Julia did much exclaiming over the architectural marvels. In truth, Rome had nothing to touch it. Only the Capitol had anything like the splendor of the great edifices of Alexandria, although our Circus Maximus was a good deal larger than their Hippodrome. But the Hippodrome was made of marble, where the Circus was still mostly of wood.
"This is sublime!" she said excitedly.
"Exactly the word I would have chosen," I assured her. "What would you like to see first?"
"The lecture halls and the refectory," she said. "I want to see the scholars as they go about their philosophical labors."
Someone must have sent word ahead of us, because Amphytrion appeared at that moment. "I will be most happy to escort our distinguished guests. The Museum is at your disposal."
The last thing I wanted was to have some dusty old Greek coming between me and Julia, but she clapped and exclaimed what a privilege this was. Thus robbed of a graceful way to sidestep his unwanted intrusion, I followed the two into the great building. In the entrance peristyle he gestured toward the rows of names carved into the walls.
"Here you see the names of all the Librarians, and of the famous scholars and philosophers who have ornamented the Museum since its founding. And here are the portrait busts of the greatest of them." Beyond the peristyle was a graceful colonnade surrounding a pool in which stood a sculptural group depicting Orpheus calming the wild beasts with his song.
"The colonnade of the Peripatetic philosophers," Amphytrion explained. "They prefer to converse and expound while walking, and this colonnade is provided for their convenience. The Orpheus was sculpted by the same hand that created the famous Gigantomachia at the altar of Zeus in Pergamum."
This I was prepared to admire to the fullest. It was an example of that flowering of late Greek sculpture that I have always preferred to the effete stuff of Periclean Athens, with its wilting Apollos and excessively chaste Aphrodites. Orpheus, caught in mid-note, was the very embodiment of music as he strummed his lyre. The beasts, obviously stopped at the moment they were about to spring, were carved with wondrous detail. The lion's fanged mouth was just relaxing from a terrifying snarl, the wolf lapsing into doglike friendliness, the bear standing on his hind legs looking puzzled. In real life no one is ever attacked simultaneously by such a varied menagerie, but this was myth, and it was perfect.
But Julia wanted to see the philosophers at their labors, so we went in search of some. The problem was that, when they aren't talking, philosophers aren't doing much at all. Mostly they stand around, or sit around, or in the case of the Peripatetics, walk around, pondering matters and looking wise.
We found Asklepiodes in a lecture hall, speaking to a large audience of physicians about his discoveries concerning the superiority of stitching lacerations rather than searing them with a hot iron. One of the attendees ventured to question whether this was properly the concern of physicians, and Asklepiodes parried him neatly.
"Before even the divine Hippocrates, there was the god of healing, Asklepios. And do we not read in the Iliad that his own son, Machaon, with his own hands tended the wounds of the Greek heroes, even withdrawing an arrowhead in one instance?" I applauded this point vigorously, and there were learned murmurs that this was a valid point.
From the lecture halls we passed into a large courtyard filled with enigmatic objects of stone: tall spindles, slanted ramps, circles with gradations marked off in inscribed lines. A few of the smaller instruments I recognized as similar to the gromon that engineers use to lay out building sites or camps for the legions.
"Welcome to my observatory," said a man I recognized as Sosigenes, the astronomer. He grinned engagingly as Julia went through her now-customary gush of enthusiasm.
"I shall be most happy to explain something of my studies, my lady," he said, "but I confess that there are few things more useless than an astronomer in the daytime." And this he proceeded to do. Sosigenes had a redeeming sense of humor that was notably absent in most of the philosophers there. I found myself actually listening attentively as he explained the purpose of his instruments, and the importance of recording the movements of the stars and planets in calculating positions in navigation, and in determining the real date as opposed to the slippery dates of conventional calendars. The reliable calendar we now use was the invention of Sosigenes, although Caesar took the credit by making it the legal calendar through his authority as Pontifex Maximus. I resolved to return to the observatory some night when he could explain more effectively the mysteries of the stars.
In another courtyard we found the redoubtable Iphicrates of Chios, bossing a crew of carpenters and metal workers as they assembled a complicated model of stone, wood and cable. At our arrival he turned frowning, but smiled and bowed when he saw that Rome had come calling.
"And what do you work on now, Iphicrates?" Amphytrion asked.
"His Majesty has asked me to solve the long-standing problem of silting in the great canal that links the Mediterranean with the Red Sea," he proclaimed proudly.
"A daunting prospect," I said. "But its solution would do much to facilitate traffic between the West and India."
"It's good to see that someone from outside these walls has a grasp of geography," he said.
"It's one of the things we Romans find important," I answered. "What is your solution?"
"The basis of the problem is that the canal is at sea level, and therefore a noticeable current flows through it from west to east, just as water enters the Mediterranean from the Ocean through the Gates of Heracles, and from east to west through the Hellespont." In explaining the mysteries of his art, his voice lost its accustomed belligerence and he actually communicated a bit of his own excitement at solving these thorny natural problems.
"I have designed a series of waterproof gates and dry docks at each end of the waterway. By means of these, the dry docks can be flooded to raise or lower shipping to the proper level, and it can sail, row or be towed the intervening distance without a constant current. The amount of silt admitted will be minimal, and the waterway will need to be dredged no more often than every fourth or fifth year."
"Most ingenious," I acknowledged. "Worthy of the successor to Archimedes."
"I thank you," he said with poor grace. "But the revered Archimedes did not fare so well at the hands of the Romans." Greeks are always carrying some sort of grudge.
"Yes, well, it was an unfortunate incident, but it was his own fault. You see, when Roman soldiers have just broken into your city after a lengthy siege, and are rampaging about, looting the city and massacring anyone who shows resistance, why, the last thing you want to do is speak insolently to them. If he had just kept his mouth shut and abased himself, he would have been spared. As it was, Marcellus felt awfully bad about it and he gave the old boy a very nice tomb."
"Just so," Iphicrates said through gritted teeth.
"But, learned Iphicrates," Julia said hastily, "what other marvelous works occupy your mind? In your books you have said that you always have a number of projects under study at any time."
"If you will come this way," he said, ushering us into a spacious room adjoining the courtyard where the workmen assembled his water gate. The room was full of cupboards and tables, and the tables were littered with models in varying stages of assembly. Most of the machines, as he explained them, had something to do with raising weights or water. I pointed at one that displayed a long, counterweighted arm tipped with a sling.
"A catapult?" I inquired.