Owls to Athens

9

Sostratos was haggling over the price of balsam of Engedi with a physician named Iphikrates when the front door to the Athenian’s house opened and his slave-he seemed to have only one- led a moaning man, his face gray with pain and one hand clasped to the other shoulder, into the courtyard. “He hurt himself,” the slave said in bad Greek.

“Yes, I see that,” Iphikrates said, and then, to Sostratos, “Excuse me, O best one. We’ll get back to this in a bit.”

“Of course,” Sostratos answered. “Do you mind if I watch?” He was no physician and never would be, but he was avidly curious about matters medical-and, because that made him the closest thing to a healer aboard the Aphrodite, the more he learned, the better.

“Not at all.” Iphikrates turned to the patient. “What happened to you?

“My shoulder,” the man said unnecessarily. He went on, “I was repairing a roof, and I slipped, and I fell, and I grabbed at the edge of the roof with one hand, and the arm tore out of the socket.”

Iphikrates dipped his head. “Yes, I would have guessed at a dislocation by the way you carry yourself. This is something I can relieve. My fee is four oboloi-in advance. Patients, once treated, have an unfortunate tendency toward ingratitude.”

The injured man took his hand off his shoulder and spat little silver coins into it. “Here,” he said. “Fix it. It hurts like blazes.”

“Thank you very much.” Iphikrates set the coins on the stone bench where Sostratos was sitting. He called to his slave: “Fetch me the leather ball, Seuthes.”

“I bring him.” The slave-Seuthes-ducked into the house, returning a moment later with a small, sweat-stained leather sphere.

“What will you use that for?” Sostratos asked, fascinated.

“Who’s he? He talks a little funny,” the patient said.

“He’s a Rhodian,” Iphikrates said, while Sostratos thought, They can still hear that I’m a Dorian, Iphikrates looked back to him. “You’ll see in a moment.” He told the man with the dislocated shoulder, “Lie-down here on your back, if you please.”

“All right.” Grunting, his face twisting at each incautious movement, the man obeyed. “What now?” he asked apprehensively.

“Take your other hand away,… Yes, that’s good.” Iphikrates sat down on the ground beside the patient. Seuthes handed him the leather ball. He put it in the patients armpit and held it in place with his heel, slipping his leg in between the other man’s arm and his body. Then he grasped the man’s forearm with both hands and jerked and tugged at the arm. The patient let out what would have been a bloodcurdling shriek if he hadn’t been gritting his teeth. Sostratos leaned forward on the bench to see better.

Another jerk and twist. Another scream from the injured man, this one less muffled. “I am sorry, best one,” Iphikrates told him. “I have to find the best angle to-” He jerked once more, without warning, in the middle of the sentence. A sharp pop! rewarded him. The patient started to cry out again, then broke off and sighed in relief instead. Iphikrates beamed. “There! That’s done it.”

“Yes, I think so.” The other man warily sat up as Iphikrates took the ball and his foot away. “It still hurts, but nothing like the way it did. Thanks, friend.”

“My pleasure.” Iphikrates sounded as if he meant it. “Always good to get something I can cure. For another four oboloi, I can give you a dose of poppy juice to ease the pain.”

His patient thought it over, but not for long. “Thanks, but no. That’s almost half of what I make in a day. I’ll drink more wine, and put less water in it.” Not being a Macedonian, he didn’t even think about drinking his wine with no water at all.

“Suit yourself,” Iphikrates said. “Drink enough wine and it will dull the pain, though not so well as poppy juke does. I take it you don’t want me to put that arm in a sling or to bandage it to your body so it’s less likely to pop out again?”

“You can put it in a sling for today, if you like,” the injured man said. “I’m not going back to work now. But if I don’t go tomorrow, how am I going to eat? Nobody will feed my family and me if I don’t.”

“All right, best one. I understand that-who doesn’t?” Iphikrates said. “But be careful with that arm, and use it as little as you can for the next month or so. You have to give the shoulder as much of a chance to heal as you can. If you permanently weaken the joint and muscles, it can start popping out all the time, and then where will you be?”

“Halfway to Hades’ house,” the other man replied. “I understand you, too. But”-he shrugged with his good shoulder-”I have to take the chance. Who can save money on a drakhma and a half a day?” He got to his feet. Iphikrates fixed him a sling from a length of cloth that looked as if it was hacked out of an old chiton. The patient dipped his head. “Thanks again. Doesn’t hurt too bad. My wife and son will be surprised to see me home so early. Farewell.” He walked out the door without a backwards glance.

Turning to Sostratos, Iphikrates sighed. “You see how it is? Here is a patient I can actually help-and any physician knows how many he can’t help at all-but my treatment is likely to go for naught, simply because the man can’t afford to give the injured member proper rest. If I had an obolos for every time I’ve seen that, I wouldn’t need to dicker so hard with you, for I’d be rich,”

“You did very well there. I’ve never seen that trick with the leather ball before,” Sostratos said. “There’s a physician on Rhodes who uses an elaborate contraption with winches to fix dislocated joints.”

“Oh, yes-the skamnon,” Iphikrates said. “Some in Athens use it, too, and charge extra for it. I could, but I’ve never seen that it works better than simpler methods, or even as well as they do. The point, after all, is-or should be-helping the patient, not making yourself seem impressive.”

“It looks more like an instrument of torture than anything else,” Sostratos said.

“It isn’t pleasant for the man who’s strapped into it,” the physician said. “Even so, I would use it if I thought it gave good results. But since it doesn’t-no. Now, where were we?”

“Right at two drakhmai for each drakhma’s weight of balsam,” Sostratos answered. “I really can’t go lower than that, not considering what I paid in Ioudaia. And you’ll know, most noble one, if you’ve bought balsam of Engedi before, that you won’t get a better price from anyone, even a Phoenician.”

Iphikrates sighed. “I wish I could call you a liar and a thief and beat you down some more, for I’m not made of money myself. But I have bought balsam before, and I know you’re telling the truth. You’re an odd sort of merchant, you know; most traders bluster and make claims I know to be false, but you don’t seem to.”

“You don’t use the skamnon when you could,” Sostratos said. “Maybe we aren’t so different.”

“You would get a better price for your balsam from some of those who do,” the physician said, “By making themselves seem so splendid and so knowledgeable, they extract bigger fees from their patients than I do. But, whether they seem knowledgeable or not, they get no better results. And, as I say, results are the point of the exercise.”

“I can make enough money to suit me at two drakhmai for each drakhma’s weight,” Sostratos said. “Does it seem good to you to buy at that price?”

“It does,” Iphikrates replied. “I will pay you twenty drakhmai for ten drakhmai by weight of balsam. That will last me for some time- perhaps even until I find another more or less honest merchant.”

“For which I more or less thank you,” Sostratos said. Both men chuckled. The Rhodian went on, “You’ll have scales to weigh out the balsam?”

“Oh, yes.” Iphikrates dipped his head. “I couldn’t get by without them, not with the remedies I compound. I keep it with the medicines-that room back there. Why don’t you wait for me here for a moment? I’ll get the silver, and then we’ll settle accounts.”

“Certainly.” Sostratos hid a wry smile. Iphikrates had called him more or less honest, but wouldn’t let him go unwatched into the room with the drugs. Sostratos wasn’t offended. Some medicines were valuable even in small, easy-to-conceal amounts. Iphikrates didn’t know him well enough to be sure he wouldn’t steal. He wouldn’t have let the physician wander unattended through the family warehouse, either.

Iphikrates returned with a fistful of silver. “Come along,” he said. He opened the door to let Sostratos go in ahead of him.

After the bright sunshine of the courtyard, the Rhodian’s eyes needed a few heartbeats to adjust to the gloom inside. His nostrils flared when he breathed in. The room was full of scents: spicy mint; the sharpness of ground pepper; the dark, heavy odor of poppy juice; delicate frankincense and bitter myrrh; vinegar; wine; something that tickled the nose (was that hellebore?); olive oil, familiar from the kitchen and the gymnasion; and others Sostratos could not name. The scales stood on a small table, next to a heavy alabaster mortar and pestle and a bronze spoon. Sostratos sniffed again, “You must enjoy working here,” he remarked.

“What? Why?” Iphikrates frowned, not following him,

“The smells, of course,” Sostratos said.

“Oh,” The physician sniffed with the air of a man who hadn’t for quite some time. “To me, you understand, they’re just the odors of work. That’s a shame, isn’t it? Here.” He set ten owls in one pan of the scale. It sank down. He handed Sostratos the spoon. “Put your balsam on the other pan till they balance.”

As Sostratos did, the balsam of Engedi added its own sweet fragrance to the rest of the odors in the room. Iphikrates smiled, Sostratos added a little more, scraping the sticky stuff from the bowl of the spoon with his thumbnail. Down came the pan with the balsam. He waited to see if he needed to put on a bit more yet, but the two pans could hardly have been more even,

“Well judged,” Iphikrates said. He took the drakhmai off the scale and handed them to Sostratos. “And here are ten more besides,” he added, giving the Rhodian the other coins as well. “I thank you very much.”

“And I you, O best one,” Sostratos replied. “I admire physicians for doing so much to relieve the pain and suffering that are a part of every life.”

“You’re gracious, Rhodian-more gracious than my profession deserves, I fear,” Iphikrates said. “You saw me at my best a little while ago. That man had an injury I know how to treat. But if he’d come to me coughing blood or with a pain in his chest”-he set a hand on his heart to show what kind of pain he meant-”or with a lump in his belly, what could I do for him? Watch him and take notes on his case till he either died or got better on his own, as Hippokrates did, I couldn’t cure him of any of those things, or of a myriad more besides.”

“I’ve seen Hippokrates’ writings,” Sostratos said. “My impression was that he treated patients with all sorts of conditions.”

“He tried to treat them,” Iphikrates answered. “Whether his treatments did an obolos’ worth of good is liable to be a different story. No man can be a physician without having his own ignorance shoved in his face a dozen times a day. You have no idea how frustrating it is to watch a patient die from something that seems minor-and that surely would be, if only I knew a little more.”

“Oh, but I do,” Sostratos said. Iphikrates looked dubious till he explained: “I’ve seen men aboard the Aphrodite die of fever after belly wounds that looked as if they ought to have healed in a few days. Can you tell me why that happens? “

“No, and I wish I could, because I’ve seen it, too,” the physician said. “Life is fragile. Cling to it tightly, for you never know when it may slip away.” With that reassuring piece of advice, he sent Sostratos on his way.

After the first meeting of the Assembly, the one that voted Demetrios son of Antigonos honors that might have embarrassed one of the twelve Olympians, Menedemos didn’t go back. He’d seen all he cared to see, and more than he could readily stomach. He would have expected Sostratos to keep going whenever he could, but his cousin also stayed away from the theater. That one session, evidently, had been plenty for him, too.

Protomakhos, on the other hand, kept going whenever the Assembly convened. Menedemos couldn’t blame him for that. He was, after all, an Athenian, He had an interest in the proceedings that the Rhodians lacked. He also had the right to speak and the right to vote.

One morning not too long after Menedemos and Sostratos sold Demetrios their truffles, Protomakhos returned from the theater with the expression he might have worn if he’d stepped barefoot into a big pile of dog turds right outside the house. Menedemos had come back from the agora to get some more perfume, and was on his way out when Protomakhos stormed in. His host’s revolted look couldn’t be ignored. “By Zeus, O best one, what’s wrong?” Menedemos asked. He didn’t think Protomakhos would look that way if he’d just found out Xenokleia was unfaithful, but he wasn’t sure.

To his relief, the Rhodian proxenos wasn’t glowering at him. Protomakhos said, “You were there when Demetrios first came into Athens.”

“Yes,” Menedemos said: simple agreement seemed safe enough.

“You saw how we debased ourselves, heaping honors on him and on his father.”

“Yes,” Menedemos said again.

“And, no doubt, you didn’t think we could sink any lower,” Protomakhos went on. He threw back his head and laughed. “Shows what you know, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, dear,” Menedemos feared he could guess where this was going. “What did Stratokles do now?”

“It wasn’t Stratoldes,” the proxenos answered. “We have more than one flatterer in our polis. Aren’t we lucky?” He didn’t sound as if he thought the Athenians were lucky.

“Who, then?” Menedemos asked.

“An abandoned rogue named Dromokleides of Sphettos,” Pro-tomakhos said. “Sphettos is a village on the far side of Mount Hymettos, here in Attica. Hymettos has good honey; Sphettos has troublemakers. This Dromokleides proposed that Demetrios be given the same honors as Demeter and Dionysos whenever he visits Athens.”

“Oimoi! That’s pretty bad,” Menedemos said. “Doesn’t he realize there’s a difference between being named after a god and being one yourself? I can see why some people say Alexander was a demigod- look at everything he did. But Demetrios? I’m sorry, but no.”

“You have some common sense, Rhodian,” Protomakhos said sadly. “That’s more than I can say for the Assembly.”

“You mean they passed this resolution?” Menedemos said in dismay.

“They certainly did,” Protomakhos shouted for wine. As a slave hurried to get some, the proxenos turned back to Menedemos. “I’m sorry, best one, but I have to wash the taste of this out of my mouth. Join me?”

“Thanks. I will, I don’t blame you a bit,” Menedemos said, “And did Demetrios look all shy and abashed, the way he did when Sostratos and I came with you?”

“He wasn’t even there,” Protomakhos replied. “Dromokleides did it anyway. I suppose Demetrios will hear about it sooner or later, when he gets out of bed with whatever woman he’s got in there with him now.” Menedemos remembered that pretty girl he’d glimpsed when he and his cousin dined with Demetrios. But Protomakhos hadn’t finished. As the slave came back with wine-he’d included a cup for Menedemos, too-the Rhodian proxenos went on, “That wasn’t the only decree our new Perikles passed today. By the dog, no!-not even close.”

He paused to let the slave pour the cups full. The wine couldn’t have been weaker than one to one. The slave had done a good job of gauging his master’s mood. Menedemos said, “Do I want to know the rest?”

“Probably not, but I’m going to tell you anyhow-misery loves company,” Protomakhos said. “They’re going to rename the month Mounykhion Demetrion, in honor-honor? ha!-of the victory Demetrios won at Mounykhia. They’re going to call the odd day between the end of one month and the start of the next that happens sometimes when you don’t know just when the new moon is-they’re going to call that a Demetrion, too. And you know the Dionysia you went to? It’s not the Dionysia any more, by Zeus. From now on, it’s going to be the Demetria.” His larynx worked as he emptied his winecup. Then he filled it again.

Menedemos sipped more slowly, but he was hardly less troubled. “That’s… laying it on with a shovel, isn’t it?” he said, “I hope Demetrios has the sense not to take any of this twaddle too seriously. It he starts believing he’s a god on earth… Well, that wouldn’t be so good-for him or for anyone else.” Demetrios had struck him as being on the vain side. He was glad it was Athens’ worry, not his or Rhodes’.

“You can see that-you’ve got sense,” Protomakhos said. Sostratos doesn’t think so, Menedemos thought. And neither would you, if you knew Xenokleia might be carrying my child. Since the proxenos, fortunately, didn’t know that, he continued, “I can see it, too. Men like Stratokles and Dromokleides?” He tossed his head. “And I still haven’t told you the worst.”

“There’s more yet? Papai!” Menedemos said. “Come on, then. Let me hear it. After ninety-nine lashes, what’s the hundredth?”

“Just so. As part of an offering, we Athenians are supposed to consecrate some shields at Delphi. There’s been a disagreement over how best to do it. So Dromokleides, that worthless arse-licker, put forth a motion that the people of Athens should choose a man who would sacrifice, get good omens, and then approach Demetrios-approach the savior god, is how the motion puts it-and get his oracular response on how best to perform the consecration. And whatever he says, that’s what Athens will do. And the motion passed. Someone’s probably busy cutting the letters into stone right now.”

“Oh, dear,” Menedemos said again. That wasn’t enough. “Oh, my.” That wasn’t enough, either. He finished his wine in a hurry and poured himself some more. That might not have been enough, either, but it was on the right track.

“We won at Marathon,” Protomakhos said bitterly. “We won at Salamis. We fought Sparta for a generation. I was just going from youth to man when we gave the Macedonians all they wanted at Khaironeia, That would have been around the time you were born. We lost, but we fought hard. We gave it everything we had. Even Leosthenes stood up against the Macedonians after Alexander died. And now this! It makes you want to cry.” By his anguished expression, he meant it literally.

Menedemos set a hand on the Rhodian proxenos’ shoulder. “I’m sorry, best one,” he said; on matters political, he could and did sympathize with Protomakhos. “Times are hard nowadays.”

“Furies take all the Macedonians-Demetrios and Antigonos, Kassandros, Lysimakhos, Ptolemaios, Polyperkhon, all of them!” Protomakhos burst out. It’s the wine, Menedemos thought. This is too strong a mix, and it’s having its way with him. But Protomakhos didn’t sound the least bit drunk as he went on. “This could happen to Rhodes, too, you know. If one of the marshals ever gets inside your walls, you’ll bend over backward-bend over forward-to keep him happy, too.”

That made Menedemos take a swig from the cup he’d refilled. He spat into the bosom of his chiton to turn aside the evil omen. “May that day never come,” he said. If it did, he feared Protomakhos was right. Flatterers lived everywhere, and none of the Macedonian marshals- with the possible exception of Antigonos-had shown himself immune to praise.

“We said the same thing, Rhodian. Don’t forget that,” Protomakhos replied. “What you wish for and what you get too often don’t match.” He eyed the little jars of perfume Menedemos had set down so he could drink some wine. “I’m sorry I burdened you with this. Go on back to the agora and make yourself some silver.”

“It’s all right,” Menedemos said easily, “Don’t worry about it. You’ve shown Sostratos and me every kindness.” More than you know, in fact. “The least I can do in return is lend an ear.”

“Nice of you to say so,” Protomakhos told him. “What I say is, the two of you have been the best guests I’ve had since I became proxenos. I’ll be sorry when you go back to Rhodes, and you’re welcome in my home any time.”

“Thank you very much.” Menedemos took a long pull at his wine to help hide any blush he might be wearing. He wasn’t immune to embarrassment. Hearing such praise from a man whose wife he’d bedded made him feel foolish, not to mention guilty. But showing what he felt would only land him in trouble, and what Protomakhos had to say then would be anything but praise.

For now, the Rhodian proxenos remained oblivious. “I tell you only what you deserve,” he said.

Menedemos finished his wine, took up the perfume, and left Protomakhos’ house in a hurry. He didn’t want to betray himself, and he didn’t want to lacerate his conscience any more, either. As he threaded his way through Athens’ twisting streets toward the agora, he wondered why it troubled him. It hadn’t during his affairs in Halikarnassos and Taras and Aigina and any of several other towns. Why here? Why now?

You’ve been listening to Sostratos for too long, and he’s finally started rubbing off on you. But Menedemos tossed his head. It wasn’t that simple, and he knew it. Part of it was that he’d come to know and to like Protomakhos, which he hadn’t with any of the other husbands he’d outraged. Part of it was that he remained unsure how much of what Xenokleia said about Protomakhos was true and how much invented to spur on her new lover.

And part of it was that seducing other men’s wives was a sport that was starting to pall. The thrill of sneaking into a strange bedroom seemed smaller. The risks seemed bigger. And he’d come to realize that what he got from the women, while better in its way than what he got in a brothel, wasn’t exactly what he wanted, or wasn’t all of what he wanted.

Maybe I need a wife. The thought so surprised him, he stopped short in the middle of the street. A man behind him who was leading a scrawny donkey loaded down with sacks of grain or beans let out an indignant squawk. Menedemos got moving again. His father had started talking about looking for a bride for him. Up till this moment, he hadn’t taken the idea seriously himself.

And Father has the woman I really want-and I think she wants me. Menedemos muttered under his breath. For the past several sailing seasons, he’d done his best to leave thoughts of Baukis behind when Rhodes dropped below the horizon. Some things he would not do, no matter how tempting. He hoped he wouldn’t, anyhow.

He wondered why she drew him so. She wasn’t spectacularly beautiful, even if she did have a nice shape. The only thing he could think of was that he’d got to know her even before he first found her attractive.

She’d been a person to him, a person he liked… and then he’d noticed her sweet hips and rounded bosom (considerably sweeter and more rounded now than when she’d come into the household as a girl of fourteen). He whistled tunelessly. Could that make such a difference? Maybe it could.

Here was the agora. He’d got to it without noticing the last half of his journey. He tried to put Baukis out of his mind-tried, but didn’t have much luck. He made an unhappy noise, down deep in his throat. Even he knew how dangerous falling in love could be. And it would have been dangerous even if she weren’t his father’s wife. Like any Hellene, he reckoned falling in love a disease. It was, in many ways, an enjoyable disease, but that didn’t improve the prognosis. Of course, the prognosis for anyone who fell in love with his stepmother-even if she was years younger than he-was bad.

The hurly-burly of the market square came as a relief. With people chattering and chaffering all around him, Menedemos couldn’t keep his mind on his own worries. Somebody said, “I wonder how the world could have existed before DemetrioZeus created it. I suppose all our ancestors were just figments of his imagination.”

“Fig-sucking figments,” somebody else replied, and added another obscenity on top of that.

Menedemos laughed. Not all the Athenians were impressed with what the Assembly had voted, then. That was a good sign. He almost paused to talk politics with the men who’d jeered at the latest decree. Then he decided to keep walking instead, for he realized they likely wouldn’t want to talk to him, not when his accent proved him a foreigner the instant he opened his mouth. A man could say things to his friends that he wouldn’t to a stranger.

Someone was selling garlic in the place where Menedemos had been selling perfume. That made him laugh again. Unlike Sostratos, who was given to prolonged sulks, Menedemos had trouble staying gloomy for long. He found another spot, one not far from the statues of Harmodios and Aristogeiton in the middle of the agora. Most Athenians believed the two young men had liberated them from tyranny a couple of centuries before. From what Sostratos said, that wasn’t how things had really happened. Even nitpicking Sostratos, though, couldn’t deny that what people believed often helped shape what would happen next.

“Fine rose perfume from the island of roses!” Menedemos called.

For this, as opposed to politics, his Doric drawl was an asset. He held up a perfume jar in the palm of his hand. “Who wants sweet-smelling Rhodian perfume?”

As usual, all sorts of people came up to him and asked how much the perfume cost. Also as usual, most of them retreated in dismay when he told them. And some of them got angry when they found out. A woman who’d brought a basket of eggs into the city from a farm or a village out beyond the walls exclaimed, “How dare- you sell anything that expensive? How do you think it makes people who have to worry about every obolos feel?” That she was there and unveiled and sun-browned and wearing a tunic full of patches and mends said she was one of those people.

Shrugging, Menedemos answered, “In the fish market, some people buy eels and tunny and mullet. Others buy sprats or salt-fish. Some people wear golden bracelets. Others have to make do with bronze.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished he hadn’t chosen that example. The woman with the basket of eggs wore a bronze necklace. The day was warm, and the cheap piece of jewelry had left a green mark on her sweaty skin. But her reply took a different tack: “But there’s something for poor people there, anyhow. Where can I find perfume somebody like me could buy? Nowhere. All I can do is envy the fancy whores who get it.’’

He shrugged again. What could he say to that? She wasn’t wrong. Before he found any words, she turned her back and strode away in magnificent contempt. He bit his lip. He couldn’t remember the last time a mere woman-especially one he wasn’t bedding-had made him feel ashamed.

“I’m allowed to make a living, too,” he muttered. But, because the Aphrodite carried only luxury goods-the most profitable sort-he dealt for the most part with rich men and the occasional rich woman. He and Sostratos were rich themselves, or rich enough. He too often took for granted the life he led. He never had to worry about where his next meal was coming from, or to agonize over whether to spend an obolos on food or rent. Neither did anyone he knew. Even the family slaves had… enough.

But life wasn’t so simple, wasn’t so pleasant, for most Hellenes. If it had been, they wouldn’t have had to buy sprats for opson when they could afford anything better than olives or a little cheese. They wouldn’t have worn clothes as sorry as that egg-seller’s. They wouldn’t have exposed so many infants, and they wouldn’t have been so thin.

She rubbed my nose in what’s real, the Rhodian thought ruefully, and it doesn’t smell anywhere near so sweet as my perfume.

But if he didn’t sell that perfume, he would find out what being poor was like-find out from the inside. And so he went back to calling out its virtues. And, before too long, a man whose double chin and bulging belly said he didn’t have to worry about hunger bought three jars. “Two for my hetaira,” he said, winking, “and one for my wife, to keep her sweet.”

‘‘You’re a fellow who knows how to handle women, O best one,” Menedemos replied: partly a merchant’s flattery, partly one man talking to another. The plump Athenian, who had a slave following him like a dog, didn’t haggle very hard over the price. He didn’t have to worry about every obolos, either. Drakhmai rang sweetly in Menedemos’ hands as the other fellow paid him.

The Athenian strutted off. His slave, who hadn’t said a word all through the dicker, carried the perfume. The rich man would have lost dignity if he’d been seen carrying it himself. The woman with the basket of eggs hadn’t been shy about carrying it herself. But then, she didn’t have so much dignity to lose.

Menedemos made another sale not long before he would have gone back to Protomakhos’ house. The day turned out to be quite nicely profitable. And yet, as the sun sank down toward the Pnyx and he did head back to the proxenos’ home, he found himself less happy than he would have liked.

Sostratos ran his tongue over his lips, savoring the sweetness of what he’d just eaten. “That may be the best honey cake I’ve ever had, most noble one,” he told Protomakhos. “My compliments to your cook.”

“Very fine indeed,” Menedemos agreed.

“Myrsos is a fine cook. I’d be the last to say otherwise,” Protomakhos replied. “Still, I don’t think this cake would have turned out so well anywhere but Athens. The clover honey from Mount Hymettos is the best in the world.”

“You’ve mentioned it before. I certainly won’t quarrel with you, not after tasting it,” Menedemos said. “Delicious.”

“Yes.” Sostratos snapped his fingers. “Do you know, my dear, we could get a good price for it back in Rhodes.”

His cousin dipped his head. “You’re right. We could. Not only that, we should.”

“Do you recall who sold you this honey?” Sostratos asked Protomakhos.

Looking faintly embarrassed, the proxenos tossed his head. “I’m afraid I don’t. You’d do better to ask Myrsos. He buys the food along with cooking it. As long as he doesn’t bankrupt me, I give him free rein,”

“A sensible attitude,” Menedemos said. “If you have the silver, why not eat well?” That sounded very much like him, though Sostratos wondered whether his father’s second wife would agree. By what Menedemos had said, she’d locked horns with the cook at his house more than once. But then his cousin surprised him by adding, “The ones I feel sorry for are the people who can’t afford fine opson or good wine or honey like this-and there are so many of them,” Sostratos sometimes worried about the plight of the poor, too, but he hadn’t imagined they’d ever entered Menedemos’ mind.

Protomakhos said, “That is too bad for them, but I don’t know what anyone can do about it.”

“Neither do I,” Menedemos said. “No one seems to want to do much of anything. They’re only the poor, after all.” Sostratos scratched his head. Such pungent sarcasm wasn’t his cousin’s usual style at all. What had happened to turn his thoughts into such channels? Sostratos didn’t want to ask in front of Protomakhos, but his bump of curiosity itched.

Since he was also curious about Hymettos honey, he went into the kitchen to talk to Myrsos. The Lyclian cook was munching on a piece of honey cake himself. He looked not the least bit abashed. Other slaves might have their rations carefully measured out-though Protomakhos, like Sostratos’ father, wasn’t that strict-but cooks always ate at least as well as the men they served.

Myrsos proved less informative than Sostratos would have liked. “I bought it from a woman in the agora,” he said. “She had a big pot of it, and the scent told me it was good. I’m sorry, but I don’t know her name.”

Sostratos didn’t want to wander the agora sniffing one pot of honey after another. He deplored inefficiency. His nose might also prove less sensitive, less educated, than Myrsos¹. The cook evidently knew just what he wanted in honey. Sostratos didn’t. He took a couple of oboloi out from between his teeth and the inside of his cheek. Like anyone else, he’d mastered the art of eating without swallowing his small change-though he’d heard of a miser who’d poked at his turds with a stick to get back an obolos that accidentally went down his throat. “Anything else you can recall about the woman?” the Rhodian asked, holding out the spit-shiny coins.

“No,” Myrsos said regretfully, which made Sostratos think him honest. “I will say, though, that physicians often use honey in their medicines, to hide the nasty taste of herbs and such. You might ask one. Some will use the cheapest, of course, but others will want to have the best.”

“That’s a good idea,” Sostratos said, and gave him the money.

He went back to Iphikrates’ house the next morning. The man had bought the best balsam; he might well use the best honey, too. “Hail, best one,” Iphikrates said. “I just prepared a first-rate salve for hemorrhoids.”

“Lucky you,” Sostratos murmured.

“There’s no part of the body that can’t go wrong,” the physician said. “What brings you back here? Have you figured out some new way to pry silver out of me? I warn you, it won’t be easy. I haven’t got a whole lot more to spend.”

“As a matter of fact, no,” Sostratos answered. “I was wondering if you use Hymettos honey-and, if you do, from whom you buy it.”

“Ah.” Iphikrates dipped his head. “Now I understand. Yes, I do use Hymettos honey. It costs more than honey from other places, but the flavor is worth it. So you think it’s worth exporting, too, do you?”

“If I can get a decent price for it,” Sostratos said. “Who sells it to you?”

“A fellow named Erasinides son of Hippomakhos,” Iphikrates answered. “He keeps bees over by the mountain, and doesn’t come into the polis all that often. You can either wait for him and hope he does, or else go out and pay a call on him. If you go, you’ll want to take some people with you to carry back the jars of honey, or else hire a donkey.”

“Oh, yes,” the Rhodian said with a smile. “I do know something about that.”

Iphikrates chuckled. “I suppose you might. Probably more fun than making a salve to smear on somebody’s poor, sore prokton, too.”

“I hope you don’t use honey from Hymettos in that,” Sostratos said.

“Well, no,” the physician replied. “Not much point to it. Although, considering how some people who come to see me get their hemorrhoids…”

“Never mind,” Sostratos said hastily. Iphikrates laughed out loud. Sostratos went on, “Tell me whereabouts along the mountain this Erasinides lives. I’d rather not spend hours wandering the slopes calling out his name.” He made Iphikrates repeat the directions several times to be sure he had them straight.

As in any city, plenty of men in Athens hired donkeys by the day. Sostratos arranged that afternoon to pick one up early the next morning. For an extra couple of oboloi, the Athenian who owned the animal agreed to let him use some baskets with lids he could tie down and enough rope to lash them to the donkey.

“I’m used to tying knots aboard ship,” Sostratos said. “This will be something different.”

“You’ll manage.” The man with the donkey sounded confident. Of course he sounds confident, Sostratos thought. He wants to make sure he gets as much money out of me as he can.

The Rhodian took the donkey as the sun was just beginning to touch the buildings on the akropolis. The owner even helped him fasten the baskets to the animal. When he tugged at the lead rope, the donkey brayed out a complaint, but it came along.

It kept complaining all the way through the city and out into the countryside. Sostratos grew sick of its bellows and brays. He thought about whacking it, but feared that would only make it louder, so he refrained. A man leading a quiet donkey from Mount Hymettos toward the city grinned at him as they passed and said, “Enjoy your songbird.”

“Thanks,” Sostratos answered sourly. The horrible noise spoiled his delight in what would have been a pleasant walk.

Mount Hymettos lay about thirty stadia southeast of Athens: an hour’s journey. With the donkey being obstinate and loud, it seemed three times as long to Sostratos. He hardly noticed the fine, warm morning, the neat vineyards, the olive groves with fruit steadily ripening, the watered garden plots full of every sort of vegetable.

As the road began to climb, the donkey complained more and more. Finally even Sostratos, a patient man, had had enough. He picked up a stout branch that had lallen from an olive tree, broke off a few twigs, and whacked the branch into the palm of his hand. The donkey was far from young. It must have seen that gesture before, for it suddenly fell silent. Sostratos smiled. He kept on carrying the stick. The donkey kept on being quiet.

By what Iphikrates had said, Erasinides lived about halfway up the mountain, not far from the marble quarries that were Hymettos’ other claim to fame. Sostratos looked for a Herm cut from red stone at a crossroads, and let out a sigh of relief when he spotted the pillar with Hermes’ face and genitals carved on it. “Up this road to the left,” he told the donkey. It didn’t like going up, but the threat of the stick kept it from making a big fuss.

Faint in the distance, the sound of picks clanging on stone came to the Rhodian’s ears. Someone shouted. Sostratos couldn’t make out the words, but recognized the tone; that was a boss giving workers orders. Some things didn’t change no matter where you were, or in what trade. Even in Ioudaia, where the very language was different, people in charge sounded just as peremptory, just as impatient, as they did in Hellas.

Brush and scrub lined the track-it hardly deserved the name of road any more. Every now and then, it opened out to show a farm. The farther away from the main road out of Athens Sostratos got, the smaller and meaner the farms seemed. The Rhodian wondered how many generations of men had worked them. As many as there are, he thought, no fewer.

Bees buzzed. At first, Sostratos hardly noticed. When he did, he grinned: he took them as a sign he’d come to the right place. He also wondered what nectar they found to sip in this sun-blasted summer, when most of the fields and meadows were yellow and dry. Something, he supposed, or the bees wouldn’t have been out at all.

Another shabby little farm, this one with only a tumbledown ruin of a barn. Just a couple of stadia to go to Erasinides’ place-if I’m on the right track. I think I am. Zeus, I hope I am. And then Sostratos forgot about bees, about honey, about Erasinides-about everything except the hound baying like a wolf as it loped toward him. It wasn’t much smaller than a wolf, either, and no tamer.

The donkey let out a squealing bray that Sostratos forgave. It jerked the lead rope out of his hand and started to run. The dog, though, paid no attention to it. The dog wanted Sostratos. Maybe it thought he was coming to rob the farm. Or maybe it simply craved the taste of human flesh. He wouldn’t have been surprised, not with those great yellow teeth and that wide, red, slavering mouth.

If he ran like the donkey, the hound would pull him down from behind. Only his certainty of that kept him from turning and fleeing. Instead, he set himself, hefting the stick he’d picked up to beat the donkey. One chance, he told himself. That’s all I get.

Baying, the dog sprang at him. He swung with all his might-and caught it right on the end of the nose. Those fearsome, deep-throated howls changed as if by magic to yips of agony.

“Here, you polluted monster!” Sostratos shouted. “See how you like it!” He walloped the hound again, this time in the ribs.

Now yelping, the dog ran from Sostratos faster than it had run toward him. Now furious, he ran after it. When he saw he wasn’t going to catch it, he bent down, picked up a rock, and threw it. It caught the dog in the rump and brought forth another shrill howl of pain.

“Here now! What do you think you’re doing?” A farmer came out of the house, brandishing a staff.

“Driving away your gods-detested hound.” Sostratos picked up his stick again. He was angry enough to be ready for a fight if the other man wanted one. “That’s what you get for letting the monster run loose. If it comes at me again on my way back to Athens, I’ll kill it.”

Plenty of men were fiercer than he. But he was larger than most, and only half the age of the farmer, whose scraggly hair and beard were white. The man shook a fist at him, but then retreated into his dwelling. The dog peered out from the ruins of the barn. It didn’t seem to want to have anything more to do with the Rhodian, That suited him down to the ground.

He went back after the donkey, which had moved faster without his guidance than it ever had with it. It didn’t seem to think him a hero for driving off the dog. Instead, it might have blamed him for bringing it near the hound in the first place. On he went, up the western slope of Mount Hymettos,

“Is this the farm of Erasinides son of Hippomakhos?” he called to a man chopping weeds with a mattock.

The farmer jerked his thumb up the road. “Next farm uphill, stranger, on the left-hand side of the track.”

“Thanks.” Sostratos plodded on. So, unhappily, did the donkey. Erasinides’ farm was noticeably greener than the ones he’d been passing. He soon saw why; a spring bubbled out of a cleft in the rocks a few cubits from the farmhouse. Channels led the water here and there.

Sostratos knelt by the stream to wash his head and hands, take a drink, and water the donkey. As he got to his feet, drops dripping from his beard, a stocky, middle-aged man came out of the barn and said, “Hail, friend. Do something for you?”

“Are you Erasinides?” Sostratos asked. The farmer dipped his head. Sostratos gave his own name and said, “The physician Iphikrates tells me he buys his honey from you. I’d like to do the same.”

“Iphikrates is a good man. He doesn’t think he knows it all, the way some physicians do,” Erasinides said. “Where are you from, friend, to speak such an… interesting Greek? Sounds like the Doric bits you hear in tragedy.”

“I’m from Rhodes,” Sostratos answered. He knew his accent had been heavily influenced by Attic. He wondered what Erasinides would make of the way Menedemos spoke. “Do you have honey for sale?”

“Oh, yes.” But the Athenian seemed in no hurry to haggle. “Nine ships from Rhodes, under Tlepolemos,” he murmured: not quite quoting the Iliad’s Catalogue of Ships, but showing he knew it. “Did Rhodians speak oddly then, too, do you suppose?”

“I don’t know, best one,” Sostratos answered. Erasinides, plainly, wanted to chat before getting down to business. Rustics often did. “We think our accent the usual one, you know, and everybody else’s strange.”

“Is that a fact?” Erasinides’ laugh showed that, if it was a fact, it was an amusing one. “Must come of being a long ways off from Athens, I expect.”

With Athens’ present prominence, he had a point. But he was the sort who would have said the same thing had he lived up in Thessalia, which had its own backwoods way of speech. Sostratos said, “Custom is king of all”-Pindaros’ poetic truth quoted by Herodotos. Bees buzzed around a patch of clover next to Erasinides’ barn. Pointing that way, Sostratos asked, “Do you gather your honey from wild bees, or do you keep your own hives?”

“Oh, I have my own,” Erasinides replied. “Collecting wild honey’s like trying to build a house out of driftwood-you’ll come up with some, but never enough to suit you.”

“Do you get stung when you take the honeycombs?” Sostratos asked.

The farmer dipped his head. “Now and again. I wear a petasos with the thinnest veiling I can get, to keep ‘em off my face. Past that”-he shrugged-”I pick the stings out, and I go about my business. They don’t much bother me. Some folk aren’t so lucky. I had a neighbor, a fellow named Ameinokles, who’d wheeze and gasp and have trouble breathing whenever he got stung.”

“You had a neighbor?” Sostratos said.

“That’s right.” Erasinides dipped his head again. “It happened once too often, poor fellow. His throat closed up and he… strangled to death, you might say.”

Sostratos wondered what Iphikrates could have done about that. Nothing, all too likely. As Erasinides had said, the physician didn’t try to hide his own ignorance. Sostratos said, “Do you put the honey in jars all the same size?”

“Oh, yes. I didn’t used to, but it’s better for business when I do. I buy lekythoi from a potter I know. I can get em cheap-he makes lots of oil flasks, because people always need ‘em, either to hold olive oil at home or-the fancy glazed ones-for funeral offerings. I don’t buy those, on account of they cost more.”

“How much for a jar?” Sostratos asked.

“Twelve drakhmai.”

That wasn’t far from what the Rhodian had expected. Over an hour or so, pausing for politics and women and bees and wine and mean dogs and whatever else came to mind, he haggled Erasinides down to eight drakhmai the lekythos. He paid in shiny Athenian owls; the farmer made it plain he had no use for perfume or balsam or anything else the Aphrodite had brought to Athens. Erasinides helped him pack the lekythoi into the baskets on the donkey’s back, and gave him straw to stuff between them to keep them from breaking.

“Thank you kindly,” the farmer said as he left. “You Rhodians seem a goodly folk, even if you do talk funny.”

On the way past the farm with the fearsome hound, Sostratos gripped his stick tightly. The dog didn’t bother him. He kept going, down off the mountain and back toward the whirl that was Athens.

“Wait a minute,” Menedemos said. “Isn’t Demetrios already married?”

The man who’d given him the news, a sausage-seller named Kleon, dipped his head. “That’s right,” he said. “He married Phila a long time ago-Antipatros’ daughter, you know, the one who’d been married to Krateros before.” He had an engagingly ugly face, which he now twisted into an engagingly lewd leer. “But she’s a lot older than Demetrios, and Antigonos had to talk him into marrying her for the sake of her blood and her connections. This time, maybe he wants to have some fun.”

All through the Athenian agora, people were buzzing with the news. “He certainly does like to have his fun,” Menedemos said. “That little call he paid to have fun with what’s-her-name-Kratesipolis- almost cost him his neck.” By the dog! he thought. I sound like Sostratos. Demetrios is too wild even for me. Who could have imagined that? He went on, “So who is this new woman? Eurydike, you said her name was?”

“That’s right, my dear,” Kleon answered. “Her blood’s as blue as the sky. She’s descended from Miltiades, the hero of Marathon. She used to be married to Ophelis, the King of Kyrene west of Egypt, but she came back to Athens after he died.”

“Phila, Kratesipolis, and now Eurydike,” Menedemos said musingly. “Demetrios must like widows.”

“Well, they already know how.” Kleon leered again. “You don’t have to teach ‘em, the way you do with maidens. Besides, it’s not like Demetrios is going to be faithful to this one, any more than he has to any of the others.”

“No, I suppose not,” Menedemos said. “He sure hasn’t up to now.” He remembered the pretty girl he’d glimpsed at Demetrios’ house. Demetrios could do anything he wanted. Menedemos sighed. That sounded marvelous.

Kleon said, “I just wonder if he’s going to be cheap about it, or if he’ll throw a feast and sacrifice animals and give away meat and wine.” Like most of the Athenians Menedemos had met, he kept his eye on the main chance. As now: he thrust his tray at Menedemos, asking, “You going to buy something, or are you just going to stand around and gab?”

“Here,” Menedemos handed him an obolos. Kleon gave back a sausage link. It was so full of garlic and fennel, Menedemos needed a couple of bites to be sure it was made from pork. If the meat wasn’t so fresh as it might have been, the spices kept him from noticing.

“Sausages!” Kleon shouted after sticking the coin in his mouth. “Get your sausages! Demetrios gives his to Eurydike, but I’ve got sausages for everybody!”

Menedemos snorted. No wonder Aristophanes had written a sausage-seller into his Knights. The only thing redeeming Kleon’s vulgarity was that he seemed as unaware of it as a dog licking its privates. He went on crying his wares and making crude cracks about Demetrios’ wedding. A good many Athenians laughed, too, and several of them bought his wares.

Holding up a little jar of perfume, Menedemos called, “Fine scent from Rhodes! Eat Kleon’s sausages and don’t stink afterwards!” Kleon shot him an obscene gesture. With a laugh, he returned it.

The Rhodian soon went back to his usual sales pitch. The other made a good joke, but wasn’t likely to draw anybody who could afford the perfume. Too bad, he thought.

He kept on calling. A couple of women and one man stopped and asked him how much he wanted for the perfume. When he told them, they beat hasty retreats, as did most would-be customers. The man proved abusive. Menedemos gave at least as good as he got, as he had with Kleon,

A man selling wine by the cup strolled through the agora. On a warm day like this, he did a brisk business; Menedemos waved to him and spent another obolos. The wine was a long way from the best the Rhodian had ever drunk, but he’d expected nothing better. No one sold Ariousian or Thasian or Lesbian for an obolos. This cooled him and quenched his thirst, which was all he’d had in mind.

Another woman came up to him. She wasn’t far from his own age, and wasn’t bad-looking; slim, dark-haired, bright-eyed, with fine white teeth. He smiled and said, “Hail, my dear. How are you today?”

“Well, thank you,” she answered. Her Greek, though fluent, had an accent that proclaimed it wasn’t her native tongue. Menedemos’ hopes soared-that probably meant she was a slave, perhaps the slave of someone prosperous. She asked, “For how much are you selling your perfume?” When he told her, she didn’t flinch. All she said was, “Can you come with me to my mistress’ house?”

“That depends,” Menedemos said. “Who is your mistress, and can she afford to buy?”

“She can afford to buy,” the slave woman said gravely. “Her name is Melite, and she is not the least renowned hetaira in Athens.”

“I’m sure she’s the honey of the city,” Menedemos said. The slave began to nod agreement-again proving herself not a Hellene by birth-but then made a face at him. He gave back an impudent grin; the hetaira’s name sounded like the word for honey.

“Will you come?” Melite’s slave asked again.

“I’d love to,” Menedemos answered. The woman sent him a sharp look. He stared back, as innocently as if the remark couldn’t have been taken more than one way. After a moment, she shrugged and started out of the agora. Scooping up the perfume jars on the hard-packed ground by his feet, Menedemos followed.

Melite’s house was nothing special on the outside, but Hellenes, no matter how prosperous, didn’t make a habit of displaying what they had. The more they showed off, the likelier someone was to try to take away what they’d worked so hard to get. The man who opened the door for the slave and Menedemos wasn’t so ferocious-looking as the Kelt who served Menedemos’ earlier customer, but the Rhodian wouldn’t have cared to quarrel with him: his broad shoulders and thick arms said he could take care of himself in a brawl, and his flat nose said he’d been in a few in his time. He and the slave woman exchanged a few words in a language that wasn’t Greek. The way he looked at her told Menedemos not to bother her in his sight.

The woman went upstairs. Even in a house Melite owned, she lived in the women’s quarters. She came downstairs with the slave, veiled as if she were altogether respectable. But, just for an instant, the breeze blew the veiling aside. Menedemos exclaimed in surprise: “Oк! You were at Demetrios’ when my cousin and I came to supper.”

“That’s right.” Melite dipped her head. “You didn’t see me for long, then or now.”

“No, I didn’t.” Menedemos smiled his most charming smile. “But I remembered you. You’re worth remembering.”

“I thank you for saying so.” To Menedemos’ disappointment, the hetaira sounded more amused than impressed. She went on, “I hope you will not be angry when I tell you one of the things I have seen is that men-especially young men-will say almost anything if they think it will give them a better chance to take a woman to bed.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Menedemos answered, deadpan. The slave woman snorted. Her mistress laughed out loud. With a bow to Melite, Menedemos continued, “My dear, one of the things you will also have seen is that telling the truth often works best. I was telling the truth when I said I recognized you.”

“So you were.” Melite didn’t give him another glimpse of her face. She used the veil as a hoplite used a shield, interposing it between his eyes and her features, leaving him guessing about what she was thinking. He believed her voice still held amusement when she said, “Whether you recognized me or not, though, you need to understand I am not looking for a new… friend. I have as many as I care to.”

“I’m sure you do, if you can count Demetrios among them.” Menedemos spoke as if her warning bothered him not in the least. That too was how the game was played. No matter how he spoke, though, he couldn’t help remembering that when Sostratos sold Koan silk to a hetaira in Miletos a couple of years before, she’d paid him silver and given him herself. Menedemos didn’t care to think his bookish cousin could outdo him with women. He didn’t care to think it, but here it might be true.

Melite said, “Demetrios plays with women the way a child plays with soldiers carved from wood. Because he is who he is, he can do that. But no woman would put up with it from an ordinary man.”

Menedemos drew himself up to his full height, which was considerably less than Demetrios’ godlike stature. “If you were to know me, you would find I am no ordinary man, either.”

“Oh? Would you also give me golden bracelets and necklaces and rubies and emeralds for a single night, the way Demetrios did?” Melite asked.

Backtracking, Menedemos answered, “I didn’t claim I had Demetrios’ money. But I would give silver in due measure. And I would give you something I daresay Demetrios didn’t.”

“Would you?” the hetaira said. “And what is that?”

Joy-She cocked her head to one side, studying him. He could feel her eyes, even if they remained indistinct behind the veiling, “You are brash,” she said, Menedemos bowed again, though he wasn’t sure she’d paid him a compliment. She went on, “One of the things a hetaira does not do is talk about her friends. That is how and why they stay friends with her.”

Hetairai, as Menedemos knew perfectly well, were no more immune to gossip than any other people. Still, he didn’t really care to learn how Demetrios reverenced Aphrodite. He was more interested in paying his own respects to the goddess.

But when Melite said, “Is it not true that you came here to sell me perfume, not yourself?” he decided he wouldn’t worship Aphrodite in her company.

A grin let him put the best face on it he could. “My dear, I would never be so rude as to charge you for that,” he said. Both the hetaira and her slave laughed then. Menedemos held out a jar of perfume. “For this, on the other hand…”

“Let me smell it,” she said. He undid the stopper and handed her the jar. She sniffed. “That is sweet,” she admitted, returning it to him. “What is your price? For the perfume, I mean, not for anything else.” When he told her, she gasped in artfully simulated anger. “That’s robbery!”

“Your slave didn’t think so, when I told her the same thing in the agora,” Menedemos replied.

“What does a slave know?” Melite said with a scornful toss of her head. The glare she aimed at the barbarian woman said her slave should have known enough to keep her mouth shut. The slave looked as if she wanted to vanish into thin air. Melite gave her attention back to Menedemos. “Anyhow, that’s much too much. I’m not made of silver. I’ll give you half of what you asked.”

“No.” Menedemos shoved the stopper back into the jar. “You will have bought perfume before, I’m sure. You know what it’s worth. And what perfume is finer than essence of Rhodian roses?”

Melite sent him a sly, sidelong look. “Half what you asked, then-and what you asked for earlier,”

With real regret, he tossed his head. “I’m sorry-I am sorry-but no. Business is business, and pleasure is pleasure, and I would be a fool to mix them. I’m not just in business for myself-I have my cousin and my father and my uncle to think of. How would I explain the owls I ought to have?”

“Gambling losses?” she suggested, with the air of a woman who’d made such suggestions many times before. “You can always explain such things if you use a little wit. Who would know?”

But Menedemos answered, “I would.” Melite’s shoulders slumped, ever so slightly. The Rhodian went on, “Family counts for more than half an hour of fun. Family lasts.” His lips quirked again. “Family, you’re stuck with.”

“If you say so.” Melite’s tone showed she had a different opinion. She pointed to the perfume. “What I say is, you still want too much.” She named a new price, higher than her first offer but still much lower than Menedemos’.

“No,” he repeated. “I didn’t give you a price much too high to begin with. I can haggle well enough when I need to, but I don’t always haggle for the fun of it; I’m no Phoenician. I’ve told you what I need. If you don’t feel like paying it, I’ll go back to the market square.”

“Maybe I should have taken you to bed at the start,” Melite said thoughtfully. “Then you might not have been so stubborn.” She came up again.

Now Menedemos moved down, just a little. He had left himself some room to maneuver. He sold her four jars of perfume at a price as good as he’d got in Athens. Melite went upstairs for the money herself; she didn’t trust the slave woman to bring it. She gave Menedemos a mix of coins from all over Hellas, a mix that said not all her friends were Athenians. Some of the coins were lighter than the Athenian standard; others, like the turtles from nearby Aigina, were heavier. Overall, he thought it evened out. Sostratos would probably have insisted on finding a scale and weighing every drakhma and tetradrakhm from other poleis. Menedemos didn’t intend to bother.

Melite spoke to her slave, who carried away the jars of perfume she’d bought. To Menedemos, the hetaira said, “Now I can smell like roses the rest of my life.”

“May it be long,” he answered politely. “Have you a sack I can use to carry this silver back to the Rhodian proxenos’ house where I’m staying?”

“Of course.” Melite called after the slave woman, telling her to fetch one. Then she said, “For someone like me, I wonder whether long life would be gift or curse.”

“Why would you want to die?” Menedemos asked in surprise.

“You’re young, you’re beautiful, you’re healthy, and you can’t be poor if you just spent so much money on perfume.”

“But when I get older, when my looks fade?” Melite sounded genuinely worried. “I bought the perfume because I think it will earn me more in the long run. But if I don’t get rich now, what will I do if I’m still alive in twenty years? I won’t be able to do this anymore; men won’t want me. Maybe someone will marry me, but more men make promises to hetairai than ever keep them. I don’t want to end up a washerwoman or something like that, fretting over every obolos and going hungry half the time. In your trade, no one will care if you go gray or get wrinkled. Me? It’s a different story.”

She wasn’t the first woman Menedemos had heard who was alarmed about losing her looks. Hetairai, though, depended on theirs more than most women. Even so, looks weren’t all that counted for them. He said, “If you sing well, if you quote from poetry and plays, if you make men feel good about themselves while they’re with you, all that will stave off the evil day.”

“It helps,” Melite agreed. “Still, though, if a man has a choice between a sweet young thing who can sing and quote and do everything else a hetaira should do and a dumpy older woman, where will he go? That works for me now, but I’ve seen women who were famous once trying to sell themselves to slaves for a couple of oboloi so they could buy sitos.” She shivered. “Death is better than that, I think.”

Menedemos thought of his father and uncle, who no longer put to sea. They weren’t sitting around waiting for death to overtake them, though. They were still busy with the family firm. But Melite was right: what they looked like had nothing to do with how well they could carry on. Briefly, Menedemos wondered what he would be like if he reached his father’s age. He felt his imagination failing. The only thing be was sure of was that he wouldn’t be eager to go to his tomb. He didn’t think Melite would, either, no matter what she said now.

Here came the slave woman with a cloth sack, Menedemos dumped the silver into it. He dipped his head to Melite. “Farewell.”

“And to you,” she replied. “I hope you go back safe to Rhodes.”

“Thanks,” he answered. “I hope you do well here. I hope the perfume helps.”

“It will-for a while.” Melite shrugged. “After that? Who knows?” The slave led Menedemos to the door. Neither he nor Melite said any-thing about her. Who worried over whether a slave did well? No one doing well ever became a slave in the first place.

On his way out of Melite’s home, Menedemos suddenly stopped: so suddenly, he might have turned to marble like a man who’d seen Medusa’s head; so suddenly, one foot stayed up in the air, almost but not quite completing a step. That last thought wasn’t quite true. If your polis fell, anything might happen to you, no matter how well you were doing. Anything at all.

Sostratos went into the storeroom at the back of Protomakhos’ house. The room was nearly empty. Hardly any wine, little perfume, only a few jars of crimson dye, and a few rolls of papyrus remained. The silver he and Menedemos had earned for their goods, and die honey and other bits of merchandise they’d acquired here in Athens, already lay aboard the Aphrodite. Sostratos smiled a slow, pleased smile. He knew what they’d spent. He knew what they’d made. He knew they would go home with a solid profit for this journey.

Menedemos came in behind him, perhaps to look things over, too; perhaps to make sure he wasn’t someone else who aimed to pilfer what remained here. Over his shoulder, Sostratos said, “Hail.”

“Oh. It’s you. Hail,” Menedemos answered, which showed what he’d been thinking. “Everything safe here?”

“Safe enough,” Sostratos said. “And it seems to me we’ve done about as much as we can do here in Athens. We aren’t likely to make enough from now on to cover the cost of our rowers day by day.”

“Are you sure?” Menedemos asked, and then waved his hand, “Forget I said that. Of course you’re sure. You don’t tell me things like that unless you’re sure. You want to head back to Rhodes, then? It’s earlier than I expected to leave.”

“Which only means the weather is likely to stay good,” Sostratos said. “Don’t you want to be somewhere else before Demetrios starts wondering how much money we’ve made and whether he can get his hands on it?”

“He wouldn’t do that. We’re Rhodians. His father would skin him if he angered Rhodes… wouldn’t he?” But conviction leaked from Menedemos¹ voice, sentence by sentence. When he laughed, it was sheepishly. “Who knows what Demetrios might do if he set his mind toil?”

“That’s how it seems to me, too. We have good reasons to go. To the crows with me if I can find any good reason to stay,” Sostratos said.

Menedemos looked back over his shoulder. No one from Protomakhos’ household stood within earshot. “Xenokleia..” Menedemos whispered.

Sostratos tossed his head. “Any good reason, I said. If she’s not a bad reason, I’ve never heard one,”

“She wasn’t bad at all,” his cousin said. “I still don’t know if she was telling the truth about her husband, but I don’t much care, either. She wasn’t bad.”

There were times when Sostratos could have gleefully strangled Menedemos. His cousin knew that, and just as gleefully exploited it. And so, instead of losing his temper now, Sostratos reminded himself of that. He said, “Do you truly think the woman is reason enough to stay here, when measured against all the reasons we have for leaving?”

“Well, no, not when you put it like that,” Menedemos admitted.

“All right, then,” Sostratos said. “If we’re agreed, I’ll go down to the harbor and bring back enough sailors to carry our leftovers to the Aphrodite. This has been a soft cruise for the men. They’ve been able to live it up-”

“As much as you can live it up on a drakhma and a half a day,” Menedemos put in.

“True. But all they’ve been buying are food and wine and women. They don’t have to worry about lodging or anything like that,” Sostratos said. “I’m sure Diokles will know which taverns they favor.”

As Sostratos walked between the Long Walls, he kept looking back toward Athens and the marvelous buildings on her akropolis. He sighed. He’d done more than sigh after his father sent word he had to leave the Lykeion and come home to Rhodes. He’d wept bitter tears every step of the way down to Peiraieus. Not now. He’d changed in the years since then. He wasn’t sure the change was for the better, but he was sure it was real. His visit to his old haunt, his talk with Theophrastos, had shown him the life of the Lykeion, however marvelous he’d thought it while younger, didn’t suit him anymore.

Demetrios’ soldiers swaggered through the streets of Peiraieus. When the Aphrodite first came to Athens, Kassandros’ soldiers had done the swaggering. Aside from the master they served, Sostratos saw little difference between one set of Macedonians and mercenaries and the other.

Demetrios had proclaimed the liberation of Athens, and had even torn down the fortress of Mounykhia to show he was serious, but Athenians still got out of the way in a hurry when Macedonian soldiers came by.

So did Sostratos. He didn’t want trouble with Demetrios’ men. No great warrior himself, he knew what was too likely to happen if trouble somehow started. He sighed again, this time in relief, when he reached the quays without hearing a shout of, “What do you think you’re doing, skinny?” or anything of the sort.

Diokles waved as Sostratos came up the pier toward him. “Hail, young sir,” the keleustes said. “You’ll be planning to sail soon, won’t you?

Sostratos started. “How did you know that?”

“You’ve taken up just about everything we brought here to sell,” Diokles answered. “By now, you’ve had it a while. Either you’ve got rid of it all, or else there’ll be some odds and ends left to bring back to the ship. One way or the other, what’s the point to staying around any longer?”

“Odds and ends it is,” Sostratos said. “I’ll need some sailors to haul them here, and then we’ll head for Rhodes.”

The oarmaster dipped his head. “Suits me. I haven’t had much to do since we got here, and I’m tired of sitting around and rusting. I don’t enjoy staying drunk for a week at a time the way I did when I was younger, and I can’t screw as often as I used to, either. I’m ready to go to sea.”

He was so very ready, he tramped up to Athens himself with Sostratos and some sailors, and didn’t complain about shouldering a carrying pole and helping to haul a jar of Byblian back to the Aphrodite. Most of the time, that would have been beneath his dignity.

Before sailing, Sostratos checked the silver stowed under the poop deck. He smiled when he 6nished. Everything was as it should have been. He was ready to see Rhodes again, too-and how better than coming home with a nice profit?