the map
c

400 BC

The fortress of Dionysius

Go to 400 BC. Dionysius I had walled the whole Epipolae plateau above Syracuse, about 27 km of wall, with the fortress of Euryalus at its tip, and gathered engineers who built the first catapults for his war with Carthage. Zoom in on the plateau west of the city.

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Syracuse was founded by Corinth but soon outgrew it. Why did colonies in Sicily get richer than the cities that founded them?
  2. Gelon came to power as a cavalry commander, won a huge battle, and ruled as a tyrant whom later Greeks praised. Can a ruler who takes power by force be a good ruler?
  3. In 415 BC Athens sent its biggest fleet to conquer Syracuse and lost everything. Why would a democracy attack another Greek democracy?
  4. Dionysius I hired the best engineers in the Greek world to invent new weapons. What does an arms race do to a city's freedom and taxes?
  5. The theater of Syracuse, cut into rock, is one of the largest in the Greek world, and Plato came here twice hoping to turn a tyrant into a philosopher-king. Why did art and philosophy flourish under a dictator?
4

Game round

10 min

Rule History has no ruler of Syracuse. Play one round as Hannibal Barca, Carthage's general, and discuss: for three centuries Carthage and Syracuse fought over Sicily and neither won. What would have made one side give up?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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