From all up and down the river I heard cries of thanksgiving. Again and again the name of Isis was invoked. I stared at the sun-dappled water. For just an instant, amid the ripples and sparkles of light, I caught a glimpse of Isis smiling back at me.
IX
THEY DO IT WITH MIRRORS
“Why seven?” I said.
“What’s that?” muttered Antipater, who was nodding off under the heat of the noonday sun. The crowded passenger boat we had boarded in Memphis had carried us all the way down the Nile, through the Delta, and into the open sea. Now we were sailing west, keeping close to the low coastline. There was not much to look at; the land was almost as flat and featureless as the sea. The broiling sun seemed to leach the color from everything. The pale expanse of water reflected a sky that was the faintest shade of blue, almost white.
“Why is there a list of Seven Wonders?” I said. “Why not six, or eight, or ten?”
Antipater cleared his throat and blinked. “Seven is a sacred number, more perfect than any other. Every educated person knows that. The number seven occurs repeatedly in history and in nature with a significance beyond all other numbers.”
“How so?”
“I’m a poet, Gordianus, not a mathematician. But I seem to recall that Aristobulus of Paneas composed a treatise on the significance of the number seven, pointing out that the Hebrew calendar has seven days and that in many instances Hesiod and Homer also attach special importance to the seventh day of a sequence of events. There are seven planets in the heavens—can you name them? In Greek, please.”
“Helios, Selene, Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares, Zeus, and Kronos.”
Antipater nodded. “The most prominent constellation, the Great Bear, has seven stars. In Greece, we celebrate the Seven Sages of olden days, and your own city, Rome, was founded on the Seven Hills. Seven heroes stood against Thebes—Aeschylus wrote a famous play about them. And in the days of Minos, seven Athenian youths and seven virgins were sent every year to be sacrificed to the Minotaur of Crete. Here in Egypt, the Nile where it forms the Delta splits into seven major branches. I could cite many more examples—but as you see, the list of the Seven Wonders is hardly arbitrary. It exemplifies a law of nature.”
I nodded. “But why
“Now that we’ve seen all the Wonders, Gordianus, surely you can understand why each was placed on the list.”
“Yes, but who made the list in the first place, and when, and why?”
Antipater smiled. He was fully awake now, and doing the thing he enjoyed most, other than reciting his poems—teaching. “The list is certainly very old; it had been around for as long as anyone could remember when I was a child and learned it. But the list as we know it cannot be any older than the youngest item on it. That would be the Colossus of Rhodes, which was built about two hundred years ago. So the list of the Seven Wonders—as it was handed down to me, anyway—is no older than that.”
“But who created the list, and why?”
“No one knows for certain, but I have my own theory about that.” Antipater looked quite pleased with himself.
“A theory? Why did you never mention it before?”
“Before proposing my idea to you, or to anyone else, I wanted to see all of the Seven Wonders. Having done so, I still need to do a bit of research. That’s one reason we’re heading to Alexandria. Hopefully, I’ll be able to gain access to the famous Library, where I can consult the ancient sources and meet with scholars to determine the feasibility of my theory.”
“What theory?”
“Having to do with the origin of the list of the Seven Wonders, of course.” He shook his head. “Ah, but look! There! Do you see it?”
Ahead of us and a bit to the left, a bright star appeared to be shining just above the horizon—even though the hour was noon.
“What can it be?” I whispered. I stared at the star that could not be a star, fascinated by the glimmering beam of light.
“Behold the Pharos!” said Antipater.
“Pharos?”
“It takes its name from the rocky island on which it stands, out in the harbor of Alexandria. Alexander founded the city, but it was his successor, King Ptolemy, who made the city great by constructing vast new temples and monuments. The greatest of these—certainly the most conspicuous—was a structure of a sort that had never been seen before, a soaring tower with a beacon at its summit to guide ships safely past the shallows and reefs to Ptolemy’s capital. A lighthouse, they called it. In the two hundred years since it was completed, similar towers have been built all over the world, wherever sailors are in need of a high beacon to guide them, but none of these later lighthouses are remotely as tall as the original, the Pharos of Alexandria.”
“But we must be a long way from Alexandria. I can’t see anything of the city at all.”
“The beacon can be seen across the open sea as far as three hundred stadia, they say—in Roman terms, thirty miles or more.”
“But how is such a light produced? Surely no flame can burn that brightly.”
“By day, the beam is created using mirrors—enormous reflectors made of hammered bronze and silver that can be tilted in various ways so as to reflect the light of the sun. At night, a bonfire is kept burning in the tower, and the
