Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/135

 What traces have we left of that admirable science or skill in architecture, by which such stupendous fabrics have been raised of old, and so many of the wonders of the world been produced, and which are so little approached by our modern achievements of this sort that they hardly fall within our imagination Not to mention the walls and palace of Babylon, the pyramids of Egypt, the tomb of Mausolus, or colosse of Rhodes, the temples and palaces of Greece and Rome, what can be more admirable in this kind than the Roman theatres, their aqueducts, and their bridges? among which that of Trajan, over the Danube, seems to have been the last flight of the ancient architecture. The stupendous effects of this science sufficiently evince at what heights the mathematics were among the ancients; but if this be not enough, whoever would be satisfied, need go no further than the siege of Syracuse, and that mighty defence made against the Roman power, more by the wonderful science and arts of Archimedes, and almost magical force of his engines, than by all the strength of the city, or number and bravery of the inhabitants.

The greatest invention that I know of, in latter ages,