exercises in detection of fallacies; Conic Sections, in four books, which are the foundation of a work on the same subject by Apollonius; and Loci on a Surface, the meaning of which title is not understood. Heiberg believes it to mean "loci which are surfaces."
The immediate successors of Euclid in the mathematical school at Alexandria were probably Conon, Dositheus, and Zeuxippus, but little is known of them.
Archimedes (287?–212 B.C.), the greatest mathematician of antiquity, was born in Syracuse. Plutarch calls him a relation of King Hieron; but more reliable is the statement of Cicero, who tells us he was of low birth. Diodorus says he visited Egypt, and, since he was a great friend of Conon and Eratosthenes, it is highly probable that he studied in Alexandria. This belief is strengthened by the fact that he had the most thorough acquaintance with all the work previously done in mathematics. He returned, however, to Syracuse, where he made himself useful to his admiring friend and patron. King Hieron, by applying his extraordinary inventive genius to the construction of various war-engines, by which he inflicted much loss on the Romans during the siege of Marcellus. The story that, by the use of mirrors reflecting the sun's rays, he set on fire the Roman ships, when they came within bow-shot of the walls, is probably a fiction. The city was taken at length by the Romans, and Archimedes perished in the indiscriminate slaughter which followed. According to tradition, he was, at the time, studying the diagram to some problem drawn in the sand. As a Roman soldier approached him, he called out, "Don't spoil my circles." The soldier, feeling insulted, rushed upon him and killed him. No blame attaches to the Roman general Marcellus, who admired his genius, and raised in his honour a tomb bearing the figure of a sphere inscribed in a cylinder. When
