XIV.  In Sicily, at this time, he had just cause of complaint against Hippokrates the Syracusan general, who, favouring the Carthaginian side, and wishing to establish himself as despot, put to death many Romans at Leontini.  Marcellus took Leontini by storm, and did no harm to the inhabitants, but flogged and executed all the deserters whom he found.  Hippokrates first sent to Syracuse a story that Marcellus was exterminating the people of Leontini, and when this report had thrown the city into confusion he fell upon it and made himself master of it.  Marcellus hereupon proceeded to Syracuse with his whole army, and encamping near the city sent ambassadors to tell them what had really happened in Leontini.  By this, however, he gained nothing, as the Syracusans would not listen to him (for the party of Hippokrates was in the ascendant).  He now attacked the city both by sea and land, Appius commanding the land forces, while Marcellus directed a fleet of sixty quinqueremes[15] full of armed men and missile weapons.  He raised a vast engine upon a raft made by lashing eight ships together, and sailed with it to attack the wall, trusting to the numbers and excellence of his siege engines, and to his own personal prestige.  But Archimedes and his machines cared nothing for this, though he did not speak of any of these engines as being constructed by serious labour, but as the mere holiday sports of a geometrician.  He would not indeed have constructed them but at the earnest request of King Hiero, who entreated him to leave the abstract for the concrete, and to bring his ideas within the comprehension of the people by embodying them in tangible forms.

Eudoxus and Archytas were the first who began to treat of this renowned science of mechanics, cleverly illustrating it, and proving such problems as were hard to understand, by means of solid and actual instruments, as, for instance, both of them resorted to mechanical means to find a mean proportional, which is necessary for the solution of many other geometrical questions.  This they did by the construction, from various curves and sections, of certain instruments called mesographs.  Plato was much vexed at this, and inveighed against them for destroying the real excellence of geometry by making it leave the region of pure intellect and come within that of the senses, and become mixed up with bodies which require much base servile labour.  So mechanics became separated from geometry, and, long regarded with contempt by philosophy, was reckoned among the military arts.  However Archimedes, who was a relative and friend of Hiero, wrote that with a given power he could move any given weight whatever, and, as it were rejoicing in the strength of his demonstration, he is said to have declared that if he were given another world to stand upon, he could move this upon which we live.  Hiero wondered at this, and begged him to put this theory into practice, and show him something great moved by a small force.  Archimedes took a three-masted