So, the Archimedes mirror story is probably more myth than real, for a few reasons. First, for the plan to work, the Roman fleet would have had to attack in the morning, since Syracuse faces the sea to the east. This may have been the case, but there’s no evidence that the Roman’s carried off a morning attack. More importantly, using mirrors to burn Roman ships would probably have been too impractical. It would have made more sense to use flaming arrows or pitch shot from catapults to set the boats on fire. Still, Archimedes was an extraordinary inventor of, among other things, military machines. So while the mirror story is probably a myth, if anyone could have pulled it off, it was Archimedes.