482
Xerxes demolishes the Walls and Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
456
The Temple of Zeus is open for the 90th Olympiad.
ca. 432
Phidias installs the Statue of Zeus in the temple at Olympia.
ca. 425
The historian Herodotus dies.
356
13–14 October: Herostratos burns down the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus; Alexander the Great is born the same night. The temple is subsequently rebuilt.
ca. 350
The Mausoleum is built at Halicarnassus.
331
The city of Alexandria is founded in Egypt by Alexander the Great.
323
Alexander the Great dies at Babylon.
298
The Celtic warlord Cimbaules makes incursions against the Macedonians and is repelled.
ca. 290
The Colossus is completed at Rhodes.
ca. 280
The Pharos Lighthouse is built at Alexandria.
281-79
The Celts make a second incursion against Macedonia; Brennus attacks Delphi.
227
The Colossus falls.
ca. 170
Antipater of Sidon is born.
146
The Roman general Mummius sacks Corinth, but spares Olympia; Carthage is destroyed by Rome.
ca. 135
Posidonius is born in Syria.
133
Attalus III of Pergamon bequeaths his kingdom to Rome, which establishes the province of Asia.
ca. 115
Posidonius studies under Panaetius the Stoic in Athens.
110
23 March (Martius): Gordianus is born at Rome.
ca. 106
Bethesda is born at Alexandria.
ca. 90
After travels in Spain, Gaul, Italy, Sicily, Dalmatia, North Africa, and Greece, Posidonius settles in Rhodes.
95
Rome sides with Nicomedes of Bithynia in his war against Mithridates of Pontus.
93
23 March (Martius): Gordianus turns seventeen and puts on his manly toga.
92
Rome aids Nicomedes of Bithynia against Mithridates for the second time.
23 March (Martius): The novel begins in Rome on this day—the birthday of Gordianus and the funeral day of Antipater.
April (Aprilis): Gordianus and Antipater visit Ephesus during the Artemisia festival and see the Temple of Artemis (“Something to Do with Diana”).
April (Aprilis) to August (Sextilis): Gordianus and Antipater visit Halicarnassus and see the Mausoleum (“The Widows of Halicarnassus”).
Late August (Sextilis) to early September: Gordianus and Antipater attend the 172nd Olympiad and see the Statue of Zeus (“O Tempora! O Mores! Olympiad!”).
September: Gordianus and Antipater visit the ruins of Corinth (“The Witch’s Curse”).
Autumn to winter: Gordianus and Antipater stay with Posidonius in Rhodes and see the remains of the Colossus (“The Monumental Gaul”).
91
23 March (Martius): Gordianus is nineteen.
Mithridates invades Bithynia, expels Nicomedes, and sets up Nicomedes’ brother Socrates as king; Ariobarzanes, the king of Cappadocia confirmed by the Romans, is usurped and replaced by the son of Mithridates, Ariaranthes Eusebes.
Outbreak of the Social War, as the Italians revolt against Rome.
Spring: Gordianus and Antipater visit Babylon and see the remains of the Walls and the Hanging Gardens (“Styx and Stones”).
June: Gordianus and Antipater journey up the Nile to Memphis and visit the Great Pyramid (“The Return of the Mummy”).
Gordianus and Antipater travel to Alexandria and visit the Pharos Lighthouse (“They Do It with Mirrors”).
90
23 March (Martius): Gordianus is twenty. He solves the case of “The Alexandrian Cat” (included in the collection The House of the Vestals).
89
War begins between Rome and Mithridates.
88
Conclusion of the Social War; Rome is triumphant over the rebellious Italians.
80
The dictator Sulla moves the 175th Olympiad to Rome. (The Games are afterward returned to Olympia.) Gordianus is in Rome, and is hired by Cicero, as recounted in the novel Roman Blood.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
IN SEARCH OF THE SEVEN WONDERS
(This note reveals elements of the plot.)
Over the course of ten previously published novels and two collections of short stories, Gordianus the Finder has occasionally made reference to his younger days, and specifically to his journey as a young man to see the Seven Wonders of the World.
For a long time, I have wanted to write the story of that journey. At last the occasion seemed auspicious, and the result is the book you hold in your hands.
Little did I know at the outset that the author’s voyage of discovery would be every bit as long and arduous and full of wonders as that of Gordianus. To explore the Seven Wonders, one enters a labyrinth of history and legend, hard facts and half-facts, cutting-edge archaeology and the very latest innovations in virtual reality.
The fascination exerted by the Seven Wonders has long outlasted their physical existence. Only one, the Great Pyramid, remains intact. The others are in fragments or have vanished altogether. To understand the scale and magnificence of these monuments, and the reasons they made such a lasting impact on the world’s imagination, we must turn to ancient literary sources—which are sometimes more confusing than enlightening. Images of the Wonders abound, but are often unreliable; over the centuries, methodologies used to visualize the Wonders have ranged from the rigorously scientific to the patently absurd.
I soon discovered that there was no single source I could turn to for answers to all my questions; an authoritative book encompassing all we know about the Seven Wonders has yet to be written. But one book came close, and I didn’t even have to search for it; it came to me, arriving by international post at my house one day, a gift from the British editor, anthologist, and author Mike Ashley.
Like Gordianus, Mike visited the Wonders in his own younger days by writing a marvelous book about them, The Seven Wonders of the World, published as a paperback original by Fontana in Great Britain in 1980. Learning that I intended to take Gordianus to the Wonders, Mike mailed me one of his archival copies—which proved to be a godsend. Meticulously researched and splendidly written, Mike’s book is far and away the best single volume I encountered about the Wonders. Long out of print (and a bit out of date due to subsequent archaeological research), it is a book that cries out for a new edition.
Among my debts to Mike Ashley is the intriguing notion that Alexander the Great may have had a hand in conceiving the list of the Seven Wonders. In the novel, this theory is put forward by Gordianus’s traveling companion, Antipater of Sidon, a real historical figure who did in fact write a poem listing the Seven Wonders—probably the very earliest such list that still exists.
The various poems recited by Antipater in this novel are either of my own invention or are freely adapted from the English translations by W. R. Paton in the Loeb Classical Library five-volume edition of The Greek Anthology, now in public domain. For insight into the more subtle points of Antipater’s work I turned to Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context by Kathryn J. Gutzwiller (UC Press, 1998); Dioscorides and Antipater of Sidon: The Poems edited by Jerry Clack (Bolchazy-Carducci, 2001); and two monumental works by A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page, The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams and The Greek Anthology: The Garland of Philip (Cambridge University Press, 1965 and 1968).
The rebus epitaph on Antipater’s tombstone also appears in The Greek Anthology, attributed to Meleager. The factuality of the poem—and whether it actually appeared on a stone—are matters for conjecture. From Pliny, Valerius Maximus, and a fragment of Cicero we hear about the annual “birthday fever” that supposedly caused or contributed to Antipater’s death.