One hundred men stood between four thousand talents of siege machinery and a city wall. Vitruvius says the immense tortoise attributed to Hegetor of Byzantium could roll forward, shift right or left, raise its ram and lower it. Its iron beak did not hang from a simple shed. It worked inside a timber building that … Read more
Latinus did not sit upright on a throne while an official read the future. In Virgil’s story, the king slaughtered one hundred woolly sheep, spread their skins beneath him and lay down in a sacred grove. The answer would come only after waking authority had yielded to ritual sleep. Below high Albunea, a fountain echoed … Read more
The first deep cut was not supposed to bring the tree down. Vitruvius told builders to open the standing trunk as far as its heart and then stop. The roots remained in the earth, the crown remained in the air, and liquid began to escape through the wounded sapwood drop by drop. Only when the … Read more
Pausanias was only a few steps ahead of the ephors when he reached the sanctuary of Athena Chalkioikos. The Spartan authorities intended to arrest him, but the sacred boundary interrupted ordinary seizure. He entered the precinct and took shelter in a building connected with it. The ephors answered without dragging him from the goddess’s protection. … Read more
An architect in Ephesus did not merely announce what a public building ought to cost. In the ancient rule reported by Vitruvius, he handed his estimate to a magistrate and put his property behind it. The estate remained security until the work was finished. Only then could the forecast be judged against the completed bill. … Read more
The sponge diver disappeared with a cord fixed beneath his shoulders. On the boat, companions held the other end. Below, one hand managed a short pointed blade while the other pulled the line to signal danger. Pliny the Elder describes this arrangement in a passage where harvesting turns suddenly into a fight for extraction. The … Read more
Antiochus IV approached the Roman delegation as a king close to possessing Egypt. Near Eleusis, four miles from Alexandria in Livy’s account, he greeted the envoys and extended his right hand to Gaius Popilius Laenas. The Roman did not take it. Instead, he put a written decree of the Senate into the king’s hand and … Read more
Zoilus arrived in Alexandria with an aggressive literary identity. Vitruvius says the Macedonian called himself Homeromastix and read works attacking the Iliad and Odyssey before Ptolemy. The king was offended but withheld an answer. Later the critic fell into poverty and asked the same court for help. The reply made reputation into an economy. Homer, … Read more
The prisoner exchange began with a clean rule and ended at the boundary of Fabius Maximus’s land. He and Hannibal agreed to trade captives man for man. When the matched exchanges were complete, Hannibal still held 240 Romans. The contract gave that remainder a price: 250 drachmas for every man recovered. Rome’s Senate refused to … Read more
Antiochus was starving himself under the cover of illness. His physician Erasistratus believed that the prince was in love, but that diagnosis left the most dangerous question unanswered: with whom? Plutarch says the doctor remained in the chamber day after day and watched what happened when different people entered. Most visitors produced nothing. Stratonice produced … Read more
