I would have gladly found a precise reference, but time presses: it may be resonant for some classic passage describing the engineering of Archimedes of war mac

I would have gladly found a precise reference, but time presses: it may be resonant for some classic passage describing the engineering of Archimedes of war machines, especially during the Second Punic War (~212 BC) when Syracuse allied with Chartago against Rome, and had to defend from the siege led by Marcellus. Optical devices to set distant things on fire were part of the defence. So, a nuance intended was: that building would normally had been planned as a war machine...