figure, magnitude, and beauty of that luminary, though he were,
like Phaethon, consumed by it. And Pythagoras offered an ox in
sacrifice for having completed the lines of a certain geometric
diagram; as Apollodotus tells us,

When the famed lines Pythagoras devised,
For which a splendid ox he sacrificed.

Whether it was that by which he showed that the line that regards
the right angle in a triangle is equivalent to the two lines that
contain that angle, or the problem about the area of the parabolic
section of a cone. And Archimedes's servants were forced to hale
him away from his draughts, to be anointed in the bath; but he
notwithstanding drew the lines upon his belly with his strigil.
And when, as he was washing (as the story goes of him), he thought
of a manner of computing the proportion of gold in King Hiero's
crown by seeing the water flowing over the bathing-stool, he leaped
up as one possessed or inspired, crying, "I have found it;" which
after he had several times repeated, he went his way. But we never
yet heard of a glutton that exclaimed with such vehemence, "I have
eaten," or of an amorous gallant that ever cried, "I have kissed,"
among the many millions of dissolute debauchees that both this and
preceding ages have produced. Yea, we abominate those that make
mention of their great suppers with too luscious a gust, as men
overmuch taken with mean and abject delights. But we find
ourselves in one and the same ecstasy with Eudoxus, Archimedes, and
Hipparchus; and we readily give assent to Plato when he saith of
the mathematics, that while ignorance and unskilledness make men
despise them, they still thrive notwithstanding by reason of their
charmingness, in despite of contempt.