Chess III: Sicilian Defense Mystery Cache

1. Knight's Tour
2. The Game of Kings
3. This one
4. The Scotch Game

Peruse the following little story, and from it you will be able to derive the cache coordinates.

Archimedes had constructed the defences of the city in such a way--both on the landward side and to repel any attack from the sea--that there was no need for the defenders to busy themselves with improvisations; instead they would have everything ready to hand, and could respond to any attack by the enemy with a counter-move.

The year is 213 BC, and the place is the seaport of Syracuse, on the isle of Sicily. Relations between Rome and Sicily have become increasingly strained, as Hannibal's victories have convinced the Sicilians that they were backing a losing team and transferred their loyalty to Carthage. The Senate And People of Rome have sent Marcus Claudius Marcellus to Sicily to deal with the Syracusan situation. He made an auspicious, if not entirely diplomatic, beginning by capturing the town of Leontini, several miles along the shore to the northeast, and having 2000 of its people beaten and beheaded.

He pressed onward, and between his own forces by sea and those of Appius Claudius Pulcher by land, he figured to have the city taken in five days or so. But Marcellus, with his thousands, hadn't counted on the innovation and inspiration of a single, old man.

That man was Archimedes, the greatest mathematician and scientist of his age, whom later generations counted along with Newton and Gauss as the three greatest mathematicians of all time. He was an unassuming looking old gent, a little weedy round the edges, with a tendency to get so wrapped up in a problem that he lost track of everything around him -- a tendency that would lead to his death later on, at the hands of someone who was annoyed at being ignored. But that's a ways away yet.

At the moment, Hiero's old sorceror is very much alive and involved in learning a fascinating game from one of his old Alexandrian mates, involving a board laid out as a sort of stylized battlefield, with little pieces of baked clay for soldiers of different ranks. It is completely absorbing, and the two of them are bent close over the board as a messenger from the two Tyrants of the city bursts in unannounced.

"Sir!" the young man shouts. "Marcellus is on his way from Leontini with 60 quinquiremes and thousands of marines! Hippokrates and Epikydes demand to know what you intend to do!"

His companion looks up, but Archimedes, engrossed in the game, makes no response at all, other than to say, "It's your move, Apollonios."

"Please," the messenger says, his voice tight with anxiety, "please, sir, you have to help us! My brother Taxos the company commander says you've done all kinds of things, but he says he can't tell me about them! They're coming, sir, they're almost here, what are we going to do??"

Finally the old gentleman looks up, a little frown creasing his brow. "Young man," he says, "can't you see we're busy right now? Marcellus and his sambucae can just wait to come to the convivium. Here, take this note to your brother, he'll know what to do with it." And with that, he scratches out two lines on a scrap of paper, hands it to the young man, and returns to the game without another word, apart from repeating, "Your move, Apollonius."

Perplexed, the young man turned away, but he did as he was bade, and indeed, the city took not 5 days, but a full year to fall to Marcellus. You can read more about the Siege of Syracuse, if you like. It's a stirring story, and the war-engines really are the greatest.

Huh? Whaddya mean, what was on that scrap of paper? Well, nobody really knows, but after the city was sacked, this was found among the effects of the Lokhagos of the hoplites who defended the city:

I dunno, it's Greek to me.