Introduction

Abstract

In his widely read travels through Sicily and Malta, first published in 1773, Patrick Brydone describes in detail, even down to measurements in feet, a curious ancient construction at Syracuse:

The ear of Dionysius is no less a monument of the ingenuity and magnificence, than of the cruelty of that tyrant. It is a huge cavern cut out of the hard rock, exactly in the form of the human ear. The perpendicular height of it is about 80 feet, and the length of this enormous ear is not less than 250. The cavern was said to be so contrived, that every sound made in it, was collected and united into one point, as into a focus; this was called the Tympanum; and exactly opposite to it the tyrant had made a small hole, which communicated with a little apartment where he used to conceal himself. He applied his own ear to this hole, and is said to have heard distinctly every word that was spoken in the cavern below. This apartment was no sooner finished, and a proof of it made, than he put to death all the workmen that had been employed in it. He then confined all that he suspected were his enemies; and by overhearing their conversation, judged of their guilt, and condemned and acquitted accordingly. (1: 270–71)