Slaves entered the courtyard bearing trays of food and pitchers of wine. Work stilled for the moment. And men sat on benches or on their machines to eat. Marcus joined Chilo on a bench.
"We have a fine dining hall," Chilo said, "but we seldom use it at midday. We prefer to stay close to our work while the light holds. Plenty of time for relaxing after dark."
"You are men dedicated to your discipline," Marcus noted.
" 'Discipline'," Chilo said. "I like that. It sounds much better than 'craft' or 'work.' Not so degrading. It sounds like a soldierly virtue."
"It is. Has to be, if you would rather stay out here with your machines than go inside and eat."
"We love it," Chilo said fondly. "And here at the Museum is the best place for it. Anyplace else in the world, some city or tyrant might employ us to design an aqueduct or a pump or a superior catapult, but at the Museum we can do pure research."
"What does that mean?" Marcus wanted to know.
"In pure research, we strive to discover fundamental principles, to learn how the world works. We are unencumbered by the need to accomplish a specific task."
"Yet you seem to do a good deal of work for king and court."
"Well, yes. After all, we are the men who can accomplish things, and the king has many projects. It is a small price to pay for the freedom and resources we enjoy here."
"What do you do for him besides the earth and water- moving projects?"
"You already know about the harbor chain. Unfortunately, we are often called upon to provide novel devices for the royal pleasure-barges, or spectacular effects for the lavish parties the court puts on. It is a trivial waste of time and resources."
"What about Queen Selene? Does she make use of your services?"
"Oh, yes. And at least her projects are useful. She rarely demands anything frivolous. She has us working on a new crane to more quickly load and unload ships in the harbor. A great deal of time is wasted while they wait for an unloading dock."
"Are you asked to design many new war machines?" Marcus asked.
"Rarely. The Egyptians are complacent in military matters. The ruling Macedonians think warfare reached its height with Alexander the Great and there is no sense in trying to improve upon his tactics and drill. The machines used on their ships have changed little in two hundred years, and since they rarely indulge in city sieges, we're not often called upon to design heavy artillery."
"That seems a waste of a fine resource," Marcus said.
"True. It wasn't always so. Demetrios the Besieger, son of Antigonus One-Eye, built wonderful and very imaginative machines just the generation after Alexander. They rarely worked, but he had the right idea. Let the machines do the work and take most of the damage and save your men for the decisive thrust."
"An excellent concept," Marcus commended. "But, do you really think you can build a machine that can fly like a bird, or a boat that can travel under water?"
Chilo took a drink of watered wine and pondered his answer. "I'll tell you one of the basic answers to such a question. The fact is, nobody can think of any convincing reason why we can't."
Marcus set down a honeyed roll. "Could you expand upon that?"
"It's like this: Most people will tell you that these things can't be done because they have never been done. We do not accept such reasoning. Long ago, somebody paddled out on the water astride a log for the first time. Somebody piled stone upon stone to build a house for the first time. Because these things had never been done before did not mean they could not be done, merely that no one had ever tried before. Others will give you philosophical or religious reasons why things cannot be done. We do not accept them. Here we believe in experimentation and proven results."
"Another excellent principle," Marcus said. "But do you not fear attracting the anger of the gods when you attempt these fabulous things?"
"To believe that the immortal gods can be jealous of mortal men is to hold a very low opinion of the gods. Here most of us respect the gods. But we do not believe that they are Homer's Olympians, fighting and bickering and seducing each other's wives. If we poor, limited mortal men can be philosophers, then the gods must be philosophers beyond our imagining. If we here can build clever machines of stone and metal and wood, what is that to gods who invented this world and the whole cosmos surrounding us? No, my friend, we fear men, not the anger of the gods:"
"I want to hear all about you," Marcus said. "And about your master, Archimedes."
It had been his lifelong experience that men needed little prodding to speak of their fields of expertise, their lonely manias, especially if they seldom had someone to listen. So it was with these men. First Chilo, then one after another of the others spoke of their projects, their dreams, and of the man who had founded their school. He was not sure that he could believe everything they said about the man.
Still, these were men who thought they might someday fly.
A few days later Marcus and the rest of the Roman party had an opportunity to see one of the more lavish indulgences of the royal court. The young king was to receive them, and the event would be aboard one of the royal barges of which Chilo had spoken.
They had learned that Alexandria was built upon a narrow spit of land between two bodies of water. To the north lay the broad waters of the Middle Sea. To the south was Lake Mareotis. A channel linked the Eunostos Harbor with the lake, and yet another channel connected the eastern tip of the lake with the westernmost mouth of the Nile. Thus the seagoing vessels could pass from the harbor to the river without sailing westward and navigating the hazardous, multiple mouths of the Nile with their ever-changing sandbars and baffling false channels. Likewise, the rich river traffic of Egypt found its outlet at Alexandria.
The city itself was laid out in a grid with wide, perfectly straight streets. The eastern part of the city was the district of the huge Jewish population. To the west was the Rakhotis, or native quarter. In the center was the Greek section and here were to be found the greatest buildings, temples, shrines and formal gardens of the city. Alexandria was uniformly beautiful and harmonious, which Carthage, for all its magnificence, was not.
At least there was harmony in its symmetry and proportions. There was little harmony among the inhabitants. Disputes among the numerous ethnic groups were frequent and full-scale riots were no rarity. Alexandrian mobs had been known to depose kings who displeased them too greatly.
They had also learned something of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Founded by Alexander's general, Ptolemy Soter, the early kings had been intelligent, liberal rulers of great capability. They had turned the ancient, backward, weak land of Egypt into a great power, installing a royal bureaucracy of great efficiency, breaking the power of the ancient priesthoods and deposing the feudal landholders.
Three or four generations into the dynasty, the quality of royal competency declined alarmingly. The kings had adopted the quaint Pharaonic custom of marrying their sisters to keep the royal bloodline pure. Many attributed the decadence of the dynasty to this practice. Weakness of mind and outright insanity began to crop up with some frequency. Some kings were merely eccentric, others truly monstrous, such as the brutish Ptolemy Psychon, so named for his great obesity. He had murdered most of his own family, and this was among the mildest of his atrocities.
Oddly, the women of the family seemed to have retained the virtues of the early kings and, when they had an opportunity to rule in their own right, usually proved to be exemplary monarchs.
They came to the royal wharf on the lake side of the city and, once again, were forced in spite of themselves to gape.
"That thing moves?" Flaccus gasped.