Siracusa, Sicily, Orecchio di Dionisio

The largest city of antiquity, in several centuries BC Siracusa boasted half a million inhabitants, and was surrounded by a fourteen mile city wall at a time when Rome was little more than a village.

In the Zona Archeologica, Siracusa has many ruins of note. The Greek theater is one of the best preserved, and the nearby Roman Amphitheater was hewn out of rock in the 100s AD. Huge caves remain where stones were quarried to build Siracusa. These caves were also used as prisons, and the entrance to one cave — famous for its echo — is called Orecchio di Dionisio (Ear of Denys). Through a hole at the top of the cave, the tyrant Denys of Syracuse (the ruler in 384 BC), could hear what the prisoners said. Even now the acoustical effects are extraordinary.

The guidebooks do not disclose and our travel journal and diary do not reveal the secret, but rattling around in the remote recesses of my brain is an impression of something else of great fascination in this part of Siracusa. But for the life of me, I can’t recall what that might have been, and that page in Emmy’s diary is “blank.” I remember it almost as if “it” really exists.