"To be honest," the reply came back, "I'm not even sure what you're talking about."
"Wine presses!"
"I was afraid that was it," Timothy muttered. "So, what's this idea?"
"They press down, and apart from the juice coming out, the top plate exerts the same force."
"So?"
"It's a way of holding two plates together!"
"Aren't they held together by the frame on the sides?"
"They act as guides," Gaius continued, his voice now a little excited. "The plates, though, are held together by the force exerted by tightening the screw."
"Yes, so?"
"If you could make screws like that out of metal, you could join plates of metal together."
"Which would do?"
"It might be what's needed to make bigger things out of steel," Gaius shrugged. Then he laughed a little and added, "Get's more slaves down the coal mines that way."
Timothy gave a rueful smile. Fortunately the beer was good, the fruit delicious, and in this warmth it was hard not to be in a good mood.
As the wine pressing came to an end for the day, Gaius strolled over towards one of them. He wound one down, kept it clamped, and yes, it did stay where it was. And there was little doubt it could exert very high pressure and maintain it.
He remembered his thoughts on making steam do something useful. He was a long way off that, yet this looked like a solution to what he thought was by far the biggest problem. Was it really possible to make such a machine from iron? Maybe not even iron, but bronze? There were stories of metal men made by the Gods. Now that had never happened, but. . If he made something that only the Gods could make. ?
The prophecy came back to him. He would walk among the Gods. Is that what it meant? That he was destined to succeed?
No, he did not believe in prophecy, but still, if a prophecy was as good a one as this, why not?
* * *
A few days later, reality struck. The screw on the wine presses was very large, and carved out of wood. Two carvings had to be precisely complementary. The rod had ridges neatly carved which on each turn travelled exactly the same distance. It was geometry again. Like pulleys, the ratio by which the distance travelled was reduced was the same ratio that multiplied the force. So, to contain a huge force, you needed a fine pitch, where a revolution moved a very small distance. Making such a screw was not too difficult. The problem was what it went through, for here there were grooves that were exactly the correct width and which travelled exactly the same distance as each other and of the rod for each revolution. That required exact carving, and exact measurement. Difficult, if not impossible, to achieve with metal.
It was a few days later still that he saw an alternative. In the Great Library there were two pieces of metal held together. The bottom one had a hole the diameter such that a rod could pass neatly through it. The rod had wire soldered onto it like a helix, with a pitch slightly larger than the thickness of the bottom piece of metal. The screw tightened and held the two pieces of metal together.
What was needed was a thicker bottom piece, or even a third small bottom piece, with wire soldered on the inside of the hole. He would find a craftsman and get something made.
* * *
It took two weeks before he held his objects in his hands. In one hand he held the rod with the wire soldered as a helix on the outside, in the other a thick piece of metal with a hole and the wire soldered on the inside, and also a thin piece of metal with a hole the exact diameter of the rod without the wire. The rod also had a flat "head" while the second piece of metal had small lugs on the outside, so he could turn it. He found two pieces of metal with gaps, he inserted his primitive bolt and wound on the nut. It worked! It did not look much, but it did hold the two other pieces of metal together quite firmly. He ordered more. He also found a sheet of metal and used his bolt to fix the thin sheet to it. That also worked, but the pitch of the thread had to be sufficiently coarse that the screw could hold the thickness of the metal. Not so useful!
Timothy watched this activity with increasing interest.
"You must think this is a waste of time," Gaius said to him one morning, "or a waste of money."
"My first thought," Timothy admitted, "was that you've got plenty of money, so why not wa. spend it."
"And your second thought?" Gaius smiled at the embarrassment Timothy was showing over his obvious correction.
"They're going to be far too expensive to be any good."
"So you think I should give up?"
"No," Timothy shrugged, "but my third thought was that maybe if you ever get any of these made exactly right, you could try using them to make moulds and cast more out of bronze."
"Bronze is weaker than iron," Gaius frowned.
"But stronger than solder," Timothy countered.
"You could be right," Gaius said, after a moment's thought. It could be the answer! If he had a master that worked, he could use that to make moulds into which metal could be cast. Because the casts all came from the same starting object, all would be equivalent, well, more or less. He could make quite a lot of these objects. That depended, though on the castings being able to be used. Were they faithful enough to the original? There was only one way to find out. If they were, that would be one problem down!
At least he had something to do. If you had something that worked roughly, you could refine it. If you had nothing, there was nowhere to go.
Chapter 22
Three pieces of news arrived over the spring and early summer. The first letter was from his father: Tiberius was dead. In an almost predictable effort at one last joke in bad taste Tiberius had named Gaius Caesar and Tiberius Gemellus as joint Princeps. Now there were to be 'Two First Equals amongst Equals'. How that would work was anybody's guess. There followed family news, instructions regarding trade opportunities, but it passed right over him, as if it were not there. Only the news of Tiberius' death mattered. Where did that leave his military appointment?
As Gaius picked up the second letter, something caught his eye: it looked as if the seal had been opened and resealed. Someone had read this letter. He carefully opened it, and found it to be from one of those stuck-up fools from one of Rome's oldest houses, who would usually ignore him. Why he was writing was soon made obvious: Little Boots was described as a malicious short-sighted incompetent fool, and now was the time to restore the republic. He should return to Rome at once and persuade his father to vote in the senate to. . Gaius threw the letter down in despair. This stupid fool could never organize bread deliveries from one of Rome's bakeries, let alone organize a government. All he was doing was to make Gaius a target for Little Boots. Well, then, Gaius thought, there was only one possible response.
He took a piece of papyrus, and wrote carefully.
Gaius Julius Caesar.
Greetings!
I salute the Senate of the People of Rome for their wise decision to recognize your ability and to make you Princeps, I offer my most sincere congratulations and I assure you of my unreserved loyalty. I enclose a message that was sent to me, which I find most distasteful. I am writing to my father to request that he fully support, without any reservation, that which Caesar wishes.
G. Claudius Scaevola.
When unpleasant effects were inevitable, it was infinitely preferable that these unpleasantries land on somebody else's head!
The third letter came later from Claudius, the stutterer, which was full of somewhat bewildering information about the state of Rome. Little Boots was now incredibly popular. He had begun with the crafty move of adopting Tiberius Gemellus and nominating him Princeps Inventatis, thus ensuring Gemellus was inferior in rank, and beholden to Little Boots. Little Boots had Tiberius's will declared null and void on grounds of insanity, he honoured his dead relatives, he publicly destroyed Tiberius' personal papers, which undoubtedly contained the means by which Tiberius controlled many of the Roman elite, and which also undoubtedly contained evidence of their complicity in Tiberius' killings, and he recalled exiles and reimbursed those wronged by Tiberius' taxes. As it happened, he, Claudius, knew that Caesar had kept copies of the papers he had publicly destroyed. He then accepted the powers of the Principate as conferred by the Senate, and he entered Rome amid scenes of wild rejoicing, the popularity being assisted by a lavish distribution of money from the treasury.