The Siege of Syracuse

by Dan Armstrong

  Hippocrates stepped up close to Archimedes and leaned into his face. “I would like you to prove that it can, Archimedes. I would like you to show me that the impossible is possible. Something I think your slave has already demonstrated today.”

  The old man turned away from Hippocrates and walked slowly over to his workbench. He put his hands down on the surface as though he needed it for support. He dropped his head and stared straight down. He was in deep personal anguish and not at all afraid of Hippocrates. It was his own soul he was wrestling with. What was the meaning of science? What was the geometry really for? Was it just an intellectual crystal to be admired in the mind or a tool that could ease physical burden for all men and women? To an old man who had towed a loaded warship onto land with one hand the challenge was not missed. At one level, he did want to build the array. He did want to put the principles of geometry to work and reveal their great meaning and power. He was being given a chance to do just that. It tempted him as some men are tempted by gold.

  Archimedes’ inner despair was so great that even Hippocrates seemed to feel it. He had seen this kind of profound personal presence in Hannibal—the intellectual power to compel a room full of men to silence without a word or any visible action. And Hippocrates truly did respect Archimedes. The Carthaginian agent might be brutal, but he was also capable of recognizing the transcendent. He needed Archimedes’ genius, and understood that demanding too much of the old man would only work against his purposes. Instead of bullying the scientist, he appealed to Archimedes’ vanity.

  “It’s your chance to put your name in history, Archimedes. To channel the sun’s rays into a stream of fire like a god on Earth—that is your destiny.” Hippocrates grinned with confidence. “Have a work order ready for me tomorrow.” He strode from the room.

  I was still kneeling on the floor where I had originally placed the array. I climbed to my feet and approached the far end of the workbench where Archimedes stood, hands on the bench, staring downward. “I’m sorry, master. He came in here without permission and began looking through the drawers. There was nothing I could do. He ordered me to reassemble the array. Please forgive me.” I felt small. History was full of slaves who had been tortured or killed to protect their master. I was fourteen, and not equal to those kinds of sacrifices.

  Archimedes slowly lifted his head and turned his eyes toward me. “There’s no need for you to apologize, Timon. I’m the one who has made the mistake. I followed my pride, not my heart. That’s what hurts so much now—my weakness. I had no reason to build these machines except to prove that I could. Now that it has been done, Paradora’s box is open. The secret is out. The weapons I have built are nothing compared to what this knowledge will one day spawn. The numbers and the geometry will be perverted. They will become a way for men to increase their capacity to kill one another. And I will be credited with showing them how.” He wagged his head and looked at me sadly, his single clear eye full of feeling and emotion. “But there must be some good in it, Timon?” he asked as though I was the audience of humankind for generations to come. “There must be.”

  CHAPTER 65

  The morning after the confrontation with Hippocrates, Archimedes dictated a work order to me. When he was done, he looked at me sadly with his one working eye. “Don’t think me weak, Timon.” He tapped the work order with his index finger. “I have lectured you on the sacred nature of this knowledge. I have made you promise never to tell anyone what you have seen. Now I’m going back on those words myself.” He paused, clearly troubled. “But there’s a chance Hippocrates is right about one thing. A single demonstration of the focusing mirrors might stop all further attempts on the city—and quite possibly save lives on both sides.”

  I nodded, believing it true.

  He folded the work order and sealed it with a wax imprint of his ring. He handed the document to me. “Deliver this directly into Hippocrates’ hands—no one else’s. Tell him I will begin work as soon as the order is filled.”

  The palace had become the center of operations for the war. Delivering the work order would give me my first opportunity to leave the island since the Roman siege had begun. I hadn’t seen Moira in over a month. If Hektor was right, she and her grandfather were living somewhere in the city.

  I ran all the way to the palace thinking that every second I saved on the front end of my trip would be more time I could spend looking for Moira. All my hurrying went for naught when I was brought to Hippocrates in the great hall. He sat at a huge plank table eating his midday meal. He looked up from a half-devoured chicken with his long hair hanging in his face. His eyes lit up and he grinned, exposing bits of chicken wedged in his teeth. “So Archimedes has admitted to the impossible,” he said, accepting the document from my outstretched hand.

  “He’ll begin as soon as this order is filled, sir.”

  Hippocrates broke the seal with his thumbnail and scanned the work order. He looked up at me, picking at his teeth with his forefinger. “Tell him he will have all that he needs and more. I will have a work space available by tomorrow.”

  I bowed and started to leave the room when he called out, “Not so quickly, Timon.” His tone made my stomach sink.

  The two soldiers who had brought me in stepped into the doorway blocking my way out.

  I turned slowly. “Yes, sir.”

  Hippocrates wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Archimedes must be applying his genius to many things that no one yet knows about.” He motioned to the platter of food before him. “Take what you like.”

  “I’m not hungry, thank you, sir.”

  “Please tell me,” he said, as if he were an uncle or a longtime friend, “what else is our favorite mathematician working on? Tell me everything.” He grinned—like a well-fed wolf.

  “I’m just a slave, sir. I don’t know all that my master does.”

  “But you knew about the burning mirrors. Tell me what else you know, Timon.”

  “Please, my master does most of his work with a stick in a tray of sand. I don’t know what any of it means.”

  Hippocrates’ grin stiffened. The man behind the polite façade, the man you always knew was there, surfaced. He reached across the table and took hold of my tunic. He pulled me bodily across the table, up close to his face and scowled. “There is nothing more you know? Nothing? No other magic toys lying about the workshop that on a larger scale could be used to our advantage? None?”

  I hoped he couldn’t read my mind. The combination of the crystal lens and the glass bead was, arguably, as important an invention as the array of parabolic mirrors. I lied with my life at stake. “What you saw yesterday is all there is.”

  Hippocrates released his grip on me. I stepped back from the table and straightened my tunic. He grinned at the chicken grease smeared on my clothing. “Keep a close eye on your master. A gold coin and your freedom for the right information.”

  “Y—yes, yes, I will watch him,” I stammered.

  Hippocrates tore a leg and thigh from the chicken, swung it up to his mouth, and took a huge bite. “Get out of here,” he snarled as he chewed. The soldiers stood aside. One of them stuck out his foot as I passed. I tripped and went sprawling across the floor.

  I climbed to my feet amid a chorus of rough laughter. I rubbed my elbow and ran out of the palace. I was still trembling from the encounter when I reached the Achradina gate. Security had been heightened since the appearance of the Roman forces. I should have had a letter, but one of the guards recognized me as Archimedes’ slave. Archimedes’ stature had grown since the beginning of the siege. I was allowed to pass and assured that I would be let back in.

  I ran north on Via Intermuralis up onto the plateau and into the Tyche district. The maze of tents had grown. The area that had once been the market was so filled with temporary structures and animals it looked like a barnyard. I stood at the edge of the tent city trying to catch my breath. I thought about Hippocrates’ offer of freedom. The two lenses would surely be
the right information. The proposition gave me pause. But not for long. I had given in to Hippocrates’ pressure before and it had put Archimedes in a pinch. I wouldn’t do it again.

  The morale of the people in the tents was surprisingly high. Even with the Roman fleet blocking the harbor and the Roman army blocking the roads, the successes against the siege had filled the populace with a curious elation. As I walked through the rows of tents and tethered animals, I heard the same conversation in every cluster of people I passed—awe for the weapons that guarded the city. Their fears had been dispersed. They laughed at how easily the Romans had been repelled. I felt much the same way—and was proud that I worked for the man responsible for all those marvelous machines.

  I scoured the tent city for Moira with no luck. I could have spent all day. It didn’t mean she wasn’t there, but it still got me worrying. Maybe Hektor had been mistaken.

  I decided to take the long way back to Achradina by dropping down into Neapolis. I would stop by the garden and take a few circuits around the walkway. If I couldn’t find Moira, perhaps I could track down Adeon.

  The park was not as busy as it had been on my previous two visits. I walked twice around the park, verifying that the man with the port-wine birthmark was not there. Finally I went to the center of the park and sat down on the lawn near a cluster of laurel bushes. I didn’t really have the time, but I lay down with my hands behind my head and tried to pretend that I did.

  I closed my eyes and wondered if I would ever find Adeon or the man who bought her. Would I ever hear another word about my mother or my father? Would I see Moira again? What could anyone know about the future with a war going on?

  Something landed on my chest. I sat up and a little twig slid into my lap. I thought nothing of it and lay back down. As soon as I closed my eyes, another twig came out of nowhere—and landed on my shoulder. I sat up again, and was looking around, when I heard a stifled laugh coming from within the laurel bush. I crawled closer to the bush. Moira peered out at me, then burst into laughter.

  “What are you doing in there?” I asked in astonishment.

  “Come on in.” She pointed to a small opening in the foliage. “It’s shady and cool in here.”

  I got down on my stomach and snaked along the ground into the laurel bush. Inside, the branches arched overhead and formed a little warren, private and secluded.

  “What do you think?” asked Moira as I sat down across from her.

  “This is wonderful!” I said, ecstatic to see her. “But what are you doing in here?”

  “Hiding from the world.” She smiled like an imp. “We live in a tent in the Tyche district now. I hate it there. I run away whenever I can and come here to be alone.” She directed her eyes to a break in the foliage that allowed a clear view out. “I can see the people outside, but they can’t see in.”

  “Who knows about this?”

  “No one.”

  “And you just sit in here?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes I watch the people and look for your man.”

  “Have you seen him? This is my third time here.”

  “I haven’t seen him since you mentioned it. Sometimes things are like that.”

  She settled onto her side. “Lay all the way down, Timon. It’s more comfortable.” She rolled onto her back and stretched out her arms.

  I lay down beside her and she rolled over toward me. “What’s that on your tunic?”

  I looked at the oil stain smeared from my chest to my belly, now coated with dirt. I knew I couldn’t mention Hippocrates without more questions that I couldn’t answer. “It’s from work in the kitchen. I didn’t get a chance to clean-up.”

  We looked into each other’s faces for a long time without saying anything.

  Finally I asked the question that had been in the back of my mind since the last time I had see her. “Moira, does it bother you that I’m a slave?”

  She gave me a look like I was crazy. “Of course not, do you think I would have asked you to come in here if it did?”

  “I guess not.”

  “I saw the look on your face when my grandfather said I couldn’t have friends who were slaves. I felt bad then, too.”

  “I wasn’t always a slave,” I said, trying to defend myself. “I lived in Croton. Do you know where that is?”

  She shook her head, no.

  “Well to the north and the east,” I said. “My father ran a school and we had slaves of our own. Have you always lived here?”

  Moira rolled onto her back so she was looking straight up through the laurel branches to the sky. She didn’t answer for so long I didn’t think she would. Finally, she said, “Only recently.”

  Moira turned onto her side and faced me. She touched my cheek, then leaned into me and kissed me on the lips. The kiss lasted for more than just a touch. When we pulled apart, she sat up. “We’d better go. I’ve been here too long.”

  Although I was enchanted by the girl, and wanted to stay there forever, I knew I had to go also.

  We both crawled out of the laurel to the lawn. When we stood and looked at each other, it was as though we had awakened from a dream—and life in a city surrounded by the Roman army.

  We walked back by way of the stairway. At the top of the stairs, we lingered.

  “How can I find you again?” I asked.

  “Our tent is near the auction stage. Just go there and look around. You’ll find me.” She touched my cheek with her hand then headed off toward the market.

  CHAPTER 66

  Marcellus Claudius was not one to give up easily. He gathered his officers after the second failed attempt on the city. They had no counter to Archimedes’ machines. A long siege and blockade seemed the only way to break the city. It could take a year or more. With Hannibal running wild in Italy, Marcellus didn’t feel he had that luxury. He was determined to make at least one more run at the city before backing off and simply starving Syracuse into submission.

  In the first two attempts, the unknown had played a large part in the Roman failure. The soldiers simply were not ready for Archimedes’ war machines. The actions of the mechanical claw seemed like sorcery to them. The men were more frightened by the supernatural quality of the machines than the specter of hard combat. But Marcellus was convinced that they had seen everything Archimedes had to offer.

  Marcellus took two weeks to prepare for a third attack while his fleet sat offshore south of Syracuse undergoing repairs. He called his engineers and commanders together and demanded that they come up with a strategy to confront every kind of device they had seen in the two previous efforts. The soldiers were also briefed repeatedly about what they should expect, with stress on the fact that they were facing man-made machines, not magic.

  But it wasn’t just the ordinary foot soldier who had been intimidated by Archimedes’ sorcery. As Marcellus would tell me later, many of his officers said the same thing. As far as they could tell these machines were alive. Marcellus was no engineer, but he understood that pulleys and levers animated these devices, not spells and incantations. One man, one very intelligent man, was behind it all. His weapons might be impressive, but he was mortal and he could be defeated.

  Meanwhile Archimedes was at work in a large warehouse at the south end of the island, supervising the construction of three large arrays of parabolic mirrors. Once he had overcome his initial reluctance, he set himself to the task with his usual energy and imagination.

  I was with Archimedes from dawn to dusk for two furious weeks, recording the building process and acting as the mathematician’s eyes. Having built a smaller version of these arrays, I knew more than anyone but Archimedes about how they should be constructed.

  Increasing the size of the devices made the task considerably more difficult. The one I had put together could be held in two hands. Aiming and focusing it had not been difficult, especially when the target could be moved to accommodate the position of the sun. All of this changed when the arrays weighed more than any ten men could
lift and the targets were one hundred feet away—and possibly moving. A further complication was the fact that the position of the sun limited where the reflected light could be directed. This severely restricted the usefulness of the arrays. As Archimedes kept telling Hippocrates, the perfection of these weapons was really beyond his capacity. What we were building, he emphasized, would be more for show than wide ranging use. Each array would have only a small area of effectiveness, for a small part of the day, meaning the other weapons, catapults, ballistae, and claws, would have to be used in conjunction with the mirrors.

  Hippocrates’ head was so filled with visions of grandeur, I’m sure he imagined we were building a powerful death ray that could cut down a line of soldiers in a single pass. That was simply not possible with the tools and skills we had. Nonetheless, the arrays looked quite impressive. The wooden scaffold stood thirty feet tall and held sixty polished, concave bronze mirrors, each about the size of a shield. The focusing capacity of the array came partially from the curvature of the mirrors and partially from the parabolic shape of the scaffold. The two together determined the focal length of the array—that is, how far from the device the concentration of the sunlight would be greatest. The flatter the curvature of the scaffold, the longer that distance was. With this in mind, Archimedes built three scaffolds, each with a different curvature. One had a focal length of fifty feet; another was eighty feet; the third was a hundred and ten feet.

  Once the mirrors were attached to the scaffold, they had to be aimed, one by one, to a single point. The scaffold substructure was then mounted on a carriage with a center pivot, so the entire apparatus could be rolled along the battlement walkways and turned to catch the sun.

  In the end, these bulky devices would have been extremely difficult to move or aim without Archimedes’ ingenious addition of pulleys and gears. When they caught the sun properly, however, they could heat a block of wood to flames in the count of three.