Tom Holland

So instead, the Romans just wait, camped out in front of Syracuse, waiting for an opportunity.

And it arrives eight months before the walls of Syracuse because there is a festival called

The Romans notice that the guards are distracted.

They bring up ladders, they climb up, they pour over the outer walls and into the outer reaches of the city.

But there are still more walls within.

These are still protected.

They're massive.

They've got war machines and scorpions and whatnot.

So it's only eight months after that that the Romans finally succeed in capturing the whole city.

So it's taken them essentially a year and a half.

And Marcellus has said, yeah, you can loot the city, do what you want with it.

The only thing I want is I want Archimedes captured because, and to quote a biographer of Marcellus, he reckoned that to save such a great man would redound as much to his glory as would the capture of Syracuse.

They don't.

So Archimedes is among the dead.

And I think the story that is told of how he came to perish is a salutary warning to anyone doing maths that it can be very, very dangerous.

So the story goes that Archimedes is busy doing a geometrical puzzle.

He's doing it in the sand, you know, with a ruler.

Soldier comes up to him.

Archimedes tells him to go away.

The soldier is infuriated, draws his sword and hacks Archimedes to death.