Archimedes Texts

119
which we are told Nero built a Temple to
Fortune in his golden Palace, which was so
white, so clear and transparent, that even when
all the Doors were shut the Light seemed to be
enclose within the Temple. All these Things
are very Noble in themselves; but they will
make no Figure if there is not Care and Art
used in their Composition or putting together:
For every Thing must be reduced to exact Mea
sure, so that all the Parts may correspond with
one another, the Right with the Left, the
lower Parts with the Upper, with nothing in
terfering that may blemish either the Order or
the Materials, but every Thing squared to ex
act Angles and similar Lines. We may often
observe that base Materials managed with Art,
make a handsomer Shew than the Noblest
heaped together in Confusion. Who can ima
gine that the Wall of Atheus, which Thucydides
informs us was built so tumultuously that they
even threw into it some of the Statues of their
Sepulchres, could have any Beauty in it, or be
any ways adorned by being full of broken Sta
tues? On the Contrary, we are very much
pleased with the Walls of some old Country
Houses, though they are built of any Stone
that the People could pick up; because they
are disposed in even Rows, with an alternate
Checquer of Black and White: so that con
sidering the Meanness of the Structure, no
thing can be desired handsomer. But perhaps
this Consideration belongs rather to that Part
of the Wall which is called the outward Coat,
than to the Body of the Wall itself. To con
clude, all your Materials should be so distribu
ted that nothing should be begun, but accord
ing to some judicious Plan; nothing carried on
but in pursuance of the same; and no Part of
it left imperfect, but finished and compleated
with the utmost Care and Diligence. But the
principal Ornament both of the Wall and Co
vering, and especially of all vaulted Roofs (al
ways excepted Columns) is the outward Coat:
And this may be of several Sorts; either all
white, or adorned with Figures and Stuc-work,
or with Painting, or Pictures set in Pannels, or
with Mosaie Work, or else a Mixture of all
these together.

In what Manner great Weights and large Stones are moved from one Place to
another or raised to any great Height.

Of those Ornaments last mentioned we are
to treat; and to shew what they are and
how they are to be made; but having in the
last Chapter mentioned the moving of vast
Stones, it seems necessary here to give some
Account in what Manner such huge Bodies are
moved, and how they are raised to such high
and difficult Places. Plutarch relates that
Archimedes, the great Mathematician of Syra
cuse, drew a Ship of Burthen with all its lad
ing through the Middle of the Market Place,
with his Hand, as if he had been only leading
along a Horse by the Bridle: But we shall here
consider only those Things that are necessary
in Practice; and then take Notice of some
Points, by which Men of Learning and good
Apprehensions may fully and clearly under
stand the whole Business of themselves. Pliny
says, that the Obelisk brought from Phœnicia
to Thebes, was brought down a Canal cut from
the Nile, in Ships full of Bricks, so that by ta
king out some of the Bricks they could at any
Time lighten the Vessel of its Lading. We
find in Ammianus Marcellinus the Historian,
that an Obelisk was brought from the Nile, in
a Vessel of three hundred Oars, and laid upon
Rollers at three Miles distance from Rome, and
so drawn into the great Circus through the
Gate that leads to Ostia: And that several
thousand Men laboured hard at the crecting it,
though the whole Circus was full of nothing
but vast Engines and Ropes of a prodigious
Thickness. We read in Vitruvius that Ctesiphon
and his Son Metagenes brought his Columns
and Architraves to Ephesus by a Method which
they borrowed from those Cylinders with
which the Ancients used to level the Ground:
For in each End of the Stone they fixed a Pin
of Iron which they fastened in with Lead,
which Pin stood out and served as an Axis,
and at each End was let into a Wheel so large
as for the Stone to hang upon its Pins above
the Ground; and so by the Motion of the
Wheels the Stones were carried along with a
great deal of Ease. We are told that Chem
minus the Ægyptian, when he built that vast