The Bronze God of Rhodes

BOOK X — KAVAROS

When I re-entered my studio for the first time in more than a year, I saw that I had my work cut out for me. My tools I had taken home, but other equipment too heavy to move— furnaces, anvils, tubs, troughs, and the like—was mostly broken or stolen. Refugees had camped here, using my scanty furniture for firewood, and gangs of boys had broken things up.

I was poking at the litter in a futile sort of way when I heard a step behind me. Before I could turn, a large hand grasped my shoulder and whirled me around. There stood Kavaros, wearing a plain but decent tunic, with wine on his breath and murder in his eyes.

"This for you!" he cried.

A fist crashed into my jaw, and down I went. The next thing I knew, he was cradling me in his arms and weeping over me.

"Ah, the poor little man!" he moaned. "Bad cess to me that struck him, and him so brave and clever and all!"

I tore loose. "Before I cut your heart out," I said, "would you mind telling me why you did that?"

"It was only to get even with you for all the times you beat me, sir. My honor demanded it."

"Honor! But you were a slave then!"

"Maybe I was to you, Master Chares, but to me I was still Kavaros son of Ortiagon, a chief's son and a Keltic gentleman. And I did not like the beatings any more than you would."

I was filled with mixed emotions. On one hand, I was furious with Kavaros, but on the other I had to admit the logic of his feeling as he did.

"Go walk! The wild Keltic race is too much for me," I said, rubbing my jaw, picking up the broom, and resuming my work. "I shall never understand them."

"It is truly sorry that I am, sir," he said. "If you would like a bit of a knock at me, go ahead and take it. Here, young master, indeed and you are doing it all wrong. Give me that broom."

The Kelt fell to work with a will. I think he stirred up twice as much dust and caused twice as much commotion as he needed to, but that was ever his way.

"It is like my great-grandfather and the enchanted bear," he said. "My ancestor was hunting in the Rhiphaian Mountains once when he came upon this big brown devil, who knocked the spear out of his hand with one paw and my ancestor into a snowdrift with the other. When my greatgrandfather dug himself out, there was the bear standing over him and growling like a thunderstorm that had got out of bed the wrong side that morning.

" 'Well, bear, get on with it,' said my ancestor. 'If I am to be ate, I do not want to be wasting time with preliminaries."

" 'Who said anything about eating you?' said the bear. 'People have always disagreed with me. I want to know what you mean by trying to poke me with that little pointed straw.'

" 'That is no straw but a spear, and I am after trying to kill you, because you are a bear and I am a man, and it is right and proper for the likes of me to kill the likes of you.' Then something about this conversation struck my ancestor as curious, for he was a clever man. 'And what are you doing, my good bear, talking to me like this? Is it that you are an enchanted bear?'

" 'I wondered how soon you would notice,' said the bear. 'Know that I am Prince Tasios of the Bastarnians. I was betrothed to the daughter of the king of the Elves, but Morrigana the witch, who. loved me, changed me into this shape in a fit of jealousy. And I cannot recover human form until I find a man who is willing to exchange shapes with me.'

" 'Indeed and it is a pleasure to meet you, sir,' said my great-grandfather. 'Know that I am Gargantyos of the Tektosages, who married the daughter of the king of the Elves.'

"At that the bear began to growl and roll back his lips, until the big white teeth of him stood up like the snow-covered peaks of the Rhiphaians. My great-grandfather saw that the bear would soon eat him out of simple jeaously, even though he suffered a bellyache afterwards. So my forebear said: 'Did you say something about finding a man to exchange shape with?'

" 'And would you be willing, now?' said the bear.

" 'I might,' said my great-grandfather. 'What sort of arrangements have you here for bearing it?'

"The bear waved a paw, pointing out where there was berries to be found in the fall, and the stream that the salmon came up, and the woods that had deer and rabbits, and all the other things needed for a bear's comfort. 'And my wife is sleeping in a cave on the north side of this hill,' said the bear.

" 'Is it a good wife that she is?' said my great-grandfather.

" 'A bear could not ask for better,' said the bear. 'How is dear Brigantia these days?'

" 'She grows more beautiful every day,' said my greatgrandfather, omitting any further description of the lady, to whom he had now been married for above two years and so knew her better than when he had first met her in the halls of the Elf-king.

"Well, the bear's eyes began to roll with thoughts of his lost love; so he and my great-grandfather each drew a drop of blood from his arm, and they mixed them. When they stood up, Prince Tasios had my great-grandfather's form, while my ancestor had the shape of the bear. And they parted with expressions of esteem.

"Now my great-grandfather thought: I have loved many a woman, but never a bear, to do which in my human form would be indecent not to mention unsafe. And he galloped off to the northern side of the hill and found the cave. There inside was the lady bear asleep with two little ones curled up beside her.

"When my great-grandfather had had his fill of looking upon this scene with eyes full of tender sentiment, he tried to wake up the lady bear. He had a terrible time getting her to waken at all. When she did and saw what he had in mind, she roared in bear language: 'Are you out of your wits? You know it is not the season!' And she set upon my poor ancestor and nearly clawed and bit him to death before he ran howling and bleeding out into the snow.

"Well, my ancestor recovered from that reception, except that a piece was bit out of one of his ears permanent. And he spent a dull winter digging mice and squirrels out of their holes to eat. But before the snow was all gone, who should come back but Prince Tasios, wearing my ancestor's body.

" 'What a dirty liar you are, Gargantyos!' he said. 'Why did you not tell me what I was getting into?'

" 'Liar yourself!' said my great-grandfather. 'I told you the true answer to your question, which is more than you did for me.'

"So Prince Tasios threw his spear at my ancestor, who knocked it aside and chased the prince up a tree. After much mutual roaring of insults, the prince called down: 'What is the matter with my wife? The bear one, that is. She was always a good wife to me, you ungrateful spalpeen!'

"When my ancestor told Tasios what had happened, the prince laughed so he nearly fell out of the tree. 'Of course not, your poor loon; bears have but one season for love, and that in the summer. I am the one with cause for complaint. No sooner did I put foot in your castle than dear Brigantia scolded me for tracking mud in on her clean floors. Then she scolded me for not bringing her a fur coat. Then she scolded me because at dinner I held the roast in place with my paws and put my mouth down to it, as any well-behaved bear would do. Then she scolded me for going to bed with my clothes on, as I had forgotten about this business of dressing and undressing. And when I finally got to bed, she kept waking me up by saying: 'Well?'

" 'The third time this happened, I said: 'Well, what?' And then she began to cry and say I did not love her any more.

" 'Now that I bethink me, I begin to understand what she was complaining about, for I had forgotten your beastly human habits in the years I lived out here. And, if you like, I will gladly be changing shapes with you again.' So they did: and each lived, if not happily ever after, at least wiser than they had been, which is the best that mortal creatures can reasonably expect. And the moral is that, if you cannot have what you think you want, it is often just as well."

When I got my breath from laughing, I said: "What are you going to do now?"

"I will be going back to the land of the Tektosages; a ship to Macedonia leaves tomorrow. To be sure, a fine thing it is to be a free man and an enrolled Rhodian tribesman, but it is well to live among your own people, too. Here, sir." He pulled out a heavily laden wallet and handed it to me. "Keep that for me, please, and let me not have any until I am after boarding my ship. It is my mustering-out pay. I know myself, and if I try to keep it, it will be all drunk up."

"Excuse me, O Chares," said another voice uncertainly from the doorway. Who should stand there but my old foe Kallias! I hardly knew him. His hair had grayed completely, and he had lost twenty or thirty pounds. The siege had aged him by decades; his skin had a grayish hue in lieu of its former ruddiness.

"Well?" I said.

"Well—ah—know, dear friend, that I am planning to leave Rhodes," he said. "As you are aware, I have run into difficulties here. They are not really my fault; the disfavor of Lady Luck and the conspiracies of jealous competitors caused them. However, you know how people talk. I doubt that I shall be able, therefore, to get good commissions in nearby cities like Knidos and Kôs.

"What I must do is to go far afield—say, to Byzantion or Syracuse—where none has yet heard these calumnies. And there is a difficulty. To move myself and my family such a distance takes more money than I have. So I wonder if I could not persuade you to lend me a little, just till I get established in my new home—"

"No," I said.

"Just a few drachmai? You are going to be successful, Chares, as I always said you would. You will never miss—"

"Not a half-farthing. Get out!"

"After all, I did give you your start—"

"Go!" I shouted, taking a step forward.

Kallias turned away with a sigh. As he disappeared, Kavaros said: "Master Chares, could you let me have a little silver out of that wallet I just gave you?"

"What for?"

"To give the poor man."

"That liar, faker, and grafter? I should say not! Anyway, you just told me not to give you any of this money until you were on your ship, and that's what I shall do."

Kavaros sighed in his turn. "It is a hardhearted fellow that you are. But perhaps you are right."

The Rhodians were mystified when the Council told them to assemble on the plain south of the city, on the fifth of Hekatombaion. They were more puzzled when the new President commanded:

"Lay hold of those ropes, men! The rest of you go behind the belfry and under it. Place your hands against the crossbeams."

When five thousand Rhodians were clustered around the engine, the President cried: "Now, all together, heave!"

As the earth had been dug away to make a ramp in front of the sunken wheels, the belfry groaned up the gentle slope and began rolling towards the city.

Being one of those commanding the men who pulled and pushed, I was in on the secret. We headed the engine towards the place where the South Gate had stood. It was not hard to maneuver, as the eight huge wheels were mounted on castors and so could be swiveled.

Once the Council was sure that Demetrios had sailed away for good, they had most of the South Wall torn down. It was in such tumbledown condition from the battering of Demetrios' engines that it was cheaper to build a whole new wall than to try to patch the old one. Makar and his masons were already at work on the new wall, but a fifty-cubit gap had been left where the gate had stood. Makar himself was among those pulling. As the machine rumbled towards the city, he cried: "O Chares! Be sure to look inside this thing. Remember what happened to the Trojans!"

A half-hour's pull brought the belfry into the city. We halted inside the ruins of the old wall, on the open plaza.

As the monstrous engine groaned to a stop, old Diognetos stepped forward, wearing the golden crown surmounted by rayed solar disks, which the Council had conferred upon him along with every other honor they could think of. He held up a hand for silence.

"When I undertook to save the city," he rasped, "I demanded this belfry as my share of the spoils. Now that I have it, there is a question of what to do with it. It does not look edible, nor could it easily be turned into a comfortable dwelling house, even by so accomplished an architect as myself. Well then, you will say, why do I not disassemble it and sell the parts? «The timber, iron, and hides must be worth many talents.

"However, I am old. I am comfortably off now, and I do not wish to spend the rest of my days seeking out customers for these materials. Nor have I the true huckster's gift, as has a certain colleague of mine, now happily departed from this land. Therefore, it seems to me that the best thing to do with this monstrosity is to give it to Rhodes. Chares, where is that sign?"

I held up the bronzen placque (which I had cast the day before in the foundry) against the timbers of the base of the belfry, while Diognetos drove two bronze nails through the holes in the ends. Then we stepped back and read:

DIOGNETOS DEDICATED THIS TO THE PEOPLE

FROM THE SPOILS OF WAR

"There you are," said Diognetos. "You do not deserve it after the way you treated me. But," he added, wiping away a tear, "you have suffered for your fault, and I cannot help loving you, at least a little. Let's go."

He tottered off on his stick, amid cheers that shook the blue sky above. Then we swarmed into the belfry to examine it.

Most of the catapults were still in place. Demetrios had provided two sets of stairs, with signs indicating that one was to be used by upward-bound traffic only and the other by descending traffic. Thus was confusion among the crews avoided.

Also, profiting from the loss of Epimachos' previous belfry at Cyprian Salamis, the king, or his engineer, had placed a huge tub of tarred leather on each story, hung about with leathern buckets for fighting fires. This, then, was how the Antigonians had saved their belfry the night we set it afire. What a pity that Demetrios was not satisfied simply to practice engineering! He had made a far better technical man than a king.

When it transpired that the sale of the war materials left by Demetrios would come to scores or even hundreds of talents if shrewdly handled, the Council asked among the citizenry: What to do with this money? Some were for saving it; some, for putting it into defenses; some, for distributing it to the people. As I was now a person of some standing, albeit not a full citizen, the Council also sought my opinion. I said:

"Gentlemen, know that I was not, formerly, a religious man. But several times during the late war I prayed to Helios-Apollon to save us. Each time he responded magnificently. Some of my philosophical friends may tell me that my logic is faulty, but it is good enough for me. As you know, I have returned to the faith of my fathers and joined the Board of Sacrificers of our chief temple.

"Since you ask me what to do with this money, I would honor the true savior of our beloved city by building him a statue: the greatest statue that has ever been erected. I personally swore to Helios-Apollon that if we won the war and I survived, I should urge this plan upon you and devote my life to the building of this memorial."

"Do you mean," said one Councilman, "a statue like the Tarentine Zeus of Lysippos?"

"Oh, no. I would make this one twice as tall—as tall as Demetrios' great belfry, which is about seventy cubits high. Lest the commercial-minded among you hesitate, I might add that from a secular point of view this money were not ill spent. Many cities profit from having some wonder to draw travelers, as the pyramids draw them to Memphis. This statue would spread our fame throughout the world and thereby attract business."

Several ten-days passed while they wrangled. I appeared again and again to repeat my arguments. When the Council adopted my plan and presented it to the Assembly, a citizen named Evarchos read an hour-long speech against the proposal. Since my old antagonist Lykon had written this speech, you can imagine its tenor:

"... Fellow citizens, must we be stupid? Anybody can see that Chares has proposed this plan because he knows that if it be adopted, he will be in a position to secure the contract for himself. Now, we all know what sort of person Chares is: a mere baseborn artisan, and not even a real Hellene; vulgar, quarrelsome, pushing, self-conceited, and implacably ambitious; a climber if ever I saw one. Why, if given a chance, he would make this statue an eidolon of himself, with his own face atop it! If that be his aim, let him do it with his own money, not ours! Shall we bob at the end of this grasping Phoenician's string, like a bait on a fishing line? ..."

However, my friends in the Assembly defended me doughtily. Bias said:

"Look here, Rhodians. We've voted to build statues of Kasandros and Seleukos and Lysimachos. For the Ptolemaios we've voted not only a statue but also a temple. That's all very nice, but if we're going to load these honors on our mortal helpers, we ought to do something special for the immortal one. Someday these Macedonian warlords will all be with the shades, but Helios will still be here when we need him. So it don't make sense to be stingy with the god—"

In the end the proposal passed. There followed months of discussion about the site and the appearance of the statue. At one session of the Council they threw some fantastic proposals at me. One said:

"Let the statue bestride the harbor, with one foot resting on each of two moles, so that ships shall pass between its legs!"

"That were impossible," I said. "Why so?"

"It's a matter of elementary engineering. A statue of this size must be braced by columns of stone, rising through the legs. If the statue straddled the harbor, the legs would rise at a slant, and the columns would not stand up; they would collapse of their own weight. Moreover, the space between the statue's legs would not allow enough clearance for the masts and yards of the larger ships. And, lastly, I should have to close the harbor to traffic. This would ruin our city, since the statue will take years to build."

In the end we chose as our site the high ground west of the Great Harbor, where the foreign quarter lies.

Then there were the financial details. As nobody had ever built so large a statue, none knew what it would cost. The estimates started low and kept climbing as each new expense transpired. In the end I undertook to build the Helios for the cost of materials plus a fixed fee of two hundred talents, to be paid in installments.

The Council and I agreed that it were better to take my time in beginning the statue until I had learnt everything I needed to know. Meanwhile I had plenty to keep me busy. The new theater was taken in hand again, and I was told to go ahead with the statues of the playwrights. The city also ordered a statue of King Ptolemaios for the Ptolemaeion, as well as several smaller statues to decorate this edifice. Business was so brisk that I hired a couple of full-time assistants for the studio.

Summer had come again when a familiar voice spoke through the door of my busy studio: "Is it that Master Chares still works here now?" There stood a tall, red-haired, mustached man wearing Keltic trousers and tunic of a gaudy checkered pattern, with squares of red, yellow, and blue.

"Kavaros!" I cried, clasping his hand. "I thought you'd gone back to live among your wild countrymen in Getika."

"That I did, that I did. But things are not what they used to be. My poor father was dead. Some dirty murtherers from the Trokmoi had slain him, and for no reason at all, just because he had taken a few heads from their tribe to hang over his gate. A new chief leads the clan, so it is no longer a chief's son that I am. Then there was a bit of an argument with a man who thought that my wife Grania here"— he indicated a tall, beautiful, golden-haired woman in the doorway—"ought to belong to him. And besides, sir, to tell the truth, I am after being spoilt by life in a great city. A man can buy so many nice things that he cannot get in the Keltic country."

"But what will you do in Rhodes?"

"I am thinking you will need a pair of strong arms to help with the heavy lifting and moving for your new statue. I will work as I did before, but as a free man, of course. I leave the pay to you; as a gentleman you will be fair."

So I took on Kavaros at two and a half drachmai a day: a fair rate of pay for a starter. Although he still had his old faults, he soon made himself indispensable nonetheless.

After the contract with the city had been signed, you might think that I could start work at once. But as Hippokrates the physician once said, art is long, life short, opportunity fleeting, experience deceptive, and judgment difficult. I did not intend to spend years in putting up my statue, to have the first blast of Boreas tumble it down. Hence it took eleven years of painstaking preparation before I could actually begin the construction of my Helios.

After months of work on my lesser contracts, of wandering about the foreign quarter to see just where the Colossus would look best, of making and discarding models, and of covering tablet after tablet with calculations, I set sail for Argos. It was spring of the second year of the 119th Olympiad, when the allied kings were closing in upon Antigonos and his son Demetrios.

I had to wait over three days in Argos for a party for Corinth to be made up. Brigandage was rife in Hellas, and few roads were safe for solitary travelers.

A hard day's muleback ride through the rugged, scrub-covered hills of Argolis brought us into sight of the Gulf of Corinth. Here I left the party and, with my new Colchian slave, took the coastal road westward. The first stars to light their tapers saw me banging on Lysippos' door in Sikyon.

"Well, well!" cried the old man, with a gap-toothed grin. "Do not tell me that Chares of Lindos has gone all these years unhanged! I remember you well. Talent you had, but' you were the snottiest little bastard I ever dealt with."

"I still am, you old tyrant," I replied, "but I've learnt to hide it. Have you reached your goal of fifteen hundred statues yet?"

"No, but I shall, even though age has slowed me. The boys do most of the work now." He raised his voice. "Daïppos! Boêdas! Euthykrates! Here's one of our old apprentices, grown famous!"

The three young stalwarts rushed out and fell to wringing my hand and pounding my back. In the time of my apprenticeship my relations with Lysippos' sons had not been friendly. I suppose they feared that I might gain a lasting influence over their sire, to the detriment of their own careers. Now, however, their greeting was as hearty as one could have wished.

"Dinner is over," said Lysippos, "but our cook shall scramble something up for you. Come in, man, and tell us all about the great siege! Is that how you got that scar on your face?"

An hour and a skin of wine later we had finished with the siege and were asking about fellow artists. I said:

"What has become of Eutychides? You remember, he and I invented the revolving workstand when we apprenticed here."

Daïppos replied: "He has been in Samothrace, sculpturing a winged Victory for King Demetrios."

"Surely not to celebrate his Rhodian war!"

"No, this monument commemorates the defeat of Ptolemaios off Cyprus. They say this statue is a wonder; one expects it to soar away any instant. But what brings you to us?"

"I need advice," I said, "and if there be any articulates freer with advice than Lysippos and his sons, I have yet to hear of them." I told them of my contract for the Colossus.

"My main concern," I went on, "is whether so large a statue be possible. As the geometers have proved, when we expand a work, the areas increase as the square and the weights as the cube of the linear dimensions. At that rate, a point should be reached where a statue's ankles, if made to normal human proportions, could no longer support the statue."

"What you must do," said Lysippos, "is to concentrate the weight in the lower parts. You might make the feet and ankles of solid bronze; then the legs of thick bronze, say, a palm in cross section; and so on down to mere sheeting for the head and arms. Thus you will put the most strength where it is needed. You will also render the statue less liable to be blown over, as a pyramid is more stable than an obelisk."

"There's another thing," I said. "You erected a pillar on the windward side of your Tarentine Zeus, to break the force of gales. But it were hardly practical to put up a hundred-foot column beside my Colossus. So how shall I brace it against overset?"

Boêdas asked: "First tell me, what pose have you planned?"

"Erect, shading its eyes with its right hand, as I saw the god on that day of the siege."

"Any drapery?"

"I hadn't planned any. What wants a god of clothes?"

"Well, why not hang a cloak over the god's left arm, trailing to the ground? Then you can run up a third pillar through this cloak and tie it to the others by architraves. That will give three points of support, making the structure far stronger than one with only two."

"That's it!" I cried. "And I can make the third column thicker than the other two, for it will not be limited by the proportions of the human ankle. Moreover, I can run a smaller column from the architraves up into the head ..."

The discussion raged far into the night. The next day it continued while we paced about Lysippos' court, a swarm of Lysippos' grandchildren frolicking about our legs. We adjourned to Lysippos' studio, where I sketched in charcoal and clay while Lysippos and his sons criticized—and none too gently, either.

My stay lengthened into days and the days into ten-days. When we got the pose right, there still remained an ominous question:

"But how, my friends, am I to put this thing together? Remembering all the trouble we had with the scaffolding of the Tarentine Zeus, I doubt if a scaffold so high as this statue could even be built."

We mulled over this question for days until Daïppos proposed: "Why not erect a mound around the statue, raising it little by little as each part of the structure is completed? Then, when all is finished, the earth can be shoveled away."

I said: "Hm ... That means that the statue must be far enough back from the waterfront so that the earth shan't spill into the harbor. Let's see, what is the normal angle of repose? ..."

When Lysippos had shared his wisdom to the full, I returned to Rhodes and took up work on my lesser commissions. I could do nothing definite on the Colossus, because Rhodes had experienced difficulty in selling the timber, rope, and hides from Demetrios' engines. We kept the iron and bronze for use in the statue.

I told the Council: "To provide wood for his stockade and his engines, Demetrios has denuded whole mountains. He felled as much timber in the year and a quarter of the siege as we should normally have cut in decades. The only market than can possibly absorb so vast a store of timber before it rots is Egypt, which has no hardwood to speak of. Why don't we send an embassy to the Ptolemaios to arrange a deal? I shall have to go thither anyway, to take measurements for his statue."

Although I tried to push this proposal through, the discussion took several ten-days, because every Councilman had to have his say several times over. When the embassy was finally approved, it was too late in the season for the voyage. Besides, we heard that the Ptolemaios was marching up the coast of Palestine to join the allied kings in their invasion of the Antigonid lands. Demetrios, who had been campaigning against Kasandros' forces in Hellas, hastened to Asia to his father's support.

As things fell out, the Ptolemaios heard a false report that Antigonos and Demetrios had crushed the allies. Thereupon he scuttled back to Egypt without accomplishing anything of military value, while the opposing armies maneuvered on the Anatolian plain until the mud and snows of Poseideon drove them into winter quarters.

With the coming of spring the armies stirred again. Seleukos arrived from India with his five hundred elephants.

Then came the great battle of the kings at lpsos, where Seleukos' elephants turned the tide against the royal father and son. Antigonos commanded the foot. When Demetrios had gone off in pursuit of the allied cavalry, and some of Antigonos' men went over to the allies, his friends cried: "Sire, they are coming upon you!"

"Well," said old One-eye, "what do you expect them to do? But Demetrios will come and save me!"

But Demetrios could not come, being cut off on his return to the battle by the impassible line of elephants. Antigonos fell beneath a shower of javelins.

So ended Antigonos' successful thirty-year rule of Asia Minor. For all his cruelties and treacheries, his subjects missed him, especially those who fell under the harsher rule of Lysimachos. They say that one of the latter, a Phrygian peasant, was seen digging a pit on his farm. When asked what he did, he sadly replied:

"I seek Antigonos!"

Soon after the battle of the kings, Lysimachos' soldiers freed Demetrios' Rhodian hostages at Ephesos. My father-in-law Genetor returned home, bemoaning his two years' sufferings but looking like a stuffed pheasant at a banquet.

Demetrios escaped from the battle of Ipsos. Still having powerful forces of his own, and bases in Hellas and Phoenicia, he spent several years in wild adventures around the Inner Sea until the death of Kasandros enabled him to seize the throne of Macedonia.

But although Demetrios could conquer, he could not rule. He never learnt the lesson that Ptolemaios taught me, to wit: that ruling is hard work. He spent his years in endless carousals and amours, leaving his people to fend for themselves against his officials.

Once, when a number of Demetrios' subjects had presented petitions to him, he accepted them graciously and put them in his riding cloak; then, coming to a ford of a river, he dumped them all into the stream and rode on. It is not the wont of Macedonians tamely to accept such contemptuous treatment, even from kings. So, when Lysimachos combined against him with Pyrros, the warlike young king of Epeiros, Demetrios' people deserted in droves, and he had to flee.

After further campaigns, Demetrios finally fell into the hands of Seleukos the Victorious, who kept him in genteel confinement and hospitably invited him to drink himself to death. And this the great adventurer soon did.

When things had settled down after Ipsos, Rhodes dispatched its embassy to the king of Egypt. Although the nominal head of the embassy was Admiral Damophilos, everybody knew that, as I had the widest acquaintance at the Alexandrian court, I should lead the negotiations.

We were paraded into the palace with trumpeters blowing flourishes and an usher announcing us in a voice to awaken the dead. I know not whether this formality was a tribute to the honor gained by Rhodes in her struggle or simply part of the pomp of the Egyptian court. In years gone by, while the Ptolemaios claimed to be only one more Macedonian general, he adhered more or less to the rustic simplicity of his forebears. Now, however, Egyptian ceremoniousness was taking over.

The stout old king sat on a throne of gold and jewels, flanked by his minions. One of these was the aging Demetrios Phalereus, on whom the yellow hair looked more and more grotesque. Another was the priest, Manethôs of Sebennytos, a little heavier but as grave as ever.

Damophilos made his speech and presented the king with the inevitable gift: a small bronze of a dancing satyr, which I had executed for the occasion.

After the audience officially ended and everybody began to mill around the court and talk, Manethôs touched my arm. When we had exchanged warm greetings, I asked:

"Did Nembto get home safely?"

"She certainly did, and she told us how the members of Onas' club had come forward to help her. There are good men in Rhodes."

After Onas' death in the siege, it transpired that his stock of gems barely paid off his debts. The Seven Strangers, of which I had become a member, had accordingly taken up a collection to send his widow and child back to Egypt.

"What has become of her?" I asked.

"Well—ah—as a matter of fact, she keeps house for me here. But what has your embassy really come for?"

"To sell your king some wood."

Manethôs lowered his voice. "You will work through Demetrios. We must get together, but discreetly, so that he shall not know."

"Why the secrecy?"

"Because Demetrios hates me. If we openly showed our friendship, it would harm your chances. I see him scowling at your back now."

"By the gods, what has Demetrios Phalereus against you?"

"Simple jealousy. I have risen to equal him in importance on the civil side of the administration, as I am the king's personal representative in dealing with the Egyptian priesthoods, with the rank of prophet. So the Athenian has become bitterly anti-Egyptian. He hates all us 'natives,' as he calls us, and hobnobs with young Prince Thunderbolt, who is of the same mind."

Demetrios Phalereus entertained the embassy the following night, along with several Alexandrian intellectuals. One was a thin, sickly-looking man whom Demetrios Phalereus introduced as Straton of Lampsakos. The thin man was the new tutor to the king's younger legitimate son, the eight-year-old Ptolemaios Ptolemaiou.

"He is also a former student of the great Aristoteles," said Demetrios Phalereus.

"Do you then know Dikaiarchos of Messana, or Eudemos of Rhodes?" I asked the scholar.

"I knew both well," said Straton. "I fear, however, that they would disown me now."

"Why, sir?"

"My researches in physics have led me far from the master's doctrines, in particular his teaching regarding the vacuum—"

Straton went into a fit of coughing. Demetrios Phalereus presented a young man with a shy look. "This is Eukleides, a schoolteacher and my reader," he said. "Ah, woe! Age has lengthened my sight until an ordinary manuscript is but a blur to me, so I must be read to aloud like an unlettered lout. In return, I give my young friend the run of the books yonder."

He indicated the next room, jammed with bags, boxes, and single rolls. "My living space grows more cramped with each month as books for the Library pour in upon me. I have talked myself hoarse, pleading with the king for funds for an adequate library building, but something more pressing always supervenes. Therefore I must store these books here, where they are rapidly crowding me out of house and home. Of course I have only myself to blame for proposing the enterprise!"

Demetrios Phalereus dropped a painted eyelid in a subtle wink. He continued: "However, the king has definitely promised that construction shall begin this year. And high time, too, for our plans have gone far beyond the original proposal. I am urging the king to build a temple of the Muses to house the books, and to hire scholars and scientists to study them, to compose critical works upon them, to test their claims by experiments and expeditions, and to teach the younger scholars the lessons thus learnt. This policy, I aver, will make Alexandria the intellectual and educational center of the world. Now, my dear fellow, what's the purpose of your visit this time?"

I told Demetrios Phalereus of our plans for selling the timber.

Demetrios Phalereus doubtfully pursed his lips. "I fear we are well supplied with timber from the Lebanon, but we shall see."

My heart sank. Eukleides and Straton questioned me about my plans for the Colossus, news of which had spread far and wide about the Inner Sea. Soon we had forgotten the other guests as we scribbled computations on a waxen tablet.

Eukleides proved to have an extraordinary grasp of mathematical matters. He suggested some geometrical formulae that bade fair to simplify the design, and he promised to write them out in permanent form on papyrus.

"You should write a book on geometry," I told him.

"Perhaps I shall," quoth he. Now I hear that he has, and a masterly work, too.

Straton asked me: "What sort of stone will you employ for your columns?"

"I thought to use our ordinary Rhodian brownstone. It's not very pretty, but it works, and who cares what columns inside a statue look like?"

"Sandstone doesn't weather very well," said Straton.

"But the columns will be shielded from the weather by the statue's skin."

"Ah, but the skin will leak, unless you provide means for inspecting it and calking the seams. And how will you do that with so tall a statue? Nobody will pay to put up a seventy-cubit scaffold every few years, and thus neglect and decay will have their will of your masterpiece. Besides, your iron bracing will corrode away even faster than the stone if it be not well protected."

"Now that you mention it, I ought to give more thought to maintenance," I said. "The gilding on the crown may also need to be renewed. How would it be to provide a set of ladder rungs, running up the inside of the drapery and the left arm to the shoulder? With a few additional handholds and a rope tackle, one could reach all parts of the statue."

Thus swiftly fled the evening. The next day I spent in working on a copy of the bust of Ptolemaios, which I had made on my previous sojourn. This was for the statue of the king in the Ptolemaeion at Rhodes. I also measured the king, after persuading him that if the statue showed him seated on his throne, the squat build about which he was self-conscious would not be evident.

That evening I dined in Manethôs ' apartment on the palace grounds. The apartment was decorated, in contrast to those of the king's Hellenic officials, with frescoes of Egyptians in linen skirts, animal-headed gods, and ritual texts in sacred picture writing.

Nembto rushed up and touched her nose to mine. "How nice see you, Chares!"

Manethôs showed me around. He was living well, with two servants. In one small room sat Onas' son, doing his homework. Manethôs ' bedroom including a double bed and an obviously feminine dressing table. Following my glance, Manethôs said:

"Know, my friend, that an Egyptian priest is allowed but one wife. How was Demetrios' party?"

I told the priest of my discourse with Eukleides and Straton, adding: "Philemon and Hekataios were there, too."

"That Hekataios!" said Manethôs indignantly. "His book on Egypt is so full of error and inaccuracy that I shall have to write one myself, as once I swore to do, if I can ever get enough time off from my duties."

He explained what a busy fellow he was. To unify Ptolemaios' subjects, he and the king had some mysterious plan, at which he would only hint, for merging the Egyptian Osiris and the Greek Plouton into one god, to be worshiped as Sarapis by the folk of both races. I wondered what the gods thought of it, but then nobody asked them.

"And speaking of my oath to write a history of Egypt in Greek," he said, "have you heard aught of Berosos?"

"At last accounts he was still in Kôs. My father's friend, Tryphon the silk weaver, knows him slightly."

"I must write him. Is he still living with Amenardis?"

"I suppose so. And, speaking of her, was the rascally Tis ever caught?"

"Not he! There is a rumor that he is in Alexandria, having changed his name and appearance. They also say that he is the new archthief of the Province of the Western Harpoon, the old one having been murdered last year."

"Hm! Of course, Alexandrian gossip is not notorious for accuracy, but perhaps I had better not go strolling down dark alleys at night."

We passed on to other matters. I mentioned the remark of Demetrios Phalereus about the lack of any pressing need for Rhodian timber.

"Let him not daunt you," said Manethôs . "That is but his opening move, to beat down your price. In confidence, the kingdom starves for good timber, because King Demetrios controls the Phoenician ports through which the Lebanese timber comes. Moreover, King Seleukos is busily founding cities in Syria and buys up all the Lebanese timber to be had." The priest smiled wryly. "Of course, as a faithful servant of King Ptolemaios, it is my duty to help him to buy the timber cheaply. But, as your friend, it is my duty to help you to sell it dear, and I knew you first. Ah, here comes dinner. Nembto, my dear, you have outshone yourself."

The next few days were occupied, first, in copying the bust of the king in clay and, secondly, in haggling with Demetrios Phalereus over the sale of our timber. Fortified by Manethôs ' words, I held out for a stiff price.

The bargaining was not made easier by the official Rhodian ambassadors. They had assigned me the task because I knew Demetrios Phalereus. Then, in our private meetings, they harangued me, urging me not to hold out for too high a price and spoil the deal, not to let Demetrios Phalereus beat me down too quickly, not to let my notorious impatience sway me, and so on.

"Zeus ruin the lot of you!" I burst out at last. "If you think you can do better, take over the task. I'm an artist, not a shopkeeper, and I'll thank you not to make any more snide remarks about my Phoenician blood, either. To negotiate with you bags of wind bawling advice in one's ears is like trying to chisel a marble with people jogging one's elbow."

Thereafter Damophilos and the rest let me handle matters in my own way. I finally got a good offer and closed the deal. When we had shipped all the timber that had not otherwise been disposed of, it brought us around ninety talents.

The king, who had been on a short vacation, returned and gave the inevitable banquet of state for the Rhodians. Damophilos pledged the prosperity of Egypt, and the king pledged the beauty of the City of Roses. Then Damophilos said:

"What ails you, O Chares?"

A sudden pain in the viscera had made me wince. Soon I was holding my belly and groaning. People helped me out of the banquet hall. I have a blurred remembrance of lying on a couch while the king's head physician bent over me and said:

"He has been poisoned, forsooth. Drink this, Master Chares!"

For two days I hovered on the banks of the Styx. Then I mended and in another ten-day was none the worse. The physician's promptness with an emetic had saved me.

The king made a studious inquiry among the servants of the palace, but nothing did he learn of who had slipped the potion into my victuals. With such a swarm of servitors, it might have been any of fifty people.

Manethôs said: "It is Tis, I have no doubt. When he told us, in the chamber of the Apis bull, that he never forgave a wrong, he meant what he said."

"It's just as well we're sailing soon," I said. "For all the attractions of Alexandria, I don't care to give him another try at me."

The next few years were occupied with the execution of the statue of Ptolemaios the Savior and many smaller commissions, including some from King Seleukos the Victorious. I traveled to his new city of Antiocheia, in Syria. Here my old colleague Eutychides was making a magnificent statue of the Fortune of Antiocheia, in the form of a beautiful seated woman.

I also began to buy materials for the Colossus. I traveled to Cyprus, Kilikia, and Syria for copper and iron. I bought only a little at a time, to keep the price from soaring. Nevertheless, such was the total quantity needed—eight thousand talents of bronze and three hundred of iron—that bronze was scarce and dear for several years around the Inner Sea. My journeys were interrupted by wars, as when King Demetrios, in the fourth year of the 120th Olympiad, fought with King Seleukos for control of the Phoenician cities.

There were also delays over the choice of the site for the Colossus, as several magnates owned land in the foreign quarter and each tried to push me into selecting a site that would profit him.

Moreover, I could not proceed with my main task until the city advanced me enough to pay my workmen. Rhodes could not pay me until King Ptolemaios paid her for the timber, and this money was slow in coming.

Notwithstanding all these good reasons for delay, I had to endure unbridled ridicule from Lykon and his friends for taking so long in getting started. People made jokes about Chares and his never-to-be-finished Colossus as they had in years before about Protogenes' painting of Ialysos.

At last, in the second year of the 121st Olympiad, the site was officially chosen, condemned, and cleared. The following year I subcontracted the pedestal to Makar.

The year after that, when the pedestal was completed, I set up my furnaces on the site and put my crew to work. I employed as many as five hundred men at a time, most of them engaged in moving earth for the mound. This mound grew in the form of a cone, with a spiral path coiling around it to reach a flat working space on the top.

As the mound arose, my crew assembled the three forty-cubit stone columns, fastening the drums together with huge iron cramps set in leaden sockets, and inserting iron braces into holes in the drums. When the braces were in place, the bronze plates of the skin were cast, hammered into shape, and riveted to one another and to the bracing.

As Lysippos had suggested, I made the skin thicker at the bottom. Around the ankles, where the bronzen skin of the god closely surrounded the columns, I cast thick solid sections to give the greatest strength at that point.

As the mound arose, the columns arose above it, then the bracing, then the skin, and then the scaffolding. The first year was occupied in making the feet and ankles alone; the second, in building the legs up to the calves. The third year saw the statue complete to the knees; the fourth, to the crotch. Meanwhile the fall of drapery rose beside the legs.

It was eleven years after I had begun work on the feet of my Helios. This was the second year of the 124th Olympiad, the year in which King Demetrios Antigonou died as a prisoner of King Seleukos. About the same time, Demetrios Phalereus died in Upper Egypt, whither the new King Ptolemaios had banished him.

My men were assembling the bracing for the head and the right arm. This arm presented a difficult problem. I had to extend the scaffolding out at an angle into the air, in order to assemble the iron bracing and then the pieces of bronzen skin. To strengthen this otherwise flimsy structure, I ran a stout iron brace from inside the head, out through a lock of the god's hair, and into his right hand, where it joined the bracing that extended up from the shoulder. The hand was so close to the head that the spectator could not see this connection save from certain limited angles.

One person in Rhodes had certainly profited from the construction. This was Aktis, the waterfront loafer who guided visitors. So many travelers stopped off at Rhodes to see the statue, even before it was finished, that Aktis became prosperous on the fees of those he guided. He now wore a decent shirt, shaved regularly, and bathed at least once a month.

There was not really much for visitors to enjoy at this stage. They saw the mound stretching from the waterfront three plethra inland and towering up more than a plethron in height, like a miniature volcano. A tangle of scaffolding and iron bracing stuck out its top.

One day Kavaros and I were strolling up the spiral path towards the top of the mound, arguing a technical point. (Let me give credit here to Kavaros, to whose vigorous but good-humored foremanship much of the success of the enterprise was due.) I turned at the sound of Aktis' calling my name.

"Hey, Chares! Can I have a word with you?"

I started down the path as Aktis came up, leaving the party he was guiding. When he came close, he spoke in a low voice:

"Say, I thought you ought to know. There was a man in town yesterday trying to hire somebody to kill you."

"What?"

"That's right. He didn't come right out and say: 'I'll pay you to stick a knife in Chares.' Oh, no! He asked about you, and then asked a lot of sly questions about was there a good man in town who could make accidents happen to people. When I told him 'no,' he seemed to think this was an awful dull little town."

"What did he look like?"

"A kind of dried-up little old fellow, very dark, with a big round head. He sounded like he was an Egyptian."

This could well be Tis, allowing for the effect of years. I rewarded Aktis and went to a magistrate with the story. That night the magistrate, a pair of his guards, a couple of men of the night watch, and I made the rounds of the taverns, wineshops, and brothels. But no sign of our man did we see. He must have slipped away on an outgoing ship as soon as he learnt that Rhodians were, by and large, too law-abiding to serve his fell purpose.

Still, the incident gave me pause. I bought a dagger with a broad fourteen-digit blade, a weapon fit for disemboweling an aurochs. I also resolved that if I ever again ran off with another man's wife—which the gods forbid—I would choose one whose husband was not a romantic sentimentalist, full of notions of honor and the duty of vengeance. Or perhaps, I thought, Tis was now too old to enjoy the simpler pleasures of the flesh, so that the only joy remaining him was that of tracking down and killing those who had wronged him years before.

The next year saw the completion of Helios' head and arm and the casting and the gilding of the crown of solar rays. This was the year when old King Lysimachos fell in battle with Seleukos the Victorious, and King Pyrros of Epeiros invaded Italy to help the Tarentines against the Romans.

It was also a year of sadness for me. For one thing, my father died. For several years he and I had been very close. He caught some disease of the lungs during a wet winter and never recovered.

Then my younger daughter died. I am no mainland Hellene, to toss girl babies on rubbish heaps; I grieved almost as much as if this child had been a boy.

Lastly I found myself more and more pressed for money. I had contracted to build the statue for two hundred talents, not including the cost of materials. At the time of signing the contract, all my calculations showed that I should clear a profit of at least twenty or thirty talents, which would make me independent for life.

However, delays and accidents and miscalculations drove my costs up and up, beyond my estimates. For one thing, I had computed my costs on a basis of the level of wages prevailing in Rhodes at the time of the signing. But the withdrawal of several hundred men from our small labor force had the effect of raising the wage level, even though a number of workers came from the mainland.

Strive and save as I might, it looked as though I were going to end up several talents in debt. At interest rates of ten to twelve per cent per year, I did not dare to get into the clutches of the moneylenders unless I could forsee a quick repayment, as by a big new contract. However, no king or republic seemed eager to give me such a contract until I had finished the Colossus, on which I had been working so long that few believed I should live to complete it.

My friends were sympathetic, but they had their own worries and expenses. The few thousand drachmai they could have raised would hardly have made a dent in my obligations. My father-in-law, Genetor, had the money to rescue me, but he had become queer in his dotage. One could not compel him to talk about any single subject long enough to get an aye-or-nay from him.

I will not detail the bitterness of those final months of construction, when I trailed from one magnate to another, seeking a loan at low enough interest—say, eight per cent to allow me to work off my debts. They were politely regretful, but none would risk an obolos until he saw whether the statue stood when the mound was taken away. Then, if all went well and I would put up my foundry as security, he would see. The ordinary moneylenders, like Elavos the Syrian, wanted fifteen to twenty per cent, because my real property did not even come near to covering my debts.

At last, twelve years after I had begun, I stood on the peak of the mound. With my own hands I riveted into place the last of the gilded spikes of the god's crown of solar rays. I stepped back and swept my hand to indicate the scaffolding and the mound.

"Take it away, boys," I said.

"A cheer for the best boss that ever was, and the greatest statue that has ever been made!" bellowed Kavaros.

"Iai!" cried the men. Since their pay was in arrears, I suspect that it was as much their fear of the Kelt's fist as their admiration for me that elicited the cheer.

Then they began to shovel the earth into baskets. Standing silently by the great graven face, with a curiously lost feeling, I uttered a silent prayer that the god should find my offering good.

It was a cool evening in Pyanepsion, when the full moon was breaking through the clouds, after the first rain of the season. Kavaros and I were on our way home from a meeting of the Seven Strangers, of which the Kelt had just become a member on my nomination.

We were both a bit drunk. The talk of the evening had run to famous suicides, such as that of the Assyrian king, Sardanapalos, who is said to have burnt himself up with his palace, treasure, wives, and concubines when the Medes defeated him.

As our way took us past the square of the Colossus, we stopped to look at the statue. Kavaros said:

"Is he not the grand sight now, with the moon shining on his golden crown and all?"

I said: "Do you remember that woman I once got involved with in Egypt?"

"I am after hearing about her, sir. What about her?"

"She gave me one useful piece of advice."

"And that was?"

"When I had finished the statue, to climb up to the head and jump off, because I could never look forward to a greater moment. In fact, I think I'll do it right now, while my resolution holds."

"Sir, I do hope you are not saying that serious-like!"

"I've never been more serious, old boy. Any fool can see that I shall be ruined. I have struggled every way I can think of, short of selling myself into slavery, to get out of this snare of debt, to no avail. I am sick of it, and my main task is done. To the afterworld with everybody! They'll be sorry when I'm gone."

I started purposefully up the remains of the mound. Kavaros threw himself in front of me, crying:

"You will not, sir! I will not let you! It is just that you are feeling bad tonight. You need another drink; Grania can get us one at my house. Please, sir—"

I dodged around the Kelt with the agility that had served me on many a hockey field in my youth. Kavaros seized my cloak, but I shed the garment and ran on to where the fall of bronze drapery rose from the earth. With Kavaros pounding after me, I grasped the rungs of the maintenance ladder and scampered up like a monkey.

"Come down, Master Chares!" cried Kavaros. "You can have everything I own, only do not be doing this foolish thing! If you do not come down, I will climb up and pull you down!"

"You can't! You're afraid of heights. Take care of my family, will you?"

I resumed my climb. Kavaros stood in perplexity for a few heartbeats, then ran out of the square.

When I reached the crook of the statue's left arm, my racing heart and laboring breath reminded me that I was, after all, a middle-aged man. I paused to rest. The cool air and the exertion had cleared the fumes of wine from my head.

As I sat there holding the handgrips, my conduct did begin to seem absurd. After all, I was still eating and drinking regularly, I had a loving family, and nobody was threatening me with torture or slavery. The money matters might somehow work themselves out. Besides, if I died in debt, my sons would inherit my debts, and what sort of legacy was that to leave them?

I swung back over the ladder and began to descend. When I got to the level of the statue's knees and glanced down, however, I saw that several figures were grouped about the foot of the ladder. Thinking them Rhodians aroused by Kavaros, I continued my descent.

The next time I looked down, though, the figures seemed too still for my taste. Rhodians would have been gabbling and crying out to know if I was all right.

"Kavaros?" I called. There was no answer.

I lowered myself a few more rungs, till I could see their upturned faces. Although the moonlight was strong enough to make recognition possible, I saw nobody whom I knew. They were just a group of men in nondescript clothes.

"Who are you?" I demanded.

"Come on down, O Chares," said a creaky old voice.

"Is that you, Tis"

"Come down and see."

"Do you think me mad? If you want to talk, do so now."

Instead of replying, the voice spoke in Egyptian. Two men sprang to the base of the ladder and began to climb, with blades glinting in the moonlight.

I drew my large dagger and reached down to strike at the first. The man parried my thrust with his short sword. Then he swung himself to one side of the ladder, allowing the other man to crowd up abreast of him. Both of them thrust and hacked at me until I was forced back up the ladder.

Rung by rung they drove me up. I shouted: "Help! Rhodians! A rescue! Help!" But, what of all my climbing, my voice came out as a feeble croak.

My assailants were well-trained killers. Whenever I made a stand, the leading man held me in play with his longer blade until the other could lend his weight to the attack. My efforts to kick them in the face or stamp on their fingers only got me a wound in the calf.

I reached the statue's left arm again, bleeding from a cut on the forearm and another on the leg. I cried:

"Help! Rhodians! Murder! I'm beset!"

Up came the other two. They pulled themselves up over the turn of the drapery, blades first. Holding a bronze fold with one hand, I made a furious thrust at the leader's breast. He struck at my darting blade; his edge bit one of my fingers to the bone. My dagger spun out of my grasp. It struck the statue's skin with a clank and fell away into darkness.

I darted up the rungs that extended up the statue's left arm. I could not move so swiftly as before, between fatigue and the cuts on my right arm and hand. My breath came in great gasps, so that I had none to spare for shouting.

I pulled myself up on the broad curving surface of the shoulder. I had not been up on top of the statue since the mound had been carried away. A look downward showed a drop to appall even one with my head for heights. Moving carefully, I walked the length of the shoulder and grasped a handhold on the statue's left ear. My last hope was that my pursuers would fear the height more than I, and that I could use this fear.

If I had had a proper tackle of rope, I could have rigged a sling to the cleats on the head and swung myself around the head to the other shoulder, where they would have had a hard time coming at me. But I had no such gear.

The leading pursuer reached the shoulder. His breath, too, came in gasps. As he stood up, I saw that he was not more than half my age: a dark, powerful youth, probably Egyptian. He paused to catch his breath. Then, after a downward glance, he moved with exaggerated caution. But still he came towards me.

If, I thought, I could land one good solid kick, while holding the ear, he would have nothing to clutch ...

The man came closer, in a half-crouch, his short sword out. I launched my kick, but too soon. The man swayed backwards, so that I missed him. As my leg fell back, the assassin lunged.

On solid ground he would have spitted me, but caution slowed his movements. As his arm snaked forward, my own right hand came around in a snatch. I caught his wrist and deflected his thrust far enough to miss my midriff. His point struck the bronze behind me with a faint bell-like sound. With the same motion I carried his right arm up to my face and sank my teeth into his forearm.

Never have I bitten into anything with such earnest effort. I tasted blood and felt it running down my chin. The man's breath came in gasps in my ear. His left hand clutched at my face with gouging thumb and raking nails. I fended it off with my right hand and drove my right elbow into his face and midriff. I also tried to kick him in the crotch.

His left fist pounded at my left hand, trying to break my grip on the ear. It occurred to me that I had only to let go and we should both hurtle to our deaths. A short while before, the idea might have appealed to me. But now my blood was up. I thought of nothing but saving myself and killing this murderous lout. I silently cursed my smallness and the years that had sapped my strength.

Battered, bleeding, and gasping, I hung on. I beat, kicked, and clawed at the man while he assailed me in the same manner, all the time trying to wrench his arm free from my teeth.

There seemed to be an uproar from somewhere, but I supposed this to be merely the sound of blood in my ears. I did not even have time to wonder when the man's comrade would join the struggle.

The man suddenly screamed in my ear. I was dragged towards the swiftly steepening downward slope of the statue's chest. My assailant clutched me as if to keep from falling.

I rolled my eyes, which had been squinted almost shut against my enemy's clawing hand. Someone, on hands and knees, had a grip on the Egyptian's ankle and was trying to tear him loose from me.

I released my jaws from the man's arm, pivoted, and struck his face a backhanded blow. At the same time, the crouching person gave a heave. The Egyptian dropped his sword, made a wild clutch at the air, and toppled from the shoulder. A long diminishing shriek came up as he vanished into the darkness below. The scream was cut off by the smack of a body's striking the ground.

I straightened painfully up, gulping air. My rescuer now lay prone on the convex upper surface of the shoulder, pressing his flattened hands against the bronze as if to glue himself to it.

"Master Chares!" whimpered the apparition. "It is frightened to death that I am. I cannot move from this cursed spot!"

"Kavaros! Get up on your hands and knees. Don't look at the ground; look at the places where your hands and feet will go. Now back slowly towards the top of the ladder. That's it, old friend. Another step. Now feel with your toes for the topmost rung ..."

A quarter-hour of guidance brought Kavaros back to the ground. Here was a crowd of Rhodians, with several prisoners. Two bodies lay at the statue's feet.

The Kelt and I nearly collapsed when we stood on solid ground again. My shirt was half torn from me, and I could feel the blood trickling down from a score of cuts, bites, and scratches.

Kavaros gasped: "I found the watch—and fetched them— and here were all—these murtherers."

"You're the bravest man in Rhodes, for coming up to help me in spite of your fear of heights. What befell the second man who followed me up?"

"That is him, there. I caught the omadhaun by the leg and plucked him loose from the ladder, as easy as taking a little bird from the nest. But some of them got away, I am thinking."

"Here's one who didn't," said another voice. "Chares, do you know this fellow?"

I went over to where men with links bent over a third body. Though withered and wattled with age, it was unmistakably Tis.

"I quarreled with him once in Egypt," I explained. "How did he die?"

One of the watch spoke: "We ran to the square after Kavaros, thinking to stop you from slaying yourself, and these fellows drew steel against us. After we had knocked a couple down with our staves, the rest ran away. Of course we ran after. This one had reached the entrance to the alley when he clutched at his heart and fell down, as you see him now. Nobody touched him. The god must have struck him dead."

"He was too old to take such an active part in his murders," I said. "What will be done with these desperadoes?"

"If convicted, they'll be sold. Would you buy one?"

"Zeus forfend! They're cut out for a short but useful life in the mines."

A surprising event took place a few days after the death of Tis. After all, there was nothing surprising in Tis's raid when you think about it. The archthief was merely acting in character, fantastic though that character may seem.

It was much more astonishing that my old foe Lykon the sculptor, now a full citizen, should carry a bill in the Assembly to pay off the debts that I had incurred in completing the Colossus. These came, all told, to a little over nine talents. Thus the Colossus cost Rhodes altogether about three hundred talents.

When I learnt of this amazing act, I went, still bandaged, to Lykon's studio to thank him. He heard me out, looking me through with cold gray eyes. Then he said:

"Chares, I have never liked you and I still don't. If you will keep out of my way, I'll keep out of yours, and we can thus avoid a contact that must be as irksome to you as it is to me.

"As for this bill to indemnify you, I did that, not for your sake, but for my own honor and that of my city. Men would say: 'Shame on the Rhodians, who so niggardly used the man who showered fame on their city that he was almost driven to suicide by monetary worries!' While I could bear your departure without uncontrollable grief, I would not have the City of Roses thought hardhearted and ungrateful. Does that satisfy you?"

All I could think of to say was a quotation: "Wonders are many, but none is more wonderful than man!"

Two months later the remains of the mound and the scaffold had vanished. The Helios-Apollon towered proudly over the waterfront, shading his eyes against the rays of the rising sun. On a clear day he could be seen from elevated points on the Asiatic coast, and mariners a hundred furlongs at sea caught the golden blink of the sun on his gilded crown. I had slightly changed Lysippos' canon of proportion, enlarging the head a little to cancel the foreshortening effect of viewing so tall a statue from below.

When it became evident that the statue was going to stand securely, the Rhodians began to look upon it with quiet pride, as if some of the virtue of the god had entered into the statue and, through it, into them as well. I found that they even looked with quiet pride upon Chares the Lindian. When the rich, the noble, and the learned went out of their way to pass the time of day with me, I had to ask myself: Am I really the same man as that boastful, runty, testy, friendless, part-Phoenician youth who had so set everybody by the ears when he arrived, twenty-seven years before? I had so long struggled for respect and recognition that it took me a while to realize that I need not battle for them any more.

Then I turned the statue over to the city at a great public ceremony, at which I was at last made a full citizen of Rhodes.

"By the gods!" said old Admiral Damophilos, craning his neck. "I never realized it before, but the statue's face is the spit and image of the Besieger!"

For so they now call King Demetrios Antigonou, from his many famous sieges.

"I didn't intend it that way," I said. "I merely tried to get my idea of perfect beauty and virtue into those features. But the Demetrios was a man of godlike beauty and presence—whatever one say of his character—so I suppose some resemblance is inevitable."

"Well, I daresay we ought not to hold grudges," said Damophilos. "Demetrios' attack and our defense did give Rhodes more glory than anything else could have done."

"There's a certain logic about the statue's looking like him, too," I said, "since it was built with the spoils from his siege."

The admiral gave a cackling laugh and slapped his thigh. "That is right! He paid for it, didn't he? That's good! Oh, Chares, how about dinner at my house tonight?"

I accepted this and many other such invitations. I ought to have been ecstatically happy; the richest and best-born men in Rhodes accepted me as an equal and even paid social court to me, just as if I had never worked with my hands and bore pure Hellenic blood in my veins.

I soon found, however, that most of these parties bored me to tears. These magnates are not really such villains as the poor are wont to think them; their worst fault is dullness. They talk about their games and sports, their children and relatives, their purchases and sales, their aches and pains, and they talk about them over and over.

When I burn to learn about the progress of the arts and sciences, about new engineering techniques, high politics, and distant lands, what do I get? So-and-so's roof leaks; so-and-so seeks a divorce; so-and-so's slave has run away. To the crows with it!

So back to the Seven Strangers, of which I had long been a member, I went, starving for food for the mind as well as for the body. Shortly after I had finished the Colossus last year, Giskon called a meeting of the club at his house. To this meeting I brought my oldest son, who wanted his first taste of club life. When I entered, there stood a fat bald man who looked somehow familiar.

"Chares!" he cried. "Know you me not? Berosos of Babylon?"

"By Zeus! I didn't recognize you without your hair."

"Well, I scarce knew you with your hair all gray. You are not, I trust, still angry with me—ah—"

"On the contrary, old boy, I'm delighted to see you." We embraced and burst into talk. Berosos said:

"… I settled in Kôs, sold some more sundials, cast horoscopes, and started a class in the science of the stars. I was never in danger of starvation"—he glanced down at his paunch—"and happy I should have been, but for that woman."

"Amenardis?" I asked innocently.

He shuddered. "Speak not that name! From morn to night it was: 'Do this! Do not do that! What a fool you are!' Nearly mad was I driven."

"Why didn't you throw her out? She had no legal claim on you."

"Oh, you know me, Chares. No liver for combat have I, and she frightened away, what little valor I have. For nigh unto ten years I submitted."

"Herakles, man! My heart bleeds for you."

Berosos: "Well it may. Would to Mardoukos that I had a flinty streak in my soul, as you have! At last, having secretly hoarded a goodly sum from my earnings—for she demanded the monetary management of our home—I quietly took ship for Athens. For aught she knows, I went for a swim in the Aegean and was swallowed by a shark."

"What became of her?"

"May I never know! In Athens I prospered and married a jolly wench, the daughter of a Syrian metic. She knows how to protect a man of intellect from the shocks of this rude, rough world. When I left, the Athenians put up a gilded statue of me, belly and all. Recall you that queer Phoenician youth, Zenon of Kition, who dined with the Seven Strangers at the first meeting you attended?"

"Vaguely. What about him?"

"He has settled in Athens, audited the sundry philosophers, and become a teacher on his own account, with a sizable following. 'The Man of the Porch'* (* Ho Stôikos, the Stoic.) they call him, from his lecturing in the Painted Porch. Although he claims to have based his doctrines in part upon my celestial science, I cannot say I ever truly liked him. When sober, he is haughty and irascible; when drunk, he chases every boy and youth in sight; and his teachings seem to me a tissue of windy rhetoric. Howsomever, Athens was lovely."

"Then why did you leave?"

"Oh, a better prospect have I. The new king of Syria and Persia, Antiochos son of Seleukos, wrote asking me to come to his court at Antiocheia as official historian. Do you remember that oath that Manethôs and I swore, to write the histories of our peoples in Greek? Well, here is my chance to carry it out." He lowered his voice. "And, speaking of queer young Phoenicians, who is this that Giskon has dredged up from the Syrian Sea?"

"This" was a young Phoenician from Ake, Abdemon by name, who had gone Greek in the biggest possible way. He dripped oil, fluttered his eyelashes, made sexual advances to all the men, and spoke with the most extreme Atticisms.

"This whacking great statue of yours," he said, "is all very well as a monument, but is it art? Is it in the best taste? Rather, I should compare it to the sign over a tradesman's shop. Jolly useful, but hardly esthetic. You might as well have the god hold a banner reading, 'Come to Rhodes, commercial center of the Inner Sea!' "

Talk died down; eyes turned toward me. Although I have learnt with the years to control my temper, I still have a name for touchiness.

"Oh, I say!" said Abdemon, glancing round the circle. "Is this the man who put the thing up? I'm frightfully sorry—"

I gave a short laugh. "Never mind, you may have something there, son. Do you want to know the real reason I erected that statue? It wasn't the money—in fact, I'm a poor man tonight, because my costs far outran my estimates— nor was it an excess of piety, though I am a good conventional worshiper of the Bright One. The reason is that I'm a small man, so I have always wanted to be remembered for building the largest thing of its kind.

"Well, now I have done it. I won't say I am sorry, because it has been a lot of fun. I have learnt some useful technical lessons, and I have fulfilled the vow I swore to the god and garnered some slight glory. But I agree with this young fellow that it's time I got back to art of a more normal kind. Besides which, I have a living to earn. Kavaros, tomorrow we must clean all the models for the Colossus out of the studio. We're going to do some sculpture better than anything that has yet been seen!"

The End