device in
execution, and to make him see by experience, some great or heavy weight
removed, by little force. So Archimedes caught hold with a book of one
of the greatest carects, or hulks of the king (that to draw it to the
shore out of the water required a marvellous number of people to go
about it, and was hardly to be done so) and put a great number of men
more into her, than her ordinary burden: and he himself sitting alone
at his ease far off, without any straining at all, drawing the end of an
engine with many wheels and pulleys, fair and softly with his hand, made
it come as gently and smoothly to him, as it had floated in the sea. The
king wondering to see the sight, and knowing by proof the greatness of
his art; be prayed him to make him some engines, both to assault and
defend, in all manner of sieges and assaults. So Archimedes made him
many engines, but King Hiero never occupied any of them, because he
reigned the most part of his time in peace without any wars. But
this provision and munition of engines, served the Syracusan's turn
marvellously at that time: and not only the provision of the engines
ready made, but also the engineer and work-master himself, that had
invented them.

"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 to 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."

Polybius describes what was perhaps the most important of these
contrivances, which was, he tells us, "a band of iron, hanging by
a chain from the beak of a machine, which was used in the following
manner. The person who,