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