Need some information about Mantinea 207 BCE

[Paullus Scipio]

Paul B. wrote:-

The other fellow I discussed was Zopyrus. He is also a contemporary of Plato and is mentioned by Biton as as a designer of "flexion catapults".

...ah, yes -Zopyrus of Tarentum is referred to in one of the surviving treatises on catapults by Biton,( who wrote for AttalusI of Pergamum in the early second century B.C,) as the inventor of two of the non-torsion machines he describes. Diels, in his 'Antike Technik', proposed that he was the same as the Zopyrus who figures in Iamblichus' list of 'Pyrhagoreans',( the Vitae Pythagoreanus)a list based in turn on that of Aristoxenus. Since 'both' floreat in the mid-fourth century, it is likely. Since by all accounts, he appears some 50 years after the invention of catapults, he can hardly be a founder inventor!

The Pythagorean mathematician Archytas of Tarentum is said to have founded a school of Mechanics ( who were more into applied science than most philosophical schools) - DiogenesVIII.82.
He is not, AFIK, associated with catapults in any way, though some credit him with describing a Theory of the mechanical advantage of Pulleys, around 400 B.C. - which if true would be helpful to catapult artificers.He is also mentioned by Plato at 7.338
"...Dionysius was greatly afraid, I believe, because of his love of glory, lest any should suppose that it was owing to my contempt for his nature and disposition, together with my experience of his mode of life, that I was ungracious and was no longer willing to come to his court... Dionysius...sent a trireme to fetch me, in order to secure my comfort on the voyage; and he sent Archedemus, one of the associates of Archytas, believing that I esteemed him above all others...and all...were giving me the same account, how that Dionysius had made marvellous progress in philosophy...
...And other letters kept coming both from Archytas and from the men in Tarentum, eulogizing the philosophy of Dionysius, and saying that unless I come now I should utterly dissolve their friendship with Dionysius which I had brought about, and which was of no small political importance"
Diogenes quotes a letter from Archytus to Plato and his response and Plato says in his Republic that Archytus solved the Geometric problem of 'doubling a cube'.