Livy and Plutarch tell that General M. Claudius Marcellus - who conquered Syracuse in 212 BC - recognised and valued the immense worth of Archimedes' genius. Troubled by his death at the hands of a soldier during the sack of the city, he decided to give the scientist a fitting burial. Cicero rediscovered this tomb, hidden by brambles, in or around 75 BC while quaestor of the city of Lilibeus. Speaking of it in his writings, he also provided details on Archimedes' studies and, in particular, the planetarium taken back to Rome by Marcellus and dedicated, along with other spoils from Syracuse, in the temple of Honos and Virtus at Porta Capena.

Many of Archimedes' Syracusan and Alexandrian inventions were revived and developed in later eras. As well as his studies on hydrostatics and the principle of the lever in weighing instruments, these included the development of the hydraulic and endless screws, later applied by the Romans in architecture.