person
Archimedes of Syracuse
Archimedes
Greek mathematician and engineer (c. 287-212 BC), killed at the Roman capture of Syracuse. Inventor of the celestial globe described by Sulpicius Gallus in De Re Publica book 1.
Reading notes
- On the Ends of Good and Evil §5.50 what burning zeal do you suppose was in Archimedes
Archimedes, the great mathematician of Syracuse, was killed in 212 BC while absorbed in geometric diagrams during the Roman sack of the city. Cicero cites his absorption as a model of disinterested love of knowledge.
- On the Nature of the Gods §2.88 Archimedes did more in imitating the revolutions
Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287-212 BC), whose mechanical sphere reproduced the heavens' motions. Balbus uses it for the design argument: the original cosmos must be even more the work of reason than its artificial copy.
- On the Commonwealth §1.21 the celestial globe
An orrery built by Archimedes at Syracuse and brought to Rome by M. Marcellus when the city fell in 212 BC; one solid (a star-globe) and one mechanical (an armillary sphere reproducing the motions of sun, moon, and the five planets). Cicero's description is the principal classical evidence for it.
- Tusculan Disputations §1.63 when Archimedes bound the motions of the moon, the sun, and the five wandering stars into a sphere
Archimedes of Syracuse and his celebrated planetarium (sphaera), a mechanical model reproducing the motions of sun, moon, and planets. Cicero uses it to argue that ordered cosmic motion, like the model, requires a divine intelligence.
- Tusculan Disputations §5.64 Archimedes
Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287-212 BC), the greatest mathematician and engineer of antiquity. Cicero recounts how, as quaestor in Sicily (75 BC), he tracked down and restored Archimedes's neglected tomb.