In the public gardens the senses were delighted and refreshed by numerous parterres and fountains; in the forums, at every step, the observer was confronted with the speaking effigies of the famous heroes of antiquity. While devoted to the lucrative pursuits of commerce, the attention of the polished citizens of Syracuse had been by no means monopolized by practical occupations. They were generous patrons of literary and artistic genius. Their architects and their sculptors seem to have inherited no small proportion of Attic excellence. No Italian city which derived its civilization from Grecian colonists had preserved unimpaired to such a high degree the evidences of its noble origin. The elegant conceptions embodied in the works of the artists of Syracuse, the skill of their execution, the purity of taste they disclosed, the superiority of their materials, offered a marked contrast to the crude and barbaric efforts of Byzantine mediocrity. There seemed no reason why this magnificent city should be doomed to annihilation. Its fortifications--whose prodigious strength had been demonstrated by a contest of half a century--could have been easily repaired. Its situation was delightful, its harbors capacious, its territory productive, its mercantile facilities unrivalled. Its abandoned habitations could without difficulty have afforded shelter to a population of a hundred thousand souls. The remembrance of its traditions, the prestige of its name, the glory of its capture, might well have induced the victors to preserve it as an enduring monument to their perseverance and valor. But no considerations of utility or sentiment influenced the ruthless determination of the Moorish commander. The order went forth that Syracuse must be utterly destroyed. An idea can be formed of the massive character of its structures by the statement that two months were required for their demolition. At length, when the walls had been dismantled, the houses razed, and the harbors choked with rubbish, the conquerors applied the torch, and the flames completed the ruin which rapine and vandalism had so successfully begun.