Archimedes is credited as an author.
Archimedes . He is credited with designing innovative machines , such as his screw pump , compound pulleys , and defensive war machines to protect his native Syracuse from invasion . Mathematicians from Alexandria read and quoted him , but the first comprehensive compilation was not made until by Isidore of Miletus in Byzantine Constantinople , while commentaries on the works of Archimedes written by Eutocius in the sixth century AD opened them to wider readership for the first time .