About a thousand years ago, give or take a few centuries, on what’s now called Temwen Island in the Pacific, some people — nobody is quite sure who they were — started building a pretty extraordinary structure. It’s a city, but it’s not built on land. They built it in a lagoon.
It’s about a mile long and about a third of that wide, and they used enormous stones to build artificial islands bordered by canals. Nearly a hundred islands. The whole thing was enclosed by walls, again made of gigantic stones. And by “gigantic,” think Stonehenge.
There are people still living on Temwen. It’s probably been inhabited for thousands of years even though it’s pretty remote. Nowadays it’s part of the Federated States of Micronesia, a 1,600-mile-long line of islands just north of the equator. It couldn’t have been easy to reach (it’s not easy now) it’s 1,800 miles to Australia, 2,300 miles to Japan, and 4,000 miles to Hawaii. But people do live there, as well as on the other 600 islands in the group. The residents don’t know who built the city either, but they do have a legend.
The legend says the city, Nan Madol, was built by twin brothers who arrived in a big canoe. They wanted to build something to honor the god of agriculture, and since they were sorcerers, they levitated all the rocks into place. Not entirely by themselves of course; they also had help from their flying dragon.
The twin brothers founded a dynasty of chiefs that ruled for twelve generations, all living in the megalithic city. Eventually everybody left the city, though. Again, nobody really knows why. It might have been as simple as getting tired of all the bother of living in a city made of tiny islands only connected by canals. There wasn’t any food there, and there wasn’t even any fresh water. They had to travel to Temwen Island to get anything at all (except wet, I suppose).
Nan Madol is called the Venice of the Pacific, and it’s now a World Heritage Site. To get there, you need to get to the state of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia. It’s one of four states, including Yap, Chuuk, and Kosrae. If you do decide to visit, you can fly there; four airports serve the islands. Today would be a good day to go, because you’d be able to attend the Independence Day celebrations — Micronesia became independent (from the US, in fact) on November 3, 1986. I bet you don’t remember a nation of over 600 islands coming into existence that recently.
Micronesia isn’t alone in celebrating Independence Day on November 3; for some reason it seems to be a popular date for forming countries. Panama got its independence from Colombia in 1903, Dominica in 1978 from the UK, and in Ecuador, Cuenca (the capital of one of the country’s three provinces) became independent on November 3, 1820 (two years before the rest of Ecuador).
It’s not clear why November 3 should be such a popular day for independence, but maybe, through some mysterious connection, it was all started by Lucan, the Roman poet born on November 3 in the year 39. After all, his major work was Pharsalia, an epic about nation building and a Roman civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great. Lucan himself got embroiled in a real-life uprising against Nero, who by all reports was a tyrant and something of a mad king — er, emperor. The uprising, called the Pisonian Conspiracy, led to Nero’s ouster and the Year of the Four Emperors. It was a big chaotic mess that Lucan himself didn’t survive — which is why Pharsalia was never finished (although he did complete the first nine books).
Throughout its history, Pharsalia has always become more popular during chaotic periods. A version was published in Europe in 1592 as a commentary on the French Wars of Religion (which lasted until 1598). Over the centuries, people have taken at least two lessons the epic: watch out for lunatic leaders, and make sure you vote!
