“But what especially disturbed Marcellus was what happened to Archimedes. He was off on his
own, working out some problem by means of a diagram, and his attention and his thoughts were so
focused on the object of his contemplation that he was unaware of the success of the Romans’ assault
and the fall of the city. When he was interrupted by a soldier standing over him and ordering him to
come with him to Marcellus, he refused to go until he had completely worked out the solution to the
problem. The soldier, incensed by this, drew his sword and killed him.” (Plutarch, The Life of
Marcellus 19.8–9)As far as we know, Archimedes spent his life in Syracuse and was not affiliated with the Museum in
Alexandria. He was supported not by the ruler of one of the Hellenistic kingdoms but by the local tyrant.
Syracuse and the other Greek cities of Italy and Sicily had not been subjected to conquest by Alexander;
consequently, Syracuse remained more or less independent through the third century BC, the period in
which Archimedes was alive. Archimedes was, however, in touch with scientists active in Alexandria, as
we know from his surviving writings, some of which are addressed to a Jewish mathematician who was a
pupil of a prominent Alexandrian astronomer and some to Eratosthenes. These works were addressed to
the leading mathematicians of the day because these scholars were among the select few capable of
appreciating, or even following, the proofs that Archimedes constructs in his writings. Among the
remarkable achievements attained by Archimedes is the discovery of the principle that an object
immersed in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object; the
computation of the relationship between a sphere and a circumscribed cylinder; and the anticipation, in
effect, of the calculus. He was, accordingly, among the most brilliant mathematicians and physicists who
ever lived. His solutions to problems generally depended upon his unparalleled reasoning powers rather
than upon experiments in the messy world with which we come in contact every day, but a number of
anecdotes, provided they are true, suggest that Archimedes may have been active in applying his
discoveries for the benefit of his fellow Syracusans. Supposedly he used his discovery regarding fluid
displacement to determine whether a gold crown made for his patron, the tyrant Hiero, had been
adulterated. And during a siege of Syracuse Archimedes used his knowledge of levers to create a device
capable of lifting enemy ships partially out of the water, causing them to take on water and sink. This
siege was carried out by the Romans and resulted in the end of Syracusan independence and of
Archimedes’ life. In the western Mediterranean in the third century BC there were two major rivals for
military and political supremacy, the Romans and the Carthaginians; the Syracusans had the misfortune of
allying themselves with the latter. The Romans required three years before they could succeed in their
siege of Syracuse, allegedly because of the successful deployment by the Syracusans of military devices
designed by Archimedes. Supposedly, the Roman general Marcellus was so impressed with the ingenuity
of Archimedes, who had for so long frustrated his legions’ efforts, that he wanted him taken alive, perhaps
wishing to use him as a military adviser, but Marcellus’ wishes were frustrated by the actions of his own
soldiers. A century and a half later, after the whole of Greece had been enfolded into the Roman Empire,
another Roman citizen was to be frustrated in an effort to appropriate another jewel of Greek science
when the Antikythera Mechanism sank to the bottom of the Mediterranean, along with a number of costly
works of Hellenistic art consigned for shipment to Rome.
Hellenistic Art
We saw earlier that in the Argonautica Apollonius relates in detail the scenes depicted on Jason’s cloak.
This type of elaborate description of a work of art is very common in Hellenistic poetry. By the same