use in them; and from many small loop-holes pierced through the wall
small scorpions, as they are called, stood ready to shoot the enemy,
though invisible to them.

XVI. When then they attacked, expecting that they would not be seen,
they again encountered a storm of blows from stones which fell
perpendicularly upon their heads and darts which were poured from all
parts of the wall. They were forced to retire, and when they came
within range of the larger machines missiles were showered upon them
as they retreated, destroying many men and throwing the ships into
great disorder, without their being able to retaliate. For most of the
engines on the walls had been devised by Archimedes, and the Romans
thought that they were fighting against gods and not men, as
destruction fell upon them from invisible hands.

XVII. However, Marcellus escaped unhurt, and sarcastically said to his
own engineers: "Are we to give in to this Briareus of a geometrician,
who sits at his ease by the seashore and plays at upsetting our ships,
to our lasting disgrace, and surpasses the hundred-handed giant of
fable by hurling so many weapons at us at once?" For indeed all the
other Syracusans were merely the limbs of Archimedes, and his mind
alone directed and guided everything. All other arms were laid aside
and the city trusted to his weapons solely for defence and safety. At
length Marcellus, seeing that the Romans had become so scared that if
only a rope or small beam were seen over the wall they would turn and
fly, crying out that Archimedes was bringing some engine to bear upon
them, ceased assaulting the place, and trusted to time alone to reduce
it. Yet Archimedes had so great a mind and such immense philosophic
speculations that although by inventing these engines he had acquired
the glory of a more than human intellect, he would not condescend to
leave behind him any writings upon the subject, regarding the whole
business of mechanics and the useful arts as base and vulgar, but
placed his whole study and delight in those speculations in which
absolute beauty and excellence appear unhampered by the necessities of
life, and argument is made to soar above its subject matter, since by
the latter only bulk and outward appearance, but by the other accuracy
of reasoning and wondrous power, can be attained: for it is impossible
in the whole science of geometry to find more difficult hypotheses
explained on clearer or more simple principles than