upper canine teeth), which can be as long as 40 centi-

meters. The walruses are to be found only in the Arc-

tic. Once 500,000 were to be found on the Arctic ice

floes, but hunting has reduced their numbers to less

than 50,000.

 

Of the forty-seven species of seals, five are native to

the Antarctic. The largest of these (and third only to

the elephant seal and the walrus) is the leopard seal.

It is well named, for it is the most ferocious carnivore

 

OPUS 200                217

 

of the family. It needs to fear no other animal but the

killer whale—and, of course, man.

 

The crab-eater seal, despite its name, lives on krill.

It is the most common of the Antarctic seals* and num-

bers 5,000,000 to 8,000,000.

 

The most thoroughly Antarctic of the seals, how-

ever, is the Weddell seal. It sticks close to the shores

of Antarctica, while the other seals range well out to

sea. The Weddell seal finds safety beneath the coastal

ice, breaking holes in it to breathe through. It can

dive to a depth of 600 meters and can remain sub-

merged for nearly an hour. Ordinarily, however, it

comes up for air every ten to thirty minutes. (The

female spends considerable time on top of the ice. for

only there can she feed her voung.)

 

Another notch downward in adaptation to the sea,

we come to what would seem so completely a land

animal as the bear. Two species of bears are charac-

teristic of the Arctic regions and they are the two larg-

est: the Kodiak brown bear and the polar bear.

 

The more northerly of the two is the polar bear.

Creamy white in fur, it is not noticeable against the

snow and ice it lives among. It can be 2 meters or

more in length and may weigh over 700 kilograms.

The polar bear lives on fish and seals and is capable

of swimming miles out to sea. It can also roam the

Arctic ice all the way to the North Pole—followed by

the Arctic fox, which scavenges the polar bear kills.

(The polar bear's liver is so rich in vitamin A as to be

actually poisonous to man.)

 

And while we're talking of land mammals adapted

to seeking food by sea, we should mention man, too.

The Eskimos, at least, live very well in the apparently

bleak Arctic world by learning to turn to the rich sea

for their food.

 

218

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

There are important sea birds in the polar regions.

In the Arctic, the most typical examples are the mem-

bers of the auk family. These are not strong fliers but

are very well adapted to diving into water for the fish

they eat. They are capable of swimming underwater

by making the same wing movements they maker in

flight. One of the better-known auks is the puffin,

which has a large head and a multicolored parrotlike

beak.

 

The most tragic member of the family was the great

auk, which stood about a meter high and was the

most completely adapted to water life of any species

of the family. It could swim underwater expertly, but

its wings were paddles only, and it could not fly with

them.

 

What with its nonflight, its habit of congregating in

great numbers on the islands in the Atlantic section of

the Arctic, its single egg laid on bare ground without

protection, and its inability to recognize the presence

of danger, the great auk was an easy prey. They were

killed wantonly in huge numbers and the last mem-

bers of the species were killed on June 4, 1844.

 

Not all polar sea birds are poor fliers. The gull-like

Arctic tern is, in some way, a flying champion. It

nests in the Arctic (as far north as 82.°5N) but evades

the winter by flying 17,500 kilometers to the Antarc-

tic; then evades the Antarctic winter by flying back to

the Arctic. It spends seven months of the year travel-

ing, and at each end of its journey experiences some

two and a half months of continuous sunlight.

 

Another Arctic bird, the golden plover, also under-

goes a long migratory flight, much of it being over tile

ocean and therefore nonstop, since the plovers don't

swim well. A fhree-month-old golden plover can make

it successfully from its birthplace in Alaska down to

 

OPUS 200                219

 

Hawaii (some 3500 kilometers) in two days of fiving.

 

Although the Antarctic region has no mammals ex-

cept for whales and seals, which remain in the waters

off the shores of Antarctica, there are birds that make

their wav across portions of the continent itself. Con-

sidering that the birds usually possess the ability to

fly, this is perhaps not so unusual.

 

Of the fifteen species of flying birds that are found

in the Antarctic region the most southerly is a preda-

tory gull-like bird called the skua. It seems verv likely

that skuas have ranged over all Antarctica and that

thev are the onlv species of living creature that has

reached the South Pole independently of man,

 

There are two Antarctic petrels, and one of these,

the giant petrel, is the largest of the Antarctic flying

birds—with a wing-spread of 2 meters and a weight of

over 4 kilograms.

 

The most characteristic birds of Antarctica, how-

ever, are species incapable of flight, birds that ac-

tually walk extensively over the barren ice of that

frozen continent. They are penguins, which adapted

to the same kind of life and have developed a smiliar

form to the great auk of the Arctic.

 

Penguins are as closely adapted to sea life as the

great auk was, maybe more so. Their wings are pad-

dles that are useless for flying but that give them an

almost unmatched speed (almost 50 kilometers an

hour) and turning ability underwater. Such is the

force of their swimming that they can leap out of the

water to twice their own height. On land, however,

the best they can do is waddle in ungainly fashion.

(Their upright posture, their humorous waddle, and

their black and white coloration, as though they were

wearing suits, have endeared them to men and spared

them carnage.)

 

220

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

There are seventeen species of penguins altogether

all of them native to the Southern Hemisphere. Of

these, two species actually live on Antarctica. The

smaller of the Antarctic penguins is the Adelie pen-

guin, so called because it is found in Adelie Land.

The Adelie penguins congregate in crowded nesting

sites inland ("rookeries"). They are about 45 centime-

ters tall and weigh 6 to 7 kilograms.

 

The skua is always waiting to eat the eggs and the

penguin chicks, while in the ocean the leopard seal

waits for the adults. As long as man does not interfere,

however, enough survive to keep the species going.

 

More astonishing is the emperor penguin, the larg-

est of all living penguins, standing over a meter high

(twice the height of the Adelie) and weighing as

much as 35 kilograms. (There are fossils of penguins,

now extinct, that stood 1.6 meters high and weighed

as much as 110 kilograms.)

 

Unlike the Adelie penguins, the emperors did not

seem to possess rookeries. Edward Wilson, one of

those fated to die later with Scott in the tragic at-

tempt to reach the South Pole and return, was particu-

larly interested in finding the eggs of the emperor

penguin. He believed the emperor penguin to be the

most primitive of all birds, and the species most

closely related to the reptiles. (He was wrong in this.)

He thought that a study of the embryos of these birds

might clarify their position in the animal kingdom.

 

In 1902, he was the first to discover an emperor

penguin rookery. (There are fourteen known rookeries

now, sheltering perhaps 160,000 emperor penguins al-

together.) For the first time, Wilson saw emperor

chicks on the feet of adults. From their size, he real-

ized the hatching of those chicks must have taken

 

OPUS 200                221

 

place quite awhile before, during what was then win-

ter.

 

In fact, it was discovered that the female emperor

penguin laid her single egg in the middle of the Ant-

arctic winter, so that the egg had to be incubated un-

der worse conditions, by far, than those experienced

by any other bird in the world. The emperor penguin

is the onlv bird that does not nest on bare land. It

nests on ice, and the emperor penguin may, indeed,

never feel bare land but find itself always on or in

water in solid or liquid form. (The Adelie penguin

nests on exposed land along the rim of the continent

and lays its eggs at the beginning of summer.)

 

The emperor penguin rookeries are located inland,

some 80 to 130 kilometers from the coast. (Emperor

penguins are occasionally found as far as 400 kilome-

ters from the nearest coast, stubbornly trudging along—

the farthest south any nonfiying vertebrate has ever

reached independently of man.) „

 

It takes a month for the emperor penguins to travel

from the shores of Antarctica, where food can be ob-

tained, to the inland rookeries where no food exists

(but where, except for man and skua, isolation and

security are absolute). The emperor penguins fast

during this trek.

 

There, in the interior, in winter, the female lays her

single egg. TTiere is no nest and no nesting territory,

something that only the emperor penguin, of all birds,

lacks. The single egg is taken by the male and placed

on his feet, immediately under a bare and unfeathered

patch of the abdomen. A flap of skin covers the egg,

which is then incubated against the father's body and

on his feet, so that the nesting territory is, so to speak,

the ground on which the birds stands.

 

222

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

The male emperor penguins can waddle about

clumsily without losing the eggs, and most of them

huddle together for warmth, which they need, for

the icy Antarctic midwinter temperatures go as low

as—60° C, and the gales whistle past the birds at speeds

of up to 150 kilometers per hour.                 '

 

Once the egg is transferred, the female takes off for

food and the sea again—another month's journey. The

male, however, stands his ground for sixty days, still

fasting. Prior to the trek to the rookery, the male em-

peror penguin has eaten enough to lay by a sizable

quantity of fat—attaining a weight of 35 kilograms—but

this begins to melt away during the long fast.

 

Finally, when the chicks are near to hatching, the

females return an4 ^^ over. At last the males can

head for the sea, which they finally reach after a four-

month fast during which they lose 25 to 40 percent of

their weight.

 

When the chick hatches, the mother feeds it with

food she had stored in her crop, but this won't last.

The father must return, and for a while the parents

take turns walking to the sea, eating their fill, and re-

turning to feed the chick. Fully one quarter of the

chicks don't survive the rigors of that first winter—but

by the time the Antarctic summer arrives and the

coastal ice begins breaking up, those that have sur-

vived can make it to the sea and go out to feed on

their own.

 

Words are of natural interest to writers, and certainly

to me. It is a source of delight to me that English is

my first language, for no other language consists of so

many words, so many madly spelled and madly pro-

nounced words, so many lawless words. In no other

language, I firmly believe, can you have such fun

with words.

 

What one-syllable word becomes two syllables if

you subtract two letters?

 

What word changes pronunciation when it is capi-

talized?

 

What word has a spelling pattern xyzxyzx?

 

There are four common English words ending with

"dous." Three of them are "tremendous" "stupen-

dous^ and "horrendous" What is the fourth?

 

What common words contain the following letters in

order somewhere in their spelling: pefr, wsp, ckc, ufi,

ufa?

 

I'll give you the answers at the end of this section.

Meanwhile, you can have fun with them.

 

My chief pleasure has always been the origin and

etymology of words My first hundred books include

no less than six {all published by Houghton Miffiin)

that deal exclusively with etymology. These are Words

 

226

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

of Science, Words from the Mvths, Words in Genesis,

Words from the Exodus, Words on the Map, Words

from History.

 

These cover the subject rather thoroughly and there

are no such easy pickings in the second hundred. I did

manage one more with Houghton Mifflin, however.

That was More Words of Science (Book 122), pub-

lished in 1972. Here are three essays from that hook:

 

one on a chemical word, one on a biological word,

and one on a physical word.

 

from MORE WORDS OF SCIENCE (1972)

 

HALLUCINOGENS

 

The brain, like every other part of the body, performs

its functions through certain chemical reactions. These

are produced by stimuli brought to the brain through

die senses. It is possible to change the brain chemistry

by taking substances that interfere with these chemi-

cal reactions. In that case, the body will respond to

stimuli that don't relate to the outside world. Objects

that are not really there seem to be sensed, while ob-

jects that are really there may be ignored. The results

are "hallucinations," from a Latin word meaning "to

wander in the mind."

 

Certain plants contain chemicals that can produce

hallucinations. The peyote cactus and a mushroom

called Amanita muscaria contain such chemicals.

Sometimes these plants are eaten in primitive religious

celebrations because the hallucinations are thought to

be glimpses of another world (or an escape from this

one). Another substance that produces hallucinations

is hashish, one form of which is marijuana.

 

OPUS 200                 227

 

In 1943, a Swiss chemist, Albert Hofmann, was

studying an organic compound called "lysergic acid

diethylamide" and accidentally got a few tiny crystals

of it on his fingers. He happened to touch his fingers to

his Ups and was soon overcome by odd hallucinations.

It took him a full day to regain normality. He began

careful studies and found that very small doses of the

chemical could always produce hallucinations. The

name was soon reduced to an abbreviation of the

three words. Since the German word for "acid" is

Saure, and Hofmann spoke German, the abbreviation

isLSD.

 

Since many young people foolishly began to play

games with their minds by taking LSD and other such

substances, hallucination-producing drugs became im-

portant to study. They are now lumped together un-

der the general name "hallucinogens" (producers of

hallucinations).

 

PHEBOMONE

 

Human beings can communicate by talking. Through

sounds, gestures, and written symbols, abstract ideas

can be transmitted from one person to another. Hu-

man beings are unique in this respect.

 

Yet other creatures must be able to communicate in

some fashion, if only so that there can be cooperation

between two individuals of a species in order that

they might reproduce. Within a body, the different

parts are made to behave in some cooperative fashion

by means of chemical messenger's called "hormones."

Is it possible that chemical messages can be carried

on, not only within an organism, but from one organ-

ism to another?

 

Such hormonal effects, carried through water or air

 

228

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

Y,.

 

from one member of a species to another, are called

"pheromones," the prefix coming from a Greek word

meaning "to carry." They are hormones carried over a

distance.

 

Insect pheromones are the most dramatic. A female

moth can liberate a compound that will act as a pow-

erful sexual attractant on a male moth of the same

species a mile away. Each species must have its own

pheromone, for there is no point in affecting a male of

another species. Each species must have receiving de-

vices of tremendous delicacy because they must be

able to react to Just a few molecules in the air.

 

Pheromones are also used in interspecies conflict.

Certain ants raid the nests of other ant species to kid-

nap the young, which they rear as slaves. The raiders

use trails of pheromones which not only aid them to

keep together and coordinate their attacks, but also

act to alarm and scatter the ant species they are at-

tacking.

 

Biologists are laboring to use insect pheromones to

lure members of troublesome species to destruction.

In this way, they can be absolutely specific, doing no

direct harm to any other species.

 

SYNCHROTRON

 

In the 1930s, physicists developed methods for accel-

erating subatomic particles in order to give them high

energies and send them smashing into atomic nuclei.

The most successful of these was invented by the

American physicist Ernest 0. Lawrence in 1931. It

whirled particles around and around, thanks to the

driving force of a magnetic field, and it was therefore

called a "cyclotron,"

 

By making larger and larger magnets, one could

 

OPUS 200                 229

 

whirl the particles to greater and greater energies.

The device only works well, however, if the mass of

the particles doesn't change. As the particles go faster,

their mass increases considerably (as Albert Einstein

predicted they would in his special theory of relativity).

This lowers the efficiency of the cyclotron and limits

the energies it can produce.

 

In 1945, the Soviet physicist Vladimir I. Veksler and

the American physicist Edwin M. McMilIan inde-

pendently worked out a wav to alter the strength of a

magnetic field so as to match the increase in mass.

The two effects were "synchronized" (from Greek

words meaning "same time") and the efficiency re-

mained high. Such a modified cyclotron was called a

"synchrocyclotron."

 

In cyclotrons, the whirling particles spiral outward

and eventually pass beyond the limits of the magnet.

If the particles could be held in a tight circle, they

could be whirled many more times before being re-

leased and still higher energies would be attained.

 

The English physicist Marcus L. E. Oliphant

worked out a design for such a device in 1947, and in

1952 the first of the kind was built in Brookhaven Na-

tional Laboratory on Long Island. It still made use of

a synchronized increase in the strength of the field,

but the spiraling of the particles, as in a cyclotron,

was gone. The new device was therefore called simply

a "synchrotron."

 

As for the puzzles I set you at the beginning of the

section—

 

1. The one-syllable word "plague" loses the first two

letters and becomes the two-syllable "ague."

 

2. Capitalize the word polish" and it becomes "Pol-

ish."

 

230

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

3. The most common word with the pattern xyzxyzx

is "alfalfa." Second is "entente," but that is more

French than English. There was once a breath

freshener with the name "Sen-Sen."

 

4. The fourth common English word ending in "dous"

is "hazardous."                          , '

 

5. The letter combinations and the words containing

them are:

 

pefi—grapefruit

'wsp—newy{wper (Less good, because less common,

 

is "bowsprit."}

ckc—sackcloth or cockcrow

v&—genuflect

 

uf a—manufacture (Oddly enough, this is the only

common word with that combination.)

 

In the course of my first hundred hooks, I wrote a

history hook for Hom'hton Mifflin entitled The

Greeks. I enjoyed dome that so much thtit I embarked

on a whole series of histories, and In) the time I had

reached my hundredth book, Houghton Mifflin had

published seven of them, all on ancient and medieval

history.

 

In the course of my second hundred books I did

seven more histories for Houston Mifflin. One of

them. The Land of Canaan (Book 116}, was on an-

cient history. In this book, piil}lished in 1971, I told

the tale of the Maccabean revolt.

 

from THE LAND OF CANAAN (1971)

 

The high priests of the old line of Zadok, which dated

back to Solomon's Temple, still held their state in Je-

rusalem. In 219 B.C., during the last years of Ptolemaic

dominion, Onias II died and Simon II became high

priest. He is known to later generations as Simon the

Just and received an eloquent tribute in the fiftieth

chapter of the apocryphal biblical book Ecclesiasti-

cus. In 196 B.C., at about the time Judea passed under

Seleucid dominion, Simon's son Onias III became

 

234

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

high priest He, too, is pictured as having been pious

and devout.

 

Judea itself was confined to a small inland region

bordering on the northwestern shores of the Dead

Sea, with Jerusalem as its only city of note and with a

total area of only about 750 square miles. To its north,

where once Israel had been, was Samaria, and with

the Samaritans the Jews maintained a deadly hostility,

each group considering the other to be pernicious he-

retics. To the south of Judea lived the descendants of

the Edomites, who had moved northward into land

that had once been southern Judah and which was

now Idumea. Between Jews and Idumeans there was

also a deadly enmity.

 

To be sure, the Jews were not confined to Judea.

Many of them colonized Galilee, the region north of

Samaria. It had once made up northern Israel but in

these days was so full of non-Jews that it was called

Galilee of the Gentiles by the conservative and disap-

proving Jews of Judea itself. Then, of course, there

were the Jews of the Diaspora (Greek for "disper-

sion"); that is, those who dwelt outside the borders of

the land that had once been promised to Abraham.

There were the Jews of the Tigris-Euphrates, of Alex-

andria, of the Greek cities in Asia Minor and else-

where.

 

To all Jews, however, wherever located, Jerusalem

and its Temple remained at the center of their na-

tional consciousness. At the time of the great festivals,

Jerusalem was crowded with Jews from all over the

Near East, coming to sacrifice. The development of

Judaism was by this time almost complete. Virtually

all the books of the Old Testament had by now been

written.

 

OPUS 200                235

 

Yet Judaism faced a new danger. The old Canaanite

idolatries were long gone, but a new and even more

attractive idolatry existed. Since the time of Alexan-

der, Greeks had penetrated all the Mediterranean

world and wherever they went they carried Greek cul-

ture with them. They were a city people, too, and

wherever they went they founded cities. In Judea arid

surrounding lands, the penetration by the Greeks had

been slow under the Ptolemys, but when the Greek-

loving Seleucid kings took over, the trend accelerated.

 

And those who were not Greeks by race (or Hel-

lenes, as the Greeks called themselves) nevertheless

hastened to adopt Greek culture. They became Hel-

lenized and the process of HeIIenization became a

dominating force in all the Mediterranean. Even the

rough Romans of the west felt the force of HeIIeniza-

tion; and Scipio himself, the conqueror of Hannibal,

was a leader of those who would adopt Greek ways.

 

The Jews were not immune. Many Jews, not only in

Greek cities far from Jerusalem but even in Judea it-

self, adopted Greek ways of life while paying lip ser-

vice to the older and less sophisticated notions of Juda-

ism. Other Jews, however, particularly in Judea itself,

clung entirely to the old ways and abhorred Greek no-

tions.

 

The stage was set for a quarrel between these two

lands of Judaism, but anvone looking at the world in

183 B.C. could not possibly have foreseen that such a

struggle could have any importance or that it could

have any possible effect outside Judea. The thought

that the struggle would have world-shaking effects

and that it would dictate the nature of the religions

that would dominate the world in centuries to come

would have seemed utterly unbelievable.

 

236

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

Yet it happened; but so slowly that for centuries no

one could possibly have noticed that anything impor-

tant was taking place.

 

It began with the failure of Antiochus III- The large

indemnity he had agreed to pay the Roman's follow-

ing his defeat was more than he had in his treasury. J

To get the money, lie liad to squeeze the rich temples

of his land- It was while he was trying to carry the

gold out of one of the temples in a far province that

the rioting peasantry killed him in 187 B.C.

 

He was succeeded by his son Seleucus IV, who

found the Seleucid realm weakened by defeat and

plunder and the far-eastern provinces, so painstak-

ingly retaken by Antiochus III, falling away again,

this time permanently."

 

Seleucus IV attempted to maintain a quiet and un-

adventurous reign, since the land needed time for re-

covery. He still needed money, however, as his father

had, and one of the obvious sources was the Temple

in Jerusalem. Seleucus sent an official named Helio-

dorus to see what could be done in that direction.

 

The tale of what follows is told in the apocryphal

book of Second Maccabees in a garbled fashion. What

may very likely have happened was that Onias III, the

high priest, managed to make a deal with Heliodorus.

He bribed Heliodorus generously, giving the under-

ling a part in order to avoid having to give the master

the whole. Heliodorus knew that he risked his neck if

what he had done was discovered, so he arranged to

have Seleucus IV assassinated in 175 B.C.

 

But Seleucus IV had a younger brother Antiochus,

who had been born in Athens and who, after his fa-

 

* For the subsequent history of these eastern provinces, see

my book The Near East (Houghton Mifflin, 1968).

 

OPUS 200                237

 

ther's defeat, had been sent as a hostage to Rome. The

younger Antiochus was treated kindly there and con-

ceived an admiration for Rome. He was also (perhaps

because of his pride in his Athenian birth) an enthusi-

ast of Greek culture. On hearing of his older brother's

assassination, Antiochus left Rome and made his way

to Antioch. Once there, he had no trouble seizing con-

trol and beginning his reign as Antiochus IV.

 

Antiochus IV was a capable man who dreamed of

restoring the Seleucid Empire to the power from

which the defeat by the Romans had toppled it. To do

this—the old story—he needed money. Among the

sources of funds was still the Temple at Jerusalem.

Onias III, who represented the more conservative fac-

tions of Judaism, was still high priest and Antiochus

IV viewed him with disfavor. This might have been

simply the result of the old man's stubborn refusal to

part with Temple money, or perhaps Antiochus had

heard rumors of the deal with Heliodorus. Then, too,

Antiochus may well have thought his kingdom would

be stronger if all its people were united in Hellenic

culture, and the stubborn adherence of Onias III to

conservative Judaism may have bothered him.

 

In any case, when Onias' brother Joshua ap-

proached Antiochus with suggestions of a deal, Anti-

ochus listened. The suggestion was that Antiochus ap-

point Joshua as high priest in place of his brother.

Joshua would then allow Antiochus a generous supply

of the Temple funds. (In return, Joshua would have

the prestige and power of the high priesthood and—as

both men knew—a chance to enrich himself, as any

high priest could do if he were a little unscrupulous.)

To tempt Antiochus further, Joshua played up to his

known pro-Greek proclivities by offering to encour-

age the Hellenization of the Jews. As a demonstration

 

238

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

of his sincerity in this direction, he had changed his

name from the Hebrew "Joshua" to the Greek "Jason."

 

Antiochus agreed to the deal. Onias III was taken

off to house arrest in Anfrioch, and Joshua-Jason be-

came high priest. Joshua-Jason promptly began to live

up to his part of the bargain. Antiochus got his money

and Joshua-Jason established a gymnasium in Jerusa-

lem, At the gymnasium young men could exercise,

Greek fashion, in the nude, and the more modish of

the young Jews flocked to it. (And Joshua-Jason, who

controlled the gymnasium financially, reaped gener-

ous profits.)

 

The conservative Jews were horrified by the arrest

of Onias III and by the rifling of the treasury, but the

gymnasium shocked them most of all. Not only was

public nudity considered an abomination, but young

Jews who wished to exercise often wore false foreskins

to avoid advertising the fact that they were circum-

cised—thus denying the very mark of Judaism.

 

But Joshua-Jason had merely taught others to take

the same route as himself. A cousin of his named On-

ias, who took the Greek name of Menelaus, offered

Antiochus a still higher bribe ^f he were made high

priest in his turn. Antiochus obliged in 172 B.C. and in

succeeding years the Temple and the people were

looted indeed.

 

When the depredation of Onias-Menelaus became

plain, old Onias III, who was looked upon by all con-

servative Jews as the only legitimate high priest, had

the courage to denounce the matter publicly, and then

took sanctuary in a Creek temple in a suburb of Anti-

och. Onias-Menelaus, however, seems to have per-

suaded the Seleudd commander in the district (with

bribes, perhaps) to induce Onias III to leave the sanc-

tuary by giving an oath for his safety. Once Onias III

 

OPUS 200                239

 

was out of the temple, he was promptly murdered.

This was in 170 B.C.

 

There was chaos in Judea among those factions sup-

porting this high priest or that, but this was of little

moment to Antiochus IV. The Hellenization of the

land seemed to be progressing favorably and he had

the money he needed from the Temple at Jerusalem

and from other sources. He could now buy arms, pay

soldiers, and begin the Seleucid comeback. He in-

tended to begin the comeback by taking over Egypt,

which was now under the rule of Ptolemy VI, an ami-

able person but a complete incompetent.

 

Antiochus IV had no trouble at all. He was a good

general and he had a good army. Brushing aside feeble

Ptolemaic resistance, he marched to Memphis, the an-

cient capital of the Egyptians, and in 170 B.C. had

himself declared king of Egypt. He then took his army

to the Ptolemaic capital of Alexandria and, in 169 B.C.,

placed it under siege.

 

While the siege was under way, however, news

reached Antiochus that in his absense Joshua-Jason

had attempted to take the high priesthood from

Onias-Menelaus by force. Jerusalem was in a state of

civil war and the Seleucid army, almost 350 miles west

of its own borders, could not afford to have its line of

communications threatened.

 

Furious, Antiochus IV hastened back to Judea and

punished the troublesome Jews by occupying the city,

entering the Temple himself at the head of an armed

contingent, and dragging off all the valuables he

could find. For the moment, Jerusalem was stricken

and quiet.

 

In 168 B.C., then, Antiochus IV returned to Egypt,

where he had as little trouble as before and where he

once again resumed the siege of Alexandria. By now,

 

240

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

however, the Ptolemys had squealed for help to

Rome, which promptly answered the call. Outside the

walls of Alexandria a Roman ambassador approached

Antiochus IV. Antiochus recognized him as an old

friend and approached gladiv to greet him; but the

old friend was an official emissary from Rome now

and he had only one thing to say: Antiochus was ei-

ther to leave Egypt or to accept war with Rome.

Thunderstruck, Antiochus IV asked for time to con-

sider. The Roman drew a circle in the ground around

the king and said, "Decide before you leave the cir-

cle."

 

Antiochus dared not face Rome. Though his entire

army was around him and though it had marched vic-

toriously through Egypt, and though it was sure to

take Alexandria, he and all his men had to back down

in the face of a single unarmed Roman. There are few

humiliations in history as dramatic as this one.

 

We can imagine Antiochus' angry frustration as he

retreated, his need to get back at something or some-

one. Perhaps the news reached him that the Jews were

jubilant over the state of his affairs, as well they

might be in view of the troubles he had visited on

them by his manipulation of the high priesthood and

by his looting of the Temple.

 

In any case, Antiochus IV determined that, though

the Romans might humiliate him, the Jews would not.

On his return to Antioch in 167 B.C. he resolved to put

an end to Judaism altogether. Let the Jews become

Greeks and loyal subjectsl It did not seem to him

(probably) to be much of a task. Men such as Joshua-

Jason and Onias-Menelaus seemed only too eager to

be Greek, and they commanded sizable factions

among the Jews.

 

Consequently, Antiochus ordered that the Temple

 

OPUS 200                241

 

in Jerusalem be made Greek and that within it there

be erected a statue representing Zeus (with whom

Yahweh was to be identified) and that on its altar

there be sacrifices offered in Greek fashion. What's

more, copies of the Tewish Scriptures were to be de-

stroyed, Jewish dietarv regulations ended, the Sab-

bath abolished, and the practice of circumcision for-

bidden. Those Jews who accented Hellenization were

to be left in peace as loyal subjects of Antiochus- For

the first time in history a persecution began that was

religious, not national, in character.

 

Words cannot describe the horror felt by the conserva-

tive Jews. Nebuchadnezzar, four centuries before, had

merely destroyed the Temple, but Antiochus had des-

ecrated it with idols and swine's flesh. Nebuchadnez-

zar had merely taken away the Jewish land, but •Anti-

ochus was taking awav their ideal. The conservative

Jews prepared to resist and to retain their way of life,

even to death by torture.

 

Such deaths took place, according to the tales told

later in Second Maccabees. Grisly tales of martyrdom,

of Jews dying under torture rather than agreeing to

taste swine's flesh, are recorded there. These were the

first martyr tales in the Judeo-Christian tradition and

they formed a precedent.

 

It was during this period of trial that the books of

Daniel and of Esther were written with their (fic-

tional) tales of the dangers and sufferings undergone

by Jews under previous oppressors and of how these

were overcome by faith and courage. The apocryphal

books of Tobit and Judith were written in similar

fashion. These were intended to serve, not as sober

history (though they were taken as such by the pious

of later ages), but as devices for stimulating and en-

 

242

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

couraging resistance. And eventually, the resistance

ceased being that of passive acceptance of torture and

death and became the active return of violence for

violence.

 

This new turn of events began with an aged priest,

Mattathias. He and his five sons left Jerusalem and

retired to the comparative safety of a small town

named Modin, seventeen miles to the northwest, out-

side Judea proper. According to Josephus, the great-

great-grandfather of Mattathias was named Hashmon,

so that Mattathias and his descendants are sometimes

called the Hasmoneans. On the other hand, the third

of his five sons, who was to turn out to be the most

famous of them, was Judah Makkabi, or in Greek

form, Judas Maccabeus. The surname may mean the

Hammerer, from his later victories. In any case, the

family has come to be better known as the Macca-

bees, and the apocryphal books written about the

events of this time, whether sober history in the case

of First Maccabees, dramatized history in the case of

Second Maccabees, or fiction in the case of Third

Maccabees, all received this name.

 

The spark that initiated the Jewish rebellion against

the Seleucids was set off by an officer of Antiochus

who came to Modin to enforce the new laws. He

asked Mattathias, as a prominent Jewish leader, to set

a good example and to carry through a sacririce to

Zeus in the manner required. Mattathias refused.

When another Jew offered to fulfill the royal com-

mand, Mattathias, in a rage, killed the Jew and the

Seleucid officer.

 

There was then nothing to do but to leave Modin

hastily. Mattathias and his sons made for the Cophna

hills, some dozen miles northeast of Modin. Other

Jews who resented the new laws came to join him

 

OPUS 200                 243

 

there, and in no time a guerrilla band had been

formed. Mattathias died very soon after the flight to

the hills and the band came under the command of

Judas Maccabeus.

 

Joining the Maccabee standard were bands of Has-

sidim (or, in the Greek version of the name, Hasi-

deans), a term which means "the pious ones." Their

sole concern lay in religion and they were uninter-

ested in politics. It was onlv when the practice of Ju-

daism was outlawed that they were willing to resort to

violence, but under those conditions they were fanati-

cal fighters indeed.

 

The Gophna hills lay in Samaritan territory, and the

Seleucid governor of the region, Apollonius, moved

quickly to nip the revolt before it got very far. Apol-

lonius was, in all likelihood, overconfident. He must

have been convinced he could easiiv handle a few

rebels and he marched forward carelessly. Judas' men

lay in ambush and swarmeA down at the proper time.

Apollonius' men were scattered, Apollonius himself

was killed, and Judas took Apollonius' sword for use

in later battles.

 

This victory encouraged the conservative Jews in

Jerusalem and placed the pro-Hell enizers there in dif-

ficulties. Matters grew still worse for the latter. A

larger Seleucid force was sent out in 166 B.C. to oc-

cupy Jerusalem and end the annoying revolt. Again

Judas Maccabeus and his men lay in ambush, this

time at Bethhoron, twelve miles northwest of Jerusa-

lem. The second Seleucid force was also trapped and

destroyed.

 

By now the Jewish guerrillas had made a first-class

nuisance of themselves, but Antiochus IV could not

turn his full attention to them. He needed money,

money, money, and he had to get that somewhere in

 

244

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

the east, where the provinces had declared themselves

independent and where tax collections had dried up.

Off he marched eastward, leaving the small Jewish

war band to the attention of his minister, Lysias.

 

In 165 B.C. Lysias assembled a strong army at Em-

maus, fifteen miles west of Jerusalem and eleven

miles west of the Maccabean stronghold at Mizpeh.

Judas held his ground and remained on the defensive.

With only three thousand men he had to.

 

But the Seleucid army could not wait. If the rebels

would not come out to fight, they would have to be

flushed out. Its commander made a mistake, however;

 

he divided his forces and sent only part to Mizpeh.

That was what Judas was hoping for. With the enemy

divided, Judas raced his men to Emmaus, where he

attacked and defeated the part of the Seleucid army

that had remained there- With that done, Judas

whirled on the contingent that was returning fruit-

lessly from Mizpeh. For the third time, the Seleucids

were defeated.

 

Later in the year Lysias tried once more, sending a

troop around Judea into the friendly land of Idumea

and then attacking toward Jerusalem from the south.

The watchful Judas stopped him at Beth-zur, sixteen

miles southwest of Jerusalem, and defeated him again.

 

By now, successive victories had brought enough of

the Jews to the side of the Maccabees to make if" pos-

sible for the guerrillas to enter Jerusalem. Seleucid

forces and their Hellenized Jewish sympathizers still

controlled the fortified portions of the city, but the

Maccabees were able to seize the Temple.

 

Judas Maccabeus proceeded to rededicate the Tem-

ple, purifying it from its Seleucid profanation. He

chose priests who had never compromised with the

Seleucid authorities, tore down the altar on which

 

OPUS 200

 

245

 

swine had been sacrificed to Zeus, and buried the

stones. A new altar was built, new vessels supplied,

and proper sacrifices performed. The anniversary of

the dedication of the Temple in 165 B.C. is celebrated

to this day by the Jews as the eight-day feast of

Hanukkah ("dedication").

 

Judas Maccabeus bv no means considered this a fi-

nal victory. It was merely an item. He had as his am-

bition the liberation of all Jews everywhere in the

land that had once been Canaan. He led his army

across the Jordan and northward, while his brother Si-

mon, with another troop, took the route northward

along the coast. Both defeated Seleucid contingents,

enrolled fighters from among the Jewish population,

and established strongpoints. By 163 B.C. the Seleucid

power south of Damascus had been reduced to tatters,

and far off, in what is now central Iran, Antiochus IV

died, possibly from tuberculosis. Despite his very real

ability, his reign had been a disaster.

 

The death of Antiochus IV did not end Seleucid at-

tempts to repress the Maccabean revolt Antiochus'

nine-year-old son reigned as Antiochus V, with Lysias

as his minister. In 162 B.C. yet another Seleucid army

advanced to the attack. It was the strongest yet, and

once again it attacked from the south, moving through

Beth-zur. It had at least one elephant moving with it.

 

In a battle at Beth-zecfaariah, Bve miles north of

Beth-zur, the Maccabeans were forced back. Eleazar,

one of the brothers of Judas, fought his way to the

elephant, thinking that it carried the king in person.

He stabbed it in the abdomen and killed it, but the

dying elephant fell on Eleazar and crushed him—and

it did not after all, carry the young king.

 

Eleazar's feat did not turn the tide of battle, and for

the first time, in the face of overwhelming strength,

 

246

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

Judas was defeated. He brought what he could save

of his forces back to the Gophna hills, where he and his

family had first sought refuge five years before, and

the Seleucid forces reoccupied Jerusalem. This time,

however, they were careful to make no attempt to in-

terfere with the Temple services. Lysias' moderation

was the result of trouble at home. Other generals were

trying to seize control of the kingdom from Lysias,

while Demetrius, a nephew of Antiochus IV, was

grabbing at the tlirone itself.

 

Lysias therefore, in an effort to end the Judean re-

volt which was sapping his strength, offered a compro-

mise. He would grant the Jews complete religious free-

dom if they would accept Seleucid political sover-

eignty. The Hassidim, who were interested only in

Judaism as a religion, accepted this and retired from

the battle. This meant that Lysias had gained his

point, for, without the Hassidim, Judas' remaining

forces were too weak to offer resistance and he could

only maintain himself in the Gophna hills and await

events.

 

In the Seleucid wars that followed, both Antiochus

V and Lysias were killed, and Demetrius I ruled in

their place. With Judea quiet, he attempted to restore

the situation as it had once been, with the appoint-

ment of a high priest who would control Judaism in

the Seleucid interest—at least to a reasonable degree.

He appointed Eliakim as high priest; Eliakim, a Hel-

lenizer, preferred to be known by the Greek name of

Alcimus. Since Eliakim-Alcimus was of the old Za-

dokite line of priests, the Hassidim accepted him.

 

Now there was left only the small band of irrecon-

cilables in the Gophna hills. Demetrius might have ig-

nored them, but apparently Judas was attempting to

interest Rome in the Jewish plight, and the Seleucid

 

OPUS 200

 

247

 

•j       king decided to clean them out before it occurred to

 

Rome to interfere. Demetrius therefore sent his sen-

^       eral Bacchides with a strong force from Jerusalem to-

i       ward the Cophna hills.

 

^        Battle was Joined eight miles north of Jerusalem in

^,       161 B.C. Judas, whose forces now were less than a

?       thousand strong, was overwhelmed. He himself died

,''       on the battlefield and the few survivors scattered.

|       Two of his brothers, Jonathan and Simon, who were

? -       among those survivors, managed to take Judas' body

^      away from the battlefield and bury him in the family

^      tomb at Modin. Thus died the most remarkable Jew-

ish fighter since the time of David eight centuries be-

fore.

 

The Maccabean revolt appeared over. A few men

lurked in the southern desert with Jonathan, the

younger brother of Judas Maccabeus, but they were

powerless and could be ignored. The moderate policy

of Lysias and Demetrius I* had worked where the

stern force of Antiochus IV had failed.

 

The revolt had nevertheless accomplished one pur-

pose: the Temple was Jewish again and the Seleucids

made no attempt ever again to interfere with the rit-

ual. This meant that Judaism had been saved and

that—alone—meant that Judas' stand, though it had

ended in defeat and death, was nevertheless of crucial

importance to world history.

 

On the other hand, the danger was not entirely

over. Judaism might have been saved only to die more

slowly. The high priest, Alcimus, did all he could to

Hellenize the religion. He died in 159 B.C.—the last

high priest who was in any way Zadokite—but Hellen-

ization continued after him. And it might have suc-

ceeded had the Seleucid kingdom remained a stable

 

248

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

and effective governing force. What prevented the

withering of Judaism was not so much what the sur-

viving Maccabees could do, but the continuing dynas-

tic struggle among the Seleucids. Demetrius I was

constantly fighting rivals for the throne, and, when he

was forced to pull soldiers out of Judea, Jonathan and

his small band automatically began to increase in

numbers and expanded to fill the vacuum.

 

Demetrius made the best of it. In 157 B.C. he ap-

pointed Jonathan to the post of royal governor and al-

lowed him to enter Jerusalem and rule Judea, pro-

vided he acknowledged Seleucid sovereignty. Jona-

than agreed to that, accepting the reality of power

and letting the appearance go.

 

In 152 B.C. an imposter, Alexander Balas, who

claimed to be a son of Antiochus IV, obtained the

backing of Ptolemaic Egypt and launched a civil war

against Demetrius I. Jonathan remained shrewdly un-

committed for a while, allowing both sides to bid for

his services. Demetrius offered Jonathan rule over

wider areas, and Balas offered to appoint him high

priest. Jonathan accepted both offers.

 

In that year of 152 B.C., then, Jonathan donned the

robes of the high priesthood, and for the first time in

nine centuries an individual who was not descended

from Solomon's high priest, Zadok, officiated in the

Temple.

 

Finally, when Jonathan had to choose, he came

down on the side of Balas. The choice seemed a good

one, for in 150 B.C., in a final battle between the two

claimants, Balas was victorious and Demetrius I was

killed.

 

In 147 B.C., however, the son of Demetrius arrived

in Syria and attacked Balas. The son was Demetrius II

and he, of course, was hostile to the Maccabeans, who

 

OPUS 200                249

 

had supported—and were, perforce, continuing to sup-

port—Balas- An army loyal to Demetrius encamped in

what was once the land of the Philistines and chal-

lenged Jonathan to battle. Jonathan, in that same year,

accepted the challenge, and the battle was fought in

Azotus, the Biblical Ashdod.

 

For the first time the Maccabean army was large

enough to fight as something more than a guerrilla

force—to fight an organized battle rather than institut-

ing a surprise attack from ambush—and it won. The

Maccabees under Jonathan now controlled land on

both sides of the Jordan over an area of some 800

square miles.

 

In 145 B.C. Demetrius II finally defeated Balas in

battle and drove him to flight and eventual death, but

by then the Seleucid monarchy was a worthless toy.

The civil wars that had been nearly continuous since

the death of Antiochus IV, eighteen years before, had

seen a steady shrinkage of the dominions of Antioch.

All the east, including the Tigris-Euphrates valley,

was now part of the independent kingdom of Parthia

(ruled by a people akin to the Persians). Only Syria

remained to the Seleucids.

 

Demetrius II found his power so limited that he

could no longer mount a real offensive against the

Maccabean forces. In fact, he needed help against his

own enemies. Jonathan offered such help, suggesting

he would send a band of seasoned Jewish mercenaries

to serve Demetrius if the king would hand over the

fortified posts surrounding Jerusalem. Demetrius

agreed, accepted the forces, used them to establish his

power firmly in Antioch, and then refused to give up

the fortified posts.

 

The angry Jonathan waited for the inevitable—more

dynastic troubles. In 143 B.C. a general named Try-

 

250

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

phon, making use of a young bov who was hailed as

the son of Balas and given the title Antiochus VI, re-

belled against Demetrius II. Jonathan threw his sup-

port to the new claimant at once-

But Tryphon wearied of the indirection of having to

act under cover of a bov and planned to kill Anti-

ochus VI. To do so, however, might have risked the

good will of Jonathan, who was, at the moment, his

strongest supporter. Tryphon therefore planned to

plunge the Maccabean power into confusion in the

most direct possible way Hrst. He invited Jonathan to

a conference in the royal city of Ptolemais, eighty-five

miles north of Jerusalem. Jonathan, apparently flat-

tered to be treated with considerable respect by the

Seleucid power; allowed himself to be lured into the

city with a very small band of men. He was captured

and killed in 142 B.C.

 

But one Maccabean brother remained—Simon. He

reclaimed Jonathan's bodv and buried it in the family

tomb, then once more approached Demetrius II, who

still maintained a force against Tryphon. Simon of-

fered him an alliance against Tryphon in exchange tor

recognition of complete Judean independence. The

deal was made. and 142 B.C. marked the moment

when, for the first time since Nebuchadnezzar's de-

struction of Jerusalem, 445 years before, there was an

independent Jewish state- Simon ruled both as king

(though he did not use the title) and high priest.

 

Almost at once Simon began to strengthen himself.

In 141 B.C, he took over the fortified posts in Jerusa-

lem so that at least the capital city was entirely free of

the foreign soldiery. He also took the coastal city of

Joppa to give the newly independent kingdom a foot-

hold at sea.

 

OPUS 200                251

 

From a material standpoint my history books do not

do particularly well. For instance, they have never

moved into paperback editions. That doesn't matter to

me, however, since I enjoy writing them, and my in-

come is high enough to let me please myself in this

respect.

 

Houghton Mifflin might object, to be sure, but they

don't. Perhaps that is because they dont want to hurt

my feelings and see a look of troubled sadness come

into my eyes ... So, among the second hundred,

they loyally published two books of mine on medieval

history: Constantinople {Book 106) in 1970, and The

Shaping of France (Book 126) in 1972.

 

From the latter book, here is a passage in which

France, having suffered disastrous defeats at the

hands of the smaller nation of England, meets with an

even worse enemy.

 

from THE SHAPING OF FRANCE (1972)

 

But once disasters begin to come, they come in battal-

ions. France had suffered a disaster at sea at the Bat-

tle of Sluys, and a far worse disaster on land at the

Battle of Crecy. Now there came a disaster worse than

either, worse than both together, worse than anything

mere medieval armies could do; something that

placed not only France but England, too, and all Eu-

rope under a terror beyond that which mere armies

could create.

 

It was the plague.

 

The plague is essentially a disease of rodents and is

spread from rodent to rodent by fleas. Every once in a

while, however, when the fleas spread the disease to

rodents such as house rats, which live in close coa-

 

252

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

Junction with human beings, the disease spreads also

to men. Sometimes it affects the lymph nodes, partic-

ularly in the groin and the armpits, causing them to

swell into painful "buboes"—hence "bubonic plague."

Sometimes the lungs are affected ("pneumonic

plague") and that is even worse, for then contagion

proceeds from man to man via the air and there is no

need for the intervention of rats and fleas.

 

Sometime in the 1330s, a new strain of plague bacil-

lus made its appearance somewhere in central Asia; a

strain to which human beings were particularly sus-

ceptible. Men began to die, and even while Edward

and Philip fought their trivial battle over who was to

rule France, the grinning specter of death was striding

closer to Europe. By the time Calais fell, the plague

had reached the Black Sea.

 

In the Crimea, the peninsula jutting into the north-

central Black Sea, there was a seaport called Kaffa

where the Genoese had established a trading post. In

October 1347, a fleet of twelve Genoese ships Just

managed to make it back to Genoa from Kaffa. The

few men on board who were not already dead were

dying—and thus the plague entered western Europe.

In early 1348 it was in France and in mid-1348 it had

reached England.

 

Sometimes one caught a mild version of the disease,

but very often it struck virulently. In the latter case,

the patient was almost always dead within one to

three days after the first symptoms. Because the ex-

treme stages were marked by hemorrhagic spots that

turned dusky, the disease was called the Black Death.

 

In a world innocent of hygiene, the Black Death

spread unchecked. It is thought to have killed some 25

million people in Europe before it died down (more

because all the most susceptible people were dead

 

OPUS 200                 253

 

than because anyone did anything) and many more

than that in: Africa and Asia. About a third of the pop-

ulation of Europe died, perhaps more, and it took a

century and a half before natural multiplication re-

stored European population to what it had been at

the time of the Battle of Crecy- It was the greatest

natural disaster to strike mankind in recorded history.

 

Its short-term effects were marked by the abject

terror it inspired among the populace. It seemed as

though the world were coming to an end, and every-

one walked in fear. A sudden attack of shivering or

giddiness, a mere headache, might mean that death

had marked you for its own and had given you a cou-

ple dozen hours to live.

 

. Whole towns were depopulated, with the first to

'die lying unburied while the initial survivors fled—

only to spread the disease to wherever it was they

fled to. Farms lay untended; domestic animals (who

also died by the millions) wandered about uncared

for. Whole nations (Aragon, for instance) were af-

flicted so badly that they never truly recovered.

 

Distilled liquors (alcoholic drinks produced by dis-

tilling wine, thus producing a stronger solution of al-

cohol than could be formed by natural fermentation)

had first been developed in Italy about 1100. Now,

two centuries later, they grew popular. The theory

was that strong drink acted as a preventive against

contagion. It didn't, but it made the drinker less con-

cerned, which was something. The plague of drunken-

ness settled down over Europe to match the plague of

disease and remained behind after the disease was

gone.

 

Everyone suffered, with those who lived in

crowded quarters the worst, of course. Towns suf-

fered more than the countryside, and indeed the grad-

 

254

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

ua] urbanization of the west received a setback from

which it did not recover for a century. Monastic com-

munities were also particularly hard hit, and the qual-

ity of monastic life in some ways never recovered.

 

Even the highest were vulnerable. In 1348 and

1349, three archbishops of Canterbury died of the

plague. In the papal capital of Avignon, five cardinals

and a hundred bishops died. A daughter of Edward

III, Joan, was on her wav to Castile to marry the son

of King Alfonso XI. She died of plague in Bordeaux

on her way there. And in Castile, so did King Alfonso.

In France, Philip's queen, Joan of Burgundy, died.

 

The terrified populace had to take action. Knowing

nothing of the germ theorv or of the danger of fleas, un-

able to keep clean in a culture which was rather suspi-

cious of cleanliness and considered it unholy, they

could do nothing useful. They could, however, find a

scapegoat, and for that there were always Jews avail-

able.

 

The theory arose that the Jews had deliberately poi-

soned wells in order to destroy Christians. The fact

that Jews were dying of the plague on equal terms

with Christians was not allowed to interfere with the

theory, and the Jews were slaughtered without mercy.

Of course this did nothing at all to diminish the scourge.

 

Viewed from a longer range, the Black Death

(which kept recurring at intervals—though never

again as bad—after the first attack had died out in

1351) destroyed the medieval optimism of the thir-

teenth century. It placed a kind of gloom on the world

and bred a growth of fatalistic mysticism that took a

long time to dispel.

 

It also helped destroy the economic structure of feu-

dalism. There had never been a surplus of labor in the

fields and the towns, but with the devastation of the

 

OPUS 200                 255

 

plague (which fell more violently upon the low-born

than upon the aristocracy} there was a sudden ex-

treme shortage. Savage laws were promulgated by

governments in order to keep serfs and artisans from

taking advantage of the suddenly increased value of

their muscles and skills, but no laws could counter the

economic facts of life.

 

Serfs who recognized the great need for their serv-

ices dickered for better treatment and greater privi-

leges and often got them. Artisans charged higher

prices. Prices and wages rose, and to the difficulties

produced by war and plague were added those of eco-

nomic dislocation and inflation.

 

Under the double blow of the Battle of Crecy and

the Black Death, the very basis of feudalism, both

military and economic, was destroyed. In western Eu-

rope, it had to die. It took its time, but there was

never a question of its surviving after the mid-

fourteenth century; only of how long it would take be-

fore human beings realized that it was dead.

 

Then, half a century later, after the French had sttf-

fered civil war and additional defeats and the ever-

victorious English were lai/ing siege to Orleans with

final victory at hand, here is what happened:

 

' from THE SHAPING OF FRANCE (2972)

 

On February 12, 1429, when the siege was completing

its fourth month, a column of French tried to inter-

cept a wagon train being sent to the English from

Paris. This included many barrels of dried herrings,

for it was the Lenten season and fish was in high de-

 

256

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

mand. The supply train was under the command of

Sir John Fastoife, who had fought well at Agincourt

and in Normandy.

 

As soon as Fastoife was aware of the oncoming

French, he took vigorous measures for the defense. He

drew his wagons into a line that served as an im-

promptu fortification. From behind the shelter of

those wagons, he placed his English longbowmen at

one flank, and Parisian crossbowmen (the Parisians

were still hotly pro-Burgundy and anti-Armagnac) on

the other.

 

The French fought well, but there was little they

could do against the wagon-protected bowmen, and

the English won again. Burst barrels strewed herring

all over the field, so the action is known as the Battle

of the Herrings.

 

The French relieving forces were particularly dis-

heartened at this repulse because it seemed one more

in an endless string of victories won in the field by

the English. There seemed no use in fighting at all, so

what was left of those forces marched hastily away.

No other forces were sent with any intention of battle.

Orleans was left to its fate, and, after two more

months had passed, it seemed that Orleans must fall

and that the Bastard, whatever his resolution and abil-

ity, would simply have to surrender.

 

And then a very strange thing happened, one of the

strangest in history, and something that would have

been derided as incredible if it had appeared in a

work of fiction.

 

A peasant girl appeared on the scene.

 

Her name was Jeanne Dare and she was born about

1412 at the village of Domremy, at the eastern borders

of France, 160 miles east of Paris. After the Treaty of

Troyes, Domremy lay in that part of France which

 

OPUS 200                257

 

had been handed over to the overlordship of the En-

glish king.

 

• Jeanne Dare, or Joan Dare in English, is never

known by that name. Her last name has been mis-

spelled as d'Arc, as though she were of the nobility, so

that in English she is invariably known as Joan of Arc,

although there is no place called Arc from which she

came or over which she had some claim.

 

In her teens she was experiencing visions, hearing

voices and imagining herself called on to save France.

In 1429, these visions and voices finally drove her to

action. Charles VII had still not been crowned at

Reims, though six full vears had passed since the

death of his father. What's more, the siege of Orleans

might end in another English victory, and that might

defeat him forever. It seemed to Joan that her mission

had to start at once, that she had to relieve the siege

and crown Charles.

 

In January 1429, Joan left for Vaucouleurs, twelve

miles north of Domremy, wliere there was a fortified

outpost that still held out for Charles VII. Its captain

was sufficiently impressed by her (or perhaps suffi-

ciently eager to get rid of her) to send her on to

Charles VII with an escort of six men. Charles VII

was then at Chinon, 90 miles southwest of Orleans

and 270 miles from Domremy. Joan had to cross

English-controlled territory to reach Chinon, and so

she dressed in a man's costume to avoid the kind of

trouble a young girl might have if encountered by sol-

diers. She arrived at Chinon on February 24, 1429,

two weeks after the Battle of the Herrings had ended

French attempts to do anything active about the siege

of Orleans.

 

It was a superstitious age. When a girl announced

herself as a miraculous maid sent by God, she might

 

258

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

be taken for exactly that—or as a dangerous witch sent

by the Devil for the ensnarement of men. It was not

easy to tell which. Charles VII actually received Joan,

and she was then questioned by learned theologians

for three weeks in order to determine whether she was

of divine or diabolical inspiration.

 

It may well be that some of the worldly men around

Charles were not reallv concerned with which she

was, and perhaps didn't believe she could be either.

They might have been trying to decide whether she

would be accepted by the soldiers as a miracle maid

or not. If the French and (even more) the English

could be made to believe that God was fighting on

the side of the French, that could have an important

effect on morale on either side.

 

The decision arrived at was (theologically) that Joan

was sent by Cod and (practically/politically) that

this attitude would carry conviction. She was there-

fore sent to Orleans with an escort of about three

thousand soldiers under John, Duke of Alencon, who

had led the French forces at the lost Battle of Ver-

neuil and had been in captivity for a while as a result.

On April 29, 1429, Joan and her escort slipped into the

city.

 

It is important to understand that by now the de-

fending force within the city was quite substantial

and, indeed, they outnumbered the thin line of be-

sieging English. What kept the French from emerging

to do battle was not the lack of means, but the lack of

.will. The French were simply unable to believe they

could win. What's more, the English had suffered con-

siderably in the course of a half-year siege, and all

that kept them to their task was that they were simply

unable to believe they could lose.

 

OPUS 200                 259

 

It was only a matter of morale that kept the situa-

tion going, against the military sense of it all. Once

the news arrived that a miraculous maid was coming

to the aid of the French, the situation with respect to

morale changed suddenly and dramatically and what

followed was almost inevitable. While few events in

history have seemed so miraculous as what Joan of

Arc accomplished, it is not really as miraculous as it

seemed.

 

Very likely, the Bastard of Orleans counted on

Joan's effect on the morale on both sides, and, within

a week of her arrival, he launched an attack, on May

4, on the fortified posts set up by the English at the

eastern approaches of the citv. He did not even bother

telling her about it. On learning of the fighting, how-

ever, Joan hastened to the eastern walls. The French

soldiers, heartened at her appearance, fought the more

savagely, and the English fell back.

 

The first sign of French victory set in motion a vi-

cious cycle for the English. If the French advanced

more than was their wont, it was a sign that Joan was

heaven-sent or hell-sent but, in either case, of miracu-

lous help to the French and not something mere men

could fight against. The English were all the readier

to retreat further, and to accept that further retreat as

further evidence.

 

When Joan was struck by an arrow, the English

cheered, but it was a superficial wound and, when she

appeared on the battlements again, it was easy to be-

lieve that she was invulnerable. And the English fell

back still more readily.

 

By May 8, the English had abandoned the siege,

leaving their strongpoints, their artillery, their dead

and wounded. The made all haste to get out of the

reach of Joan's influence.

 

260

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

Orleans was the Stalingrad of the Hundred Years'

War. The siege of Orleans had been the high point of

the English advance into France. The myth of English

invincibility was broken, the hot glare of Agincourt

dimmed; and from here on in, there could be only re-

cession for the English forces.

 

Then, having written about ancient and medieval his-

tory, on and off, for about ten years, I grew eager to

tackle modern history. Since by now the bicentennial

year of 1976 was approaching, why not a history of

the United States?

 

It seemed a shrewd idea to me, hut I forgot to

count words in my eagerness to write. Houghton

Mifflin had provided that the histories run no more

than 75,000 to 80,000 words each, since they were pri-

marily aimed at a teenage audience (though adults, I

am firmly convinced, can also profit from reading my

histories}.

 

I began my history of the United States with the

Indians and with the discovery and settling of North

America by Europeans, and when the allotted word-

age was done, I was dismayed to find I was only up

to 1763. I stopped, called the book The Shaping of

North America (Book 137), and it was published in

1973

 

I continued, then, with a second book but found I

could only squeeze some fifty years into that . . .

and another fifty years into a third . . . and another

fifty years into a fourth. The Birth of the United

States (Book 149), published in 1974, took the history

from 1763 to 1816; Our Federal Union (Book 161),

published in 1975, took it from 1816 to 1865; and The

Golden Door (Book 189), published in 1977, took it

 

OPUS 200                261

 

from 1865 to 1918. I had passed the bicentennial year

and I had at least one more volume to do.

 

From the last of these books, here is my description

of the Spanish-American War, perhaps the least im-

portant war we fought:

 

from THE GOLDEN DOOB (2977)

 

The Americans had fewer ships than the Spanish, but

those ships were new and beautifully designed. For

once, the United States was ready for war, at least on

the seas.

 

This was partly because of the work of the Ameri-

can naval officer Alfred Thaver Mahan (bom in West

Point, New York, on September 27, 1840). The son of

a professor at West Point, he himself went to the Na-

val Academy at Annapolis. He served on blockade

duty during the Civil War and remained in the Navy

till his retirement as a rear admiral in 1896-

 

He was a great military theoretician, writing The

Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 in

1890, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French

Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812 in 1892, and The

Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future

in 1897.

 

The thesis was this: The ocean is continuous and

worldwide; the land, discontinuous and consisting of

isolated portions. A landlocked military power can oc-

cupy regions adjacent to the home base, but must stop

at the coast if it lacks a navy. A naval power, if sepa-

rated from the military power by the ocean, can iso-

late itself and, by means of its navy, attack the enemy

at every coastal point, safeguard its trade, and block-

ade its enemy. A sea power would have the world as

 

262

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

its supply source and would, in the end, defeat a con-

tinental power. It was in this way, Mahan pointed out,

that Great Britain had finally defeated all her ene-

mies, including Napoleon, and had gained her world

empire.

 

No nation could grow strong any longer without a'

navy, Mahan said. As for the United States, which

had no powerful nations sharing land boundaries

with it and which had two wide oceans on either side,

it could be particularly strong, even invulnerable, if it

had an effective navy. Mahan pointed out the neces-

sity of a base in Hawaii and coaling stations on smaller

islands since the Pacific Ocean was so much wider

than the Atlantic. He also advocated the building of a

canal across the isthmus of Panama, so that the

United States could, in need, quickly concentrate its

navy in either ocean.

 

Following Mahan, the Americans worked hard at

developing an efficient navy, and though at the time

the war with Spam came, there was no canal across

the isthmus, there were American ships in each ocean.

 

The Pacific Fleet was particularly well placed

through a historical accident. The secretary of the

navy, John Davis Long (born in Buckfield, Maine,

October 27, 1838) was away from his desk, and his

assistant secretary served briefly in his place as acting

secretary. That assistant secretary was Theodore

Roosevelt, who was a great admirer of Mahan's" and

 

* Another admirer of Mahan's was Kaiser Wilhelm II of

Germany. A month before the Spanish-American War

started, Germany, aware of Mahan"s theories, began the

building of a modern navy designed eventually to surpass

that of Great Britain. Great Britain was already suspicious of

German ambitions, and this hit at the very heart of its

strength. Great Britain and Germany became deadly ene-

 

OPUS 200                263

 

very keen on using the navy properly. He ordered six

warships in the Pacific to proceed to Hong Kong in

order to be ready to act against the Philippines the

moment war was declared. Secretary Long, when he

returned, was furious, but he did not countermand the

order,

 

If the United States had a serviceable navy, it had

virtually no army at all. Spain had 155,000 soldiers in

Cuba at the time, while the United States had a total

of 28,000 soldiers altogether, and these had fought no

one but Indians for a generation.

 

Volunteers were called up, but the new, enlarged

army units were not stiffened by scatteiing veterans

throughout them. Instead, the veterans were kept in-

tact and the rookies were left to themselves. Further-

more, the supply organization of botli food and medi-

cal care was abysmally poor—the last war in which

the United States permitted itself this disgrace.!

 

As soon as news of the declaration of war was re-

ceived in Hong Kong, the American squadron, under

Commodore George Dewey (born in Montpelier, Ver-

mont, on December 26, 1837), a veteran of the Civil

War, had to leave, as otherwise Hong Kong's status as

a neutral port would be in question. That suited

 

mies and sixteen years later they were on the opposite sides

of a great war.

 

+ It was also the last major war fought with gunpowder,

which had been the mainstay of battle for five centuries and

had fouled the guns, choked the gunners, and hidden the

battlefield with its endless smoke. In 1891, the British chem-

ists James Dewar and Frederick Augustus Abel had invented

cordite, the first of the smokeless powders and a substance

more powerful and shattering than gunpowder. Future wars

would be fought with such smokeless powders.

 

264

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

Dewey. His orders were to go to Manila, 1050 kilome-

ters to the southeast.

 

Dewey had six ships under his command—four

cruisers and two gunboats—and on April 27, 1898,

after having put all his ships in complete battle readi-

ness, he sailed for Manila Waiting for him were ten

Spanish ships together with Spanish shore batteries.

The Europeans in Hong Kong, imagining the Span-

iards to be what they once had been, were certain

that Dewey was steaming to his destruction; but there

was really no chance of that. Dewey's ships were of

the latest design and in tiptop shape The Spanish

ships were little more than hulks, and the Spanish ad-

miral was expecting defeat.

 

The Spanish admiral lines up seven of his ships just

off Manila in order to protect the city, but there was

nothing to protect the ships. Dewey reached Manila

Bay, saw nothing to prevent his entering, did so, and

reached the neighborhood of Manila itself on the

night of April 30.

 

When daybreak of May 1, 1898, revealed the two

opposing fleets to each other, the Spaniards fired high

and did no damage. At 5:40 A.M. Dewey said quietly

to Captain Charles Vemon Gridley (born in Logans-

port, Indiana, on November 24, 1844), captain of the

flagship, Olympia, "You may fire when ready, Gri-

dley."

 

The American ships paraded back and forth before

the Spanish fleet, firing steadily. They pulled off

briefly at 7:30 so that the men could have a quiet

breakfast, then returned to work. By 11:00 A.M. the

Spainish fleet was destroyed. Every ship had been

sunk or beached and 381 Spaniards had been killed.

In the process, Dewey lost not a man. Eight sailors

 

OPUS 200                265

 

had received minor wounds, that was all And when

the American ships moved in to bombard Manila it-

self, the Spaniards agreed to silence the shore batteries.

Despite the total victory at sea, Dewey could not

take Manila For that he needed a land force, and he

^ had none. On May 19, he brought in Aguinaldo from

. Hong Kong so that he might lead his Filipino insur-

 

I gents against the Spaniards on land and keep them

 

occupied and incapable of taking any aggressive ac-

^ tion against the ships Even that didn't give Dewey

^ the wherewithal to take the city, and he had to wait

 

for the arrival of American soldiers.

^ The wait wasn't particularly comfortable. He was

^ Isolated and far from any friendly port, and, by June

^T12, British, French, and German ships had arrived.

•HThey were there, ostensibly, to guard the lives and

^ properties of their nationals but were clearly hoping

H to pick up some pieces if the fall of Spanish power in

 

II the Philippines created a vacuum there- The Germans

^were especially aggressive in thetr provocations, and

'H'at one point the desperate Dewey was forced to tell a

^iCerman officer, "Tell your admiral if he wants war I

^. am ready."

 

H- But the Germans didn't actually want war; they just

Unwanted whatever they could get without war. With

I'Dewey ready (and the worth of his ships having been

; dramatically exhibited), and with the United States

^finally making it clear that, whatever happened to the

S; Philippines, no other nations would be allowed a look-

,in, the German ships sailed off. Dewey settled down

?to maintain his blockade and wait for his soldiers.

 

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic, Spain's fleet had

|reached the West Indies, and by that time they were

roompletely out of fuel. They could not possibly fight

fisefore getting into some Cuban port in order to load

 

266

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

coal. The American Navy knew this, and it was only a

matter of finding the fleet while it was in port and

keeping it there. (From their Florida base, the Ameri-

can ships had to go only a few hundred kilometers to

reach any part of the Cuban coast, so they had no fuel

problem*)                                     ,

 

On May 19, the Spanish fleet reached Santiago, on

Cuba's southeastern coast, and entered. On May 29,

the American fleet, under Rear Admiral William

Thomas Sampson (born in Palmyra, New York, on

February 9, 1840)—who had been head of the board

of inquiry in connection with the sinking of the

Maine—located the Spanish fleet there and instantly

blockaded the harbor.

 

If the American fleet could have entered the har-

bor, as Dewey had entered Manila Bay, they would

surely have destroyed the Spanish ships. However, the

channel entrance was narrow and was littered with

mines, and the United States did not wish to lose any

of its modem and expensive ships if that could be

avoided. Yet something had to be done, for as long as

the Spanish ships were intact, there was always the

possibility that they might do some damage.

 

It was decided to leave the American fleet outside

the harbor and to invade Cuba with a land force that

could attack Santiago from the rear. On June 10, ma-

rines landed in Guantanamo Bay, sixty-five kilometers

east of Santiago, to establish a foothold. (During

some preliminary skirmishes, one American com-

mander—a Confederate veteran—forgot who the en-

emy was and shouted, "Come on, boys, we've got the

damn Yankees on the run.")

 

More than that was needed though, and the main

American army, gathering in Tampa, Florida, had

been ordered to Cuba on May 30. It was under Gen-

 

 

OPUS 200                 267

 

eral William Rufus Shatter (born in Galesburg, Michi-

gan, on October 16, 1835). He was a veteran of the

Civil War and had fought bravely and well, but he

now weighed 310 pounds and did not know how to

organize a large command.

 

It took eleven davs before embarkation could get

started and four days to complete the embarkation—

everything done in complete chaos, with Shatter

doing virtually nothing. By June 20, the transports

reached the vicinity of Santiago. Shatter decided not

to attempt a direct attack on the city but to land at a

point thirty kilometers east of Santiago. In this, he fol-

lowed the advice of General Calixto Garcia,0 who

commanded the Cuban rebels in this area.

 

The disembarkation was even more ragged and dis-

organized than the embarkation had been, and had the

Americans faced an efficient and well-commanded

enemy, most of them would probably have met their

end. As it was, the Spanish command was bad enough

to make even Shafter look good, and the Americans

were placed on Cuban soil without opposition and

without casualties resulting from enemy action.

 

By June 30, the Americans were ready to march on

Santiago. On July 1, two battles were fought—one at

 

e In the course of the war, an American officer. Lieutenant

Andrew Summers Rowan, had made contact with Garcia in

order to coordinate action. In 1899, the American journalist

Elbert Green Hubbard wrote a moralistic essay entitled "A

Message to Garcia," exalting this action and using it as a

 

-lesson to "get things done" through what seems suspiciously

like mindless obedience. The essay gained tremendous popu-

 

. larity and was read and memorized by uncounted hordes of

schoolchildren—including the author of this book, who, even

as a child, disagreed with its simplistic philosophy, but

thought it the better part of valor not to say so.

 

268

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

El Coney, 8 kilometers northeast of Santiago, and the

other at San Juan Hill, about 1.5 kilometers east of

Santiago. Both were American victories, and it was in

the latter that Theodore Roosevelt distinguished him-

self.

 

At the outbreak of the war Roosevelt resigned and

Joined the First Volunteer Cavalry unit, as a lieuten-

ant colonel. He wasn't its commander, but he was al-

ways spectacularly visible, and in the popular mind

the unit was Roosevelt's Rough Riders. At San Juan

Hill, the Americans were pinned by fire from Span-

iards holding the heights and the Rough Riders

weren't riding, roughly or otherwise, for they were dis-

mounted. Fighting on foot, they led the charge under

enemy fire, though it wasn't actually much of a

charge since they moved up the heights slowly and

with difficulty. But they moved, and drove the Span-

iards off.

 

It was Roosevelt's only chance at the military glory

he longed for. (As he said, "It wasn't much of a war,

but it was all we had.") And it was better than noth-

ing, for he made the most of it in later years. The

American satirist Finley Peter Dunne (born in Chi-

cago on July 10, 1867) had his famous Irish-dialect

hero, Mr. Dooley, remark that when Roosevelt wrote

up his Spanish-American experiences he should have

entitled it "Alone in Cuba."

 

Once on the heights, the Americans were in a posi-

tion to bombard the city of Santiago and the Spanish

fleet from land. The Spanish admiral, whose orders

forbade surrender, had no choice but to try to break

out of the harbor. On July 3, he made the attempt and

the American ships pounced at once. In four hours,

every Spanish ship was destroyed, 474 Spaniards were

 

OPUS 200                 269

 

Ikuled or wounded, and 1750 were taken prisoner. The

lAmerican loss was 1 killed and 1 wounded.

 

"Straight" history is not the only history there is, of

course, and one of my interests has long been the his-

t^tory of science. In my first hundred books, the most

'^sbnportant example of that is Asimov's Biographical

jtEncyclopedia of Science and Technology (published

^hy Doubleday}, which covered all of science from the

^4ime of ancient Egypt to the present in a thousand

^biographical entries.

 

F In the course of writing my second hundred hooks,

p revised and enlarged that book to the point where I

^considered the result, published in 1972, the equiva-

Ifent of a new book and listed it as Book 118.

 

1 also did a history of the telescope for Houghton

tifflin-Eyes on the Universe {Book 165). Here is the

ile of the invention of the telescope from it:

 

EYES ON THE UNIVERSE (1975)

 

|You might even imagine a piece of glass that was sym-

Itnetrical, a convex surface on both sides meeting in a

gine all around the edge. You can image it best, per-

piaps, as two plano-convex pieces of glass placed to-

Jgether flat side to flat side. The result is a "biconvex"

Jtpiece of glass.

 

| The biconvex piece of glass has the shape of a lentil

fseed, and it came to be called by the Latin version of

l&at name. It was a "lens." Strictly speaking, only the

priconvex piece of glass has a right to the name, but its

|use has spread to all kinds of transparent objects with

loothly curved surfaces. You can speak of a "plano-

 

270

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

convex lens," for instance, even though there are no

lentil seeds with a plano-convex shape-

Crude lenses have been unearthed in Crete and in

Asia Minor, and some may date as far back as 2000

B.C. Alhazen's writing op light and refraction men-

tioned lenses and his books began to be translated

into Latin about 1170. They served to stimulate

thought and experiment in a Europe that was begin-

ning to grow interested in science.

 

The first systematic studies of lenses in Europe

were made by the English scholar Robert Grosseteste

(1175-1253) and his pupil Roger Bacon (1220-1292).

Neither knew what was happening to light, but they

could observe the magnification. Bacon used lenses to

magnify letters on a page and to aid himself in read-

ing. He suggested the wearing of lenses to aid vision,

and about 1300 spectacles came into use in Italy.

 

The first spectacles were made of biconvex lenses,

which enlarged objects and which were particularly

useful to old people, who are often far-sighted.

 

It is also possible to have a "biconcave" lens—one in

which the glass is thick at the edge of the lens all

around and in which the curve on each side bellies

inward, so that the glass is thinner as one moves in-

ward from the edge and is thinnest at the center. With

such a lens, light is bent away from the center and the

effect is Just the opposite of that of a biconvex lens.

Objects viewed through it seem smaller.

 

It may seem that such a lens is useless. What is the

good in seeing things smaller? The fact is, however,

that biconcave lenses are useful in correcting near-

sightedness, and spectacles for that purpose began to

be used about 1450.

 

The making of spectacles became an important in-

dustry in early modem times, particularly in the Neth-

 

 

OPUS 200                271

 

erlands, where men grew skilled in the manufacture of

lenses.

 

Thus, rather than making lenses either biconvex or

biconcave, men could make them convex on one side

and concave on the other, so that the resulting

; "concavo-convex lens" is thinner and more delicate

' than either the biconcave or the biconvex lenses. If

the curves are so chosen that the center of the

concavo-convex lens is thinner than the edges, such a

lens will correct near-sightedness; if the center is

thicker than the edges it will correct far-sightedness.

 

The shop of a Dutch spectacles-maker, with lenses

of every variety lying about, is an invitation to play

games, for no one has ever had lenses available to him

without at once beginning to peer through them at

various objects. A magnification effect is most inter-

esting, and it is only natural to attempt to make the

magnification as great as possible.

 

Two English mathematicians,. Leonard Digges

^ (1510P-1571?) and John Dee (1527-1608), even expe-

rimented with combinations of lenses in an attempt to

increase the magnifying effect, but reported no suc-

cesses.

 

; When the discovery came, according to the most of-

' ten repeated version of the story, it came bv accident.

^ Hans Lippershey (1570P-1619?) was a spectacles-

' maker in the city of Middelburg, in the Dutch prov-

since of Zeeland, about eighty miles southwest of Am-

'sterdam. What is supposed to have happened is that

,an apprentice of his, idling away his time in the ab-

sence of his master, amused himself by looking at the

|world through the lenses that had been left in his

tcare. Eventually, he took two lenses and held them

|both before his eyes, one nearby and one far off, and

 

272

 

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

found, to his astonishment, that a distant weathervane

appeared to be much larger and closer.

 

With considerable excitement, he showed this to

Lippershey when he returned to the shop. It may be