Archytas (428 - 347 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, statesman, and strategist. He was a scientist of the Pythagorean school and famous for being the reputed founder of mathematical mechanics, as well as a good friend of Plato. He is believed to be the founder of mathematical mechanics. He was reputed to have designed and built the first artificial, self-propelled flying device, a bird-shaped model propelled by a jet of what was probably steam, said to have actually flown over 650 feet. The Tarentines elected him strategos (general) seven years in a row, a step that required them to violate their own rule against successive appointments. He was allegedly undefeated as a general. In his public career, Archytas had a reputation for virtue. He may have drowned in a shipwreck in the shore of Mattinata, where his body lay unburied on the shore until a sailor humanely cast a handful of sand on it. Otherwise, he would have had to wander on this side of the Styx for a hundred years. Engraving from "The History of Philosophy" by Thomas Stanley published in three successive volumes between 1655 and 1661.