Syracuse
Sicily, Italy
One of the great cities of the ancient Greek world. Home to Archimedes, who defended it against Roman siege with brilliant war machines before being killed by a Roman soldier.
Associated figures
Plato
Plato was the Athenian philosopher who founded the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world, and whose dialogues - above all the Republic - laid the foundations of Western philosophy, political theory, metaphysics, and epistemology. Alfred North Whitehead famously characterized all of Western philosophy as "a series of footnotes to Plato."
Archimedes
Archimedes of Syracuse was the greatest mathematician and engineer of antiquity, a genius who discovered the principles of buoyancy and the lever, calculated pi with unprecedented precision, anticipated integral calculus, and designed war machines that held off the Roman siege of Syracuse for two years. His mathematical works remained unsurpassed for nearly two millennia.