The Seven Hills(16)

Philosophers throughout the Greek world were scandalized. The Archimedeans had been held in lowest esteem, scarcely to be considered philosophers at all, because they did things. They took matter and, often with their own hands, transformed it into articles of utility. This, to orthodox philosophers, lowered them to the status of mere workmen. Philosophers were not supposed to do anything. They were supposed only to think.

Marcus had no patience with such sophistry. Rome had arrived, and Rome had no use for men who did nothing. Romans were not philosophers but they were engineers. Archimedes, the mathematician of Syracuse, was nearly a god in the pantheon of engineers. Marcus had set the despised school to designing war machines, and they had delivered handsomely.

At first he had wanted them to devise improved war machines of the sort Archimedes had invented for the defense of Syracuse against the Carthaginians more than a hundred years before: catapults and ship-killing cranes and so forth. Instead, they had come up with machines he had never dreamed of, yet which had proven invaluable in the war with Hamilcar. They had made boats that could travel beneath the surface of the water and sink enemy ships in the harbor. There was a device of mirrors that could see around corners and over walls. There were chemicals that generated dense smoke or choking fumes and one compound that burned with such furious violence that the inventor insisted it must have some military application, if only it could be harnessed.

And now: a flying machine. It made his head whirl.

He walked down a broad corridor where artisans were still busy painting the walls and inlaying the mosaic floor with scenes from the life of Alexander and the early Ptolemies. He was still uncomfortable in the spectacular parade uniform Selene had had made for him and insisted that he wear, even when not engaged in military duties. The muscle-sculpted cuirass was overlaid with gold and silver leaf, its leatherwork studded with amber and coral. His helmet was embossed on the temples with curling ram's horns, the significance of which he could not guess. He knew he'd be laughed out of Rome should he ever show up there in such a rig, but the Alexandrians lacked all restraint when it came to display.

Thought of Rome darkened his mood. He knew that he had many enemies there. His family protected him, but to some his actions of late smacked of treason. If only he could make them understand that he held the key to Rome's future greatness! Romans were for the most part conservatives and traditionalists. The scions of the great old families like his own wanted only to reestablish Rome as it had been in the time of their ancestors. He knew this to be folly. The world was very different than it had been in the day of Fabius Cunctator.

Besides, he thought, their vaunted traditions and system hadn't done them much good when it came to dealing with Hannibal, had it? This new world would call for new methods and new ideas, as much as that might pain the ancestor worshippers of the Senate.

He went into a huge courtyard where men were erecting, employing or tearing down structures of wood and metal.

Some were catapults, some scaling devices and some objects of no function he could guess at. Once in a while a timber or rope would break under too much stress and there were shouts or laughter or the screams of injured men. Never before had Marcus seen men so frantically employed, yet seeming exhilarated at the task, strenuous, frustrating and dangerous though it might be. These "active philosophers," as someone had dubbed them, were a new breed of men.

He went to an especially strange structure that consisted of a platform between uprights, the platform suspended by a complicated armature of ropes, pulleys, gears and what appeared to be large boxes full of metal bars. "What might this be?" he asked the sweating supervisor.

"We aren't sure yet what to call it," said Chilo. He was the head of the Archimedean school, but he was as dusty and ill kempt as the slaves who assisted with the work. "The new falling-weight catapults got us thinking about the possibilities of falling weights. It seems such a simple thing, something we all tend to take for granted, yet there is a whole unknown field of study here: the dynamics of falling weights."

" 'Dynamics'?" Marcus said.

"It's an old word we've revived. It means the study of how matter moves. Remember when you first came here and I told you that we seek out fundamental principles? Well, this is one of them. Matter does not move about, at random and free from obedience to natural law. There are rules, and we intend to discover them. Watch this."

At Chilo's direction, a dozen slaves crowded onto the platform. A single slave seized a rope and began to haul back on it. There was a clacking of gear wheels and the platform began to rise, a few inches with each pull. At the same time, the boxes of metal bars descended at the same rate.