Page:The Children's Plutarch, Romans.djvu/82

 Other machines were yet more frightful. They thrust out enormous iron hooks over the walls, which gripped hold of a galley, lifted the ship half out of the water, and then quickly let it go, so that it heeled over and sank.

The soldiers who tried to storm the walls on the land side of the city were baffled by engines of the same awful power. The Romans became at last so nervous that if they only saw a stick pushed over the top of the wall, they thought the mysterious engineer was about to work some mischief, and they retired in confusion.

Marcellus could not help smiling.

“This engineer,” he said, “has a hundred hands.”

The name of the clever engineer was Archimedes (Ar-ki-mee-deez). He was a great geometer—that is, he had a mighty mind for studying the measurements of things, and the forces by which they moved. Or, if you will pardon my using another long word, he was a great mathematician. Yet you see he did not keep his science for his own pleasure, in his own chamber, in his own house. He used his skill, or genius, to help his native country.

Marcellus, however, was undismayed. Never did he lose heart, no matter what dangers he had to withstand. He left off the attacks by sea and land. The city must be starved. After a long