Lautumiae
or Latomiae. A name properly denoting a quarry, and derived from the Greek λᾶας, “a stone,” and τέμνω, “to cut” or “quarry.” This appellation was particularly applied to certain quarries near Syracuse, one of which still bears the name of “The Ear of Dionysius,” because it is said to have been used by that tyrant for a prison, and to have been so constructed that all the sounds uttered in it converged to and united in one particular point, termed, in consequence, the tympanum. This point communicated with an apartment (the famous “Ear of Dionysius”), where Dionysius placed himself, and thus overheard all that was said by his unsuspecting captives. There is no doubt that these quarries actually served as places of imprisonment, and Cicero reproaches Verres with having employed them for this purpose in the case of Roman citizens (Verr. v. 27). Aelian informs us that some of the workmen in the quarries near Syracuse remained so long there as to marry and rear families in them, and that some of their children, having never before seen a city, were terrified on their coming to Syracuse, and beholding for the first time horses and oxen (Aelian, V. H. xii. 44). See Carcer, p. 278.