221 BC

221 BC
or
The Marvelous Life and Inventions of Ionides of Alexandria: Engineer to the King's Army and Consulting Natural Philosopher.

By his friend Joseph ben Kophar
(known in Alexandria as the physician Nikolaos)
(Translated from the original Greek by JSR)


Introduction:

After my father passed away all of his accumulated papers and books came to me. Aside from the remains of his pantry and the contents of his closet this constituted the bulk of my inheritance. I diligently searched through the library for any first editions or other rarities that he might of accidentally acquired (he had neither head nor eye for investments). Other than countless works of classical and popular literature, this yielded little more than some weighty references on ancient history and numerous textbooks from his career as a professor. I then turned my attention to the several trunks of papers. Among the curious and pathetic scraps (he saved every piece of professional and personal correspondence he received) I came across a small bundle of notes on a translation from the ancient Greek that he had been working on. My father had published a few scholarly works, primarily translations from the French and German on classical history, and I knew that he was studied in Greek and Latin as I had once asked for his assistance on a reinterpretation of the mathematical work by Diophantus (I was curious to discover and analyze the passage that had inspired Fermat's famous theorem). But this particular project was unknown to me and appeared from its age to be something that he had put aside unfinished many years before. Looking through this package of notes and drafts I found a letter from a Mr. Toledano whose name I recognized as being an old friend of my father's from his days as a student. My father often mentioned him and I recalled hearing as a child that he was an art dealer who lived in Amsterdam. His friend requested that the next time my father came to Europe on sabbatical (his specialty was "sabbaticals") that he stop over in Amsterdam and take a look at a document that was written in Greek and evidently quite old. Mr Toledano also related that this document came from within his own family and was traditionally believed to have been written by a distant ancestor of his and he was extremely interested to discover anything about the author and what it contained concerning the family history.

Apparently my father did eventually examine this old family heirloom of Mr. Toledano's and made particular remarks about its physical appearance. He noted that it was an actual book consisting of over two hundred separate leaves sewn together and tied with leather straps between two wooden boards. Unusual for an ancient text, but not unknown during the late Hellenistic and Roman times. It seems that one of the Toledanos' ancestors was a physician living in Spain during the thirteenth century and that he had made a special effort to collect as much in the way of medical writings as he could find. When the family left Spain during the fifteenth century, due to the growing intolerance of the church towards Sephardic Jews, they managed to take along this valuable library of medical and pharmacological texts. The library was preserved and added to by succeeding generations (the current Mr. Toledano's father was himself a medical doctor) and in the early twentieth century the collection was donated to a university's medical library. The book in question was withheld because of an inscription in medieval Hebrew pasted to the inside of one of the cover boards. According to Mr. Toledano it stated that the book was the "personal testament of Joseph ben Kophar" and beneath "some mention of the Arabian red berry (or nut)- nothing new (or notable)" and it was concluded from this brief note, assumed to be written by the thirteenth century Toledano, that there was nothing of medical interest within.


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The Notes:

The first page is translated revealing that "Nikolaos" was commanded by the Queen to record the life and achievments of Ionides. The Queen tells him it is for herself alone and that he should write frankly and completely, "as two friends would confide". (He of course keeps a copy for himself.)

It is concluded that Joseph/Nikolaos is probably not an ancestor of the Toledanos.

It is stated that Ionides is presumed lost at sea along with his "most marvelous" invention.
Nikolaos expresses a great sadness that after waiting two years for news of the expedition he will probably never see his friend again. (Last messenger sent out to search had returned with no news from Tartessus.)
The expedition was authorized and financed by the King based on Ionides' claim that his invention would make the navy and merchant fleets of the King the most versatile and powerful in the world. Further, Ionides had claimed that with his invention it would be possible to circumnavigate the earth thereby demonstrating that the theory of a spherical earth was true. (Something that Nikolaos had originally doubted but had been convinced by his logically persuasive friend must in fact be true despite the apparent difficulties of someone actually traveling around the globe to return where they had started).


Biography and background:
Ionides, son of Anaximander of Mytilene, studies the philosophy of Aristotle in Athens but is drawn to Alexandria in order to learn more through the study of nature. He develops skill in engineering and the manufacture of fine instruments (mostly for making astronomical observations, invents a type of astrolabe and possibly a mechanical chronometer). He is conscripted as an engineer (thereby gaining a permanent position in the royal college of librarians/teachers at the King's library in Alexandria). While in the field with the army he meets the army surgeon Joseph ben Kophar. They become friends partly because Ionides is oddly unconcerned (according to Joseph) about being criticized for consulting with a Jew on matters philosophical. They discuss botany, pharmacology, and anatomy at great length. During this expedition Joseph is signally honored by the King for advising that the army's camp be abandoned to the enemy based on his correct conclusion that a sickness that was spreading among the troops was caused by a polluted water supply. The army of Antiochus takes over what they assumed was a superior position but after several days is sufficiently weakened by disease and is easily routed by the King's forces. The King rewards Joseph and bestows upon him the appellation "Nikolaos" (victorious throughout the land).


Nikolaos has a lucrative medical practice after the war. He is frequently consulted by the Queen's Greek physician on questions of prescription and preparation of medicines (this doctor tells him that he trusts him far more than the Egyptian physicians because they are so thoroughly superstitious). Nikolaos for his part though maintains close contact with certain friends who are members of the Egyptian priesthood and frequently consults with Egyptian physicians.

Ionides is considered an eccentric by the other teachers and philosophers associated with the library. Not committed to any particular school of philosophy, he is Aristotelian in his reliance on logic, Epicurean in his rejection of superstition. In metaphysics he often quotes Heraclitus the pre-Socratic (though he rarely discusses religion or metaphysics except to refute the superstitious and ludicrous, and is careful not to insult "Egyptian science {magic}" publicly as he likes to maintain good relations with certain local temples). He says of Heraclitus that his enigmatic writings appear as naive or paradoxical observations of nature but in fact they always point to some profound truth underlying the world as it appears on the surface. Ionides liked most to investigate paradoxes. He calls the Platonists superstitious.

Nikolaos recorded numerous tales of how Ionides helped a wide assortment of people from all classes and races. Most involved private situations and disputes of the local Alexandrians that had some aspect of mystery, or involved a paradox of nature, and that had created a problem for someone. He was irresistibly drawn to strange and difficult questions. Ionides performed at least two significant services for the Queen, one Nikolaos relates involves disproving certain false claims against the Queen (the other is obviously too sensitive even for this confidential record and is only alluded to obliquely). The successful resolution used logical proof followed by a physical demonstration which impressed the King so much that he had Ionides come to the palace for a private audience. Ionides later told his friend that the King had been slightly disappointed that he wasn't interested in administration or military science as such, but decided that Ionides was most valuable where he was, ready at hand for consultation as needed. Ionides was obviously pleased with himself that he had avoided being drafted into a job he would have loathed and had instead had made his position at the library more secure (politics among the Library's philosophers being a threat for someone with few close friends). He was rewarded by the Queen with enough money for him to buy out the owner of a small foundry and blacksmith shop that he had often made use of for manufacturing his instrument designs. He relied on this shop not because the owner was so skilled (a Syrian merchant who used it to manufacture mostly pots and pans) but because of one of the slaves who worked there was from India and had not only superior skill in fine brass work but had confided to Ionides (who had made it clear how much he valued this individual's abilities and that the Syrian was wasting his talent) that he was trying to negotiate his freedom from the Syrian by claiming that he knew secrets of iron manufacture that were unknown to the Greeks. After buying the shop lock, stock, and slaves Ionides remarked that the Syrian had the typical shortsightedness of a merchant; he would have made much more money employing his Indian slave to make cutlery. This slave was made the manager of the shop with the promise of both his freedom and ownership of the place if he kept the business profitable and supplied Ionides with whatever he required for a set period of years, in addition to telling Ionides exactly what kinds of things he could create with "Indian steel".

Nikolaos tells of how Ionides served the Jewish community in Alexandria (at the request of Nikolaos) by solving the "Mystery of the Disappearing Cats". The native Egyptians held the local cats in great reverance but it had been noticed that in one particular quarter of the city the feral cats were disappearing. The Jewish neighborhood was in this quarter and a certain rabble rouser was going around suggesting that the Jews were responsible. After some investigation and a confrontation with a small mob Ionides ingeniously solved the problem by getting the cats back into the neighborhood. Only Nikolaos knew how he did it and Ionides was only credited with "predicting" the return of the cats by a particular day. Nikolaos accused him of being modest when Ionides told him not to tell anyone what he had discovered concerning the cats. Ionides explained that in this case it would be better for all involved if the Egyptians were allowed to believe that the cats had left and returned of their own accord and for their own "mysterious" reasons. Nikolaos reflects that indeed his friend was looking out for him and his family by taking this approach because while Ionides would have preferred to have clearly demonstrated to all that the situation could be explained by the natural behavior of the cats the Egyptians would have resented any conscious manipulation of "their" cats by a Greek philosopher and that would have just fed into the bad feelings toward foreigners in general. The neighborhood was therefore at peace. (Oddly enough Ionides kept a cat in his own house, but said it was to keep the mice from eating his books. He complained that the cat always had fleas and that reminded Nikolaos of something he had read in an Egyptian text that said amongst other things a certain plant was used by the priests of Bubastis to keep the temple cats free of fleas. Ionides practically forced him to find the plant for him and he fashioned a collar for his cat out of it that he renewed every couple of months. He told Nikolaos the cat was grateful.) continued: