The London Times Literary Supplement recently took notice of Mary Jaeger, UO professor of Classics, and her new book, Archimedes and the Roman Imagination.
Calling her work a “meticulous and elegant study of different ancient accounts of [Archimedes’] life and inventions,” the Times uses examples from Jaeger’s scholarship to show that stories about the great mathematician “reveal more about how the Romans thought about their conquest of the Greek world than about ‘science.’”
From the review by Helen King, published April 3, 2009: “Archimedes is probably most famous now for the story of his bath, in which he recognized the relationship between the weight of what is submerged and the volume of water displaced, and from which he leapt yelling “Eureka!” before running home naked. Roman stories of his life also include his invention of a screw to raise the waters of the Nile; his cunning grappling hook, ‘The Hand’, which could lift up a ship; and the use of mirrors to burn the enemy fleet. His design of a three-couch sex room for King Hieron II’s personal ship is also worth noting. Jaeger concentrates not on the ‘facts’ behind these stories, but rather on the use and reuse of Archimedes’ life by different generations of Romans. She makes an important contribution to our understanding of ancient biography, and its concentration on character and anecdotes, but also tells us much about how the Romans thought about the Greeks, including those who lived in Sicily.”
From the review by Helen King, published April 3, 2009: “Archimedes is probably most famous now for the story of his bath, in which he recognized the relationship between the weight of what is submerged and the volume of water displaced, and from which he leapt yelling “Eureka!” before running home naked. Roman stories of his life also include his invention of a screw to raise the waters of the Nile; his cunning grappling hook, ‘The Hand’, which could lift up a ship; and the use of mirrors to burn the enemy fleet. His design of a three-couch sex room for King Hieron II’s personal ship is also worth noting. Jaeger concentrates not on the ‘facts’ behind these stories, but rather on the use and reuse of Archimedes’ life by different generations of Romans. She makes an important contribution to our understanding of ancient biography, and its concentration on character and anecdotes, but also tells us much about how the Romans thought about the Greeks, including those who lived in Sicily.”