Syracuse was already attracting scholars by the 5th century BC (Archytas of Tarentum, the founder of studies on mechanics, stayed there, as did Plato repeatedly) but they were then also drawn to Alexandria by the favourable conditions created by its rulers, who had founded two outstanding institutions - the Library and the Museum - committed to the preservation of knowledge and hugely innovative research. Cultural relations between Syracuse and Alexandria became especially important and, by the 3rd century BC, not only were poets and men of letters such as Theocritus from Syracuse and Callimachus active in the Egyptian city but also mathematicians, astronomers and scholars of mechanics, with Archimedes forging key friendships with the geographer Eratosthenes, the astronomer Conon and the mathematician Dositheus.