whole of their army, and the general himself, and Hippocrates, who had joined him, died. Marcellus made several attempts against Syracuse; but when from the sea-side he attacked the Achradina, all his endeavours were baffled by the mechanical skill of Archimedes. As is well known, there are many accounts of this matter: the best authenticated confines itself to this, that Archimedes foiled all the attempts of the Romans to sap the walls; that he smashed the sheds which protected the assailants, and destroyed the battering engines on their ships by his superior machinery. It seems less true that he set fire to the Roman fleet with burning-glasses: the silence of Livy, and consequently of Polybius, from whom he borrowed his description, bears witness against it. Marcellus never could have taken the town, had he not by chance perceived that part of the wall, which adjoined the sea, was but badly fortified, and had he not heard at the same time from deserters that the citizens were quite heedlessly keeping a festival. This day he availed himself of to scale that weak place; and thus the Romans became masters of two parts of the town, Tycha and Neapolis, and soon afterwards of the Epipolæ, that is to say, the town on the heights: the greater portion was still to be taken, namely, the old town (Νᾶσος), and the most flourishing part, namely, the Achradina; for Tycha and Neapolis were only suburbs, which were not even connected with the city. The Syracusans now began to treat. They were much inclined to surrender, and Marcellus wished for nothing better; but the Roman deserters, in their rage and despair, wanted to hold out to the last gasp, and they managed to mislead the mercenaries, and to inspire them with their own fury. Thus in a massacre the most eminent citizens were butchered, and these barbarians usurped the government; so that there was now at Syracuse the same terrible state of things which we read of in Josephus of the besieged city of Jerusalem. If the Romans ever could have openly departed from their principles, and have allowed the deserters to go out free, Syracuse would not have been destroyed: but they would not deviate from them ostensibly, although they did so in other ways; for they had recourse in this war to bribery and corruption of every kind, means which they had formerly scouted. Marcellus bribed Mericus, a Spanish general among the mercenaries, to give up to him part of the Achradina; and this treachery was planned with such fiendish cleverness that it was completely successful. The garrison of the Νᾶσος was enticed out under the pretence of repelling the enemy, and the Νᾶσος as well as Achradina were taken. Syracuse was at that time the most magnificent of all the Greek cities, Athens having long since lost its splendour. Timæus, who had lived in the latter city, and must needs have had a distinct remembrance of it, acknowledged Syracuse as the first and greatest of all.