The fame of this echo is so vast that the stay in Syracuse is considered without value if the Sicilian or foreign visitor has not gone to feel the effects.
Jean Houël, Voyage pittoresque des isles de Sicile, de Malte et de Lipari, 1782-1787.
It is not one of the most famous Sicilian attractions abroad, but its appearance in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny can boost the fame and increase foreign visitors to what is surely one of the main attractions of Syracuse and all of Sicily. As a Sicilian and as a kid who grew up with Indiana Jones movies, as soon as I saw the Ear of Dionysius in the latest film of the saga I was ecstatic: “no way, Indy in Sicily”! Too bad for the cinematographic choice to localize the Ear in a place other than the real one, but we can forgive the poetic license to Indiana – together with others, but I’m not here to list all the historical-geographical inconsistencies.
The Ear of Dionysius (Italian: Orecchio di Dionisio) is an artificial cave that is found in the ancient stone quarry called Latomia del Paradiso, under the Greek theater of Syracuse. The latomie were the ancient quarries from which the materials for the construction of the buildings of the Greek polis were extracted, probably since the 6th century BC. Excavated in the limestone, the cave is about 23 meters high, from 5 to 11 meters wide, and develops in-depth for 65 meters, with an S-shape which makes it a place of exceptional acoustic amplification: every sound, even the softest one, is amplified up to 16 times and is recognizable at any point in the cave. The reason for this shape comes from the presence of an ancient aqueduct in the upper part of the cave. From that track, the workers dug downwards, thus creating the current form. Precisely this particularly sinuous conformation of the walls leaves the question open on its real purpose: that is, if it were only a quarry or if it served to amplify sounds.
What was the Ear of Dionysius?
In any case, it is not, as shown in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the tomb of Archimedes of Syracuse, even if, according to some old convictions, the mind behind the building of the cave would exactly be the famous mathematician and inventor. According to numerous historical testimonies, however, the cave was used as a prison and owes its name to the tyrant Dionysius I, who used it to imprison his enemies and (legend says) listen to their speeches from a small room hidden in the upper part of the cave.
Dionysius I was a tyrant who ruled Syracuse in the 4th century BC for about 40 years. A very ambiguous description of him emerges from historical sources. If on one side he’s described as a man of great culture and a patron, who hosted personalities such as the philosopher Plato and the poet Filossene, on the other one he’s also remembered as an example of the cruelty that a tyrant can reach. In his work, Tusculan Disputations, Cicero reports many anecdotes about the life of Dionysius I, but what concerns the ear is remembered both by Diodoro Siculo and by Eliano, according to which Dionysius would have locked Filossene in the cave, guilty of not appreciating the literary works of the tyrant. Eliano says that the poet had been locked up «in the most beautiful cave of the quarries», whether it is the Ear or the nearby “Grotta dei Cordari” it’s hard to say.
However, several historical sources confirm how the quarries of Syracuse were used as a prison, even before Dionysius I rose to power. Thucydides, in his History of the Peloponnesian War, says that during the Athenian expedition to Sicily, which took place between 415 and 413 BC, 7,000 soldiers were taken prisoner and locked up in the quarries. Several centuries later, Cicero, in his work Against Verres, describes the latomie as follows: «All of you have heard of, and most know the quarry of Syracuse directly. Great, magnificent work, of kings and tyrants, dug entirely in the rock by many workers, up to an extraordinary depth. It doesn’t exist neither you can imagine anything so closed on all sides and safe against any attempt to escape: if you require a public place for imprisonment, order to bring the prisoners in these quarries also from the other cities of Sicily».
Why it’s called the Ear of Dionysius?
If this little jewel of Syracuse is known today with the name of Ear of Dionysus, the merit is by Michelangelo Merisi, also known as Caravaggio. In 1608 the painter was on the run from a death sentence issued in Rome. He arrives first in Messina and then in Syracuse, where he will paint The Burial of Saint Lucy for the church of Santa Lucia al Sepolcro. During a visit to the quarries, in the company of the architect Michele Mirabella, Caravaggio immediately noticed the cave’s resemblance to the shape of an auricle and linked it to the episode of Dionysius and the poet Filosseno. Till then, the cave was known as “crypta loquens”, Latin for “cave that speaks”.
How to visit the Ear of Dionysius
The Ear of Dionysius is located inside the Neapolis Archaeological Park in Syracuse. It is part of the so-called Latomia del Paradiso, an ancient stone quarry from which the tuff blocks were extracted to build the Greek city. To visit the cave you need to buy an access ticket to the entire archaeological area. The cost of the ticket is 13 euros and allows you to visit all the other extraordinary monuments such as the Greek theater, the Roman amphitheater and the Grotticelle Necropolis. The access times are very variable depending on the period of the year, therefore I recommend you to visit the official website of the park.