Archȳtas of Tarentum

Archȳtas, of Tarentum (flourished c.400 BC), Pythagorean philosopher and mathematician, interested in music and mechanics, and a friend of Plato. He was also a military commander and repeatedly led the forces of his city in successful campaigns. Among his inventions were the screw, the pulley, and the rattle, and he is said to have solved (by geometry) the problem of the proportion between the sides of two cubes having the volume ratio two. Some fragments of his mathematical works survive. He figures in an ode of Horace (1. 28), where he is addressed as a ‘sand-reckoner’ (compare ARCHIMEDES).