Archimedes. Among the inventions of the great Archimedes was a two-wheeled powered vehicle that would, he claimed, annihilate distance by making it possible to travel five hundred miles in a day. After his death it was found and brought to the victorious Roman general Marcellus, who tried the thing himself and immediately fell over. He therefore declared all two-wheeled vehicles useless and ordered the prototype to be thrown into the sea, and the idea would not come up again until 1507, when Leonardo exhibited a primitive form of Vespa.