The Statuette Of Rhodes

I thanked him and made a mental vow that, should I ever get a chance to conquer Rhodes, I was going to claim that statue as my first piece of loot.

Like all the smokier businesses, the bronze foundry was located on a spit of land downwind of the city, where the whoosh of bellows vied with the clamor of the smiths' hammers and the roar of the fires to determine what could make the most noise. The foreman of the foundry was a sooty Greek with singed eyebrows. He turned the statuette over in hands so covered with burns that they shone like glazed ceramic.

'This is Myron's work. I cast it for him no more than a month ago. I can tell by the color. We'd just got in a shipment of Spanish copper. It's a little darker than the Syrian metal we'd been using.'

Now I was getting someplace. 'Did he say if it was a special commission?'

He shook his head and cinders sprinkled his shoulders. 'No, it was one of maybe ten pieces he brought in. He comes by three or four times a year, and it's almost always the Helios images.'

'Do you supply this base plug?' I tapped the marble on the bottom.

'No, it's all specialist work. The sculptor makes the wax image. We do the casting. A polisher does the polishing and if the base is marble it's cut by a lapidary.'

'Why isn't the base just cast in place?' I asked.

'Sculpture is always cast hollow. It saves weight and it saves bronze, which is an expensive metal.'

I thanked him and we headed back into the city proper. 'Now we find Myron?' Hermes asked.

'No, now we look for a lapidary.'

The quarter of the lapidaries was somewhat quieter than those of the sculptors and metal workers. The tools are much smaller. A little asking around brought us to a stall where five or six slaves worked industriously at a bench, overseen by an elderly craftsman.

'Yes, this is my shop's work,' he acknowledged with a glance at the statuette's base. 'I have the only stock of green Italian marble on the island just now.' He nodded toward a big block of greenish stone which a pair of slaves were patiently sawing into inch-thick slabs, the saw moving slowly back and forth while a small boy trickled water into the cut.

'When was this?'

He scratched his head. 'Myron came to pick them up about ten days ago.'

'Did he say who had commissioned them?'

'Copies like this are seldom made to commission. I do remember that he wanted special treatment for one.'

'How so?'

'Ordinarily, the bases are glued in with pitch. He wanted one base left unglued.'

'Did he say why?' The Greek just shrugged.

'Now we return to the Sculptor's Market to look for Myron?' Hermes asked wearily.

'No,' I told him. 'Now we find a nice, shady spot and have lunch. Then we go find Myron.'

Back in the Sculptor's Market, after a little side trip to the harbor mole, we found Myron before his shop, molding wax. Everyone has heard of the famous Myron, the sculptor who created the Discus-Thrower. This, needless to say, was another Myron. The original has been dead for about four hundred years. Like charioteers, sculptors like to use the names of old champions.

'That's mine, all right,' he said, not interrupting the rhythm of his hands on the wax.

'Who bought it?' I asked.

'I've made and sold hundreds of those. Most of the buyers are foreign travelers like you.'

'Who asked for one with the base left unattached?'

Now the busy hands paused. 'Oh, that one. It was Cleomenes, the harbormaster.'

'I see. Did he say why he desired this eccentric treatment?'

Again, that Greek shrug. 'No. Why should he?'

As we walked back toward our digs, I said to Hermes, 'I don't understand how the Greeks got their reputation as a curious, inquiring people. Most of them are utter dullards.'

'Maybe,' he opined, 'they know some questions are better left unasked.'

When we got to the temple of Helios, things were in full swing. In the balmy climate of Rhodes, they waste no time in getting the dead disposed of. Telemachus lay on a bier atop a great heap of timber that reeked of oil. The mourners had quieted down so that the eulogies could be delivered. Rhodes had the world's most illustrious teachers of rhetoric, and I think it was the famous Molon, teacher of Cicero, who was speaking as we arrived. A whole crowd of students from many lands stood around while the old man showed them how a real expert dispatches a dead nonentity to the netherworld.

'The heavens weep,' intoned the orator, 'and the sun hides its face in mourning for the peerless Telemachus, priest of Helios.' Actually, it had been perfectly clear all day, and the sun was merely getting ready to go down the way it does every day. I suppose it's the sentiment that counts. 'Surely, the god cannot permit this perfect servant to descend, a mere bodiless shade, to the Stygian shore. Rather, he now attends his deity with his own hands, perhaps grooming the fiery steeds of the sun, or pouring the nectar to soothe the god's thirst after his daily ride in the solar chariot:' and so forth in this vein for some time. I've heard the same sort of eulogy for innumerable dead priests. If they were all true, every god would have more servants than Crassus and there wouldn't be enough work for most of them to do.

'Do you see Cleomenes among the mob?' I asked Hermes. 'He must be here. Everyone of importance is.'

'Over there, with all the men in gilded wreaths. I guess that's the rest of the city council.'

'Right. They're looking a little uncomfortable.' The council members, dressed in their best robes, were trying to maintain their dignity. The surrounding crowd were clearly in a dark mood, muttering and glowering. A Roman mob would have been in full riot by now, but as I have said, the Rhodians are rather more easy-going.

'Well,' I said, 'time to liven things up.'

'Maybe you'd better wait until tomorrow,' Hermes cautioned. He held up the wineskin and examined it. The thing had gone flat during the course of the day.

'Nonsense. No time like the present. We have an audience now.' I pushed my way through the mob of mourners, into the cleared zone just before the temple steps, where the pyre had been erected. 'May I have your attention, please!' I shouted in my best Forum voice, which had considerable volume.

The speaker, Molon or whoever it was, broke off in mid-praise. 'Sir, do you wish to deliver a eulogy for the departed? If so, you shall have your turn.' The fellow had tremendous, almost Roman dignitas, for a Greek.

'Not a bit of it,' I said. 'I've come to make an accusation of murder.' At this there was an uproar from the crowd.

'Senator!' cried Dionysus, outraged. 'This is not the place for such an action! You have no right to:'

'Nonsense!' I interrupted grandly. 'I'm a Roman senator and I can do anything I want to.' I really had been hitting the wine too hard that day. 'I accuse the harbormaster, Cleomenes, of braining the late Telemachus, high priest of Helios, with this statuette of his own deity!' I held up the bronze figure for everyone's edification.

'Death to the Aristocrats!' shouted some idiot, safely anonymous within the midst of the crowd.

'Oh, pipe down, moron! That fool,' I jerked a thumb over my shoulder, indicating the body on the pyre, 'and Cleomenes were conspiring to sell out your republic.'

'Be silent, you interloping barbarian!' Cleomenes shouted, gone quite red in the face. 'Not only is your charge absurd, but Rome has no business meddling in the affairs of the ancient Republic of Rhodes!'

'Hah!' I said, wittily. 'That's not what you said when you entertained Pompey last year, was it?' Actually, I wasn't certain that it had been Pompey the traitors had been conspiring with, but in those years he was certainly the best candidate. His red face whitened and I knew my dart had struck home.

'Senator,' Dionysus said, this time in a lower voice and casting nervous glances in the direction of the restive crowd, 'are you telling us that General Pompey, that glorious conqueror, while enjoying our hospitality, was plotting against us?'