More about Nymphius the Neapolitan

Plutarch is not the only historian to tell us about Nypsius the Neapolitan. Diodorus Siculus is often mentioned in his stead as the main source of information about this man. But by comparing the different versions of the tale one can extract interesting conclusions about the actual sequence of events during the terrible civil war in Syrakuse.
Plutarch's version by itself already shows, to my opinion, a few inconsistencies, but when we try to mix it with the material I am posting today we will be ready to make questions and find answers.
Let us thus see what Diodorus Siculus tells in his «Bibliotheca Historica» XVI, 18-19:

After this Dionysius dispatched to Syracuse as general Nypsius the Neapolitan, a man who excelled in valour and in sagacity of generalship; and with him he sent merchantmen laden with grain and other supplies. Nypsius then set sail from Locri and completed the voyage to Syracuse.
The tyrant's mercenaries, stationed on the acropolis, as their supply of grain failed at this time, were in dire distress for want of supplies, but for a time endured in good spirits their lack of food; then, when human nature succumbed to necessity and they despaired of saving their lives, they came together in an assembly at night and voted to surrender the citadel and themselves to the Syracusans at dawn.
Night was just drawing to a close as the mercenaries sent heralds to the Syracusans to make terms, but, as dawn was just breaking, Nypsius sailed in with his fleet and anchored off Arethusa. Consequently, now that scarcity had suddenly changed into a great abundance of supplies, the general Nypsius, after disembarking his soldiers, held a joint assembly, presented arguments suitable to the occasion and won the support of the men to meet the perils in store. Now the acropolis which was already on the point of being given over to the Syracusans was unexpectedly preserved in the aforesaid manner,
but the Syracusans, manning all their triremes, sailed against the enemy while they were still occupied in unloading the supplies. Since the attack was unexpected and the mercenaries in the citadel could only be drawn up in confused fashion against the enemy triremes, a naval battle took place in which the Syracusans had the superiority, in fact they sank some of the ships, gained possession of others, and pursued the remnant to the shore.
Elated by their success they offered magnificent sacrifice to the gods in honour of the victory, and, turning to banqueting and drink, with contempt for the men they had defeated, were negligent about their guards.

Nypsius, the commander of the mercenaries, wishing to renew the battle and retrieve the defeat, with his army which had been marshalled during the night unexpectedly attacked the wall which had been constructed. And, finding that the guards through contempt and drunkenness had betaken themselves to sleep, he placed against it the ladders that had been constructed in case they were needed.
The bravest of the mercenaries climbed on the wall with these, slaughtered the guards, and opened the gates. As the men poured into the city, the generals of the Syracusans, becoming sober after their drunkenness, tried to bring aid, but, their efforts being hampered by the wine, some were slain and some fled. When the city had been captured and almost all the soldiers from the citadel had rushed inside the circuit-walls, since the Syracusans were panic-stricken by the suddenness and confusion of the attack, a great slaughter took place.
The soldiers of the tyrant numbered more than ten thousand and their lines were so well marshalled that no one was able to withstand their sheer weight, inasmuch as the din and disorder and, furthermore, the lack of a commander, impeded the Syracusans in their hour of defeat.
Once the market-place had come into possession of the enemy, the victors straightway attacked the residences. They carried off much property and took off as slaves many women and children and household servants besides. Where the Syracusans formed to meet them in narrow alleys and other streets, continuous engagements occurred and many were killed and not a few wounded. So they passed the night slaying one another at random in the darkness, and every quarter teemed with dead.

In another post I will be glad to show you what I found odd by comparing the stories I quoted. Wishing to have tickled your curiosity, I invite you all to that date.

The Past of An Illustrious Neapolitan Man

The time has come to get beack to a character of a key character of Neapolis - The Siren's Recall: that Nymphius who is mentioned en-passant by Livy about Neapolis' siege as a “princeps civitatis” in Ab Urbe Condita, VIII, 25.
There will be a time to show the mentioned excerpt. This post will rather introduce a Plutarch excerpt where one Nypsios, neapolitan, an expert man-at-arms, appers. You might believe that the latter character has nothing to do with the former, apart from an apparent similarity in their names and the fact of being both from Neapolis.

A Multilingual Land

Campania always was a meeting point for different cultures, and in IV century BC things were not different.
Oscans/Samnites were perhaps the most numerous people, but next to them we could find Greeks (mainly in Neapolis), the Romans who had started to enter the territory (indeed, Acerra had been annexed to the Mescian and Scaptian tribes by the very Quintus Publilius who is so importanto in Neapolis - The Siren's Recall, but Cumaa and Puteolis as well had been taken from the Samnites, and the wealthy Capua literally gave herself to Rome), the Etruscans, the Auruncans, the Volscans…
Any of these peoples spoke its own language, used its own writing, sometimes borrowed the alphabet from others. Is it surprising if Neapolitans gesticulate so much? :)
While writing my novels I also want to face this aspect: how would one live in a land where different ethicities with different languages lived so close together?
I admit that the reply was easier for me who lived in three places where still today there is a situation very similar to the one described.
Right now I live in the area of Barcelona, Spain, Catalonia's capital, where next to Spanish there thrives the Catalan, what remains of a language that, despite its numerous variations, was common to a wide territory from Valencia to Alghero in Sardinia. Influence of Catalan is nowadays recognizable in many spoken languages and dialects well beyond the borders I mentioned, and it would be silly to deny that, but its use has become the matter for political confrontation I don't want to meddle with. From the linguistical point of view, its codification makes it suffer, according to my external and humble opinion, of all the sicknesses of the so-called “dead languages”: lack of spontaneity, expression rigidity, little innovation, fonetical prejudices, etc.
I have also lived for two years in the Netherlands where, next to the official Flemish language, everyone talks a decent English. Foreigners have no problems in asking information or beginning their life in the country, and Dutch people are always nice to the foreigners and try to understand them.
Finally, the third place is Campania itself, an Italian region where, next to Italian, survives with no fear to be forgotten, even with no official economic support, Neapolitan. It survives as a local language, passed by the everyday's life as it is able to express directly, in full, concisely, the ideas of Campanian people.
Stamped for years as “vulgar” (according to the worst of the meanings), it is the language that expressed a first-class musical and opera traditions. Among the first songs coming to mind of foreigners speaking of Italy are 'O Sole Mio and Torna a Surriento; how shocking for them to learn that those are not Italian songs: they are Neapolitan!
Gifted with these experiences, it was easier for me to imagine that the open attitude of the Neapolitans towards foreigners always was the one you can experience while walking along the decumani (the narrow alleys of the historical center): they try to speak, to communicate at all cost, and if they can't use language, they help themselves with gestures, hands, which is a trait that makes you spot an Italian throughout the world.
It is not a little thing, some still see it as a lowly and vulgar thing (“Do NOT gesticulate!” keep on teaching “well-to-do” parents to theatrical sons), but it is a further communication channel, and a further possibility to know different people.
I am not proposing romantic sentences: there are scientific studies on the language development in human babies at different ages, and they show that younger children try to communicate with gestures as well as with sounds, and they finally drop the gestures channel only when they manage to successfully comunicate through speech. It is therefore natural to infer that where gestures language offers expression richness and immediateness, it may easily thrive.
Will you find all of this in my novels? In another post I will explain how I technically faced the problem to let my characters use different languages. In the meantime, I wish I titillated your curiosity on the topic.

Cicero tells…

When one wants that the most innocent sentences are historically sound, historical investigation becomes very crafty. Seldom I found myself reading texts apparently totally unrelated with the topic I wanted to verify, but these are those texts that, en passant, mention the key witness.
This happened with an apparently secondary character in Neapolis - The Siren's Recall, Herennius Pontius. At that time, Herennius was one of the most reknown and respected Samnite chiefs, indeed one of his people very different from the stereotype that history (written by the Roman winners) gave us about Samnites.