Pythagoras and Thales

View from the Isle of Samos looking toward Turkiye

During my travels, I typically focus on mathematicians from the 16th century or the 19th century. This summer I had my first opportunity to walk in the footsteps of ancient mathematicians. 

I was in the eastern Aegean for a writer's conference, and I used that occasion to explore further in this area. I visited Samos, the birthplace of Pythagoras and Miletus. the homeland of Thales. The image above is a view from the Isle of Samos toward the Turkish mainland - a view Pythagoras would have been familiar with. 

The map below marks out Pythagorieo (the city on Samos named in honor of Pythagoras) and Miletus, Turkey, which are only about 20 miles apart as the crow flies.

Map showing proximity of Pythagoreio on Samos and Miletus in Türkiye

Thales and Pythagoras lived more than 2500 years ago, so there is little to nothing tangible left that connects to their time. One thing that does go back to the time of Pythagoras is the Aqueduct of Eupalinos, which was built when he was a young man living on Samos. The aqueduct was built underground in order to keep enemies from being able to find it and cut off the city's water supply. If you visit it today, you can walk through the tunnel just above the aqueduct that was used to maintain it.

The city on Samos now named in honor of Pythagoras, also boasts a sculpture of Pythagoras, which I found very impressive. At first I was so taken by the imposing figure of Pythagoras that I didn't notice all the other features - such as the fact that the shape of the sculpture suggests a right triangle and that the surface of the sculpture is covered in symbols and words that represent concepts associated with Pythagoras.

In the shops and restaurants surrounding the harbor I found more remembrances of Pythagoras, so despite the fact that there isn't anything tangible that can be connected directly to Pythagoras (his house, his grave, etc.), he is certain well-commemorated in his hometown.

After bidding farewell to Samos, I was off to Miletus, but it's not as straightforward to get to as the map might suggest. Despite being only about 20 miles away as the crow flies, my port in Türkiye, Kusadasi, was quite a bit north of where I needed to be.

It's a pretty cool town in it's own right . . .

 . . . but I was eager to get to Miletus. I tour proved a bit hard to secure, as nearby Ephesus has become so popular that tours of Miletus are not offered as often as one might hope - and through most tour companies, not for a single traveler. I supposed with the lesser popularity than Ephesus, it's not as financially feasible for tour operators, but a big plus about it being a lesser-known spot is that I took picture after picture after picture with no other people in sight!

This is the theater of Miletus. I wish I could say that Thales would have seen this or gone to a drama being enacted here, but this was built about 200 years after the life of Thales. Yet somehow I still felt I was at least getting closer to walking in his footsteps.

This struck me as being in a fabulous state of repair, and, again, no people! I visited Ephesus too - was there on this trip (2026) and the previous year as well. Both times, the theater was under construction, so I couldn't enter it. Even if it had been open, there would have been hundreds of people all over it. Here I could get in, I could walk wherever I wanted, and there wasn't another person in sight!

But, I digress . . .

Aside from the theater, nothing much remains of Miletus. This used to be a town of 3 (or 4, depending on how you count it) harbors. The city is now landlocked due to massive deposits of silt from the Meander River. Due to the loss of shipping access and multiple sacks and revolts, the city has been left to ruin.

Despite this trip being so much further removed in time from the eras of the mathematicians I typically seek out, I truly did sense that I had drawn closer to these mathematicians nonetheless, and that by being in the area of the eastern Aegean and walking through these landscapes that I had yet walked in their footsteps.

If nothing else, then certainly, the same moon that shone down on me over the Aegean Sea had shone down on them as well.

Treasure Hunt Contract

 

Fast Castle, Berwickshire, Scotland

So intrigued am I by the story of John Napier's treasure hunt that I've visited the site, the ruins of Scotland's Fast Castle, three times. I have been there twice by land and once by sea. 

Fast Castle, Berwickshire, Scotland

In July of 1594, mathematician John Napier entered into a contract with Sir Robert Logan to search for treasure at Logan's fortress of Fast Castle. There were longstanding rumors of treasure there, what it was (or is), we do not know. Perhaps they didn't either. Some possibilities are Templar treasure, a king's ransom*, plunder of wreckers**, and smugglers' hoards.

Fast Castle, Berwickshire, Scotland

Fast Castle, Berwickshire, Scotland

The castle is very nearly a complete ruin now, with only one significant portion of wall left standing, although if you look closely, and especially so on the north side, you can see more elements of the structure. As you approach the site, a long walk over farmland and hills, you initially see a promontory that looks to small to have held a castle. But as you move onto the promontory and continue walking, you see that it stretches on, tier after tier, and it becomes clear what a well-protected fortress this would have been.

Fast Castle, Berwickshire, Scotland

But my reason for writing today isn't to share about the site, it is to share about the contract itself. I spend a lot of time in archives, and this document, written in John Napier's own hand, is a manuscript I've wanted to access. Over the course of my studies and travels, John Napier has become the mathematician I am most interested in, and I seek to find every artifact related to him that I can.

I know from my readings that the contract was still in existence, despite the fact that its conditions specified that it was to have been destroyed. For years I've researched the whereabouts of this, reportedly, still-existing document. In one search, I read that it had been sold to a Napier collector and had later ended up in the collection of Trinity College, Cambridge, but this proved to be false. I imagined that it might be held in the National Library of Scotland or in the National Records of Scotland, but it is in neither of those collections. Searching for this manuscript has become a treasure hunt of its own for me.

So . . . I'd read in Napier biographies that the Napier-Logan Treasure Contract had not been destroyed, despite the terms of the contract, but I wasn't sure how that claim was being made. 

One biography ('memoir') was written by his descendant Mark Napier in the 1830s, and correspondence between Mark and the 9th Lord Napier about this project is held in the special collections of the National Library of Scotland. While reading that, I found a list that Mark had made of the items he was using from the family charter chest. Item 8.1 was "Contract betwixt Napier, the inventor of Logs and Logan of Restalrig." AHA! Now I had proof that the contract was still extant in 1832.

1830s Napier Correspondence, National Library of Scotland (shelf mark: MS 1663)

1830s Napier Correspondence, National Library of Scotland (shelf mark: MS. 1663, folio 22v)

I was so surprised and exited by reading this completely unexpected line that I just about fell out of my chair in the reading room. It was all I could do to remain quiet and not leap up and shout for joy!

Special Collections Reading Room, National Library of Scotland

I still didn't know where the actual manuscript was, but I did know for sure that it truly did continue to exist well beyond the 1594 date of its writing. Mark Napier accessed it in the family charter chest. But what happened after that? Did it get returned? Was it sold at some point, as one website would have me believe?

While reading another Napier biography, The Life and Works of John Napier by Rice, González-Velasco, and Corrigan, I noticed in their "Further Reading" section a book titled Gold at Wolf's Crag? An Inquiry into treasure at Fast Castle by Fred Douglas. This book, published in 1971, is no longer in print, but I was able to find it through a used bookseller.

Gold at Wolf's Crag? by Fred Douglas

By complete happenstance, I read through the acknowledgements one night, and there I saw, "Edinburgh Public Libraries for 'The Contract of Magic,' 1594." JACKPOT!

Acknowledgements, Gold at Wolf's Crag? by Fred Douglas

My next trip to Scotland saw me visiting Edinburgh's Central Library.

Central Library, Edinburgh

Central Library, Edinburgh

Central Library, Edinburgh

I contacted the library in advance asking if the document was still there and if I could access it. What I learned was that the item they held was a facsimile, a photozincograph, contained in Facsimiles of National Manuscripts of Scotland, Part III, published in 1871, a volume created at the command of Queen Victoria, who had a particular fondness for Scotland and wanted its historical documents preserved and promoted.

National Manuscripts of Scotland, Part III, Edinburgh's Central Library (shelf mark: F X DA 755)

Frontispiece, National Manuscripts of Scotland, Part III, CLE (shelf mark: F X DA 755) 

"Photozincographed by Command of Her Majesty Queen Victoria"

Napier-Logan Contract (LXXV) and Gowrie Conspiracy Document (LXXVI)

Napier-Logan Treasure Contact, Edinburgh Central Library (shelf mark: F X DA 755)

Contract Signatures of Robert Logan of Restalrig and John Napier, Fear of Merchiston

So this is as close as I've gotten to the original manuscript. This contract is written in John Napier's own hand. I write all this to share my excitement of being on "treasure hunts" of my own and also what it sometimes takes to move inch-by-inch toward what one is looking for in these researches. And, I have to say, that reading in Edinburgh's Central Library (and the National Library of Scotland as well) was an absolute joy!

Near the beginning of the volume is a list of "Places of Deposit of the Manuscripts." In it, I see that the treasure hunt contract (item 75) is, or at least was in 1871, in the Charter Room of Lord Napier at Thirlstane Castle. I have no reason to believe it is anywhere but still in the Napier Family Charter Chest. Though I would love to consult the original document, I don't think my want rises to the level of "need," especially given what I've been able to access already, so I'm not planning to contact Lord Napier. But who knows what may come about someday. Stranger things have happened over the course of my travels and researches.

National Manuscripts of Scotland, Part III, Edinburgh Central Library (shelf mark: F X DA 755)

National Manuscripts of Scotland, Part III, Edinburgh Central Library (shelf mark F X DA 755)

NOTES:

*In 1429, Fast Castle was the site of the robbery of 2000 merks, a part of a royal ransom payment on the way to the English king, Henry VI, for the ransom of James I of Scotland.

**The name Fast Castle derived from the earlier name Fause Castle (False Castle), so named because the inhabitants hung lights to make it look like there was a safe harbor there and then plundered the ships that broke up on the rocks below the castle.