The Calendar by David Ewing Duncan Read Free Book Online Page A

the precession of the equinoxes, a slow shift westwards of the equinoctial points against the stars, something Isaac Newton much later determined was caused by the very subtle gravitational tug of the moon and sun on the earth. Hipparchus published a celestial catalogue, since lost, that described hundreds of stars and provided calculations about distances among them. He also confirmed the accuracy of the Egyptian year by studying several years’ worth of solstices to come up with a reasonably close approximation of the true solar year: 365 days, 5 hours and 5 5 minutes, some six minutes too long.
    But none of these stargazers were as influential as Alexandria’s last great astronomer, Claudius Ptolemy. A Greek and a citizen of Rome who flourished some two centuries after Caesar’s sojourn in Egypt, Ptolemy compiled during the second century AD a massive encyclopaedia on astronomy and geography that became, with Euclid’s Elements on mathematics, a widely revered if not always understood textbook in the Middle Ages. Ptolemy’s calculations about the length of the month and year; the motions of the sun, moon and stars; eclipses; and the precession of the equinoxes became the benchmarks used by every time reckoner who followed him for over a thousand years: Bede, Roger Bacon and the chief architects of the calendar reform in 1582, Christopher Clavius and Aloysius Lilius. Ptolemy’s value for the length of the solar year, which he borrowed from Hipparchus, happened to be wrong by several minutes. Yet it is worth noting that Ptolemy and the Alexandrians knew Caesar’s year of 365 1/4 days was in error centuries before Roger Bacon--and some 1,400 years before Pope Gregory finally fixed it.
     
    On the night of Cleopatra’s feast Caesar may have received an earful about Egypt’s calendar, but as it turned out he almost missed his chance to use it. That very night he narrowly avoided being killed in an attempted palace coup. Only the intervention of Caesar’s barber, a busybody who overheard the plotters, saved him. As it was, Caesar had barely enough time to protect himself and to muster his troops. After fierce fighting inside the palace, the general and his men managed to secure the royal compound, though this left them under siege by the boy-king’s army and a mob of anti-Roman Alexandrians. The Romans retained access to their small fleet, moored to the palace docks, but were blockaded from leaving the main harbour by Egyptian warships.
    Foolishly, Caesar had come to Alexandria with only two depleted legions from the battle at Pharsalus. No more than 3,200 men and 34 ships were pitted against an Egyptian army numbering at least 22,000 men supported by a large Alexandrian navy. Fortifying the palace and securing the royal harbour, Caesar dispatched messengers to fetch reinforcements from his legions in Syria and Greece. He then launched a series of sorties to reinforce his position, at one point setting fire to part of the Alexandrian fleet. Tragically, these flames spread to the shore, destroying several buildings in the lavish Brushium district west of the palace, including buildings that housed part of the great library’s priceless collection. In another skirmish, fought over a causeway connecting the island of Pharos to the city, Caesar’s position was overrun, forcing him to swim for his life to a Roman skiff, pelted all the way by Egyptians who could easily single him out in his imperial purple toga.
    Caesar ultimately prevailed, however, when a large relief force of legionnaires arrived some five months later. With these he crushed his enemy and restored his lover to her throne.
    Caesar was now free to return to Rome, but delayed again, this time to celebrate his victory with a two-month journey with his mistress down the Nile. Luxuriating on an immense barge filled with banquet halls and apartments fitted out with cedar, cypress, ivory and gold, the general and the queen feasted, relaxed and made love,