ast by any method
which made it possible for Archimedes to oppose them. They believed,
however, that their best chance of reducing the garrison was by a
failure of provisions sufficient for so large a number as were within
the town; they therefore relied upon this hope, and with their ships
tried to cut off their supplies by sea, and with their army by land.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 88: This paragraph is taken from Book XI.]

[Footnote 89: From Book VIII of the "Histories." Translated by Evelyn
S. Shuckburgh. Syracuse was now an ally of Carthage in the Punic war,
but in the earlier Punic war had been an ally of Rome.]

[Footnote 90: A celebrated statesman and general, born before 268
B.C., died in 208; five times Consul; defeated the Gauls; defended
Nola; captured Syracuse; commanded Apulia against Hannibal; killed in
a skirmish at Venusia.]

[Footnote 91: The celebrated geometrician, who discovered the
principle of the lever, and after detecting an alloy uttered the
famous exclamation "Eureka." He was killed at the siege of Syracuse.]

PLUTARCH

Born in Chaeronea in Boeotia about 46 A.D.; died in 125;
celebrated for his forty-six "Lives of Greeks and Romans,"
and for works on philosophical and moral subjects; settled
at Athens at the time of Nero's visit in 66, and traveled in
Greece, Egypt and Italy; being in Rome during the reign of
Vespasian; lived at Chaeronea in the latter part of his life
where he was elected archon.[92]

I

DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO COMPARED[93]

Furthermore, leaving the comparison aside of the difference of their
eloquence in their orations: methinks I may say thus much of them.
That Demosthenes did wholly employ all his wit and learning (natural
or artificial) unto the art of rhetoric, and that in force, and vertue
of eloquence, he did excel all the orators in his time: and for
gravity and magnificent style, all those also that only write for shew
or ostentation: and for sharpness and art, all the sophisters and
masters of rhetoric. And that Cicero was a man generally learned in
all sciences, and that had studied divers books, as appeareth plainly
by the sundry books of philosophy of his own making, written after the
manner of the Academic philosophers. Furthermore, they may see in his
orations he wrote in certain causes to serve him when he pleaded: that
he sought occasions in his by-talk to shew men that he was excellently
well learned. Fur