"Chilo," Scipio said, "why not just get it moving? The principle of the thing will be instantly appreciable to Her Majesty then."
"I suppose so," Chilo said, disappointed.
"Now he'll sulk," Selene said when the philosopher went off to give his orders to the crew. "There is nothing sadder than a philosopher cheated of a chance to lecture."
Among the ship's petty officers there was a barking of orders and a popping of whips, and a piper began to play a rhythmic tune on his double flute. Within the inboard wheels, men began climbing rungs as if ascending a ladder. The outboard wheels started to turn, churning the water. The ship commenced a slow movement. It drew away from the wharf and moved out into the harbor amid a great creaking of machinery.
"You see," Chilo explained, "the vertical motion of the slaves climbing is transformed into the rotary motion of the inboard wheel turning. This is in turn transmitted to the outboard wheel, causing the paddles to push against the water, propelling the ship forward. By turning around and climbing the rear of the wheel, the slaves can cause the ship to move backward. Direction can be controlled by causing one wheel to move more slowly than the other, and the steering oar can be used for minor corrections. By working the wheels in opposite directions, the ship can spin quickly on its axis."
"Very ingenious," the queen allowed. "But oared ships can do all these things, and have for centuries. What is the advantage of these wheels?"
"There are several," Marcus Scipio informed her. "In the first place, you need far fewer slaves to turn these wheels than to man oars. A ship this size would require at least three hundred, with plenty of relief rowers. Thirty or forty slaves are all you need to man these wheels. They eat far less and that makes for longer voyages."
"And," said Flaccus, "rowers must be highly skilled. They are expensive and are not replaced easily. Totally, unskilled slaves and convicts can turn these wheels. Nothing is required except for a sound pair of legs."
"They can't be deaf," Marcus pointed out. "They have to be able to hear the flute."
Flaccus nodded. "That is true."
"If a wheel is damaged in battle," Selene pointed out, "it wouldn't be easy to replace, not like a damaged oar."
"This vessel is a prototype built to test the design," Chilo said. "For a warship, the wheels will have armored cowlings. Only the part that actually touches the water need be exposed." He looked at her expectantly.
"Very well," she said at last, "you may proceed with this project. What is the next phase?"
"Trials on the open sea, Your Majesty," Chilo told her. "These can proceed immediately, with this experimental vessel. Upon successful conclusion, a full-sized armed and manned warship will be built and tested. If all goes well, as I am sure it will, a flotilla will be constructed and deployed."
"The ultimate test will be battle," Scipio said. "If the wheeled ships prove to be more effective in battle, as well as cheaper and less wasteful of manpower, then we will convert entirely to the new system."
"Your Senate may be displeased to hear of it," she said, smiling. "I hear that they are even now building a fleet on the old model, and taking a great deal of trouble to train rowers."
"They'll adapt," he said. "We are an adaptable people."
That evening the two Romans dined with the queen on a palace terrace overlooking the beautiful little royal harbor with its jewel-like artificial island. Just to the west, they could see the huge double harbor of Alexandria, divided by the immense Heptastadion Bridge connecting the Pharos to the.mainland. On the eastern end of Pharos towered the incomparable lighthouse.
All this, Selene thought, was hers. Alexandria, the most glorious city in the world. And this city was only the crowning gem among her possessions. She owned all of Egypt, from the Delta, which contained the richest farmlands in the world, all the way down the immense river and beyond the quarries near the First Cataract, where the market of the Elephantine Island received all the exotic goods of the continent to the south, such as the ivory that gave the island its name, wonderful feathers and the pelts of beautiful animals, and the animals themselves: lions, cheetahs, apes, birds. There were woods for tree-poor Egypt, dye-stuffs, spices and endless coffles of black slaves from the interior to work the farms and quarries of Egypt and to be sold abroad, where they commanded high prices for their exotic looks, so different from common, pale-skinned slaves.
She was the richest as well as the most powerful woman in the world. But, she thought, it means nothing, because I owe it all to these Romans. They had saved her from political impotence as sister-wife to a reigning boy, and probable death at the hands of his corrupt ministers, once she had fulfilled her duty by delivering a royal heir. These Romans, by their arrogant intervention and surprising political sophistication, had eliminated those ministers by manipulating the Alexandrian mob. Their nation's reoccupation of Italy and invasion of Sicily had forced Hasdrubal to break off the Carthaginian assault on Alexandria, and now she sat on the throne of Egypt, her brother banished to an obscure wing of the palace.
She knew better than to be grateful. The Romans did nothing out of disinterested goodwill. Everything they did was calculated to advance the cause of Rome. First came their almost obsessive need to conquer, humiliate and destroy Carthage, as Carthage had once all but obliterated Rome. And after that?
This required careful thought. It was by no means certain that Rome could even win a single battle with Carthage, once Hamilcar mobilized his full might against them. Should Rome be defeated, or even suffer a setback, her position would prove far more secure than it now was. She would have leverage to use, positioning herself in a place of power as the most desirable ally for either nation. Should the present war be long and costly and end in an uneasy peace, she would be safe. Neither contender could afford to allow the other to have the matchless wealth of Egypt at its disposal.
But should Carthage prove victorious? That, too, might be to her advantage. The Romans would be certain to make the war costly. Even in victory, Carthage would be exhausted and close to ruin. Reoccupation and restoration of its possessions in Sicily and Italy would distract and drain Carthage for many years to come, while she consolidated her position and made new alliances. Parthia was the growing power to the east, and Syria might well see the advantage of an alliance with Egypt. If Antiochus was too stubborn to reverse his policy, there were time-honored methods for putting a more suitable heir on the throne without resorting to war.
But what if, against all expectation, Rome should win? They had the martial energy of her own Macedonian ancestors, those unbeatable warriors who in the reigns of only two kings had gone from control of an impoverished near-barbarian nation to lords of the old Persian Empire, masters of the world from Greece to India. If the Romans lacked any single leader with the tactical brilliance of Alexander, they seemed to have a great many commanders with widely differing methods, from the conventional, by-the-book generals who were reducing Sicily so methodically, to her own Marcus Scipio with his love of military machines and his preference for using foreign troops and sparing Roman legionaries for better things, to the dashing Titus Norbanus who now bid fair to become the glorious new Xenophon of his generation. The Senate would decide which general to send to take care of which situation, and this was a military advantage no other nation had ever. had.
Rome, she thought, might well conquer the world, as Alexander had once almost conquered the world. Alexander's empire had not outlived the conqueror himself, immediately splitting into minor empires controlled by his generals, who swiftly fell to battling among themselves.