Quoted in Hicks, R. D., Stoic and Epicurean, (New York, 1910) p. 210.
CHAPTER IX
PERSONS AND ANECDOTES
(A-M)
[901]. Alexander is said to have asked Menæchmus to teach him geometry concisely, but Menæchmus replied: “O king, through the country there are royal roads and roads for common citizens, but in geometry there is one road for all.”
Stobœus (Edition Wachsmuth, Berlin, 1884), Ecl. 2, p. 30
[902]. Alexander the king of the Macedonians, began like a wretch to learn geometry, that he might know how little the earth was, whereof he had possessed very little. Thus, I say, like a wretch for this, because he was to understand that he did bear a false surname. For who can be great in so small a thing? Those things that were delivered were subtile, and to be learned by diligent attention: not which that mad man could perceive, who sent his thoughts beyond the ocean sea. Teach me, saith he, easy things. To whom his master said: These things be the same, and alike difficult unto all. Think thou that the nature of things saith this. These things whereof thou complainest, they are the same unto all: more easy things can be given unto none; but whosoever will, shall make those things more easy unto himself. How? With uprightness of mind.—Seneca.
Epistle 91 [Thomas Lodge].
[903]. Archimedes ... had stated that given the force, any given weight might be moved, and even boasted, we are told, relying on the strength of demonstration, that if there were another earth, by going into it he could remove this. Hiero being struck with amazement at this, and entreating him to make good this problem by actual experiment, and show some great weight moved by a small engine, he fixed accordingly upon a ship of burden out of the king’s arsenal, which could not be drawn out of the dock without great labor and many men; and, loading her with many passengers and a full freight, sitting himself the while far off with no great endeavor, but only holding the head of the pulley in his hand and drawing the cords by degrees, he drew the ship in a straight line, as smoothly and evenly, as if she had been in the sea. The king, astonished at this, and convinced of the power of the art, prevailed upon Archimedes to make him engines accommodated to all the purposes, offensive and defensive, of a siege ... the apparatus was, in most opportune time, ready at hand for the Syracusans, and with it also the engineer himself.—Plutarch.
Life of Marcellus [Dryden].