Archytas said: "Man, you have your work cut out for you! I know that young ne'er-do-well. He's a mere playboy. If he holds his father's empire together for five years, I shall be surprised."
"So Zopyros tells me. But I couldn't very well turn Dion clown, when I've been preaching so long about the need for rulers to be philosophers, now could I?"
"I wish you luck, although I fear you've undertaken a Sisyphean task," said Archytas. "I should think your experience with old Dionysios would have disillusioned you."
"The old ruffian was already set in his ways, whereas the young one—I hope—will prove more plastic. As to that, you seem to have clone pretty well as a philosophical ruler yourself. Your Taras proves that an honest, enlightened, constitutional republic is possible."
Archytas smiled. "Thanks, O Platon; but it's not really true."
"I low do you mean? Are you about to confess some chicanery?"
"No. What I mean is this: I can get up and make a jolly good speech to the Tarentines. I crack jokes. I declaim eloquent passages. Thus I convince them that I'm an honest, wise, able, unselfish leader. However, it is just their good luck that I also happen to possess those qualities. Another man—the late Dionysios, say—can make as good a speech and get elected, though he were at heart a self-seeking adventurer. When I'm gone, how do we know whether the Tarentines will choose another Archytas or another Dionysios?"
"As to that, you must limit the franchise to the better sort of people, excluding base mechanics."
"Like me?" said Zopyros tartly.
"Oh, no, no," said Platon. "I count you as a thinker and therefore one of the elite, despite your crassly materialistic interests."
"Thanks."
Archytas said: "When you limit power to the rich—your so-called 'best people'—you still have not solved the problem. For the gentry, as soon as they have power to do so, oppress and exploit the vulgus until the latter revolt. And I needn't tell you how frightful class warfare can be."
"As an Athenian," said Platon, "I have of course had firsthand experience with the breakdown of democracy. But it surprises me that you, the world's leading democratic leader, should take so grim a view of democratic government. What government do you, then, deem good?"
"Oh, I am not hopeless about democracy. But it's a new thing in the world. Only the Hellenes, the Phoenicians, and the Romans have experimented with it. It's like one of Zopyros' engines. He may have told you of the struggles he went through to make the first catapult work. The same with a new form of government: it never works as you think it will, and it takes much cutting and trying and sawing and filing to make it work at all."
"How would you saw and file the machinery of democracy to improve it?"
"For one thing, I think the many—your 'base mechanics'—need to be much better educated. People ask me why I bother to educate the children of my slaves. Well, in Taras, we have a liberal policy with manumission and citizenship; many of these infants will someday be voting citizens. It's better for the city if they are well-educated citizens."
Platon gave an aristocratic sniff. "You really think the vulgar herd can be made good and wise enough to rule themselves?"
Archytas shrugged. "I don't know, but I'm trying to find out. The trouble with you, my friend, is that you think such questions can be answered by pure reason. If you'd ever been an engineer, you would know that one practical experiment is worth a score of theories." He turned to Zopyros with a curious, secretive smile. "I say, old boy, how's military engineering in Old Hellas?"
"Oh, I made my expenses with something left over," said Zopyros. He was still a tall, lean man, although his hair had thinned on top and his beard had turned iron-gray. "I got as far east as Rhodes and as far north as Pella. My biggest contract was building a pair of heavy stone-throwing catapults for the Athenians. So Megabyzos' Sons will stagger along for a while."
Archytas said to Platon: "When Zopyros says his firm will stagger along, he means he's drowning in drachmai." He sighed. "Sometimes I wish I'd gone into partnership with Zopyros and his brother when they offered me the chance, many years ago. If I had stuck to engineering, instead of this footling politics, I should have been rich."
Platon laughed. "Just a pair of base mechanics at heart, the twain of you!"
"I heard something that will interest you, old friend," said Zopyros to Archytas. "Do you remember that cad Alexis, who built the four- and five-bank ships for old Dionysios?"
"Shall I ever forget him?" said Archytas. "A few other powers of the Inner Sea tried such ships. They were never very successful, considering their cost."
"Ah, but a Phoenician shipbuilder in Cyprus has made a further advance, which renders larger ships practical. He uses but a single bank of oars. These are much larger than normal galley oars, and the shipbuilder sets four or five men to pulling each oar. It works like a charm."
"Plague!" cried Archytas. "Why didn't we think of that, when we were in the business? By the way, what's that clumsy object bound in cloth, which your man carried in with your baggage? Some new device?"
"That's my new portable catapult, which I used for demonstrations on this voyage. Would you like to see how it works?"
"I certainly should!"
Archytas gave a command to a servant, who presently placed the odd-shaped bundle on the mosaic floor before Zopyros and helped him to unwrap it. It contained a catapult about six feet long, designed to be shot while held in the hands. The bundle also contained several foot-long iron darts for the miniature catapult and a six-foot wooden dart for a catapult of normal size. Zopyros picked up the large dart.
"Behold the arrow of Herakles! I tried to sell the Spartans some catapults, but King Archidamos took one look at this and cried in horror: 'O Herakles, the valor of man is extinguished!' "
"Perhaps it is," said Platon. "You told me on the ship of the Cumacan Sibyl's message, many years ago, about her vision of your shooting Herakles' bow and smashing the world. Old Dionysios started something when he hired men to invent weapons to his order. God alone knows where it will end. Someday one of your engineering colleagues will devise an engine to destroy the world."
"The world, luckily, is too large for mere mortals to shatter," said Zopyros. "However, I admit I sometimes brood about it. As far as my own work is concerned, I'm sure the divine Pythagoras would not approve. The trouble is, I'm known everywhere as the leading military engineer of the Inner Sea. Hence the only contracts I receive are military: catapults, rams, fortifications, and the like. I must eat, as Protagoras once reminded your master Sokrates when Sokrates twitted him about charging fees for his lectures."
"Tell him about our screw," said Archytas.
"Yes," continued Zopyros. "Archytas and I worked out a most elegant invention, which we call a screw. You cut a helical groove in a cyclindrical rod—anyway, it has many possible applications, all perfectly peaceful. But we can't get anybody to take an interest in it."
"Show me how the hand catapult works," said Archytas. "I don't want to spoil your plaster—"
"Don't worry. Shoot at that African shield of elephant hide."
Zopyros stood up and put the end of the slide of the catapult against the shield, which hung on the wall. He placed the curved bar on the after end of the trough against his chest, and leaned forward. The slide slid back, telescoping into the trough and bending the bow as it did so. The pawls on the sides of the crosshead rode over the racks with a rapid clicking sound. When Zopyros straightened up, the engine was cocked. He placed an iron dart, a foot long, in the groove.
"Here goes!" he said.
With his left hand supporting the engine, and the curved butt plate resting against his chest, he tweaked the lever on the crosshead. The bowstring twanged. The bolt slammed into the shield.