Cluverius allows but one prison of the latomiæ to have ever existed in Syracuse, and places it in Epipolæ. -- This cannot be exact, for we read of many prisoners being confined in the quarries previous to that year of Dionysius's reign (the fourth) in which he built the walls of Epipolæ, the stone of which is exactly similar to the rock of the latomiæ under Mongibellesi. Before this fortification was made, supposing the quarry to have been opened at an earlier period, the prison must have been in the open country, consequently not a safe place of confinement. His imitator D'Orville finds nothing more particular in the form of the Ear of Dionysius than in any other quarry. It appears by Mirabella's account, that the celebrated painter Michael Angelo Caravaggio first gave it the name of Orecchio, which has since been adopted by the Syracusans.