"It's a good escape clause for an argument that's going wrong," Gaius grinned.
To his surprise, Timothy also seemed to smile. "Let us continue! As I said, there are seven metals and five planets. But we can allocate gold and silver to the sun and the moon, so there are five other metals, quicksilver for Mercury, copper for Venus, iron for Mars, tin for Jupiter, lead for the slow moving Saturn. Comment?"
"The only red metal does not go to the red planet," Gaius offered.
"The iron could be rusty!" Timothy countered.
"It could," Gaius admitted, then he added with a grin, "I also have five fingers on this hand."
"And what's the connection there?"
"None, apart from noting that if one unrelated coincidence is possible, so are two, or three." He paused, and waited for the expected outburst.
To his surprise, Timothy smiled. "That is a very good point," he said, "and it addresses logic. To be honest I think that business with the planets is just sheer nonsense."
"Which gets me back to my original point," Gaius emphasized. "Your theory seems useless, and only explains what you already know. My challenge to you is to predict something you don't know!"
"If I don't know it, how?" Timothy waved his hands. "How many Romans have had anything useful to say at all about physics? The reason is because the great Aristotle has explained nearly all of physics. There is nothing left for Romans to discover."
"Or at least, so you Greeks think," Gaius muttered.
"Wrong!" Timothy almost roared. "It is you Romans who think that, which is why you do not seek."
Gaius was stunned. There was an element of truth in that. Much as he hated to admit it, if Romans ever thought about physics, they referred to Aristotle. He eventually nodded, and muttered, "I suppose that could be true."
"And that is a Greek triumph that Rome can never take away!"
Gaius stared at Timothy. There was no immediate answer to that, yet something stirred in Gaius' mind. This wretched Greek could not possibly be right. He was, after all, a Greek! Surely the Greeks had not discovered everything?
* * *
Timothy smiled inwardly as he saw the expressions cross Gaius' face. He had expected Gaius to explode further, and rant about the uselessness of Greek science. But he had not. Instead, Gaius was almost accepting the challenge. If he read this young man correctly, eventually when he had to give up, he would concede defeat graciously, and give Timothy his freedom. And the way this was going, he would give up fairly soon.
That might even present a problem, since Gaius was intent on following Tiberius' orders, but there was a way out. Tiberius had written asking whether he, Timothy, needed any assistance. What he needed was a substitute teacher when Gaius finally cracked. He would reply that Gaius needed someone else to better teach Gaius about military strategy. That would give him his freedom, and Gaius what he really wanted to learn about all along. So, in the meantime, these physics were providing a value he had never appreciated: a way to freedom.
* * *
"Well? Have you refuted our geometry yet?" Timothy challenged.
"I accept geometry," Gaius replied, "because you can prove the conclusions. However, you can't prove your elements and I can refute one of your arguments." He paused, then added a quieter, "Maybe."
"Continue!" Timothy smiled at the late addition.
"You put fire into earth and get metal? But just not any earth. If you want to get mercury, you must put fire into the red cinnabar. If you want to get tin, you must put fire into cassiterite. I'll believe it your theory when you can turn earth I give you into gold."
"You can't do that," Timothy said, "because. ."
"Because the theory's wrong! I give you the earth and as much air or water as you like. So, go make gold."
"Just because I don't know how do something doesn't make the underlying theory wrong!"
"It doesn't make it right either," Gaius replied. "It merely makes it useless."
"And therein is another typical Roman approach," Timothy said.
"The view is also Greek. The great Protagoras," Gaius smiled as he overly emphasized the word "great", "said that the quest for absolute truth merely leads to contradictions. Religions, philosophies, they're merely useful conventions and what all knowledge is good for lies in its ability to bring success to human effort."
"So where did you learn about Sophism?" a perplexed Timothy asked. This was a turn he had not expected.
"From your library," Gaius admitted. "I had to have some ammunition."
"Excellent!" Timothy enthused. He had to be encouraging, if for no other reason to return to physics and away from philosophy, which might lead to endless debate before he could get his freedom. "Anything else?"
"Yes," Gaius suddenly remembered. "You said that nature abhors a void, hence the universe is full of air?"
"I did!" Timothy smiled.
"Then if, as I argued previously, the medium supplies the contrary to motion, and if, as seems likely, the Moon has eternal motion, then the Moon cannot be in air. Accordingly it must move in a void, and, as the great Aristarchus showed," and again he emphasized the word 'great', "no, proved by geometry, the Sun is far further away than the Moon, therefore most of the Universe is void."
"I was wondering whether you would bring this up. The logic is impeccable, and given the premise, the answer follow. The only question is, is the premise correct."
"I assure you," Gaius smiled, "stones fall toward the centre more slowly in water than in air. The water must be supplying a greater contrary."
"Not necessarily! Remember Archimedes! The stone is lighter in water, therefore the force towards the centre is less, and it will accelerate more slowly."
"I hadn't thought of that," a rueful Gaius admitted, after a moment's thought.
"So, you admit you're wrong?"
"I suppose," Gaius muttered.
"Then you shouldn't!" Timothy stared at him. This was not the way Gaius must give up. Even worse, he must not see the obvious problem after having had his concession accepted, because when he retracted the concession, he might also retract the offer of freedom. "You must have more confidence. What sort of a commander gives in the first time the enemy does something he hasn't expected?"
"A bad one."
"Exactly. You are now partly diverted by an irrelevancy. Yes, the stone is lighter in water but is that the issue? It may be a factor, but not the prime factor? A general might blame a shortage of cavalry for failure, but the main reason for failure might be that the general was just plain incompetent, and his incompetence might have included the fact he did not realize early enough that he was deficient in cavalry. Go away and think on this."
* * *
"I have it!" Gaius exclaimed the following day. "Besides providing the less accelerating force through the stone being lighter, the water also provides the greater contrary, which makes the stone accelerate even more slowly."
"And how did you deduce that?"
"I didn't! Unlike you Greeks who like to sit around and contemplate, I devised a means of measuring this. I built a little bow that fires a little copper arrow. If I fire the arrow horizontally in the air it goes very much further than if the bow is immersed in water. The water must provide a greater contrary!"
"Of course," Timothy remarked with a smile, "a Greek could have worked that out without going to all that trouble."
"But he wouldn't have known absolutely that he was correct!" Gaius smiled. "Like most Greeks, he would only have argued that he was correct."
"Hmmph!" Timothy stared at him, then laughed a little and added, "We Greeks argue to show that we are correct. In fact, we even help our Roman friends when we suspect they will need it."