Whether Sicily derived the name _Trinacria_ from its three promontories, which seems to us very probable, or whether this is only apparent, and the name arose from a Siculian town of a similar name (Trinacia or Thrinacia), independently of the form of the island, is one of those questions, concerning which it is best to confess that they cannot be satisfactorily answered. SYRACUSAE, at first probably SYRACUSA, was the greatest Greek city in Sicily. The plural form of the name probably did not come into use until the time when several towns were united in one great city; afterwards, during the decline of the language, it was again called Syracusa. There exists an abridgment of six books (from 21 to 26) of Diodorus Siculus, which was no doubt made in Sicily itself, but at a late period, for it already contains several modern Greek expressions, and among others, also the form Syracusa. Those of the Byzantine writers who did not want to write learnedly, likewise have the singular. It is well known that Syracuse was a Corinthian colony led out by the Bacchiad Archias; the first settlement was formed in the island of Ortygia (to which the modern Siragossa also is confined), for the sake of safety against the attacks of the inhabitants of the interior. It commenced its career as a commercial place; and this first colony was small like all the other Greek settlements, as, for example, Cyrene. The island in the Doric dialect was called νᾶσος, and the Romans also retained this name (_Nasos_), as we know from Cicero’s Verrine orations. A suburb of the name of _Achradina_ (from ἀχράς, the wild pear-tree) arose on the main land opposite the island. This suburb, which increased considerably, is the Syracuse of the middle period, that is, under the first Gelo and the first Hiero, until the time of the Peloponnesian war. Nasos then became the Acra, but Achradina alone was fortified. By the side of this latter, again two large suburbs arose, _Neapolis_ and _Tycha_; they seem to have commenced at two different gates, and perhaps ran parallel to each other, but were separated by a considerable intervening space. They, too, became important towns, so that Syracuse was a tetrapolis. The last two of these places which had not been fortified at all, or only feebly, were surrounded by Dionysius with a wall which he constructed at a distance of about three miles from the island. Above Syracuse there runs a range of hills, and you may easily understand its situation, by comparing it with the neighbourhood of Bonn, the plain extending between the Vorgebirge and the Rhine: the city must be conceived to be situated in the plain upon the Rhine, whence it gradually extends towards the Vorgebirge. These hills, which, just like our Vorgebirge, bound the plain stretching to the sea, were called _Epipolae_. They were from early times surmounted by forts, the object of which was to protect the district in the petty