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9. Archimedes and the Poets Catullus, Horace, and Virgil
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75 ARCHIMEDES AND THE POETS CATULLUS, HORACE, AND VIRGIL IX The innovations of Archimedes found their way into Latin poetry beginning, in all probability, with Ennius, whose eighth book of Annales described the Roman conquest of Sicily. Although unfortunately we only have about half of the verses of his description,1 we do have Silius Italicus’ account of the same conquest, composed approximately three centuries later. In the fourteenth book of his Punica, Silius portrays Archimedes as “defender of the fatherland” (defensor patriae, 676), mentioning, too, his innovative discoveries in weaponry (300–304) but chiefly celebrating the fact that through him the “heavens and earth were laid bare” (caelum terraeque paterent, 343), a reference to his discoveries in physics, meteorology, and astronomy.2 A year after Ennius’ death in 168 BC, the Roman historian Polybius, who wrote in Greek, brought Archimedes to Rome as a hostage. In the fragmentary eighth book of his Histories, Polybius left us the first detailed account of how 76 THE GREAT ARCHIMEDES IX the scientist had undertaken the defense of Syracuse (The Histories 8.5–9). Polybius established Archimedes’ reputation among the Romans, a reputation that remained strong throughout the centuries. In the first century BC, for example, one could still admire the two splendid planetariums transferred to Rome as spoils of war many years earlier by the conqueror of Syracuse, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who had one put in his own home and the other in the temple of Virtus. Cicero explains this story with a touch of Schadenfreude: [Sulpicius Gallus asked to see] a celestial globe, saved by Marcellus’ grandfather after the capture of that most opulent and magnificent city, Syracuse. This alone was the spoil he brought home from so great a victory. I had often heard mention made of this celestial globe on account of the glorious reputation of Archimedes. I was not so much amazed, however, at its appearance alone, for there was yet another, more elegant and better known, fashioned by Archimedes, which that same Marcellus had deposited in the Temple of Virtus at Rome. [De re publica 1.21] There are other noteworthy references to Archimedes in the Ciceronian corpus. In his Tusculan Disputations (5.23.64), for example, Cicero offers a moving account of how, when he was a financial officer (quaestor) in Sicily, he rediscovered Archimedes’ tomb, having come across it in Syracuse. A sphere surrounding a cylinder was engraved on it, representing in plastic art the subject of Archimedes ’ celebrated mathematical work On the Sphere and the Cylinder.3 Cicero’s account of the two suggests that the ancient orator appreciated Archimedes’ theoretical contribution more than even the amazing machines that he designed for [44.221.43.208] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 14:12 GMT) ARCHIMEDES AND THE POETS CATULLUS, HORACE, AND VIRGIL 77 IX civilian or military use. Such recognition of Archimedes’ acumen was not lost on Cicero’s contemporary writers. In Latin poetry, in particular, Archimedes’ fame has a distinctive flavor. Such a reputation is not surprising, since the separation between scientific and humanistic culture was much less starkly defined than it is today, and the intellectuals of the time were trying to repeat at Rome the dialogue that earlier critics and poets had maintained with scientists in the museum at Alexandria.4 Ennius, for example, had already treated subjects related to the properties of nature in a small poem entitled “Epicharmus,” of which eight short fragments survive. For that poem’s title he borrowed the name of the Sicilian poet of the Pythagorean tradition, who himself had written in a playful style on topics pertaining both to science and mythology. Any explicit mention of Archimedes, however, posed a particular difficulty for poets, as the name of the scientist begins with a metrical unit known as a “cretic” (long– short–long). Qua sound, therefore, “Archimedes” could not be formulated within the hexameter verse that many poets, especially those who wrote epic or didactic verse, regularly employed. The Roman epicist Silius Italicus, for example, is thus unable to mention Archimedes by name, even though he expresses great admiration for his work in physics and mathematics and for his contributions to military science. To obviate this metrical obstacle, in his third bucolic poem Virgil refers to Archimedes with a circumlocution that, by virtue of the manner of presentation, especially stands out. Through the banter of two characters, Virgil describes somewhat cryptically a cup offered as a prize for a poetic competition: 78 THE GREAT ARCHIMEDES...