f Tarentum, a Pythagorean philosopher, eminently skilled in mathematics and geography. He flourished in the time of Plato (p.c. 400–365), and is said to have interposed his influence with Dionysius the Tyrant, in order to save the life of that philosopher. Iamblichus is evidently mistaken when he asserts that he was a hearer of Pythagoras; and the testimony of a writer mentioned by Photius would seem more worthy of credit, that he was the eighth successive preceptor of the Pythagorean school. So eminent were his military talents, that, in opposition to an express law of his country, that no man should be chosen more than once the general of its armies, he was elevated to that station no less than seven times. He taught that there is nothing so destructive to man as pleasure; that virtue is to be pursued for its own sake, and that every extreme is incompatible with it. Aristotle, according to some, was indebted to Archytas for his general heads of classification entitled the Ten Categories, but this opinion has little support beyond a verbal coincidence. The discovery of the duplication of the cube by means of the conic sections, and the method of finding two mean proportions between two given lines is due to Archytas. He is also said to have invented several curious hydraulic machines, and his genius is honoured with the invention of the screw and crane. He perished in a shipwreck, and his body was found on the Apulian coast,—an occurrence commemorated in Horace's beautiful Ode, B. i. 28. An apocryphal treatise on the Categories, bearing his name, was published by J. Cramerius at Leipzig, 1821, 8vo.