GREEK SCIENCE IN ALEXANDRIA 105 



"the technical Yankee of antiquity," may be inferred from Plu- 

 tarch's account of the siege of Syracuse : 



Now the Syracusans, seeing themselves assaulted by the Romans, 

 both by sea and by land, were marvellously perplexed, and could not 

 tell what to say, they were so afraid ; imagining it was impossible for 

 them to withstand so great an army. But when Archimedes fell to 

 handling his engines, and set them at liberty, there flew in the air 

 infinite kinds of shot, and marvellous great stones, with an incredible 

 noise and force on the sudden, upon the footmen that came to assault 

 the city by land, bearing down, and tearing in pieces all those which 

 came against them, or in what place soever they lighted, no earthly 

 body being able to resist the violence of so heavy a weight ; so that 

 all their ranks were marvellously disordered. And as for the galleys 

 that gave assault by sea, some were sunk with long pieces of timber 

 like unto the yards of ships, whereto they fasten their sails, which 

 were suddenly blown over the walls with force of their engines into 

 their galleys, and so sunk them by their over great weight. 



These machines (used in the defense of the Syracusans against 

 the Romans under Marcellus) he (Archimedes) had designed and 

 contrived, not as matters of any importance, but as mere amusements 

 in geometry; in compliance w r ith king Hiero's desire and request, 

 some time before, that he should reduce to practice some part of his 

 admirable speculation in science, and by accommodating the theo- 

 retic 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 me- 

 chanics, which they employed as an elegant illustration of geometrical 

 truths, and as means of sustaining experimentally, to the satisfaction 

 of the senses, conclusions too intricate for proof by words and dia- 

 grams. As, for example, to solve the problem, so often required in 

 constructing geometrical figures, given the two extremes, to find the 

 two mean lines of a proportion, both these mathematicians had re- 

 course 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 annihila- 

 tion of the one good of geometry, which was thus shamefully turn- 

 ing its back upon the unembodied objects of pure intelligence to recur 

 to sensation, and to ask help (not to be obtained without base super- 



