Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
distributed to the foot long lances, such as are commonly used in naval
fights; and instructed them to throw them with great force at convenient
distance against the enemies who were inexperienced in that way of
darting, and used to fight with short darts hand to hand. This seems to
have been the cause of the total rout and open flight of all the
Carthaginians who were then engaged: there fell of them five thousand;
four elephants were killed, and two taken; but, what was of greatest
moment, on the third day after, more than three hundred horse, Spaniards
and Numidians mixed, deserted to him, a disaster that had never to that
day happened to Hannibal, who had long kept together in harmony an army
of barbarians, collected out of many various and discordant nations.
Marcellus and his successors in all this war made good use of the
faithful service of these horsemen.
He now was a third time created consul, and sailed over into Sicily. For
the success of Hannibal had excited the Carthaginians to lay claim to
that whole island; chiefly because after the murder of the tyrant
Hieronymus, all things had been in tumult and confusion at Syracuse. For
which reason the Romans also had sent before to that city a force under
the conduct of Appius, as praetor. While Marcellus was receiving that
army, a number of Roman soldiers cast themselves at his feet, upon
occasion of the following calamity. Of those that survived the battle at
Cannae, some had escaped by flight, and some were taken alive by the
enemy; so great a multitude, that it was thought there were not remaining
Romans enough to defend the walls of the city. And yet the magnanimity
and constancy of the city was such, that it would not redeem the captives
from Hannibal, though it might have done so for a small ransom; a decree
of the senate forbade it, and chose rather to leave them to be killed by
the enemy, or sold out of Italy; and commanded that all who had saved
themselves by flight should be transported into Sicily, and not permitted
to return into Italy, until the war with Hannibal should be ended.
These, therefore, when Marcellus was arrived in Sicily, addressed
themselves to him in great numbers; and casting themselves at his feet,
with much lamentation and tears humbly besought him to admit them to
honorable service; and promised to make it appear by their future
fidelity and exertions, that that defeat had been received rather by
misfortune than by cowardice. Marcellus, pitying them, petitioned the
senate by letters, that he might have leave at all times to recruit his
legions out of them. After much debate about the thing, the senate
decreed they were of opinion that the commonwealth did not require the
service of cowardly soldiers; if Marcellus perhaps thought otherwise, he
might make use of them, provided no one of them be honored on any
occasion with a crown or military gift, as a reward of his virtue or
courage. This decree stung Marcellus; and on his return to Rome, after
the Sicilian war was ended, he upbraided the senate, that they had denied
to him, who had so highly deserved of the republic, liberty to relieve so
great a number of citizens in great calamity.
At this time Marcellus, first incensed by injures done him by
Hippocrates, commander of the Syracusans, (who, to give proof of his good
affection to the Carthaginians, and to acquire the tyranny to himself,
had killed a number of Romans at Leontini,) besieged and took by force
the city of Leontini; yet violated none of the townsmen; only deserters,
as many as he took, he subjected to the punishment of the rods and axe.
But Hippocrates, sending a report to Syracuse, that Marcellus had put all
the adult population to the sword, and then coming upon the Syracusans,
who had risen in tumult upon that false report, made himself master of
the city. Upon this Marcellus moved with his whole army to Syracuse,
and, encamping near the wall, sent ambassadors into the city to relate to
the Syracusans the truth of what had been done in Leontini. When these
could not prevail by treaty, the whole power being now in the hands of
Hippocrates, he 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 theoretic truth to sensation and ordinary use,
bring it more within the appreciation of people in general. Eudoxus and
Archytas had been the first 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. 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 base subservience and
depravation) from matter; so it was that mechanics came to be separated
from geometry, and, 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 given 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 affluence. 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 meantime 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. At the engine that Marcellus brought upon the bridge of ships,
which was called Sambuca from some resemblance it had to an instrument of
music, while it was as yet approaching the wall, there was discharged a
piece of a 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 foundation 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 indicted 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 provided and fixed most of his
engines immediately under the wall; whence 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, "What," said he, "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?" And, doubtless,
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, instantly crying out, that
there it was again, Archimedes was about to let fly some engine at them,
they 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