Nos metiendi ratiocinandique utilitate huius artis terminavimus modum

The Romans were so uninterested in mathematics that Cicero’s act of respect in cleaning up Archimedes’ grave was perhaps the most memorable contribution of any Roman to the history of mathematics.

- George F. Simmons, Calculus Gems: Brief Lives and Memorable Mathematics (1992)

Was poking around Cicero's biography, and I think the whole thing around his reported discovery of Archimedes' tomb to be kinda funny:

We Syracusans are really peculiar people, we have a historical legacy that traces back millenia, but an incredibly short memory! Our most illustrious fellow citizens who have changed history are celebrated little or nothing at home, and for centuries were wrapped in oblivion and indifference.

This was the case for the famous Archimedes, whom after his death was (almost) forgotten. Certainly the Syracusans must have had other things on their mind for them not to celebrate their most important citizen, to the point of forgetting his burial site.

Only Cicero, who only visited Syracuse a few centuries after the inventor’s death, took care to look for the grave and pay his respects.

Eureka! The tomb was discovered in 75 B.C., cleaned and restored to its former glory; unfortunately it did not last long: it mattered little in the average Syracusans day-to-day life and soon the tomb was again forgotten and left to itself.

“Once, while I was superintendent in Syracuse, I brought out from the dust Archimedes, a distinguished citizen of that city. In fact, I searched for his tomb, ignored by the Syracusans, surrounded on all sides and covered with brambles and weeds. The Syracusan denied absolutely that it existed, but I possessed the senari verses written on his tomb, according to which on top of the tomb of Archimedes a sphere with a cylinder had been placed. But I was examining everything with the eyes … And shortly after I noticed a small hill not far emerged from the bushes. On it there was the figure of a sphere and a cylinder. And I said immediately to the Syracusans “That’s what I wanted!” – Cicero, 75 BC

Of course if Cicero was still alive he would shudder at the sight of how his striking discovery has been completely ignored for all these centuries; indifference and carelessness has remained a constant in the Syracuse character, from generation to generation it has been passed down to the present day.

Apparently they lost it again.  If only we could turn back time...