ARCHIMEDES, the most celebrated geometer and mechanic of antiquity, was born at Syracuse, about the year 287 or 291 before the Christian xra. Though Cicero has unaccountably applied to Archimedes, the epithet. of humilis homunculus,* an appellation which could not have been suggested by the obscure origin of his mother ; yet it appears from Plutarch, that he was nearly related by his father, to Hiero, King of Syracuse.t At an early period of life, Archimedes devoted his at tention to the study of geometry and mechanics ; and though the prospects of honour and preferment which his connection with the King of Syracuse might have permitted him to indulge, would have damped the ener gies of ordinary minds, they served only to stimulate Archimedes to the highest exertions of genius. Hav ing acquired the sciences of his native country, he tra velled into Egypt, which for several centuries had been the favourite resort of the Grecian sages. lie conti nued several years in this birth-place of the arts ; and after enjoying the society of the most eminent philoso phers, and enriching his mind with the knowledge which they communicated, he returned to his native country, loaded with the intellectual treasures of Egypt. In op position to the positive opinion of Abulpharagius, who asserts that Archimedes derived his knowledge front the Egyptians, one of the biographers of this philoso pher has strangely remarked, that, during his stay in Egypt, Archimedes communicated to the Egyptians more knowledge than he received. Such a sentiment, hostile to every page of history, might have been appli ed with equal justice to the Grecian philosophers, who, during the infancy of science in their own country, went in search of it to foreign climes. The literary spoils, which they carried back to Europe, were never suffici ently acknowledged as the productions of foreign genius; and posterity have long been accustomed to admire the wisdom of Greece, without considering how much of that admiration was due to the genius of Egypt. At such a period of society, it was difficult to detect and expose this species of literary pillage ; and, at this dis tance of time, it is impossible to assign to the Egyp tians the various inventions and discoveries which were stolen from them by the Greeks; hut one thing is cer tain, that many of the discoveries which Greece has ap propriated to herself, were never made public till her philosophers had returned from the banks of the Nile.
We do not mean to apply these observations to the case of Archimedes, or to derogate from the inventive powers of his genius, but we strongly suspect that the wonderful machines, consisting of combinations of the mechanical powers, which he exhibited at the siege of Syracuse, and with which he resisted for a while all the resources of the Roman power, were in some degree borrowed from the Egyptians. We know at least, that, long before Archimedes visited Egypt, this country must have possessed machinery capable of greater effects than those which were produced by the Syracusan philoso. pher ; for we find immense masses of stone, elevated to heights to which all the ingenuity of modern times could not possibly raise them.
When Archimedes returned to Syracuse, he devoted the whole energies of his mind to the mathematical and physical sciences. Withdrawn in a great measure from
the world, his sequestered life does not present any of those occurrences which biography delights to record. It was marked only to himself by his progress in science, and by the brilliant transitions of his mind to those suc cessive discoveries in geometry, which posterity, with unanimous consent, have agreed to immortalise. The dangers of his country, however, induced him to aban don the tranquillity of retirement, and to try the resources of his genius against a power which the physical ener gies of Syracuse were unable to repel.
During the war which raged between Hiero and the Romans, about 212 A. C., the latter gained several ad vantages in Sicily, and at length determined to lay siege to Syracuse. T,hc Syracusans were struck with terror at the naval and military preparations of Marcellus, and were prepared for an ignominious surrender to the Ro man arms. Archimedes, however, animated his coun trymen ; and by erecting vast machines under the cover of the walls, he disconcerted all the attempts of the Ro man engineers, and inspired such terror into the enemy, that the soldiers refused to march against a city which seemed to be defended by more than human power. We shall not pretend to describe the machines by which this noble defence was made. Though the subject may be resumed in another part of our work, we shall leave it chiefly to those antiquarian mechanics, whose fancy is brighter than their judgment, to determine the com bination of mechanical powers, by which such effects could be produced ; and shall content ourselves with hazarding a suspicion, that there is no small degree of romance in the exploits of Archimedes ; and that, after the most careful investigation, some of them will be suffered to remain among the fables of antiquity. We have no hesitation in allowing that Archimedes may have so improved the Casa/mita. and Ballistx of the ancients, as to discharge stones and missile weapons to a greater distz:nce, and with greater force than had been done be fore. We may even admit, that, by means of long levers, he administered a few serious blows to the Roman fleet ; and we might with some difficulty be persuaded that, by a combination of plain mirrors, he singed the sails and shrouds of the hostile ships. But when we are told by grave historians, that the whole Roman fleet was consumed by the concentrated heat of the sun; that a stone of 1250 pounds weight was discharged at the Sambuca of Marcellus ; that hooked levers stretched themselves over the walls,,and, undisturbed by the heav ing of the surges or the exertions of the mariners, took quiet possession of the ships, and sunk them to the bot tom ;—and that grappling hooks, affixed to ropes, seized the galleys by the prow, raised them from the deep, and whirled them in circular rotation through the at mosphere, till the violence of the centrifugal force, dis charged the giddy crew into the air ; when we are told of all this, we feel ourselves transported into the regions of fable, and can scarcely refrain from smiling at the delusions which credulous and sober historians have been the means of practising upon the common sense of mankind.