The Seven Hills

CHAPTER FIVE

The scene was bizarre, in some ways comical. The beach was lined with frameworks where men sat on staggered benches, pulling at oars under the direction of rowing masters, while hortators set the time with trilling flutes. There was cursing and yelps of pain and bursts of laughter as men fouled one another's oar or fell from their benches.

Other frameworks held the skeletons of ships in the building process. The sound of hammering competed with the voices and the flutes, and over all hung the smell of pitch boiling in pots.

"What energy these people have!" Zeno marveled. "And what audacity! They are going to challenge the greatest naval power in the world, and they haven't so much as an hour's experience at sea."

"Until a year ago," Izates said, "no Roman had even seen the sea."

"Exactly. They think they can do anything."

"Such confidence is unwise. It smacks of hubris. The ancient tragedies are full of stories of men who thought thus highly of themselves. The gods put them in their place."

The rowers were men contributed by the municipalities of Italy, now eager to gain favor with the new masters.

"It looks," Izates said, "like all the madmen in the world assembled on one beach."

"And yet there are at least five other such beaches in Italy," Zeno observed, "with at least an equal number of madmen upon each."

"Thousands of hayseed landsmen," Izates mused, "sitting on shore, rowing phantom galleys. It is a scene worthy of Aristophanes."

"They did this once before, in their first war with Carthage. They were successful that time."

"According to my reading," Izates countered, "they also met with several naval disasters during those years. It does little good to defeat your enemy in a sea battle, only to lose your entire fleet to a storm any fisherman could have seen coming."

"They couldn't become competent seamen all at once."

A line of four-wheeled wagons rumbled past them. The beds held Rostra: ships' rams cast in bronze by Campanian foundries. No two were alike: The heads of real or mythical beasts were most favored, but they saw one cast as Jove's thunderbolt, another that was a godlike fist. Men trudged by dragging carts heaped with coils of rope, and lines of workmen shouldered long masts and yards.

"Between restoring the cities and building this fleet," Izates said, "Italy will be denuded of timber."

Amazing as the work itself was, Zeno found the organization the Romans brought to the process no less remarkable. A senator aided by a staff of distinguished equites oversaw each shipyard. These men directed a staff of shipbuilders hired from Greece, Rhodes, Cyprus and other parts of the eastern sea. The rowing masters were likewise Greeks skilled in this demanding craft, for rowing a three-banked ship of war was not a matter of simply tugging upon an oar. Rather, it was a highly skilled trade and rowers were usually free men, rarely slaves or prisoners.

So painstaking were the organizers that they had already established a guild for the rowers to join, complete with its own tutelary deities and special festivals. Rowers were to have quasimilitary status, half legionary pay and limited citizenship upon discharge, to be upgraded to full citizenship depending upon how valuable their service should prove. Nothing was overlooked.

"The schedule calls for maneuvers to begin in the harbor by the next full moon," Zeno said. "Naval operations to commence on the full moon following."

"They're dreaming," Izates said. "They can't attain competence in so short a time, and Carthage may not allow them the leisure in any case. Hamilcar's fleet could show up in the harbor tomorrow."

"He won't try operations in Italy until he's taken Sicily back. No Carthaginian general since Hannibal has shown any real boldness or originality. It's always a slow, predictable process by regular stages."

"Maybe so," Izates allowed, "but Carthage is immensely rich and has tremendous resources. These Romans have accomplished what they have through sheer audacity. That is not a quality that prevails in the long run. Carthage can afford to lose possessions. She can even afford to lose a string of battles. With so much wealth to hire foreign mercenaries, Carthage will scarcely feel the casualties. They'll crucify a few generals and raise another army, build another navy."

"It's served them well in the past," Zeno agreed. "But I don't think it will this time. Not against this enemy."

The Princeps Gabinius had supplied them with letters and documents providing them with full permission to explore the Roman bases and see the preparations being made for the upcoming war against Carthage. "We're getting ready to fight Hamilcar and his allies, if he has any," Gabinius had explained. "We'll probably be doing little else for a number of years to come, so there's little point in hiding our intentions."

The Romans were well informed about the military capabilities of Carthage and Egypt. Gabinius wanted to know about Seleucid Syria (weak and remote, Zeno informed him), Parthia (powerful but remote) and Macedonia (formidable and very close). This last bit of information was of some concern. Ever since Hannibal, the idea of a Carthage-Macedonia alliance had been troubling. War against two powerful, professional armies at once was a daunting prospect even for people as confident as the Romans.

"Who is king of Macedonia now?" Gabinius had asked him.

"Philip the Seventh, and he is said to be a Macedonian chieftain of the old school-very martial and adventurous."

"A conqueror?"

"A mercenary, although no doubt he would like very much to revive the conquering ways of his ancestors. He hires his phalanxes out to neighboring kings and has campaigned in Illyria and Thrace, to my knowledge."

"Does he command personally?"

"He has done so."

"We know that Ptolemy depended heavily on Macedonians in his first battle against Hamilcar. They did him little good."

"From what I heard," Zeno said, "it was your legions who won that battle for Hamilcar, and that the boy-king Ptolemy's forces were ill-led."

Gabinius nodded. "It's hard to judge the quality of an army if its leadership is poor. The Macedonians accomplished little that day, but we heard that they fell back upon Alexandria in good order. On another field, with a better leader, they might be a formidable foe."

The Romans' near-obsessive fixation on military matters was stupefying, and Izates insisted that this defined them as a severely limited people, but Zeno demurred. He felt that their accomplishments in other areas were even more remarkable. Their shortcomings in the more refined intellectual strata were undeniable: They showed little cultivation of the arts and few were learned in philosophy. To Greeks these lapses set the Romans on a level little above the more primitive barbarians. But their attention to the minutiae of government and law was a thing of marvel.

From the beginning of their stay in Rome, Zeno had made a point of attending the law courts and hearing the speeches of orators. Senate meetings were forbidden to anyone not of the senatorial order, but the results of their debates were quickly relayed to the Forum crowds by way of the Rostra: the speaker's platform at the western end of the Forum.

Like most foreigners, Zeno had believed that Rome was actually ruled by the Senate, but he learned quickly that this belief was oversimplified. The Senate formed a landed aristocracy of great prestige and its powers in foreign affairs and war making were nearly absolute, but there were other assemblies of comparable power.

The Concilium Plebis, for instance, consisted only of the plebeian class and elected the tribunes of the people, enacted laws and conducted certain trials. The Comitia Tributa consisted of all citizens assembled in their tribes and elected, the plebeian aediles, the tribunes of the soldiers and the quaestors. The Comitia Centuriata consisted of the entire citizenry assembled in centuries and ranked by property assessment. They elected the highest magistrates: praetors, consuls and censors. They also heard trials for treason.

Roman political life was a constant struggle for power and influence among these interlocking assemblies, their memberships and their leaders. A man of great power in one assembly might be just another vote in another, and individual votes counted for very little. Election to office led to a seat in the Senate and it was the senators who provided the officer corps. Glory in war led to election to higher office, so competition for office was both intense and complex. Zeno knew he could devote his whole life to unraveling the complexities and ramifications of it all.

Despite the multiplicity of legislative and judicial bodies, the Roman system seemed to function with great efficiency. Zeno was especially impressed with the courts. Trials were for the most part speedy and fair, the judges impartial and the lawyers well versed in all the intricacies of the law. He remarked upon this to Gabinius.

"We've built up our system to be the best in the world," he said, "but don't be deceived. Wait until you see two important, powerful men at odds in court. Then things are not so equitable, as when some small businessman is being tried for fraud, or a border dispute between minor landholders is settled. It's difficult to impanel an impartial jury when everyone is a client to someone of greater importance, and really wealthy men are seldom above a little bribery when their interests are at stake."

This concept of clientage was new to the Greeks. It turned out that, like so many Roman practices, it dated back to the primitive days of chieftains and warriors, when small peasants put themselves under the protection of a greater landowner and followed him in war. This simple relationship had grown into a complex system of interlocking obligations that included monetary and legal aid, support in the Forum, whether in trials or elections, even the obligations of death and funerals. Slaves upon manumission became clients of their former masters, and clientage was hereditary. Among Romans, no relationship was more important than that of client and patron.

Gabinius had insisted that the two Greeks move into his new house and had given each a token-a small medallion embossed with a shield of Mars-symbolizing yet another status: hospes. It was a word that translated as "guest-friend." It meant that, when visiting each other's city, each was obligated to provide the other with hospitality, with support in court should such prove necessary, with medical care when ill, even with proper funeral rites should a hospes die while visiting. This relationship was also hereditary. Should a descendant of Zeno or Izates visit Rome, he could present the token to any descendant of Gabinius and claim hospitality.

"The Romans have to have everything spelled out," Izates groused when he and Zeno were alone. "Everything involves mutual obligations and everything is hereditary."

"Maybe this is one reason for the Romans' success," Zeno remarked. "It is the great stability of all their institutions. They leave little to the whims of individual men."

"Such institutions are probably necessary because the Romans have little natural, innate sense of dignity and civility. They must have these long-established guidelines to keep them civilized."

Zeno laughed. "You always find some way to denigrate the Romans. Nothing they do ever impresses you."

Izates considered this. "That is true. I am equally skeptical of the apparent virtues of Greeks and Jews. It is part of being a Cynic. Men are full of themselves, blown up with self-importance. It takes only a little thought to find the secret inadequacy behind their vauntings. Men have feet of clay."

"Feet of what?" Zeno asked. Izates explained that the saying was from an ancient tale of his own people, about a brazen idol that rested upon feet of clay and how its weakness was exposed. Zeno protested that Izates' ancestors misunderstood the nature of the gods and their images, and Izates told him that he was missing the point. Their discussions frequently ended this way.

Now, as they inspected the impromptu shipyard and training facility, Roman method, discipline and thoroughness were once again on full display.

A small forest of masts had grown up along the shore, and men were engaged in hauling on ropes that erected these masts in artificial keels, then hauling long yards up the masts and unfurling the big, rectangular sails. Sailing masters shouted orders to the sweating sailors-in-training, making them swing the yards about so as to catch quartering winds. Experienced sailors conducted classes in how to tie the many knots required by seagoing craft.

"These are skills ordinarily learned by every sailor when he goes to sea as a boy," Zeno said. "Here grown men are trained in vast numbers, just as newly recruited soldiers learn their trade in training camps. But, there is a difference." Here Zeno paused dramatically.

"What might that be?" Izates wanted to know.

"In training camps the Romans teach skills in which they are already expert. Here," he waved an arm, taking in the huge facility, "they are teaching a multitude of skills that they do not even possess themselves!"

Izates looked at him blankly, then he turned slowly to scan the madmen's naval base. "This exceeds even a philosopher's tolerance for the absurd."

"You need a capacity for wonder. And this is not their most improbable accomplishment of late. That rogue general of theirs has the Museum accomplishing marvels, if half the tales we've heard are true."

Izates shuddered. "Philosophers behaving like mechanics! Disgusting! Speculations about the nature of matter and the properties of movement are quite proper. But this Roman has them actually building things! They should be stripped of the status of philosophers and degraded to that of mere workmen." He turned aside and spat.

"But how can their ideas be verified without creating the machines and actually testing them?"

"It is unworthy," Izates insisted. "They should content themselves with simply thinking about such things. To sully the purity of thought with the manipulation of gross matter is a desecration!"

"Romans like to accomplish things, not just think about them. For a Cynic, you are notably respectful toward philosophical pretension."

"A true Cynic respects only purity and virtue. All else is vanity."

"And the supposed purity of philosophers is nothing but snobbery," Zeno said.

"Snobbery?" Izates said in a quiet voice. "How does reverence for the purity of thought and logic translate into snobbery?"

"It isn't purity to which most philosophers aspire," Zeno explained. "It's respectability. Most of them are impoverished men of less than noble background, and they want desperately to be accepted as peers of the aristocracy. That's why they can't stand the thought of philosophers getting their hands dirty."

Izates peered narrowly at him. "Now it's you that sound like a Cynic."

Zeno grinned. "I was born one. You had to study. Besides," he turned serious again, "think of it! They've built a boat that can take men beneath the water and back to the surface safely!"

"And what have they accomplished thereby? They can see nothing because the boat is entirely sealed. They can stay underwater only a short time and merely risk drowning for nothing."

"But it has never before been done by mortal men," Zeno protested.

"Then it is novelty for the sake of novelty and therefore just a vulgar show, meant to impress the credulous mob."

"No, it is meant to sink enemy ships and seems to have performed the task well."

"Nonsense!" Izates performed one of the more common Greek rude noises. "Men have been sinking ships since before the time of Odysseus. The process is always much the same. Do the sailors drown more thoroughly because their ship was destroyed by an unseen craft? Does the ship sink more precipitately for being rammed by a submarine vessel?"

"As I understand it, the sinkings were accomplished more by a sawing action than by ramming. Apparently, ramming is unadvisable in one of these ships. It makes even the usual galleys leak, and this might be disastrous when you are submerged already."

"That is rank sophistry and unworthy of you. Military toys!" Izates grumped. "As if the old-fashioned methods of mutual extermination were not lethal enough already. Demetrius Poliorcetes loved to play with such grotesque machines and whatever became of him?"

"Not all the new inventions of the Archimedean school are military in nature," Zeno said. "There are men experimenting with mirrors and lenses who say they can vastly improve our study of the stars and heavenly bodies."

"Well, I suppose that is proper," Izates admitted grudgingly. He was keenly interested in astronomy. "As long as they leave the manufacture of these new instruments to craftsmen, and confine themselves to making observations and speculating upon them. I am skeptical of how much help these instruments shall prove, anyway. Our ancestors did well enough with only their own two eyes. How much does making a star seem bigger tell us? Their courses will remain the same. Their place in the heavens will be unchanged. The rising and setting of the major constellations will occur with the same regularity as was observed by the astronomers of Babylon and Egypt thousands of years ago."

"But look at this!" Zeno said with a note of triumph that Izates recognized. His friend had been leading up to this all along.

"You've set an ambush for me," he grumbled.

Zeno drew a folded papyrus from the pouch at his waist. "This came from our friend Gabinius. It was among the most recent reports from Marcus Scipio to the Senate. Gabinius says that it is a mystery to him, but that we might find it amusing." He unfolded it portentously and began to read.

"Among the intriguing new developments are those of the Cypriote, Agathocles. I have written of him before: He is the experimenter with mirrors, who invented the device for observing around corners and over walls. This device proved very useful on the underwater boats.

"His newest creations involve parabolic mirrors and lenses of finely ground glass, which by some seemingly magical property cause distant objects to appear closer. He has used some of these devices to study the stars and the moon, and the astronomers who have looked through these things have been astonished. They say that, not only do the stars appear nearer, but they can actually see more stars than are visible to our eyes alone. Agathocles says that he is frustrated by the impurities and other imperfections in his lenses, and works feverishly with his Babylonian glass workers to create clearer, more refined glass and finer grinding and polishing agents to perfect his lenses.

"I am sure that these things must have some sort of military application. Reconnaissance, both at sea and on land, comes to mind. I shall set Agathocles to work devising small, portable viewing devices."

Zeno refolded the parchment. "What do you think of that?"

Izates looked stunned. "Can this be possible?" he said, the sneer for once gone from his voice. "Not the device- we've all seen how reflective surfaces distort, so why not control the distortion to magnify? No, I mean, can it be true that there are more stars in Heaven than we can see?"

"No sense pondering on an empty stomach," Zeno said, pleased at having stunned his friend for once.

Numerous hawkers had set up booths around the military facility, and they went to one such and purchased bread, cheese, fruit and large cups of wine. They took these to a stone jetty and sat on its rim, their feet dangling over the water, while they munched, drank and talked over the implications of this unprecedented news.

"From the earliest days of rational thought," Izates said, "it has been believed that we could understand the world by looking at it and analyzing what we see. But if this man Agathocles is correct, if his magnifying devices show what is truly there, then it means that there are things in the cosmos that we cannot see!"

"That seems clear," Izates agreed.

"And if this is true of the visible world, what of the world as perceived by our other senses? Are there sounds we cannot hear? Are there objects all around us that we cannot feel?"

"I see no reason why this may not be the case," Izates said.

"Consider: A man with only slightly defective vision cannot see many things that those of us with clear vision can. That does not mean those things are not there, merely that he can't see them. We cannot see the wind, but we can feel it and we can hear it. We know that dogs can detect scents our own noses are not keen enough for, and they often seem to hear sounds when we hear nothing at all."

Izates nodded. "Quite so, quite so. There may be a whole invisible cosmos out there, previously unsuspected. Perhaps you are right, and we philosophers in our vanity have assumed upon an imperfect base of knowledge."

"This is a rather sudden shift of view," Zeno noted.

"A Cynic only needs his bottom kicked once to know that he has been kicked. One learns to understand the world as it is presented, not as an ideal dreamed up by a poet." He took a long drink, draining his cup, then he set it down. "Well. It is time for us to be going."

"Going? Where?"

"To Alexandria, of course! That is where the new world of philosophy is taking shape. Why should we want to be anywhere else?"

"But we came here to study the resurgence of Rome!"

Zeno protested.

"Part of that resurgence is taking place right now, in Alexandria. And it may well prove to be the most important part. Think of Alexander. His empire did not outlast his final breath, but he spread Greek culture throughout the world. These soldierly oafs may soon be forgotten, but it may be that they have, all unwitting, changed the nature of philosophy, which is a far greater wonder than any conquest. Come along. Gabinius will give us letters of introduction to this Scipio fellow. I know plenty of people in the Museum. You want to be a great historian? We'll be at the center of history!"