322 GREEK SCIENCE. 



a mathematical diagram ; and, when a soldier burst into the room, 

 refused to attend to him, till he had finished his demonstration : on 

 which the man, with the carelessness of human life which such scenes 

 produce, killed the venerable philosopher upon the spot. According 

 to some, when about to be put to death, he pleaded, like Lavoisier 

 in modern times, for a short respite to finish the philosophical 

 inquiries on which he was engaged, which, as in that case, was also 

 refused. 



Death of Thus died, at the age of seventy-five, one of the most extraordinary 



Archimedes, mathematical geniuses of any age or nation. Marcellus was grieved at 

 the fmitlessness of his attempt to save him, and honoured his memory 

 by liberality towards his surviving relations. A sepulchre was built for 

 him on which was placed a sphere and a cylinder, figures which had 

 been the subject of some of his most beautiful discoveries. But neither 

 his mathematical fame, nor his defence of Syracuse, seem to have kept 

 him long in the memory of his countrymen. When Cicero, travelling 

 in Sicily less than 140 years afterwards, inquired for his tomb, he 

 was told by the Syracusans that nothing of the kind existed. " I 

 recollected," he says, " some verses, which I had understood to be 

 inscribed on his monument, which indicated that on the top of it 

 there was a sphere and a cylinder. On looking over the burying- 

 ground (for at the gate of the city the tombs are very numerous and 

 crowded), I saw a small pillar just appearing above the brushwood, 

 with a sphere and a cylinder upon it, and immediately told those who 

 were with me, who were the principal persons in Syracuse, that I 

 believed that to be what I was seeking. Workmen were sent in with 

 bills to clear and open the place, and when it was accessible we went 

 to the opposite side of the pedestal : there we found the inscription, 

 with the latter portions of the lines worn away, so that about half of 

 it was gone. And thus one of the most illustrious cities of Greece, 

 and one formerly of the most literary, would have remained ignorant 

 of the monument of a citizen so distinguished for his talents, if they 

 had not learnt it from a man of a small Samnite village." 



Archimedes was incomparably the most inventive and original of 

 ancient mathematicians, and seems to have possessed the power of 

 applying his geometry to a greater diversity of subjects, and of over- 

 coming difficulties of a more various kind. If he had had one or two 

 successors of equal genius with himself, it is not easy to see to what 

 extent or in what direction the science of the ancients would have 

 advanced ; but it must certainly have anticipated some of the dis- 

 coveries of modern times, though probably by methods a good deal 

 different from ours. The mechanics of equilibrium, hydrostatics, and 

 catoptrics might have been brought nearly to perfection, for they were 

 in possession of the principles on which these depend. In fact, how- 

 ever, no advance of consequence was made in mixed mathematics. 

 In astronomy alone had they adopted the only source of knowledge, 

 assiduous and accurate observation. And the discoveries of mathe- 



