Marcellus now moved with his whole army to Syracuse, and, camping near
the wall, proceeded to attack the city both by land and by sea. The land
forces were conducted by Appius: Marcellus, with sixty galleys, each
with five rows of oars, furnished with all sorts of arms and missiles,
and a huge bridge of planks laid upon eight ships chained together, upon
which was carried the engine to cast stones and darts, assaulted the
walls, relying on the abundance and magnificence of his preparations,
and on his own previous glory; all which, however, were, it would seem,
but trifles for Archimedes and his machines.
These machines he had designed and contrived, not as matters of any
importance, but as mere amusements in geometry; in compliance with King
Hiero's desire and request, some little time before, that he should
reduce to practice some part of his admirable speculations in science,
and by accommodating the theoretical truth to sensation and ordinary
use, bring it more within the appreciation of people in general. Eudoxus
and Archytas had been the originators of this far-famed and highly
prized art of mechanics, which they employed as an elegant illustration
of geometrical truths, and as a means of sustaining experimentally, to
the satisfaction of the senses, conclusions too intricate for proof
by words and diagrams. As, for example, to solve the problem, so often
required in constructing geometrical figures, given the two extreme, to
find the two mean lines of a proportion, both these mathematicians had
recourse to the aid of instruments, adapting to their purpose certain
curves and sections of lines. (The 'mesolabes or mesalabium, was the
name by which this instrument was commonly known.) But what with Plato's
indignation at it, and his invectives against it as the mere corruption
and annihilation of the one good of geometry,--which was thus shamefully
turning its back upon the unembodied objects of pure intelligence to
recur to sensation, and to ask help (not to be obtained without haste
subservience and depravation) from matter; so it was that mechanics came
to be separated from geometry, and, being repudiated and neglected by
philosophers, took its place as a military art. Archimedes, however,
in writing to King Hiero, whose friend and near relation he was, had
stated, that given the force, any weight might be moved, and even
boasted, we are told, relying on the strength of demonstration, that if
there were another earth, by going into it he could remove this. Hiero
being struck with amazement at this, and entreating him to make good
this problem by actual experiment, and show some great weight moved by
a small engine, he fixed accordingly upon a ship of burden out of the
king's arsenal, which could not be drawn out of the dock without great
labor and many men; and, loading her with many passengers and a full
freight, sitting himself the while far off, with no great endeavor, but
only holding the head of the pulley in his hand and drawing the cord by
degrees, he drew the ship in a straight line, as smoothly and evenly as
if she had been in the sea. The king, astonished at this, and convinced
of the power of the art, prevailed upon Archimedes to make him engines
accommodated to all the purposes, offensive and defensive, of a siege.
These the king himself never made use of, because he spent almost
all his life in a profound quiet, and the highest influence. But
the apparatus was, in a most opportune time, ready at hand for the
Syracusans, and with it also the engineer himself.
When, therefore, the Romans assaulted the walls in two places at once,
fear and consternation stupefied the Syracusans, believing that nothing
was able to resist that violence and those forces. But when Archimedes
began to ply his engines, he at once shot against the land forces all
sorts of missile weapons, and immense masses of stone that came down
with incredible noise and violence, against which no man could stand;
for they knocked down those upon whom they fell, in heaps, breaking all
their ranks and files. In the mean time huge poles thrust out from the
walls over the ships, sunk some by the great weights which they let down
from on high upon them; others they lifted up into the air by an iron
hand or beak like a crane's beak, and, when they had drawn them up by
the prow, and set them on end upon the poop, they plunged them to the
bottom of the sea; or else the ships, drawn by engines within, and
whirled about, were dashed against steep rocks that stood jutting out
under the walls, with great destruction of the soldiers that were aboard
them. A ship was frequently lifted up to a great height in the air (a
dreadful thing to behold), and was rolled to and fro, and kept swinging,
until the mariners were all thrown out, when at length it was dashed
against the rocks, or let fall. In the meantime, Marcellus himself
brought up his engine upon the bridge of ships, which was called
"Sambuca," from some resemblance it had to an instrument of music, but
while it was as yet approaching the wall, there was discharged at it a
piece of rock of ten talents' weight, then a second and a third, which,
striking upon it with immense force and with a noise like thunder,
broke all its foundations to pieces, shook out all its fastenings, and
completely dislodged it from the bridge. So Marcellus, doubtful what
counsel to pursue, drew off his ships to a safer distance, and sounded a
retreat to his forces on land. They then took a resolution of coming
up under the walls, if it were possible, in the night; thinking that as
Archimedes used ropes stretched at length in playing his engines, the
soldiers would now be under the shot, and the darts would, for want of
sufficient distance to throw them, fly over their heads without effect.
But he, it appeared, had long before framed for such occasion engines
accommodated to any distance, and shorter weapons; and had made numerous
small openings in the walls, through which, with engines of a shorter
range, unexpected blows were inflicted on the assailants. Thus, when
they who thought to deceive the defenders came close up to the walls,
instantly a shower of darts and other missile weapons was again cast
upon them. And when stones came tumbling down perpendicularly upon their
heads, and, as it were, the whole wall shot out arrows at them, they
retired. And now, again, as they were going off, arrows and darts of
a longer range inflicted a great slaughter among them, and their ships
were driven one against another; while they themselves were not able
to retaliate in any way; for Archimedes had fixed most of his engines
immediately under the wall. The Romans, seeing that infinite mischiefs
overwhelmed them from no visible means, began to think they were
fighting with the gods.
Yet Marcellus escaped unhurt, and, deriding his own artificers
and engineers, exclaimed "What! Must we give up fighting with this
geometrical Briareus, who plays pitch and toss with our ships, and,
with the multitude of darts which he showers at a single moment upon us,
really outdoes the hundred-handed giants of mythology?" The rest of the
Syracusans were but the body of Archimedes' designs, one soul moving
and governing all; for, laying aside all other arms, with his alone they
infested the Romans, and protected themselves. In fine, when such terror
had seized upon the Romans, that, if they did but see a little rope or
a piece of wood from the wall, they instantly cried out, "There it is
again! Archimedes is about to let fly another engine at us," and turned
their backs and fled, Marcellus desisted from conflicts and assaults,
putting all his hope in a long siege. Yet Archimedes possessed so high a
spirit, so profound a soul, and such treasures of scientific knowledge,
that though these inventions had now obtained him the renown of more
than human sagacity, he yet would not deign to leave behind him any
commentary or writing on such subjects; but, repudiating as sordid and
ignoble the whole trade of engineering, and every sort of art that
lends itself to mere use and profit, he placed his whole affection and
ambition in those purer speculations where there can be no reference
to the vulgar needs of life; studies, the superiority of which to all
others is unquestioned, and in which the only doubt can be, whether
the beauty and grandeur of the subjects examined, or the precision and
cogency of the methods and means of proof, most deserve our admiration.
It is not possible to find in all geometry more difficult and intricate
questions, or more simple and lucid explanations. Some ascribe this to
his natural genius; while others think that incredible effort and toil
produced these apparently easy and unlabored results. No amount of
investigation of yours would succeed in attaining the proof, and yet,
once seen, you immediately believe you would have discovered it; by so
smooth and so rapid a path he leads you to the conclusion required. And
thus it ceases to be incredible that (as is commonly told of him), the
charm of his familiar and domestic Siren made him forget his food and
neglect his person, to such a degree that when he was occasionally
carried by absolute violence to bathe, or have his body anointed, he
used to trace geometrical figures in the ashes of the fire, and diagrams
in the oil on his body, being in a state of entire preoccupation, and,
in the truest sense, divinely possessed with his love and delight in
science. His discoveries were numerous and admirable; and he is said
to have requested his friends and relations that when he was dead, they
would place over his tomb a cylinder containing a sphere, inscribing it
with the ratio of three to two which the containing solid bears to the
contained.