The Seven Hills(52)

"That's because the heads of the Museum have been as Plato-addled as most philosophers," Marcus said. "Well, I put an end to that. Gave the school top priority and sent out word that any bright, invention-minded philosopher who wanted to actually do things instead of just ponder and babble could come here and accomplish wonders. More arrive every day."

"An extreme approach," Izates said, "but effective. Someone should have done this long ago."

"But you are a philosopher yourself," Flaccus said. "Aren't you shocked to see this sort of behavior?"

Izates made a rude noise. "Philosophers? A batch of Academics, Sophists, Peripatetics, Stoics and the like? I'm a Cynic and we love to see other philosophers get a boot in the rear sometimes." He cackled. "This time it's a big, hobnailed Roman boot and it must have hurt!"

They entered a newly constructed courtyard the size of a stadium, filled with a dazzling array of machines powered in every imaginable way: wind, water, falling weight, springs, twisted rope, as well as plain old muscle power, both human and animal. Scrambling slaves worked inside giant wheels or trotted on treadmills or hauled on ropes. Men turned enormous augers, pumped bellows, ran ropes through arrangements of small wheels, cranked toothed wheels and bars through various bewildering motions.

"You do things in a big way," Zeno noted.

"This facility is just one of eight we have here," Marcus said. "This one is the biggest, because here we try out the biggest machines."

"Many of these machines seem to be intended to overcome fortifications," Zeno said.

"Exactly," Marcus replied. "Now that we are back in civilization, we'll be taking a great many fortresses and walled cities. Everything I know of the subject says that besieging cities is the very worst form of warfare. It drags on and on; besiegers and besieged starve and fall to pestilence and ruin the land all around. Anything that will shorten a siege must be a good development. I want to make our sieges short."

"A laudable goal," Zeno said.

"I should think so," Marcus agreed.

"Perhaps our friends would like to see some of the subtler devices," Flaccus suggested.

They went to a smaller and far quieter courtyard where small teams of men and a few women worked in the shade of long porticoes. Here they crafted strange instruments of bronze and glass. Some peered through lenses at objects placed below and made drawings of what they observed. Marcus took his visitors to one of these, a seedy-looking little man who was filling reams of papyrus with drawings of: insects, shells, feathers and other things.

"This is Myron," Marcus Scipio told them. "His is the realm of the incredibly tiny."

The man grinned at them. "I have discovered another world, and it is all around us. Look here." He gestured to the broad lens upon his table. Something incredibly tiny rested just below it, affixed to a thin straw. An arrangement of mirrors cast a bright, reflected light upon the thing. They bent close and saw the thing enormously enlarged. It was, or had been, a living creature, with a bewildering array of minute legs, feathery antennae and banded body segments.

"What is it?" Izates asked.

"A shrimp!" the man said triumphantly. "There exist whole worlds around us, invisible to our gross organs of perception! But with the instruments we develop here we may see and study them."

"And what is gained by the study of tiny shrimps and such?" Zeno asked.

"Knowledge!" Myron said, his beady eyes blazing. "By observation of even the tiniest of things, we can divine the secrets of nature! Nothing is so small as to be insignificant."

"I see," said Izates. "Knowledge for the sake of knowledge. There is something almost Platonic in the concept. The Platonists are always going on about the purity of thought. You'd think they would appreciate this, even if it means that you have to pick things up in order to look at them."

Myron made an explosively rude noise with his lips. "Those futile buggers would never dirty their hands."

"It is also possible to make fire with these lenses," Marcus said, eager as always to point out practical uses for things. This called for a demonstration, and Myron showed them how a lens of the proper shape could focus light to a tiny point, and beneath it tinder of various materials first smoked, then burst into flame before their astonished eyes.

"Dark-colored tinder takes fire more swiftly than light-colored, for some reason," Myron pointed out. "There are many properties of light and matter that we have yet to discover."

"One seldom gives light much thought," Izates mused. "Either it is there or it isn't. Bright light reveals more than dim light." He pondered a moment. "But if the light of the sun produces heat, why does that of the moon not do the same?"