At this time, Archimedes, who was 75 years old, immediately tried his best to help the motherland and fight against the enemy.
The commander-in-chief of Rome, Marcailu, became even more arrogant after successively capturing two cities in Syracuse.
He believes that as long as it takes five days to prepare, the ancient city of Sila can be captured.
But what he didn't expect was that Archimedes, a white-haired old man who loved the motherland, broke all his plans.
This battle 2 190 years ago was called a wonder in the history of war by historians!
Makaru led the fleet to attack Syracuse by water.
The soldiers on each of his warships were equipped with bows and arrows, slings and light darts to drive the defenders of Syracuse out of the city, and then let the soldiers rush into Syracuse through the siege machines installed on the warships.
However, Archimedes made full preparations.
When the enemy's fleet approached, Archimedes started those huge long-range projectors he made.
The long-range projector can project more than 200 kilograms of stones to a distance of 1000 meters (equivalent to the range of 18 th century artillery).
These boulders hit the battleship like hail, making Ma Kailu in a hurry, sinking the ship and causing panic.
Makaru had to evacuate the remaining warships in a hurry.
Makaru decided to attack again at night.
He thinks Archimedes can't see the distance at night, and when the fleet reaches the gate, his huge long-range projection machine is unnecessary.
However, when Makaru attacked at night, it was another disaster.
Archimedes' short-range machines started, and these machines kept throwing short darts and stones, which caused the Roman army to suffer heavy losses again, and even Marcaille almost died.
Makaru was unwilling to give up his attempt to occupy Syracuse.
He urged the army and forced his engineers to continue to compete with Archimedes.
As a result, everything was in vain.
Sometimes, when Rome rushed the warships equipped with siege machines to the gates of Syracuse, the city guards started a machine with a "long mouth", and pieces of stones fell from the "long mouth", which not only smashed the siege machines, but also smashed the warships, leaving Roman soldiers in a desperate situation.
Sometimes, putting down an iron hook from the city is very flexible to be manipulated by the machine. The hook can hook the bow of a Roman warship and then pull it up, so that it can be overturned to one side and buckled into the water.
Mackailu tried all kinds of offensive means, which were all broken by Archimedes' invention.
The Roman army became as timid as a mouse. As soon as they saw a rope sticking out of the wall, they ran away desperately and shouted, "Archimedes played tricks on us with another machine!" " "
Ma Kailu finally had no choice but to surround the ancient city of Silla in an attempt to trap the people in the city to death.
In this way, Archimedes could do nothing.
The Roman army has been besieged for eight months, and finally took advantage of the opportunity of celebrating festivals in ancient Syracuse and neglected to take precautions, and sneaked in through a remote gate before capturing Syracuse.
When the Roman army rushed into the city, Marcailu ordered not to kill the great physicist.
But at that time, Archimedes was painting in his laboratory.
Footsteps disturbed the soldier after he rushed in.
The noise woke him up and shouted angrily, "Hello! You broke my picture, run quickly! " As a result, his indignation angered Roman soldiers and Archimedes died by the sword.