The Classic Age’s equivalent of the Grand Tour with a young Gordianus the Finder, in company with his teacher, Antipater, the dead epic poet. Yes, really. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus; the statue of Zeus at Olympia; the Colossus of Rhodes, alas fallen and in pieces but nevertheless awe-inspiring; the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (a Greek Taj Mahal); what’s left of the Hanging Gardens and Wall of Babylon (not much); the Great Pyramid at Memphis (where Gordianus cavorts with a goddess, no less). He saves the best for last, the Pharos at Alexandria, and Saylor’s description is real you-are-there writing, the next best thing to actually seeing it yourself.
At length, after ascending many ramps, we arrived at the level of the parapet where the Tritons resided at each of the four corners, with bronze signal mirrors installed between them. The sculptures and the mirrors alike were on a scale I had not imagined. Without warning, one of the Tritons produced a long, blaring note from its horn. I covered my ears, and the noise was still deafensing. Whatever mechanism produced the sound as hidden from sight.
At Olympia we even get to attend the Olympic Games, 92 BCE, to the manifest enjoyment of his tutor.
Antipater insisted on attending every event, and enjoyed them all immensely. His delight in the pankration struck me as particularly ironic. Here was a man who had devoted his life to the crafting of beautiful verses, striving to capture in words the most delicate sensibilities and elusive states of mind, reduced to a screaming, stamping, bellowing maniac along with his fellow Greeks at the spectacle of two men grappling in the dirt, pummeling each other’s faces with their fists, and gouging each other’s most tender parts.
“Hercules was the first to win both wrestling and pankration,” he gushed, “and in all the hundres of years since then, only three others have done the same. Now Protophanes is the fourth. His fame shall outlast us all!”
“Even the fame of Anitpater of Sidon, Teacher?”
Antipater sighed. “What is the achievement of a mere poet, compared to that of an Olympic victor?”
Plus ça change.
Each site has a mystery to be solved, along with another, larger and much more sinister one Saylor teases until the very end, and Gordianus’ natural talents of observation and detection are called forth. He is seventeen and has just put on his manly toga before leaving Rome, but on this trip he becomes the man we meet in the later chronicles. Fun read.
Read more of my reviews of other people’s books in No Stars.
