“Eunos,” I began, “did you attend Iphicrates on the night of his murder?”
“Yes, Senator. I helped him prepare to go to the banquet that night, then he dismissed me. As I was walking down the gallery toward my quarters, he called me back and told me to bring some extra lamps. I did as he directed and set the lamps in his study. I was about to light them, but he dismissed me and I left.”
“Had you any indication why extra lamps were required when he was about to attend a banquet?”
“He had a visitor. I had not heard the man arrive.”
“Did you get a look at him?” I asked.
“When I came in with the lamps, the man was sitting in the bedroom to the rear. The light was dim. He seemed to be medium-sized, with dark hair and beard trimmed in the Greek fashion. He did not look my way. That was all I saw.”
“Do you remember anything else that might help to identify this stranger? Anything else Iphicrates might have done that was unusual?”
“I am sorry, sir. No, there was nothing else.” I dismissed him and sat pondering for a while. It didn’t surprise me that the man had not come forth earlier. Any intelligent slave knows better than to volunteer information unless asked. Amphytrion had less excuse for not asking, but that was understandable, too. It would have been beneath his philosophical dignity to listen to a slave.
“I would like another look at Iphicrates’s quarters,” I told Amphytrion as I rose from my chair.
“Be my guest, Senator, but we must remove Iphicrates’s belongings soon. The distinguished scholar of music, Zenodotos of Pergamum, is to arrive soon and we shall need those rooms.”
I found Asklepiodes finishing up an anatomy lesson and persuaded him to accompany me. We found the study in good order, the completed inventory arranged neatly on the large table. I picked up one of the silver bowls.
“You said that Iphicrates was doing research into the properties of parabolic mirrors,” I said. “Just what are the properties of these things, besides concentrating light?”
“They also concentrate heat,” Asklepiodes said. “Come, I’ll demonstrate.” We went out into the courtyard and he squinted at the angle of the sun. With the reflector, he cast a disc of light against the side of the now-abandoned canal lock. Then he drew it back. As he did so, the disc shrank until it was an intensely bright spot the size of a copper as. “Put your hand there and you will see what I mean.”
Gingerly, I slid my hand along the wooden surface until the tiny disc of light rested in my palm. It felt distinctly warm, but not hot enough to be distressing.
“To what use did Archimedes put these devices?” I asked.
“It is said that he set fire to Roman ships with them.”
“Do you think that is possible? It doesn’t seem to make all that much heat.”
“These are miniatures. The ones Archimedes used would have been larger than shields. And he used a great many, perhaps a hundred of them lined up atop the harbor walls of Syracuse. With that many concentrating their light, I believe they might well have succeeded in firing attacking ships. Ships are extremely combustible at the best of times.”
So for a while we experimented with the four silver bowls. With the light of all four concentrated on a single spot, we managed to coax some faint wisps of smoke from the wood. Back inside, I went over the inventory lists, trying to find anything that might offer a clue to just what the infuriating pedant had been up to.
“Items: a box of miscellaneous rope samples, each sample labeled,” I read. “What do you think that means?” So we rooted around until we found the box beneath the cable. It contained scores of pieces of rope, variously twisted and braided and of various materials, both animal and vegetable fibers being used. Each sample was about a foot long, and from each dangled a papyrus label adorned with shorthand lettering and strings of numerals.
Asklepiodes selected a handful. “These are made of human hair,” he said. “What might be the use of such ropes?”
I studied the labels, trying to piece together their meaning. “Human hair is said to make the best rope for torsion-style catapults. The women of Carthage sacrificed their tresses to build war engines during the siege. Scipio conquered a city of bald-headed women. Look here: These abbreviations give the race and nation of each donor. The man was obsessive about detail.”
“And the numbers?” For once, even Asklepiodes was at a loss.
I pondered them a while. “I think they measure the weight or tension at which the ropes finally broke. How he could determine such things I’ve no idea.” If my guesses about his shorthand were correct, the hair of black Africans rated the lowest in this regard, while the hair of blond German women was the strongest and most resilient. None of the vegetable fibers or cords of animal hide were as good as hair. Even silk, while strong, had deficiencies in the torsion department because it was, if I translated correctly, “too stretchy.” Besides, it was far too expensive.