阿基米德之死The death of Archimedes

77° The death of Archimedes. Archimedes met his end during the sack of Syracuse, and several versions of his death have been reported.

According to one account, Archimedes, unaware that Syracuse had been taken by Marcellus, was preoccupied with a diagram drawn on a sand tray when a pillaging Roman soldier entered his apartment. Seeing a shadow cast upon his diagram, Archimedes waved the intruder back and ordered him to stand clear of the figure, whereupon the incensed looter ran a spear through the old man.

Another version says that a Roman soldier entered Archimedes' study and commanded the old man to follow him to Marcellus. Archimedes, in a transport of contemplation upon a problem, declined to do so before he completed his demonstration. The enraged soldier thereupon drew his sword and ran it through the old man.

Still another version reports that a Roman soldier, running upon Archimedes, made to kill the scholar. Archimedes besought the soldier to wait a little, so that he might not leave inconclusive a problem upon which he was engaged. But the soldier, unmoved by the entreaty, instantly killed the great mathematician.

Another account relates that Archimedes was carrying some valuable mathematical instruments to Marcellus when some soldiers saw him and, thinking he carried gold in a vessel, slew the old man.

Plutarch says that nothing afflicted Marcellus so much as the death of Archimedes. The Roman general had given strict orders that no harm was to come to the great man, and one can only imagine the general's ire, and what happened to the GI who disobeyed orders.