[Wikipedia states that](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_cattle_problem)



> 
> [Archimedes' cattle problem] was discovered by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in a Greek manuscript containing a poem of forty-four lines, in the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel, Germany in 1773.
> 
> 
> 


I have accepted that statement as fact for a long time, but I have never seen the Greek original of that poem, nor a scan/photograph/transcription of it, or even an inventory reference for it in the Herzog August Library, anywhere, nor can I find it on the web.


This makes me wonder whether that "history" is even true at all, or whether Lessing or someone else might have made it up in order to make an 18th century problem look more interesting.


I'd appreciate any reference to the Greek original, or more background showing that (as I now suspect) there is no (ancient) Greek original after all.



Original manuscript of Archimedes' cattle problem
Here is a link to the full document at the Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften in Augsburg:


<http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/graeca/Chronologia/S_ante03/Archimedes/arc_bous.html>


