Scene V

The ramparts of Syracuse. Work on the construction of defenses is in progress. The CHORUS members are engaged in earthwork, moving beams etc.. A few catapults stand on the battlements, as well as some unfinished devices resembling large cranes. Downstage, ERATOSTHENES and ARCHIMEDES examine construction plans.

ARCHIMEDES: You there, the smaller catapults to the fore, the giants on

the bluff--face them seaward. And find me a hefty boulder,

of at least ten talents weight. I want to test the range.

CHORUS: With the fury of Zeus in a storm, our bolts will rain

down upon the enemy and crush him.

ARCHIMEDES: Let us first test the range or we may find ourselves caught

in a thunder of our own devising.

CHORUS: Archimedes has gone to work, and his mind disturbs

the earth no less than the sinews of Atlas.

But even Atlas could not move us.

Yes, Troy fell by cunning but cunning is on our side.

We shall not make the mistake of relying on gods or

propheses for protection. Instead Syracuse will stand

aloof, behind defenses fivefold, farther removed than the

acropolis of Athens.

And though Hannibal crossed the mighty Alps, the sound of

his trumpets will not reach our Olympian preserve.

Let him wail.

For this we thank Archimedes who answered our modest

supplications.

We kneel to Archimedes, first among men.

ARCHIMEDES: You there, be sure that pillar is buried deep and sound, and

that the crossbeam swings wide over the walls.

CHORUS: Our giant claws will pluck ships from the bay as the

Cyclops snatched Oddyseus' crew...

ARCHIMEDES: ...and beat their brains out, spattering them across the

walls of Syracuse.

ERATOSTHENES: You are not happy.

ARCHIMEDES: I have donned the mantle of command because I could not bear

to refuse my King in his hour of grief.

I could not bear to kill him.

But this mantle does not sit well with me; it itches and

burns like the poisoned cloak of Nessus.

ERATOSTHENES: Look out across the sea and imagine one hundred

Carthaginian ships sailing toward us at full stroke.

They are bent upon storming and sacking the city.

Women will be raped and men put to the sword.

Then Syracuse will be razed and its ashes scattered.

You need not the incense of Delphi to reveal

this vision, Archimedes. You need only measure in your

mind's eye the distance to the tip of Africa.

ARCHIMEDES: Are you planning to return to Alexandria soon?

ERATOSTHENES: Yes.

ARCHIMEDES: How many stadia does she lie from Carthage?

ERATOSTHENES: A mere month's march down the coast for Hannibal, and no

mountains. The weather is tropical.

ARCHIMEDES: Are you not afraid?

ERATOSTHENES: I shall no doubt thank Archimedes for keeping him

occupied.

Perhaps, in truth, danger always lies in the other man's city.

But, also in truth, we do not sit at his doorstep, as you do.

And Gelon is dead.

Are you not afraid?

ARCHIMEDES: Your oracles are always as clear as crystal, whereas mine

seem perpetually clouded.

But I am afraid, yes, afraid that we shall lower the shield

of reason when we should hold it high, that we shall cry out

our lungs when we should be pausing for breath, and that in

this moment of lowered guard, fear will defeat us.

I would not like to die realizing I had yielded to hysteria.

ERATOSTHENES: You will never die, Archimedes, not so long as that moon,

whose distance you've calculated, shines above the earth.

(Enter HIERON using a walking staff.)

ARCHIMEDES: You there, move that mirror farther along the ramparts!

HIERON: How does the work progress, Archimedes?

ARCHIMEDES: It progresses, Sire; in what direction is yet difficult to

say. Still, work is the best shield against that dread

anxiety which seizes idle souls and slowly paralyzes them.

My King, I see the walk from town has left you weary.

Take this chair.

HIERON: Weary. It's not something I would lighty admit to.

(Catching sight of his reflection in a mirror):

You, workers, wait, bring that mirror closer.

(WORKERS place a large metal mirror before HIERON.)

Can you recognize in this pale reflection the soldier who

so deftly seized Syracuse's throne fifty-four years ago?

ARCHIMEDES: The resemblance is still strong, Hieron.

HIERON: Or the young boy who sailed to Alexandria and returned the

greatest mathematician the world has known?

ARCHIMEDES: I should like to think that the wrinkles in my brain have

increased in proportion to those on my face.

HIERON (To WORKERS):

Begone, I dislike perfect mirrors.

(WORKERS carry off mirror.)

Geometer, tell me, which is more vulnerable: the body,

eroded by the elements, riddled by disease, ravaged by

years;

Or the soul, victim of God's every caprice and all

those wounds we inflict upon each other besides?

Over which does weariness triumph sooner?

(ARCHIMEDES remains silent.)

Why so sad, friend?

I can hardly recall a more perfect evening.

Look there at Venus, shining radiantly.

She reminds me of that other time, after sunset, when we

gathered about a fire on the beach and there, as we let sand

run through our splayed fingers, you reckoned for

Gelon the number of grains needed to fill the universe.

Do you remember?

(ARCHIMEDES nods.)

You first counted the grains laid side by side that equal

the width of a barley corn, followed by the number of barley

corns that make up a finger's breadth. Then the myriad

fingers in a stadium, and the myriad myriad stadia to the

moon.

You hardly paused for breath before you reckoned the

distance to the sun and finally the stars.

By the end, when you filled this volume with sand, you had

computed a number so vast that ordinary men would have

called it infinite.

Yet to you it was a number, like all the rest.

Gelon slapped his thighs.

Perhaps it was in the child's glee at discovering immense

things. Or perhaps it was as an adult, grateful for a

proof that all things are finite.

Which do you think?

ARCHIMEDES: I am sure it was the delight of a child, Sire.

HIERON: So am I. Gelon valued your advice.

ARCHIMEDES: It pleases me to hear that.

HIERON: Geometer, speak truthfully. Does the weight of these vast

numbers ever exhaust you?

ARCHIMEDES: The truth is that their buoyancy only increases with magnitude.

(Chuckling): Perhaps it is their many zeros which affords

them lightness. Forgive the levity.

When I am vexed by family squabbles--"Archimedes cease your

contemplation and find some wood--" or burdened by the

trod of daily life; when your politics exercises me beyond

all endurance;

or at those moments when solitude surrounds me,

and I gaze unwittingly into the fu...

HIERON: Yes?

ARCHIMEDES: ...into the future, Sire--

HIERON: Are you afraid?

ARCHIMEDES: --I turn to the lightness of numbers.

It is their great distance; you cannot know the peace it brings.

HIERON: I envy you, Archimedes. Gelon did no less. He marveled at your abilities.

I remember the time when you presented him with a solar

system in miniature, that displayed the motions of the sun

and planets in all their intricacies. He spent countless

hours captive...

ARCHIMEDES: There are richer men to envy, Hieron.

The ability to reckon and fashion toys is a commoner's

craft.

Far fewer have mastered the art of wisdom.

(WORKERS carry another mirror past. ARCHIMEDES glances at it.)

Gods, would I trade all my knowledge for an ounce of wisdom,

at this moment more than at any other.

HIERON (also addressing mirror):

Phoebus, your crime is to have robbed the world of lightness

and left it exhausted.

Oh Archimedes, the wisdom you prize cannot prevent

nightfall, if the gods have ordained it.

ARCHIMEDES: Neither can knowledge, Hieron, though a man possess

More of it than there are sandgrains in the universe.

HIERON: Someday you will abandon toys and halt the sun in its

tracks. Have you forgotten your boast to move the world?

ARCHIMEDES: Must you remind me?

That cry of exultation was a younger man's and now I regret

the utterance.

But, if the day comes when I can halt the sun, I shall seek

your advice on the best course of action and you shall stay

my hand.

HIERON (glancing at mirror):

Archimedes...

ARCHIMEDES: Yes, Sire?

HIERON: When I...You will not swerve from this course.

ARCHIMEDES: I have given you my word. And you stand at my side to guide

me.

HIERON: You will not lose heart, promise me again.

ARCHIMEDES (kneeling):

I swear it, my King.

HIERON: Oh stand. I cannot bear a greater man beneath me.

Archimedes, do not abandon...

ARCHIMEDES: Sire?

HIERON: My grandson will need your guidance. Give it to him freely.

ARCHIMEDES (glancing in mirror):

O Hieron...were the decision mine.

HIERON: Archimedes, he is my flesh and blood...for all the rest.

ARCHIMEDES (softly):

I know.

Hieron, against my will I have taken charge of your

battlements. There was some justice in the request. Over

machines and devices I am master; I admit no equal.

But...I approach my limits. Find the strength to

relieve me of this duty.

HIERON: My friend, do not make me ask a second time. If I

am forced to beg you, I fear I...I shall no longer

be able to stand erect.

ARCHIMEDES (grasping him):

Then you have only to command. Do not forget you are King.

HIERON: King...

(Turning to mirror):

Who is king, so robbed of days ahead?

(A pause.)

Though my eyes scan your surface for oracles, you reveal

nothing but a blank, infinitely retreating.

Tell me what is to come and release me from this prison of

unknowing, I beg you on my knees..

(A pause.)

O, you spiteful, silent gods...

ARCHIMEDES: Zeus, if in your immortal blood flows a drop of pity...

(Enter MESSENGER.)

MESSENGER: Sire, I have news.

HIERON: Speak, though I am terrified to listen.

MESSENGER: Hannibal has defeated the Romans at a village called Cannae.

Fifty thousand Roman footsoldiers and five thousand cavalry

besides,

faced the Carthaginian infantry, thirty or forty thousand

more.

There has scarce been a day since Alexander when such a

multitude of swords and spears glinted under the noonday

sun.

The Romans charged Hannibal's bulging center. There, his

Iberians and Celts yielded to the onslaught and the bulge

flattened, then collapsed inward.

Those heathen troops fell back ever further as the

Italians, sensing victory, poured into the pocket they had

created.

But suddenly Hannibal's African wings closed up and trapped

the Romans between the jaws of a vice. The Carthaginian

cavalry--ten thousand horses--charged, encircling their foes

from the rear.

And now the Romans were surrounded, jammed so tight they

could not raise their swords.

The rest was a rout, the Romans cut to pieces.

I've heard the river there ran crimson three full days.

Already they call it the greatest battle in history and

Rome's worst defeat.

Hannibal's troops hauled gold rings from the battlefield in

bushels.

He has ransomed Roman prisoners.

But Rome has refused and is sending survivors to Sicily to

serve without pay.

The Roman consuls have outlawed weeping, no mourning

is permitted. Citizens are forbidden to spread rumors and

exit from the city is barred. Silence in public is the law.

(HIERON has been staring into a mirror, visibly crushed. Silence reigns. Enter GALATEA.)

GALATEA: Have you heard the news?

(HIERON gradually straightens, turns to the others and surveys their faces.)

HIERON: To announce silence is to break it.

To forbid rumors is to fan the fires of their spreading,

and to outlaw tears is to ensure a deluge of grief.

No sign of strength, these edicts; they augur of capitulation.

So weep if you must at an ally's defeat;

Gaze also peacefully at this evening's stillness, at the

cliffs and sea that serve as our bulwarks.

Spread rumors if you wish; I shall not forbid them, for

rumors will surrender to the truth and the truth is that we

are protected.

I forbid only oppressive silence, the silence which stalks

the soul and leaves it prey to fear.

Go now serenely into the night. Return invigorated at dawn;

more toil awaits.

I leave you now.

(He gazes at ARCHIMEDES and exits.)

ARCHIMEDES (raising an arm): My King...

(The WORKERS gradually exit.)

My King, I pray that you have found a shard of lightness in

your darkest hour, to negate a portion of the heaviness

which weighs down your soul.

I have tried to shoulder some of this burden.

When your son died, I abandoned the entreaties of my

conscience and stood fast by your side.

Nor would I permit you to collapse when you vainly sought

the future in that hard mirror's image.

And though the role of princely advisor is repugnant to me,

in the end I did not refuse.

All these burdens I took from you, if not gladly, then

because friendship demanded it.

Now you have walked away erect, at last, and my legs begin

to buckle.

This weight crushes my ancient back. Oh, would I cast it away!

Your men called me Atlas, a complement undeserved. No Atlas

here, Hieron; the tally of my years is scarce less than your own.

Not a firm shoulder to carry the heavens.

And in their primitive haste, your men forgot to ask: where

did Atlas stand?

Ah, I am exhausted.

(To an abandoned mirror as HIERONYMOUS enters):

Away, I hate perfect mirrors.

HIERONYMOUS: Where is Hieron?

ARCHIMEDES: Gone.

HIERONYMOUS: Have you heard the news?

ARCHIMEDES: More than is decent for a single day.

Your grandfather has appointed me your advisor.

HIERONYMOUS: Indeed.

ARCHIMEDES: Indeed. Do not worry; the post sits heavily.

HIERONYMOUS: Consider yourself relieved of the burden.

ARCHIMEDES: Were it up to us. But it was his fi--his firm wish--

HIERONYMOUS: Or command?

ARCHIMEDES: His firm wish. Please, I am too tired to argue. Let us

pause and put off the coming fight.

HIERONYMOUS: Agreed. I go to find Hieron.

(Exit.)

ERATOSTHENES: Give me your arm, Atlas.

I do not envy your position; the place for a firm footing

diminishes by the hour.

And, like yourself, I do not believe in the efficacy of sacrifices.

GALATEA: The dispassion of geometers terrifies me.

Husband, I will gladly offer our prize bull to the altar, I

will gladly shed the tears you refuse to shed and carry you

on my back if Zeus will be appeased and the rape of Syracuse

forestalled.

ARCHIMEDES: Galatea, you have my leave: go chant the required litany,

sprinkle the proper grain, set the tripods alight. Maybe

your gods will send threatening portents or welcome omens.

For me, this struggle is man versus man, and I soon fear

Carthage versus Archimedes.

I know of no ceremony to change those odds, only calculation.

Ah, I am exhausted.

OFFSTAGE HERALD:

The King is dead! Long live the King!

GALATEA: No!

ERATOSTHENES: Your wife is right, Sand Reckoner; it is time to pray.

(They run off to the palace)