Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
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, to all appearance, 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 that 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, divine possession with his love and delight in science.
His discoveries were numerous and admirable; but he is said to have
requested his friends and relations that when he was dead, they would
place over his tomb a sphere containing a cylinder, inscribing it with
the ratio which the containing solid bears to the contained.
Such was Archimedes, who now showed himself, and, so far as lay in him,
the city also, invincible. While the siege continued, Marcellus took
Megara, one of the earliest founded of the Greek cities in Sicily, and
capturing also the camp of Hippocrates at Acilae, killed above eight
thousand men, having attacked them whilst they were engaged in forming
their fortifications. He overran a great part of Sicily; gained over
many towns from the Carthaginians, and overcame all that dared to
encounter him. As the siege went on, one Damippus, a Lacedaemonian,
putting to sea in a ship from Syracuse, was taken. When the Syracusans
much desired to redeem this man, and there were many meetings and
treaties about the matter betwixt them and Marcellus, he had opportunity
to notice a tower into which a body of men might be secretly introduced,
as the wall near to it was not difficult to surmount, and it was itself
carelessly guarded. Coming often thither, and entertaining conferences
about the release of Damippus, he had pretty well calculated the height
of the tower, and got ladders prepared. The Syracusans celebrated a
feast to Diana; this juncture of time, when they were given up entirely
to wine and sport, Marcellus laid hold of, and, before the citizens
perceived it, not only possessed himself of the tower, but, before the
break of day, filled the wall around with soldiers, and made his way into
the Hexapylum. The Syracusans now beginning to stir, and to be alarmed
at the tumult, he ordered the trumpets everywhere to sound, and thus
frightened them all into flight, as if all parts of the city were already
won, though the most fortified, and the fairest, and most ample quarter
was still ungained. It is called Acradina, and was divided by a wall
from the outer city, one part of which they call Neapolis, the other
Tycha. Possessing himself of these, Marcellus, about break of day,
entered through the Hexapylum, all his officers congratulating him. But
looking down from the higher places upon the beautiful and spacious city
below, he is said to have wept much, commiserating the calamity that hung
over it, when his thoughts represented to him, how dismal and foul the
face of the city would in a few hours be, when plundered and sacked by
the soldiers. For among the officers of his army there was not one man
that durst deny the plunder of the city to the soldiers' demands; nay,
many were instant that it should be set on fire and laid level to the
ground: but this Marcellus would not listen to. Yet he granted, but
with great unwillingness and reluctance, that the money and slaves should
be made prey; giving orders, at the same time, that none should violate
any free person, nor kill, misuse, or make a slave of any of the
Syracusans. Though he had used this moderation, he still esteemed the
condition of that city to be pitiable, and, even amidst the
congratulations and joy, showed his strong feelings of sympathy and
commiseration at seeing all the riches accumulated during a long
felicity, now dissipated in an hour. For it is related, that no less
prey and plunder was taken here, than afterward in Carthage. For not
long after, they obtained also the plunder of the other parts of the city,
which were taken by treachery; leaving nothing untouched but the king's
money, which was brought into the public treasury. But nothing afflicted
Marcellus so much as the death of Archimedes; who was then, as fate would
have it, intent upon working out some problem by a diagram, and having
fixed his mind alike and his eyes upon the subject of his speculation, he
never noticed the incursion of the Romans, nor that the city was taken.
In this transport of study and contemplation, a soldier, unexpectedly
coming up to him, commanded him to follow to Marcellus; which he
declining to do before he had worked out his problem to a demonstration,
the soldier, enraged, drew his sword and ran him through. Others write,
that a Roman soldier, running upon him with a drawn sword, offered to
kill him; and that Archimedes, looking back, earnestly besought him to
hold his hand a little while, that he might not leave what he was then at
work upon inconclusive and imperfect; but the soldier, nothing moved by
his entreaty, instantly killed him. Others again relate, that as
Archimedes was carrying to Marcellus mathematical instruments, dials,
spheres, and angles, by which the magnitude of the sun might be measured
to the sight, some soldiers seeing him, and thinking that he carried gold
in a vessel, slew him. Certain it is, that his death was very afflicting
to Marcellus; and that Marcellus ever after regarded him that killed him
as a murderer; and that he sought for his kindred and honored them with
signal favors.
Indeed, foreign nations had held the Romans to be excellent soldiers and
formidable in battle; but they had hitherto given no memorable example of
gentleness, or humanity, or civil virtue; and Marcellus seems first to
have shown to the Greeks, that his countrymen were most illustrious for
their justice. For such was his moderation to all with whom he had
anything to do, and such his benignity also to many cities and private
men, that, if anything hard or severe was decreed concerning the people of
Enna, Megara, or Syracuse, the blame was thought to belong rather to
those upon whom the storm fell, than to those who brought it upon them.
One example of many I will commemorate. In Sicily there is a town called
Engyium, not indeed great, but very ancient and ennobled by the presence
of the goddesses, called the Mothers. The temple, they say, was built by
the Cretans; and they show some spears and brazen helmets, inscribed with
the names of Meriones, and (with the same spelling as in Latin) of
Ulysses, who consecrated them to the goddesses. This city highly
favoring the party of the Carthaginians, Nicias, the most eminent of the
citizens, counseled them to go over to the Romans; to that end acting
freely and openly in harangues to their assemblies, arguing the
imprudence and madness of the opposite course. They, fearing his power
and authority, resolved to deliver him in bonds to the Carthaginians.
Nicias, detecting the design, and seeing that his person was secretly
kept in watch, proceeded to speak irreligiously to the vulgar of the
Mothers, and showed many signs of disrespect, as if he denied and
contemned the received opinion of the presence of those goddesses; his
enemies the while rejoicing, that he, of his own accord, sought the
destruction hanging over his head. When they were just now about to lay
hands upon him, an assembly was held, and here Nicias, making a speech to
the people concerning some affair then under deliberation, in the midst
of his address, cast himself upon the ground; and soon after, while
amazement (as usually happens on such surprising occasions) held the
assembly immovable, raising and turning his head round, he began in a
trembling and deep tone, but by degrees raised and sharpened his voice.
When he saw the whole theater struck with horror and silence, throwing
off his mantle and rending his tunic, he leaps up half naked, and runs
towards the door, crying out aloud that he was driven by the wrath of the
Mothers. When no man durst, out of religious fear, lay hands upon him or
stop him, but all gave way before him, he ran out of the gate, not
omitting any shriek or gesture of men possessed and mad. His wife,
conscious of his counterfeiting, and privy to his design, taking her
children with her, first cast herself as a suppliant before the temple of
the goddesses; then, pretending to seek her wandering husband, no man
hindering her, went out of the town in safety; and by this means they all
escaped to Marcellus at Syracuse. After many other such affronts offered
him by the men of Engyium, Marcellus, having taken them all prisoners and
cast them into bonds, was preparing to inflict upon them the last
punishment; when Nicias, with tears in his eyes, addressed himself to
him. In fine, casting himself at Marcellus's feet, and deprecating for
his citizens, he begged most earnestly their lives, chiefly those of his
enemies. Marcellus, relenting, set them all at liberty, and rewarded
Nicias with ample lands and rich presents. This history is recorded by
Posidonius the philosopher.
Marcellus, at length recalled by the people of Rome to the immediate war
at home, to illustrate his triumph, and adorn the city, carried away with
him a great number of the most beautiful ornaments of Syracuse. For,
before that, Rome neither had, nor had seen, any of those fine and
exquisite rarities; nor was any pleasure taken in graceful and elegant
pieces of workmanship. Stuffed with barbarous arms and spoils stained
with blood, and everywhere crowned with triumphal memorials and trophies,
she was no pleasant or delightful spectacle for the eyes of peaceful or
refined spectators: but, as Epaminondas named the fields of Boeotia the
stage of Mars; and Xenophon called Ephesus the workhouse of war; so, in
my judgment, may you call Rome, at that time, (to use the words of
Pindar,) "the precinct of the peaceless Mars." Whence Marcellus was more
popular with the people in general, because he had adorned the city with
beautiful objects that had all the charms of Grecian grace and symmetry;
but Fabius Maximus, who neither touched nor brought away anything of
this kind from Tarentum, when he had taken it, was more approved of by
the elder men. He carried off the money and valuables, but forbade the
statues to be moved; adding, as it is commonly related, "Let us leave to
the Tarentines these offended gods." They blamed Marcellus, first, for
placing the city in an invidious position, as it seemed now to celebrate
victories and lead processions of triumph, not only over men, but also