Over time, Archimedes’s achievements at Syracuse passed into legend, and some later historians, including the third-century historian Cassius Dio, could not resist the temptation to embellish the truth. In this account from Dio’s Roman History, Archimedes is presented more as a magician than a mathematician, providing Syracuse’s defenders with an array of fantastic powers; each seemingly conjured up from thin air as the need for them arose. As you read the excerpt, think about how his readers might have responded to Dio’s account. Would they have found his claims credible? Why or why not?

Now he [Marcellus] would have subdued it very speedily, as the result of a joint assault upon the wall by land and sea, had not Archimedes with his inventions enabled the inhabitants to resist for a very long time. For this man by his devices suspended stones and heavy-armed soldiers in the air, and these he would let down suddenly, and presently draw them up again. And he would lift up ships, even those equipped with towers, by means of other appliances which he dropped upon them; and raising them aloft, would let them drop suddenly, so that when they fell into the water they were sunk by the impact. At last in an incredible manner he burned up the whole Roman fleet. For by tilting a kind of mirror toward the sun he concentrated the sun’s beam upon it; and owing to the thickness and smoothness of the mirror he ignited the air from this beam and kindled a great flame, the whole of which he directed upon the ships that lay at anchor in the path of the fire, until he consumed them all.

Source: Earnest Cary, trans., Dio’s Roman History (London: William Heinemann, 1914), pp. 171–173.

Questions to Consider