Abstract
This article makes two claims. The first is that Archimedes’ On Floating Bodies included a punning reference, in its key diagrammatic figure AΠΟΛ: the precise purpose of the pun may not be recovered by us, but even so it remains a powerful example of the playful in Archimedes’ writing. The second is that Apollonius could have been (contrary to what is now the accepted chronology of Greek mathematics) Archimedes’ younger contemporary. The outcome could be that we find Archimedes addressing a playful, hidden message to Apollonius, providing us with a unique insight into the communication of Greek mathematics.
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