Owls to Athens

6

Xenokleia clung to Menedemos and wept in the darkness of her bedchamber. “What are we going to do?” she wailed- but quietly, so no sound seeped out through the door or the shutters. “The Dionysia ends after tonight, and I’ll never see you again.”

Kissing her, he tasted the salt of her tears. He’d thought she would show better sense; she had to be three or four years older than he was, somewhere on the far side of thirty. He tried to make light of things: “What do you mean, you’ll never see me again, sweetheart? Don’t be silly. All you’ll have to do is look down from that window into the courtyard, and there I’ll be. My cousin and I are going to stay in Athens most of the summer.”

She cried harder than ever. “That’s even worse,” she said. “I’ll see you, but I won’t be able to talk to you, won’t be able to touch you…” She did, very intimately. “You might as well let a starving man see a banquet but keep him from eating.”

That was flattering and alarming at the same time. He’d thought he’d found an affair with which to enjoy himself at the Dionysia. But Xenokleia thought she’d found… what? A lover to carry her away, as Paris had carried off Helen? If so, she was due for disappointment. And you may be due for trouble, Menedemos told himself. “There’s something you need to do,” he said to her.

“What? This?” Her hand closed on him again. He felt himself starting to rise. Had he met her a few years earlier, they would already have been coupling once more. He needed a little longer between rounds than he had in his early twenties.

But, despite the distraction, he tossed his head. “No, dear. Sometime soon, you need to seduce your husband. Put on something saffron and make up your face. When he takes you, stretch your slippers up toward the roof.” He knew he was quoting from the oath in Lysistrate, but Aristophanes had said it better than he could.

“You tell me that now? When we’re like this?” Xenokleia seized his hand and set it on her bare breast. Though she and Protomakhos had a married daughter and a young grandson, her breasts were as firm and upstanding as a younger woman’s-she probably hadn’t nursed her baby herself.

Menedemos knew she was angry. He also knew he had to risk that anger. “I do, darling,” he said seriously. “If you happen to be with child, he’d better be able to think it’s his.”

“Oh.” To his relief, Xenokleia’s anger evaporated. She sighed. “After you, he’ll be moldy salt-fish after mullet.”

“You’re sweet,” he said, and, poising himself above her, stretched her feet up toward the roof, though she wasn’t wearing slippers. Afterwards, she started to cry again. “Don’t do that,” he told her, running a hand along the sweet curve of her hip. “It was fun. We enjoyed it. Remember that. Forget the rest.”

“It’s over.” Xenokleia wept harder than ever.

“Maybe we’ll find another chance, if your husband goes to a symposion or something,” Menedemos said. “But it was good-for what it was-even if we don’t.”

“For what it was.” Xenokleia plainly didn’t like the sound of that. “I wanted it to be…” She sighed. “But that’s not going to happen, is it?”

“No.” Menedemos was, in his own way, honest. “And even if it did, after a while you’d decide you would rather have kept this. Believe me, my dear-you would.”

“You don’t know how little this is,” Xenokleia said. To someone like Menedemos, who associated an Attic accent with wisdom and authority, her words carried extra weight because of the way she said them. She said, “If I do take Protomakhos to bed, he’s liable to fall over dead from surprise.”

“Do it anyhow,” Menedemos told her. No matter how much weight her words held, he remained sure of what this situation needed. “And besides, love-who knows? If you make him happy, maybe he’ll make you happy, too.”

Xenokleia’s voice held only vinegar. “Not likely! All he cares for is his own pleasure. That’s why…” She didn’t go on, not with words, but squeezed him tight.

“You could teach him, you know. I think he can learn if you do. He’s not a stupid man. Friendly women taught me,” Menedemos said.

Protomakhos’ wife stared at him, her eyes enormous in the darkness.

She laughed again, this time on a different note. “Funny that an adulterer should give me advice about how to get on better with my husband. “

“Why?” Menedemos asked, stroking her. “He’s going to be here. I’m not. You should have all the fun you can, no matter where you get it.”

“You mean that,” Xenokleia said wonderingly.

Menedemos dipped his head. “Yes, of course I do.”

“‘Of course,’ “ she echoed, and laughed once more. “No wonder you get so many women-don’t try to tell me this is the first time you’ve played this game, because I know better. You’re too good at it, much too good. But you really do want everybody to have a good time, don’t you?”

“Well, yes,” Menedemos said. “Life’s a lot more enjoyable when you do, and a lot of the time you can, if only you’ll work at it a little. Don’t you think so?” Now he squeezed her, and bent his head to tease her nipple with his tongue.

Her breath sighed out. “If you keep doing that, I won’t ever want to let you go, and I have to, don’t I?”

“I’m afraid so.” He kissed her one last time, put on his chiton, and slid downstairs without a sound. The bedroom door closed softly behind him.

He peered out across the courtyard from the darkness at the bottom of the stairway. No slaves stirring. Good. He hurried over to the little chamber Protomakhos had given him. He’d almost got there when a churring nightjar swooping low after a moth flew in front of his face and made him recoil in alarm.

“Stupid bird,” Menedemos muttered. Here was the door. He let out a sigh of relief. He’d made it.

He worked the latch, opened the door, stepped inside, and closed and barred it behind him. The room was inky black. No lamp was lit, but he needed none to find the bed. He’d taken one step toward it when a deep voice spoke from out of the gloom: “Good evening, son of Philodemos.”

Menedemos froze. Ice climbed his spine faster than a squirrel racing up a tree. If Protomakhos had caught him sneaking back to his chamber, that was almost as bad as catching him in bed with Xenokleia. “I- I can expl-” he began, and then broke off as wit started to penetrate the first shock of terror. “Furies take you, Sostratos!” he burst out.

His cousin laughed softly, there in the darkness. “I just wanted you to think about a big radish up your arse, or whatever else Protomakhos might choose to do with you if he caught you with his wife.”

“Think? No!” Menedemos tossed his head. “What you wanted me to do was fall over dead from fright, and you almost got your wish.” His heart still thumped as if he’d run from Marathon to the city. But that wasn’t exertion he felt; it was the dregs of panic.

“Had you done nothing wrong, you wouldn’t need to fear,” Sostratos pointed out.

“When I was a little boy, my mother could talk to me that way,” Menedemos said. “I’m not a little boy any more, and my mother’s dead. And even if she were still alive, you aren’t her.”

“Someone needs to talk sense into you,” Sostratos answered, “or scare it into you if talking doesn’t work. Our own host-”

“Now that the Dionysia’s over, his wife and I are probably done, so stop fretting,” Menedemos said. “If he didn’t neglect her, she wouldn’t have looked at me, would she?”

“He doesn’t,” Sostratos said.

“And how do you know that?” Menedemos jeered. “I know what Xenokleia told me.”

“And I know what I saw the first day of the Dionysia, while you were still chasing other women through the city,” Sostratos retorted. “What I saw was Protomakhos coming downstairs from the women’s quarters with the look of a man who’s just enjoyed himself with a woman. How much truth was his wife telling you, do you suppose?”

“I… don’t know.” Menedemos muttered to himself. Xenokleia had certainly sounded convincing-but then, she would have, wouldn’t she? He tried to rally: “For all you know, Protomakhos bedded a slave girl, not his wife-if he bedded anybody at all.”

“The only married men who sleep with slaves in their own houses are fools,” Sostratos said, “Are you going to tell me Protomakhos is that kind of fool?”

“You never can tell,” Menedemos replied, but he knew the response was weak. As he’d said to Xenokleia, he didn’t think her husband was any kind of fool; by all the signs, the stone merchant was a very clever man. That being so, he went on, “I already told you-whatever happened between Xenokleia and me, which is none of your business-”

“It is if what you do lands us in trouble in Athens,” Sostratos broke in.

“It won’t, because we’re through. I told you that,” Menedemos said. “Now kindly get out of my room, where you had no business coming in the first place.” As Sostratos pushed past him-almost walked into him-going to the door, Menedemos added, “And don’t think I’ll forget this, either, because I won’t. I owe you one, and we both know it.”

“I quiver. I shudder. I quake.” Sostratos opened the door and closed it behind him. He didn’t slam it; that would have drawn attention to them. A moment later, his own door opened and then closed. The bar thudded into place.

Menedemos barred his door again. He lay down, wondering if he’d sleep after the fright Sostratos had given him. He also wondered how many lies he’d heard from Xenokleia. He’d told more than a few lies in his time to end up in bed-or leaning against a wall, or sitting on a stool, or in any number of other postures-with a woman. Having a woman lie to him for the same reason was-he thought-something new.

Why had she? To get sympathy? To make him angry at Protomakhos? He shrugged. It wasn’t likely to matter now. It had better not, he told himself. The Dionysia was over. Starting tomorrow, he would get down to business. And, no matter how enjoyable Xenokleia had been, he looked forward to it. He yawned, wiggled, stretched… and slept.

When he woke the next morning, rain was pattering down on Protomakhos’ courtyard. It was late in the season, but not impossibly late. He was glad the Aphrodite already lay tied up at Peiraieus; sailing in the rain was asking for trouble.

Menedemos and Sostratos emerged from their rooms at the same time. They both hurried to the andron. The Rhodian proxenos was eating bread and oil when they came in. “Good day, best ones,” he said after swallowing a bite. “The herbs and flowers will grow later than usual and better than usual this year.”

“And we’ll get muddy,” Menedemos said, looking down at his feet. They already had. A slave brought breakfast for him and his cousin. “I thank you,” he murmured, and began to eat.

“Fewer people will come to the agora on a day like today,” Protomakhos said. “You might want to stay here and take it easy till the rain eases up.”

Though Menedemos, for several reasons, wouldn’t have minded at all, Sostratos spoke up before he could: “Many thanks, most noble one, but we’d better go down to the ship and bring up some of our goods. If you could set aside a storeroom or two for them, we’d be in your debt even more than we are already. Much easier to do business out of Athens than to have to go back and forth to the akatos.”

“You’re diligent,” the proxenos said approvingly. “Men who work even when they don’t have to often go far. Let me talk to my steward, and we’ll see just which space we can set aside for you. You’ll have all you need, I promise you that.”

As the two Rhodians started down toward Peiraieus in the rain, Menedemos said, “By the dog of Egypt, Sostratos, I wasn’t going to sneak up to Xenokleia with her husband in the house. You didn’t have to drag me away by the ear like that.”

“So you say now,” his cousin replied. “For one thing, I didn’t want to take the chance. For another, we do need to get to work.”

“While it’s raining?” Menedemos skirted a puddle in which something nasty bobbed.

“What’s the easiest way to steal a victory?” Sostratos answered his own question: “To move faster than your foe. Look at Alexander, time and again. Look at Antigonos, when he used a forced march to fall on Eumenes before Eumenes even knew he was anywhere close by.”

“I’m not planning on spearing any Athenian merchants, only prying silver out of them,” Menedemos replied. Sostratos was in no mood to listen to banter. More often than not, Menedemos could lead his cousin. Today, he had to follow in Sostratos’ muddy wake.

They left Athens and made their way down to the great polis’ port between the Long Walls. The soldiers on those walls wrapped themselves in cloaks and capes and himatia. They still looked miserable up there. Menedemos felt pretty miserable himself. He was mud-splashed almost to the knee. So was Sostratos, but he ignored it. When Menedemos complained, all his cousin said was, “We’ve both got hats back at the Aphrodite. They’ll keep the rain out of our eyes when we go up to Athens again.”

“Hurrah,” Menedemos said sourly. “I’ve never yet seen a hat that will keep my legs dry, though. Almost makes me want to wear trousers like a Kelt.”

“Barbarous garments,” Sostratos said, which was certainly true, and then, “Besides, do you want to have wet, muddy wool flopping and flapping on your calves and thighs?” That was not only true but sensible-very much like Sostratos to manage both at once.

Few people were on the road down to Peiraieus, or, for that matter, coming up from the port, either. Without Sostratos’ dragging him out of Protomakhos’ house, Menedemos wouldn’t have been on the road, either. He glumly squelched along. To his relief and more than a little to his surprise, Sostratos didn’t nag him about seducing Xenokleia- not that she’d taken much seducing. Since it was also very much like his cousin to nag, he wondered why Sostratos was holding back now. He didn’t wonder enough to ask, though; that probably would have got Sostratos going.

They were already in the port and close to the wharves when Sostratos sighed and remarked, “I do sometimes wonder, my dear, if you’ll ever learn.”

Of course I learn. I can talk women into bed who would have ignored me when my line was rougher a few years ago. Menedemos came within a digit of saying that out loud. But it would have started the quarrel he didn’t feel like having, and so, reluctantly, he swallowed the words. He gave back a soft answer instead: “Look, you can see the Aphrodite’s mast and yard from here. I hope everything’s been all right while we were celebrating the Dionysia.”

“Diokles would have sent word up into Athens if he’d run into real trouble,” Sostratos said. He was right again. He was also successfully distracted, which made Menedemos even happier.

Menedemos waved to the Aphrodite as he and Sostratos came up the pier toward the merchant galley. Someone aboard the akatos waved back. Squinting through the rain, Menedemos called, “That you, Diokles?”

“It’s me, all right,” the oarmaster answered. “I know the two of you well enough by your size next to each other.” Menedemos was most of a head shorter than Sostratos. Not caring to be reminded of it, he glowered at his cousin as if it were Sostratos’ fault. The oblivious Diokles went on, “Everything’s fine here, young sirs.”

“That’s good news,” Menedemos and Sostratos said together. Menedemos added, “Nobody got in trouble celebrating the festival?”

“Not so you’d notice,” Diokles replied. “Somebody-I forget who-lost a tooth in a tavern brawl. A few more men got black eyes and such, and we’ve been gobbling cabbage like you wouldn’t believe to fight our hangovers.”

“I’ve never found it does much good,” Menedemos said. “Well-watered wine the next morning works better.”

“We’ve done that, too,” Diokles said. Teleutas, who was-as often happened-lounging around not doing much, let out an indignant squawk. Diokles dipped his head. “Oh, yes-Teleutas says he had his pouch slit at a brothel. Only a couple of drakhmai lost, though, if he did. He’d just gone through most of his pay on wine before he got himself a woman.”

The sailor squawked again. “What do you mean, if? It happened just like I said.”

Diokles shrugged. “I wasn’t there.” Menedemos and Sostratos looked at each other. They shrugged in unison. Teleutas was a less than reliable witness. He’d proved as much many times over. Smiling slightly, Sostratos muttered something under his breath. Menedemos couldn’t make out what it was, but had a pretty good idea: amusement that an occasional thief should complain of theft.

“We’re going to take some of our goods up to the proxenos’ house in Athens proper,” Menedemos said. “That way, Sostratos and I can do business without running back here whenever we sell something.”

Sostratos ducked under the poop deck, emerging with the leather sacks that held beeswax, papyrus, embroidered cloth from the east, and the truffles they’d got in Mytilene. “These are all light,” he said. “I can take them myself.”

“I haven’t got a whole lot of sailors here, skipper,” Diokles said worriedly. “If you don’t want to be going back and forth all day, you’ll need to hire some of these harborside loungers and scroungers.”

“What do you think, Sostratos?” Menedemos asked. “You handle the silver.”

His cousin was a slow man with an obolos, one of the things that made him a good toikharkhos. He dipped his head now without the least hesitation. “Yes, we’d better do it,” he said. “The point of bringing things up into Athens is that we shouldn’t be going back and forth all the time. Pay them three oboloi each, four if they squawk-this isn’t an all-day job, or one that takes any skill.”

“Right,” Menedemos said. A drakhma-six oboloi-a day would keep a man fed and housed, though not in fancy style. The way prices kept rising nowadays, though, he wondered how much longer that would stay true. But there was a worry for another time. Now he cupped his hands in front of his mouth and shouted: “Hauling work! Half a day’s pay! Who wants to bring home some silver?”

Some of the layabouts wanted a drakhma even for a half day’s hauling work. One of them said, “You don’t know how expensive things are here, stranger. This is Athens, after all, not some little polis where nothing ever happens.”

“We’re from Rhodes,” Menedemos snapped. “We know what a drakhma’s worth, by the dog of Egypt-and when things happen in our polis, they happen because we choose them.” That got home to the toplofty Athenian. Menedemos went on, “If you won’t take four oboloi”-he’d quickly discovered he couldn’t get anyone to take three-”well, hail, friend. Will you or won’t you?”

“I will,” the fellow said, “but that doesn’t mean you’re not a cheapskate.”

Menedemos batted his eyes, as if he were a youth teasing a suitor. “You say the sweetest things, my dear,” he murmured-he’d had plenty of practice at that role in his younger days.

“Cistern-arsed effeminate,” the Athenian said under his breath, a sneer right out of Aristophanes. It wasn’t quite loud enough to make Menedemos notice it and run the man out. When they started back up towards Athens, he did set the fellow to hauling jars of wine on a carrying pole, the heaviest work he had.

“We’ve got quite a parade here,” Menedemos remarked as they started away from the waterfront. “All we need is some rattling chains and we could be taking slaves to the market.”

“I’m glad we’re not in that business-too risky,” Sostratos said. “Selling a barbarian every now and again is all right, I suppose, but you’re asking for trouble if you do it too often.”

“I’m not arguing,” Menedemos said. “I never wanted to be a slave trader, either. Oh, maybe once in a while, if the chance comes up, but I wouldn’t care to make a habit of it. People look down their noses at men who buy and sell other men. I do myself. I don’t quite know why-we couldn’t very well live the lives of free Hellenes if we didn’t have plenty of slaves to labor for us-but people do.”

“Most of the men who buy and sell slaves aren’t the sort the better classes care to deal with-except when they need a new serving woman or workman or what have you,” Sostratos said. “That’s part of it, I think. And the other part is, we all know what can happen to us if an enemy sacks our polis. Not all slaves are barbarians. Hellenes say they don’t enslave their fellow Hellenes, but it happens. Look what Alexander did to Thebes. Look what happened to the Athenians who went to Sicily during the Peloponnesian War.”

A middle-aged man carrying several lekythoi full of truffle-flavored olive oil looked up at that. “My great-grandfather went to Sicily to fight against Syracuse,” he said. “He never came home. I don’t think he was killed in battle, so he likely died in the mines. His wife was pregnant with my grandfather when he sailed away. They almost exposed the baby. If they had, I wouldn’t be here.”

Sostratos said, “Disasters happen more and more often these days, too. Generals are better at taking cities by storm than they used to be-we talked about that when we first came up between the Long Walls, remember, Menedemos? And the Macedonian marshals are always at war with one another, so poleis keep falling.”

Menedemos imagined Rhodes falling to the forces of Ptolemaios or Antigonos-most likely the latter, since his home polis got on well with the lord of Egypt. Would slave dealers swarm to the city, to batten on the disaster? Of course they would. They always did. Imagining misfortune befalling his polis was as much as he could do. He couldn’t envision himself enslaved.

No? he thought. You didn’t have any trouble those couple of times when pirates attacked the Aphrodite. You knew you were fighting for your life and for your freedom then.

Once they got into Athens again, they couldn’t move so fast. That was only partly because the winding streets were full of Athenians intent on their own business, though they were. But the real problem was the swarm of boys who had as much fun with the procession of men carrying trade goods as their parents had had with the Dionysiac procession not long before. In fact, the boys-some in chitons, others naked despite the chilly, rainy weather-had even more fun, for they could dart out and disrupt this parade.

“Here, you little wretch, stop that!” Menedemos’ hand smacked against the wet, bare backside of a boy of perhaps eight who’d almost tripped up two men carrying jars of expensive Byblian. Because the backside-and the hand-were wet, the swat sounded amazingly loud. The boy jumped and yelled and cursed Menedemos with a fluency some of the Aphrodite’s sailors couldn’t have matched. His own hand clapped to the afflicted part, he scurried away, agile as a lizard.

“Euge!” Sostratos said. “Maybe you’ll make some of the other scamps think twice.”

“By Zeus, I hope so,” Menedemos said. “Somebody needs to.”

His cousin pointed ahead. “There’s the theater-you can see the seats set into the side of the slope that leads up to the akropolis. We’re getting close to Protomakhos’.”

“Good,” Menedemos said. “When we get there, I’m going to have one of his slaves heat up some water in the kitchen and pour it into a basin. Then I can wash my feet and warm them up, too.”

“That’s a good idea,” Sostratos said. “Protomakhos had better have two basins.”

“If he doesn’t,” Menedemos said, “I go first.” He never noticed the look Sostratos sent him. He was used to going first. He almost always had. And he saw no reason at all why he shouldn’t keep right on doing it.

Sostratos and Menedemos trudged up the long ramp toward the akropolis. The sun shone down out of a bright blue sky-the rain had blown out to sea. The backs of Sostratos’ calves twinged, for the ramp was steep, and he had scant occasion to climb slopes aboard ship, especially carrying a lekythos of truffle-flavored oil. Menedemos grumbled under his breath. He was a far better athlete than Sostratos-he’d almost gone to the Olympic Games a few years before as a sprinter- but this told on him, too.

“Why couldn’t Demetrios’ man have met us someplace where we didn’t have to pretend we were mountain goats?” he muttered.

“It’s all right,” Sostratos said. “I would have brought you up here sooner or later so you could get a good look at the buildings and the paintings and the statues. There’s no other place like this in all the civilized world. Not even Corinth’s akropolis comes close. And besides, we’re almost there by now, and the way down will be easy.”

“Ah. That’s true.” Menedemos brightened.

The Propylaia, the gateway into the akropolis, loomed in front of them. Half a dozen simple Doric columns supported the entranceway. The space between the two middle ones was wider than the other gaps. People coming in and going out passed through that space. To the right of the gateway stood the temple of Athena of Victory; to the left the Pinakotheke, a dining hall with seventeen couches and some of the grandest paintings in Athens. “They have a portrait of Alkibiades in there,” Sostratos said. “Lots of other paintings, too.”

“Didn’t Alkibiades spend most of his time getting Athens into trouble?” Menedemos asked.

“Yes, and the rest getting her out again,” Sostratos replied.

Past the Propylaia stood a stone pillar with a phallos and a bearded face: a Herm like the ones at crossroads or in front of many houses. This one was bigger than most, but otherwise ordinary. Menedemos paid it no special notice. Sostratos hadn’t thought his cousin would.

“Do you know who carved that Herm?” he asked slyly.

Menedemos looked it over. “No. Should I?” he said. “Whoever he was, he wasn’t anything special, for I’ve seen plenty of better work.”

“He wasn’t anything special as a stonecarver, no,” Sostratos admitted, “but he was in other ways: Sokrates made that.”

“Oh.” Menedemos gave it a second look, then shrugged. “Well, I can see why he never got rich.”

“Scoffer! Come on. We’re supposed to meet Demetrios’ man by the Parthenon.”

They hurried along side by side. Sostratos had a horror of being late and offending Demetrios’ servitor. But he stubbed his toe on a stone, stumbled, and almost dropped the lekythos. Menedemos caught him by the elbow. “Steady, my dear. You don’t want to have to bring the fellow back here and say, ‘Lick this patch of ground if you want the true flavor.’ No point to being like Euripides, is there?”

“Euripides? What are you going on about now?” Sostratos knew he sounded cross. He hated being clumsy, especially in front of his graceful cousin.

“Don’t you know Aristophanes’ Frogs?” Menedemos chuckled. “When Dionysos goes down to the house of Hades to bring back a good tragedian, Aiskhylos and Euripides square off. And Aiskhylos sinks Euripides like a round ship full of dear Protomakhos’ marble, for he shows you can fit, ‘He lost his little bottle of oil,’ into the metre of any of Euripides’ prologues.”

“Oh. I’d forgotten that one, yes.” Sostratos knew and liked Euripides better than Aristophanes. He mentally started the prologue to Iphigeneia in Tauris. Sure enough, the phrase fit right in. Meleagros? Yes again. Clever Melanippe? No doubt about it. Aristophanes knew his versifying, all right. Sostratos decided to gibe at his cousin, not the comic poet: “I thought you called Protomakhos’ wife ‘dear,’ not the man himself.”

Menedemos just grinned and stuck out his tongue, as if he were the Gorgon on the bottom of a drinking cup. “Here’s the Parthenon. Where’s this Kleokritos we’re supposed to meet?”

“I can’t pull him out from between my gum and my cheek like an obolos, you know,” Sostratos said. “Now he’ll be the one who’s late, and he’ll have to do the apologizing to us instead of the other way round.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Menedemos said. “The next Athenian- or even slave in Athens-I hear saying he’s sorry about anything will be the first. These people are the rudest I’ve ever run across.” Even as he spoke, his head tipped back so he could get a better look at the frieze above the entrance to the temple. He clicked his tongue between his teeth in reluctant approval. “Rude or not, though, they knew what they were doing when they made this place.”

“Yes.” Sostratos dipped his head. “Pheidias was in charge again, though this was too much work for him to do by himself.”

The reliefs, freshly painted, might have been carved yesterday, not more than a century before. Flesh tones and robes of yellow and red stood out from the deep blue background. Horses seemed about to bound forward. So did centaurs. Pointing to them, Menedemos said, “I used to think they were creatures out of myth.”

“So did I,” Sostratos said. “Now that I’ve seen a gryphon’s skull, I’m not so sure as I used to be.”

A bent-backed, white-bearded man leaning on a stick came out of the Parthenon and made his slow, painful way past the Rhodians. Menedemos said, “Can we go inside? You’ve talked about the statue of Athena ever since we left Rhodes.”

“Why not? We shouldn’t stay long, in case Kleokritos comes, but the image was made to be admired.”

When they went inside and left the sunlight behind, their vision needed a little while to adjust to the dimness. A broad central aisle was separated from a narrow outer one at the sides and back of the sanctuary by columns set on two levels. That interior colonnade led the eye to the great cult statue at the far end of the shrine.

Sostratos had seen it before. Even so, his breath came short. Beside him, Menedemos stopped in his tracks. “Oh,” he said softly. It wasn’t really a word: just an expression of amazement and awe. One small step at a time, he approached the statue of Athena. Every so often, he would say, “Oh,” again. Sostratos didn’t think he knew he was doing it.

The image of the goddess had to be twenty-five cubits tall, or even a bit more: say, seven times as tall as a man. Everything that would have been flesh on a living woman was of ivory, the pieces so cleverly joined that Sostratos couldn’t tell where one left off and the next started. Athena’s robes, her triple-crested helm, and her hair were covered in thin sheets of glittering, shimmering gold.

It shimmered all the more because a shallow pool of clear, clean water in front of the statue reflected light from outside up onto it. The slightest breath of air-perhaps even the Rhodians’ footfalls-stirred the surface of the water, and stirred the reflected light, too.

Athena held a winged Victory in her right hand. Next to her might, the Victory seemed tiny. Sostratos had to remind himself it was several digits taller than he. The goddess’ left hand rested on and supported a great shield. Somewhere on the shield were the portraits of Perikles and Pheidias that had landed the sculptor in so much trouble. Sostratos thought he might find Perikles if he searched. Other images had given him a notion of what the great leader of Athens looked like. Pheidias? He tossed his head. Was a man truly immortal if no one recognized him?

Between the shield and Athena’s left leg, a great serpent coiled and reared. The scales of its back were picked out in gold, those of its belly in ivory.

Sostratos and Menedemos stood at the far edge of the reflecting pool, staring up and up and up at the statue. After a long, long silence, Menedemos said, “Well, my dear, you were right, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. We haven’t got anything like this at home. I’m glad I’ve seen it. If I hadn’t… well, what point to coming to Athens if I hadn’t?”

“The core of the statue is of wood,” Sostratos said. “All told, a couple of hundred minai of gold cover it-and the ivory, of course. It-”

His cousin held up a hand. “Never mind the details. I don’t want to know. I see what it is, and that’s enough.”

“Really?” Sostratos said. “I think knowing how it’s put together makes it more marvelous, not less.”

“You would,” Menedemos said.

They might have squabbled then, but someone called to them from the direction of the entrance: “Are you fellows the Rhodians I’m supposed to meet?”

Sostratos and Menedemos both turned. A man stood silhouetted in the bright doorway. “Kleokritos?” Sostratos asked.

“That’s me,” he answered. Sure enough, he didn’t say he was sorry for being late. Sostratos and Menedemos walked away from the statue to greet him. They both kept looking back over their shoulders at it. Kleokritos laughed under his breath. He was about thirty-five; his cleanshaven face helped him seem younger. He spoke a pure Attic Greek, and looked like a Hellene. Even so, Sostratos wondered whether he was freeman or slave. Few free Hellenes would have subordinated themselves to another man as he had to Demetrios of Phaleron. Not my worry, gods be praised, Sostratos thought. After the introductions and small talk, Kleokritos went on, “So you fellows have something special to sell, do you?”

“I should say so.” Sostratos held up his little bottle of oil-and made very sure he didn’t lose it. “Olive oil flavored with Lesbian truffles.”

“Is that so?” Kleokritos had sharp, foxy features. He might have suddenly spied a duck swimming near the edge of a pond. “Yes, the boss might like something like that. You realize you’ll have to give me a taste? I’d look like a proper fool buying something like that without making sure it is what you say it is.”

“Certainly, O best one.” Sostratos pulled the stopper from the jar. He hid the nervousness he felt. He’d shaved the truffles he’d got from Onetor fine as he could, to make them give up the most flavor, but he hadn’t tasted the oil since. You should have, you fool. He wished it had had longer to sit. If it were little more than ordinary olive oil to the tongue…

Kleokritos plunged a forefinger into the jar, then stuck the digit in his mouth. When he assumed the expression of a fox that had just dragged a duck out of a pond, Sostratos knew the oil was all it should be. “Well, well,” Kleokritos said, and then again: “Well, well.”

“You see,” Menedemos said.

“Yes, I do.” Kleokritos dipped his head. “May I have another taste?” Sostratos held out the lekythos to him. He smacked his lips. “That’s quite something, isn’t it? I don’t suppose your price will be cheap, either.”

“Truffles cost several times their weight in silver,” Sostratos pointed out.

“Oh, yes. I know. Demetrios has bought them now and again.” Kleokritos licked his finger clean, tidy as an Egyptian cat. He sighed. “Suppose you tell me what you have in mind. Let’s see how loud I scream.”

“A mina a jar.” Sostratos never would have had the nerve to ask such an outrageous price if he hadn’t seen Demetrios’ production of Aiskhylos’ plays. Just being able to present a trilogy and a satyr play bespoke extraordinary wealth. Putting them on so sumptuously bespoke not only wealth but a certain willingness to spend it freely.

“A pound of silver, you say?” Kleokritos took Sostratos and Menedemos by the elbow. “Come, gentlemen.” He led them out of the Parthenon, into the sunshine once more. Then he screamed, loud enough to make a couple of passersby whip their heads around in alarm. “There,” he said. “I didn’t want to profane the shrine with that. You’re robbers, not Rhodians.”

“Sorry you think so,” Menedemos replied. “I’m sure Kassandros’ top officers wouldn’t-Macedonians are made of money, near enough. We wanted to give Demetrios the first chance at our oil, but…” He shrugged regretfully.

Kleokritos flinched. Sostratos smiled to himself. So there was friction between Demetrios of Phaleron and the Macedonians for whom he ruled Athens. That didn’t surprise Sostratos. He probably could have sold the news to Antigonos or Lysimakhos. On the other hand, maybe not. Who was to say they didn’t already know?

“Best ones, surely you see your price is beyond the moderate, beyond what is reasonable.” Kleokritos not only sounded like an Athenian, he sounded like one who’d studied at the Academy or the Lykeion.

As smoothly as if they were performing in a play at the theater, Sostratos and Menedemos tossed their heads together. “I’m sorry, most noble one, but that isn’t how things look to us,” Sostratos replied. “When you think about what we paid for the ingredients, and the risks we took bringing them to Athens-”

“Oh, come now!” Kleokritos said. “This polis is safe and strong under the leadership of Demetrios and the protection of Kassandros.”

So that’s the formula they use, is it? When I write my history, I’ll have to remember it, Sostratos thought. Aloud, he said, “I have no quarrel”- no public quarrel-”with what you say about the polis. But sailing on the Aegean is a risk, and no small one. My cousin and I were attacked by pirates less than two years ago between Andros and Euboia. We were lucky enough to fight them off, but they stole some of our most valuable cargo.”

Menedemos stirred at that. It might not have been strictly true of the gryphon’s skull, not in monetary terms. Sostratos didn’t care. Who could set a true price on knowledge?

Kleokritos sighed. “My principal will want this lovely oil. I have no doubt of that. But he does not care to be held for ransom. I’ll give you sixty drakhmai the lekythos. What do you say?”

“We say it’s time to talk to Kassandros’ officers,” Menedemos replied, and Sostratos dipped his head. With a nasty smile, Menedemos added, “Perhaps they’ll invite Demetrios to supper and let him have a taste.”

“You are a nasty, wicked wretch,” Kleokritos said. Menedemos bowed, as at a compliment. Demetrios of Phaleron’s man muttered under his breath. At last, he said, “Exactly how many lekythoi of truffle-flavored oil have you got?”

Menedemos looked to Sostratos. Sostratos had known his cousin would. “Seventy-one,” he said: as usual, he had the number on the tip of his tongue.

After some muttering and counting on his fingers, Kleokritos said, “I’ll give you a talent for the lot of them.”

“Sixty minai of silver, eh? You are talking of Athenian weight?” Sostratos asked, and Kleokritos impatiently dipped his head. Now Sostratos murmured as he flicked beads on a mental counting-board. In a low voice, he told Menedemos, “Eighty-four drakhmai, three oboloi the lekythos, more or less. What do you think?”

“It should do,” Menedemos answered, also softly. “Unless you think we can squeeze him-or maybe the Macedonians-for more?”

“No, let’s make the deal. It gives us a better chance to work on selling other things to other people.” Sostratos waited to see if Menedemos would argue. When Menedemos didn’t, he turned to Kleokritos. “We accept.”

“Good. That’s settled, then,” Kleokritos said. Sostratos thought so, too. That talent-less what the new ingredients had cost-would pay the crew for three months. No, longer than that, he realized: he paid the sailors in Rhodian coinage, which was lighter than what the Athenians minted. Kleokritos asked, “Do you have all the oil at Protomakhos’ house?”

“No, not all,” Sostratos answered. “We didn’t know we would sell it all to the same man. We can bring the rest up from Peiraieus tomorrow, and you can pick it up tomorrow afternoon or the next day. Does that seem good to you?”

“Yes. I expect I will come day after tomorrow,” Kleokritos replied.

Menedemos said, “At Protomakhos’ house we also have wine from Lesbos and wine from far-off Byblos. The Lesbian I expect you will know. Of the Byblian I will say only this: its bouquet is a match for Ariousian’s. Ask among people you know if you don’t believe me. They’ll tell you I speak the truth.”

They might also tell him the wine’s flavor didn’t match its aroma- but Menedemos hadn’t said anything about that. Kleokritos said, “I will ask. And, of course, I will ask my principal if he wants to add to his cellars. If he declines”-Demetrios of Phaleron’s man shrugged- “then I wish you good fortune selling your wine to someone else.” He let out a dry chuckle. “I doubt you will have too much trouble disposing of it.”

“Good wine generally does find a home,” Sostratos agreed.

Kleokritos chuckled. “In any town with a Macedonian garrison, good wine-or even bad wine-has to work hard not to find a home.” He started back toward the ramp that led down into the main part of Athens. Over his shoulder, he added, “I’ll see you day after tomorrow, best ones. Hail.”

“Hail,” Sostratos and Menedemos said together. Once Kleokritos was out of earshot, Menedemos went on, “He’ll buy wine, too. I don’t know about day after tomorrow, but he will.” He sounded confident as could be.

“Yes, I think so,” Sostratos replied. “He’s plainly eager for fancy food and drink-he may want some truffles, too. If his cook can do a kandaulos like Myrsos’, think how fine it would be with truffles flavoring the broth.”

“Makes my mouth water,” Menedemos said. “Part of me hopes we don’t sell them all. If we bring some home to Sikon and your cook, we can enjoy them ourselves.”

Sostratos thought about teasing him over putting personal pleasure before profit. He couldn’t, not in good conscience, not when he felt the same way himself. He said, “I wish I could see Demetrios having a use for beeswax.”

“Are you worrying about that already?” Menedemos asked. A little sheepishly, Sostratos dipped his head. His cousin made a face at him. “Don’t be foolish. You haven’t even started talking to sculptors yet. There’s bound to be some vain Athenian or swaggering Macedonian who thinks this polis can’t live without a bronze statue of him, and that’s what beeswax is for.”

“I know, but I can’t help fretting,” Sostratos said.

Menedemos laughed. “Really, my dear? I never would have guessed. You’re probably fussing about the balm from Engedi, too, even though the next physician you talk to will be your first.”

With such dignity as he could muster, Sostratos replied, “I don’t have to admit that, and I don’t intend to, either.”

“You just did, I think,” Menedemos said, and laughed harder than ever. He went on, “You haven’t seen any scribes, either, but I’d bet you’re worrying about our papyrus and ink.”

“No. That not,” Sostratos said. “I can always sell papyrus in Athens. This polis uses more of it than any other three in Hellas, and that includes Rhodes and Alexandria. I am a little worried about the price I’ll have to charge because Himilkon gouged me-outsmarted me, really, but gouged me, too. But I will be able to sell it, and the ink will naturally go with it.”

They strolled out through the Propylaia and started down the ramp. Kleokritos was already near the bottom. He didn’t need to slow down to sightsee; he could come up here whenever he liked. Menedemos looked back toward the Parthenon. “If anyone were ever to sack this place…”

“Bite your tongue!” Sostratos exclaimed. “Even the Macedonians think Pheidias’ image of Athena’s worth more as art than it would be as booty, and they’re the greediest men in the world. If they leave it alone, anyone would-I hope.”

“Well, so do I,” Menedemos said. “What’s that phrase your pet historian used-’a possession for all time’? It suits the statue, too.”

Sostratos tried to imagine the austere Thoukydides as his-or anyone else’s-pet. He felt himself failing. Wanting to get in a jab of his own, he said, “I’m sure you aim to be the one who sells our rose perfume to all the hetairai of Athens.”

“Somebody’s got to do it,” Menedemos said cheerfully. “They pay well.”

“Make sure you get it in silver, not in something I can’t enter in the ledgers,” Sostratos said.

His cousin leered. “Enter, indeed!” Sostratos winced. He’d left himself open for that, and Menedemos had wasted no time taking advantage of it. “I know the difference between owls and piggies, best one,” Menedemos added. “If I get any of the other, it’ll be along with the drakhmai, not instead of them.”

“All right. Knowing you, though, I did think I ought to make sure,” Sostratos said. Maybe he wasn’t being fair; Menedemos did separate business and pleasure… most of the time. Shading his eyes, Sostratos peered southwest. “You can see all the way down to the sea from here. If my eyes were good enough, I could pick out the Aphrodite among all the other ships tied up in Peiraieus.”

“A hawk couldn’t do that, not from here,” Menedemos said.

“And even if it could, it wouldn’t care,” Sostratos agreed. “But we ought to be able to make our sight keener.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did. Cupping a hand behind your ear makes you hear better. Cupping both hands in front of your mouth makes your voice louder. We ought to be able to do something to help our eyes.”

“We ought to be able to do all sorts of things we can’t,” Menedemos said. “I’d like to be able to get it up ten times a day, for instance.”

“If you could, you’d never do anything else,” Sostratos said.

“Who’d want to do anything else if he could do that instead?”

“You are a shameless wretch,” Sostratos said. Menedemos grinned and dipped his head. After an exasperated snort (and how many exasperated snorts had Menedemos forced from him?), Sostratos went on, “The arts let us do things we could never do without them. We can span rivers with bridges. We can sail the seas. We can make temples like the Parthenon. Why shouldn’t we be able to stretch our sight?”

“Because we don’t know how,” Menedemos answered. Sostratos had built a beautiful, flawlessly logical argument-but one that broke to pieces like a cheap pot when Menedemos dropped a hard, sharp-cornered fact on it. “We ought to be able to fly, too. Birds can. Bats can, and butterflies. Why not people?”

“Ikaros and Daidalos did, if you believe the myth,” Sostratos said.

Menedemos was more inclined than Sostratos to take myths and legends seriously, but not this one. “It’s only a wish, not a truth, and you know it as well as I do,” he said. “Every so often, some poor fool who thinks it’s the truth makes himself a set of wings and goes up onto a roof or a cliff and jumps off. If he’s lucky, he breaks his ankle. If he’s not, he breaks his stupid neck or smashes himself flat as a flapjack. Am I right or am I wrong?”

“Oh, you’re right, best one, no doubt about it-for now.” Sostratos fell back on the only argument he could: “But we may learn things we don’t know now. The alphabet lets memory reach further than it could before. Iron was plainly a new thing in Homer’s day-he calls it ‘difficultly wrought.’ Because it’s both hard and cheap, we can do things with it we couldn’t with bronze alone. Maybe some artisan will figure out how to stretch our sight or make us fly, too.”

“Well, maybe,” Menedemos said. “I’m not going to hold my breath, though.” He made a little hop from the end of the ramp onto the dirt of the southeastern corner of the agora. “I am going to head back to Protomakhos’.”

“You’re hoping he’s not there,” Sostratos said in dismay.

His cousin tossed his head. “Not in broad daylight. The slaves would notice, and they’d likely blab. Tonight, though… We’ll have to see what he does.” He hurried away. As Sostratos followed, he wondered whether clouting Menedemos over the head with the lekythos he carried would knock any sense into him. Off the evidence he had, probably not. Too bad, he thought. How I wish it would.

Menedemos bowed to Kleokritos. “Here is the oil, most noble one,” he said, pointing to the lekythoi lined up in Protomakhos’ courtyard.

“Ten rows of seven jars, plus one. May Demetrios and his friends enjoy them.”

“That’s a fine-looking phalanx,” Demetrios of Phaleron’s man said with a smile. He gestured to a couple of the men who followed him. Most of them looked to be laborers hired for the day to carry the jars of oil. These two were different: both were better dressed and brighter looking than their comrades. They carried nice-sized leather sacks. More of Demetrios’ retainers, Menedemos judged. Kleokritos went on, “They have your silver for you.”

“Good,” Menedemos said.

“As soon as I make sure it’s the proper amount, you are more than welcome to the oil,” Sostratos added.

Kleokritos’ smile vanished. “You’re not going to count out six thousand drakhmai!” he exclaimed. “We’d be here all day. You don’t think I’d cheat you?”

“Of course not, O best one,” Sostratos said suavely. Menedemos knew his cousin was lying. Kleokritos likely knew it, too. But Sostratos gave him no excuse to protest, continuing, “You have every right to count the jars of oil-and to open and taste them, too, if that seems good to you. And I don’t need to count so many coins. Protomakhos, may I borrow your scale?”

“Certainly,” the Rhodian proxenos replied. At his order, a slave brought out a huge balance. Another, grunting, carried a stone weight. “One talent,” Protomakhos said. “Being in the stonecutting business, I find such large weights useful. This one balances perfectly against the standard talent the officials in charge of weights and measures keep in the Tholos. If you want to go over there, I’m sure the metronomoi will show you that.”

“Never mind,” Kleokritos said sourly, to the obvious relief of the slave carrying the weight. “Set it on one pan of the balance, and I’ll set the silver on the other.”

The slave put the weight on the pan. The men with Kleokritos who had the money set their sacks on the other pan. The scales did not balance. Kleokritos turned a dull red. He took a stout leather wallet from his felt and started feeding coins from it onto the scale: a drakhma, a tetradrakhm-four times as heavy-a didrakhm, another fat tetradrakhm. Altogether, he had to load on more than fifty drakhmai before the weight finally rose.

“There!” he snarled. “Are you happy now?”

“Certainly, most noble one,” Menedemos said. “I know it must have been an accident.” This time, he was the one doing the lying. He didn’t want to embarrass Demetrios of Phaleron’s man any more than he had to. What a coincidence, though, he thought, that Kleokritos happened to have enough money with him to make good the error in case we challenged him. Without the scales, he and Sostratos never would have noticed the payment’s being light by less than one part in a hundred, but half a mina of silver was a tidy sum of money by itself. “Still, we do want things to be right, don’t we?”

“Right,” Kleokritos said. That wasn’t agreement. It was anger coming out in one word. Demetrios’ man said not a word about wine, Lesbian or Byblian. He barked at the Athenians he’d hired. They hurried to pick up the lekythoi and left Protomakhos’ courtyard not so much to escape it as to get away from Kleokritos.

“You boys have more nerve than I would,” Protomakhos said once Kleokritos was gone, too. “I wouldn’t risk offending Demetrios of Phaleron.”

“I like that.” Sostratos’ voice cracked in indignation. “His man tries to cheat us, but we’re the ones who have to worry about offending him. Where’s the justice in that?”

“He’s not talking about justice, my dear. He’s talking about power,” Menedemos said. “In a polis like this, they come from different places. You ought to know that-you lived here for a while.”

“It’s good to see one of you understands, anyhow,” the proxenos said. “Walk soft. If you get in trouble with Demetrios, I won’t be able to do much for you.”

“We’ll be careful,” Menedemos said, thinking, He doesn’t know about Xenokleia, or he wouldn’t want to warn me. He knew which upstairs window looked out from her bedroom. He carefully didn’t glance that way. No point making Protomakhos suspicious when he wasn’t already. Sostratos’ gaze held irony. Menedemos pretended not to notice.

“You’ll probably get away with this without anyone saying a word,” Protomakhos said.

“Because we’re right?” Sostratos asked.

“No-I already told you that’s got nothing to do with it,” Protomakhos answered. “But you’re Rhodians. Ptolemaios doesn’t want to offend Rhodes, Kassandros doesn’t want to offend Ptolemaios, and Demetrios of Phaleron won’t do anything to offend Kassandros. If you came from Samos or Mytilene or some other place Antigonos holds, you’d be wise to get out of Athens before Kleokritos and Demetrios could take their revenge, for they would.”

“Power again,” Sostratos murmured. Protomakhos dipped his head. Menedemos eyed Sostratos with a mix of respect and pity. His cousin could learn, and learn quickly. But he had to reason everything out, one step at a time. He seldom used his heart or his belly to gauge how things worked. It had to be his mind or nothing.

“Tomorrow,” Menedemos said, “tomorrow I’ll take a couple of jars of perfume into the agora and I’ll start shouting about how wonderful it is. Some of the better hetairai are bound to have slaves out shopping for them. Once a slave girl gets a sniff, she’ll take word back to her mistress. Then I’ll see if I can do business with her.”

The Rhodian proxenos laughed. “What sort of business do you aim to do?” He gestured lewdly.

“Don’t you start, if you please,” Menedemos said. “Sostratos was giving me a hard time about taking it out in trade, too.”

“I don’t want you giving the hetairai a hard time,” Sostratos said, “at least not in exchange for the firm’s merchandise. If you’re going to be firm, do it on your own time and pay for it.”

Protomakhos winced, though he was the one who’d started the puns. I won’t have to pay for it if I do it with a wife and not a hetaira, Menedemos thought. But, with Xenokleia the wife in question, that was much better left unspoken.

Turning to Sostratos, Protomakhos asked, “And what will you be doing while your cousin’s out having a good time?”

“I’ve still got truffles to sell, and I’ve got the Byblian and Lesbian,” Sostratos answered. “I think the first thing to do is try to sell the wine to some of Kassandros’ Macedonian officers. Everybody knows how thirsty Macedonians are, and everybody knows how much money they’ve got, too.”

The proxenos chuckled. “That’s a good combination, all right. I wish you both good fortune, and you”-he pointed to Menedemos- “can take that any way you please.”

“I know I can sell perfume,” Menedemos said. “Whether I get to do any buying…” He shrugged. “I’ll find out.”

“You two won’t need the scales any more, will you?” As Protomakhos had a moment before, he used the dual number in referring to Menedemos and Sostratos. That grammatical form was common in Homer’s Greek, much less so in modern Attic. By using it, Protomakhos implied the Rhodians were a natural pair. Menedemos’ eyes flicked toward Sostratos. Sostratos was looking his way, too. Both of them, evidently, were trying to decide whether they wanted to be part of such a pair.

Distracted, Menedemos had to make himself remember the question. “No, O best one. We do thank you for the use of them, though.”

“I ought to charge you the extra you got from Kleokritos as commission.” Protomakhos smiled to show he didn’t mean that seriously.

“Take it,” Menedemos said at once. “You’ve shown us all sorts of kindnesses. The least we can do is pay you back a little.” Sostratos looked wounded, but set his face to rights so quickly that Menedemos didn’t think the proxenos noticed. Menedemos knew his cousin had less simple generosity than he did himself: one more thing that made Sostratos a good toikharkhos.

Protomakhos, meanwhile, tossed his head. “No, no. That’s kind of you, but I couldn’t possibly. I’m here to help you Rhodians, not to take your money.”

Menedemos didn’t insist. That might have offended the proxenos. He resolved to do something nice for Protomakhos before leaving Athens. After all, his wife has done something nice for me.

Now Menedemos let his eyes slide across the windows of the upper story. He didn’t linger at the one belonging to Xenokleia’s bedchamber. He knew better than to do anything so foolish. He hoped Xenokleia knew how to keep her mouth shut-and how to keep her demeanor from giving anything away, too. Life would get more difficult if she didn’t. He tried not to contemplate how much more difficult it might get. Sostratos was also better than he at brooding over things that might go wrong.

No disaster had struck by the time the two Rhodians set out the next morning. “Have fun in the agora,” Sostratos told Menedemos.

“People would talk if I did it there,” Menedemos replied. Sostratos spluttered and choked, spraying watered wine. Protomakhos laughed out loud.

When Sostratos could speak again, he said, “You’re trying to sell to hetairai, and I to Macedonian officers. I may make more money, but you’ll have more fun.”

“You never can tell,” Protomakhos said. “Some of those Macedonians are as wide-arsed as any Athenian effeminate.”

“I’m sorry, best one,” Sostratos said. “No matter what a Macedonian officer’s idea of fun may be, no Macedonian officer is mine.”

Menedemos made his way to the agora through morning twilight. He didn’t have a stall, of course, or even a tray slung around his neck to hold his goods. He did have lots of little jars of perfume in a leather sack, a brash manner, and a loud voice-and he got there early enough to stake out a spot by the Street of the Panathenaia, where lots of people would surely pass by.

The sun touched the buildings of the akropolis-and, to the north, the top of the hill called Lykabettos. That one was sharp and conical and useless as a fortress, or for anything else Menedemos could see. For that matter, the akropolis itself couldn’t come close to sheltering all the people of Athens, not any more. In the old days, he supposed it might have.

He reached into the sack and pulled out a jar. “Fine perfume from Rhodes!” he called. Selling this, his Doric drawl wouldn’t hurt him. “Sweet-smelling rose perfume from Rhodes, the island of roses!”

A woman with the rough hands and bent back of a laundress said, “Can I have a sniff?” He yanked out the stopper. Sniff she did, and then smiled. She asked, “How much do you want for a tiny little jar like that?” She knew how to haggle-the first thing she did was disparage Menedemos’ goods.

He told her.

Her jaw dropped. After that moment of astonishment, she got angry. “You’re having me on!” she said, and shook a fist in his face. He wouldn’t have wanted to brawl with her; she looked formidable. “I don’t make that much money in a month!”

“I’m sorry, my dear, but that is the price,” Menedemos said.

“Then you’re a polluted thief!” she exclaimed.

He tossed his head. He didn’t want her saying that. “No, indeed,” he told her, “for this jar”-he balanced it on the palm of his hand- “holds a lot of labor. The roses have to be grown and picked, the sweet-smelling petals plucked, the lot of them boiled down into an essence and mixed with fine oil-I don’t know all the details, for the perfumers keep them secret. But I do know that everyone who does that labor has to be paid, too, and that’s what you see in the price I charge.”

She didn’t call him a liar. She did say, “It’s a cursed shame when honest folk can’t afford something nice, I’ll tell you that. Who’s going to buy at your price? Those bastards who run the polis and suck our blood, that’s who, them and brothelkeepers and fancy whores. Furies take the lot of ‘em, and you, too.” She flounced off without giving Menedemos a chance to answer.

He didn’t know what he could have said to her. The people she’d named were the ones who could afford what he was selling. Hetairai weren’t exactly whores-they entertained the men they chose, not the men who chose them-but their entertainment involved, or could involve, going to bed with their clients, so they weren’t exactly not whores, either.

Oh, rich merchants could buy perfume, too. On the one hand, though, how likely were they to be honest? And, on the other, they were more likely to buy it for hetairai than for their wives. Wives would always be there. A man had to work to make a hetaira want to stay with him. He had to work, and he had to spend silver.

“Perfume!” Menedemos called again. As the sun lit up the market square, more and more people came in. “Fine perfume from Rhodes, the island of roses! Sweet perfume no sweet woman should be without!”

Another woman who’d plainly lived a hardscrabble life-and, after all, what other sort would be out shopping for herself?-asked him what he wanted for his wares. He gave her the same answer he’d given the laundress. She squalled louder than if he’d hiked up his chiton and waggled his private parts in her face. There were men who did that sort of thing to amuse themselves. Menedemos thought it was in poor taste, but what could you do?

Yet another woman came up to him, this one dressed in a long tunic of fine white wool. “Hail,” she said. “May I smell your perfume?” Her Greek held a faint accent.

“Of course,” he answered politely. She looked and sounded like the slave of someone prosperous-exactly the sort of person he was looking for. He pulled out the stopper and held the jar out to her.

She leaned forward. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled. “Oh, yes,” she said softly. “That is very fine. What price do you ask?” When he told her, she didn’t flinch. “Let me speak to my owner. She may well buy. Stay here. I will return.”

“Who is your owner, sweetheart?” Menedemos asked.

“Her name is Potheine, Rhodian,” the slave woman said. “If you came from Athens, you would know the rich and famous men who have had her as their companion.” Companion was what hetaira had first meant; the masculine form of the word, hetairos, still did mean that and nothing more. In the feminine, there were companions… and then there were companions.

Menedemos asked, “And who are you?” Showing he cared about a slave might make her urge his case more strongly to her mistress.

“Me?” She seemed surprised at the question. “They call me Threitta here.” That was Attic for Thracian. She wasn’t redheaded like the slave in Sostratos’ household, but, with light brown hair and hazel eyes, she was fairer than most Hellenes.

“Well, Threitta, I hope you hurry to your famous mistress for me,” Menedemos said. To make sure she did hurry, he gave her three oboloi. He asked for nothing in return-not a kiss, not a promise that the girl would urge the hetaira to buy the perfume. He’d found a free gift usually worked better than one where the dangling strings were obvious.

The slave girl took the little silver coins and hesitated, waiting for him to tell her what he wanted. When he said nothing more, she stuck the coins in her mouth. “You have an interesting way of doing business,” she remarked.

“Thank you,” Menedemos said, though he wasn’t sure that was praise. Threitta nodded-which would have proved she wasn’t a Hellene born, had he had any doubts-and vanished into the still-swelling crowd in the agora. Menedemos tried to keep track of her, but it was like trying to keep track of one raindrop in a storm. He blinked, and then he couldn’t find her any more.

He went back to calling about the perfume and its virtues. Threitta might not be-probably wasn’t-the only hetaira’s slave in the market square this morning. Menedemos didn’t much care to whom he sold perfume. He cared only about selling it and getting his price.

By the time Threitta came back, he had sold a jar to a plump man who insisted so loudly that he was buying it for his wife, he convinced Menedemos he was lying through his teeth. Some people never did figure out that the best way to lie was not to trumpet the untruth all over the landscape but to pass it off lightly or, indeed, to keep quiet about it. Why should I care who gets the perfume? Menedemos thought. It’s not my business, or it wouldn’t have been unless that fool made it so.

When Threitta returned to the agora, Menedemos didn’t notice her till she’d got within a few paces of him. He had an excuse: her companion drew all eyes his way. The blond, long-mustached Kelt was taller than Sostratos, handsome, wide-shouldered, narrow-waisted: he looked like a pankratiast, or perhaps more like a demigod. His eyes were the color of Egyptian emeralds. He stared through Menedemos as if the Rhodian didn’t exist.

“Hail,” Menedemos said to Threitta. “Who’s your… friend?”

“Bolgios is Potheine’s body-servant,” she answered.

I’ll bet he is. That’s quite a body. Menedemos didn’t say it, though it quivered on the tip of his tongue. “I see,” was all that came out.

Threitta went on, “He has the money for you. My mistress wants five jars of perfume.”

Sure enough, Bolgios thrust out a fat leather sack that clinked when Menedemos took it. The Kelt’s hand, the back of it thatched with little hairs like wires of finest gold, was as enormous as every other part of him. It could have swallowed Menedemos’, as a father’s swallows that of his toddler son when they go walking together. No one would have dreamt of robbing such a brute.

“Let me count the silver,” Menedemos said. The bag felt as if it held about the right amount of silver-just under two minai.

Bolgios’ eyes flashed green fire. “Are you after calling my mistress a cheat, now?” he asked: a musically accented snarl.

Menedemos quailed before few men. If he said yes to that, though, he knew the barbarian would tear him limb from limb. “By no means,” he answered, as politely as he could. “But anyone can make a mistake. There might even be an owl or two too many in here. I don’t want anything that shouldn’t be mine, but I do want everything that should.”

Bolgios stood there, considering. At last, grudgingly, he nodded. Yes, he’d wanted to wreak a little havoc. Now he had to accept the idea that he wouldn’t get the chance. “You speak as a proper man might,” he allowed. “Count the silver.”

Menedemos did, making piles of coins, ten drakhmai to the pile. “It is as it should be,” he said at last, and hoped he didn’t sound too relieved.

“He gets nothing above what he should?” Bolgios asked Threitta. Maybe the Kelt didn’t know how much Potheine was supposed to pay. Maybe he just had trouble counting.

“No.” The Thracian woman shook her head. “All’s well.” Bolgios grunted. That all was well plainly disappointed him.

“Here is the perfume.” Menedemos handed Threitta the little jars. “I hope your mistress has pleasure from them.” He smiled his most charming smile. “If I could, I would like to meet her and thank her for her business.”

“She is not looking for clients now,” Threitta said. “She has all she needs.”

And she had Bolgios. When Menedemos made his request, the barbarian stiffened. Menedemos could almost see the hair rise at the back of his neck, as it might have on a dog just before the beast bit. Was Bolgios sleeping with Potheine? Menedemos couldn’t tell. Was he jealous of any other man who did? Of that the Rhodian had not the slightest doubt. He didn’t try to sweeten Threitta and get her to change her mind, as he might have done if she’d come back to the agora by herself.

She and the enormous Kelt went off side by side. Thanks to Bolgios’ height and bright blond head, Menedemos had no trouble tracking them as they wandered through the market square. Again, he wasn’t the only one following Bolgios with his eyes. An elephant parading through the agora might have drawn more attention. Then again, it might not.

Gathering himself, Menedemos took up his call again: “Fine perfume from Rhodes, the island of roses! Perfume fit for Athens’ finest hetairai!” He didn’t know Potheine was one of those, but anybody who’d been able to buy Bolgios couldn’t be poor. He sold several more jars before the day was done. Maybe that extra line he’d tacked on to the pitch helped.