After a year of effort, Marcellus' siege was
eventually successful in 212/211 BC.
Syracuse may have been betrayed when the citizens went in a body to Marcellus,
or perhaps it was plundered by the Romans while the citizens were keeping a night festival to Artemis
(daughter of Zeus).
From Plutarch (Greek, c. 45-120 AD) Parallel Lives: Marcellus --
"But nothing afflicted Marcellus so much as the death of Archimedes, who was then, as fate would have it, intent upon working out some problem by a diagram, and having fixed his mind alike and his eyes upon the subject of his speculation, he never noticed the incursion of the Romans, nor that the city was taken. In this transport of study and contemplation, a soldier, unexpectedly coming up to him, commanded him to follow to Marcellus; which he declining to do before he had worked out his problem to a demonstration, the soldier, enraged, drew his sword and ran him through. . . . Certain it is that his death was very afflicting to Marcellus; and that Marcellus ever after regarded him that killed him as a murderer; and that he sought for his kindred and honored them with signal favors."