Archytas

c. 435–350 BCE

Archytas of Tarentum — Pythagorean philosopher, mathematician and seven times general of his city — was the friend who rescued Plato from Dionysius of Syracuse. He solved the doubling of the cube, distinguished the arithmetic, geometric and harmonic means, founded mathematical mechanics and acoustics, and called arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music sister sciences. A handful of genuine fragments survive among many later writings that bear his name.