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Plutarch (AD 45-120), Parallel Lives: Marcellus

And although he made many excellent

discoveries, he is said to have asked his
kinsmen and friends to place over the
grave where he should be buried a
cylinder enclosing a sphere, with an
inscription giving the proportion by which
the containing solid exceeds the contained.

,

.

In his work On the Sphere and Cylinder, Archimedes proved that the ratio of the volume of a sphere
to the volume of the cylinder that contains it is 2:3. In that same work he also proved that the ratio of
the surface area of a sphere to the surface area of the cylinder that contains it, together with its
circular ends, is also 2:3.
Because expressions for the volume and surface area of a cylinder were known before his time,
Archimedes results established the rst exact expressions for the volume and surface area of a
sphere.
English translation and Greek text edited by Bernadotte Perrin in Plutarchs Lives, Volume V, The Loeb Classical Library,
G. P. Putnams Sons, New York, 1917 (see pages 480-1).

John Tzetzes (circa twelfth century AD), Book of Histories (Chiliades), Book II, Lines 145-147

Marcellus straightway mourned on

learning this [Archimedes death], and
buried him with splendour in his ancestral
tomb, assisted by the noblest citizens and
all the Romans;

English translation by Earnest Cary in Dios Roman History, Volume II: Fragments of Books XII-XXXV, The Loeb Classical
Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1914.
Greek text from Ioannis TzeTzae: Historiarum Variarum Chiliades, edited by T. Kiessling, Leipzig, 1826 (see page 46).

Cicero (106-43 BC), Tusculan Disputations, Book V, Sections 64-66

But from Dionysiuss own city of

Non ego iam cum huius vita, qua taetrius

Syracuse I will summon up from the dust

where his measuring rod once traced its
linesan obscure little man who lived
many years later, Archimedes. When I was
questor in Sicily [in 75 BC, 137 years after
the death of Archimedes] I managed to

miserius detestabilius escogitare nihil

possum, Platonis aut Archytae vitam
comparabo, doctorum hominum et plane
sapientium: ex eadem urbe humilem
homunculum a pulvere et radio excitabo,
qui multis annis post fuit, Archimedem.

track down his grave. The Syracusians

knew nothing about it, and indeed denied
that any such thing existed. But there it
was, completely surrounded and hidden by
bushes of brambles and thorns. I
remembered having heard of some simple
lines of verse which had been inscribed on
his tomb, referring to a sphere and
cylinder modelled in stone on top of the
grave. And so I took a good look round all
the numerous tombs that stand beside the
Agrigentine Gate. Finally I noted a little
column just visible above the scrub: it was
surmounted by a sphere and a cylinder. I
immediately said to the Syracusans, some
of whose leading citizens were with me at
the time, that I believed this was the very
object I had been looking for. Men were
sent in with sickles to clear the site, and
when a path to the monument had been
opened we walked right up to it. And the
verses were still visible, though
approximately the second half of each line
had been worn away.

Cuius ego quaestor ignoratum ab

Syracusanis, cum esse omnino negarent,
saeptum undique et vestitum vepribus et
dumetis indagavi sepulcrum. Tenebam
enim quosdam senariolos, quos in eius
< 1 min to Spreed
monumento esse inscriptos acceperam,
qui declarabant in summo sepulcro
sphaeram esse positam cum cylindro. Ego
autem cum omnia conlustrarem oculis
est enimad portas Agragantinas magna
frequentia sepulcrorum -, animum adverti
columellam non multum e dumis
eminentem, in qua inerat sphaerae gura
et cylindri. Atque ego statim Syracusanis
erant autem principes mecumdixi me
illud ipsum arbitrari esse, quod
quaererem. lnmissi cum falcibus multi
purgarunt et aperuerunt locum. Quo cum
patefactus esset aditus, ad adversam basim
accessimus. Apparebat epigramma exesis
posterioribus partibus versiculorum
dimidiatum fere.

So one of the most famous cities in the

Ita nobilissima Graeciae civitas, quondam

Greek world, and in former days a great

centre of learning as well, would have
remained in total ignorance of the tomb of
the most brilliant citizen it had ever
produced, had a man from Arpinum not
come and pointed it out!

vero etiam doctissima, sui civis unius

acutissimi monumentum ignorasset, nisi
ab homine Arpinate didicisset.

Translation by Michael Grant in Cicero-On the Good Life, Penguin Books, New York, 1971, Pages 86-87.
Simmons, George F., Calculus Gems, McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, 1992, (see page 38)

The Romans were so uninterested in mathematics that Ciceros act of respect in cleaning
up Archimedes grave was perhaps the most memorable contribution of any Roman to the
history of mathematics.
Cicero himself lends credence to Simmons assessment when he writes (Tusculan Disputations, Book
I, Section 5):

Among them [the Greeks] geometry was

In summo apud illos honore geometria

held in highest honor; nothing was more

glorious than mathematics. But we [the
Romans] have limited the usefulness of
this art to measuring and calculating.

fuit, itaque nihil mathematicis inlustrius;

at nos metiendi ratiocinandique utilitate
huius artis terminavimus modum.

Wordsworth, William (1770-1850), The Excursion (Book Eighth: The Parsonage, lines 220-230)
Call Archimedes from his buried tomb

Upon the plain of vanished Syracuse,

And feelingly the Sage shall make report
How insecure, how baseless in itself,
Is the Philosophy, whose sway depends
On mere material instruments;how weak
Those arts, and high inventions, if unpropped
By virtue.He, sighing with pensive grief,
Amid his calm abstractions, would admit
That not the slender privilege is theirs
To save themselves from blank forgetfulness!