Owls to Athens

8

Sostratos had never thought he’d be caught in the storming of a city. He looked around for some place where he and Menedemos might hide-looked around and saw nothing. He didn’t want to break and run. That would draw the invaders’ attention to him, and they were all too likely to serve him as they’d served Kassandros’ officers.

Some people did run away. Demetrios son of Antigonos’ soldiers didn’t pursue them. And some people came pelting down toward the wharves to find out what was going on. Even more than most Hellenes, Athenians were insatiably curious.

One of the war galleys, a great fearsome six, drew near the shore. A very tall man wearing a gilded, high-crested helm, a gilded corselet, and a crimson-dyed cape draped over his back stood near the bow. Sostratos pointed toward him. “That has to be Demetrios,” he said.

“I don’t know if it has to be, but I’d think it probably is,” Menedemos answered.

“His father is supposed to be a big man. His cousin Polemaios was a big man. We saw that when he was aboard the Aphrodite a couple of years ago. It must run in the family,” Sostratos said. “And besides, who else but Demetrios would wear such a fancy outfit?”

Closer and closer came the war galley, till it was within easy bowshot of the shore. Sostratos wondered if it would run aground. Demetrios’ soldiers formed a perimeter along the shoreline to keep anyone from coming too close, but a good archer could have shot at the ship from beyond it. He could have, that is, if he’d found room to draw his bow. The crowd of gawkers grew thicker by the minute. Sostratos and Menedemos both used their elbows to keep from getting squashed together like olives in brine.

The man at the bow of the six waited a few minutes more, to let the crowd build further. Then he cupped both hands in front of his mouth and called, “Hail, people of Athens! Hail, free people of Athens. I am Demetrios son of Antigonos.”

“Told you so,” Sostratos whispered.

“Hush,” Menedemos whispered back, and Sostratos did.

Demetrios dropped his hands for a moment to gaze out at the Athenians, and to let them see him. The war galley was close enough to the shore for him to show off not only his size but also his good looks. He was about Sostratos’ age, ruddy like so many men from the north, with a long, straight nose and a forward-thrusting chin.

“Hail!” he said once more, in a ringing baritone. “My father has sent me here on what we both hope will be a mission that makes you Athenians happy. What I aim to do is very simple. T aim to set the city free, to throw Kassandros’ garrison out of Mounykhia, and to give you back your own laws and your old constitution. And, by Athena, that’s all I aim to do.”

He stopped. He waited. The Athenians looked at one another. A quick gabble of conversation broke out. A few people said that couldn’t possibly be all Demetrios and Antigonos wanted from Athens. More, though, burst into delighted cheers. “Euge for Demetrios!” they shouted, and, “To the crows with Demetrios of Phaleron!” and, “Furies take Kassandros and all who follow him!” Some few of them had brought weapons. They threw them down now, in token of surrender.

Out on the galley, Demetrios raised a hand. “Men of Athens, I promise I will not set foot in your polis until Kassandros’ garrison is gone. I hope and expect it will be soon, for I have wanted to see Athens for many years.”

Cheers rang out, and more shouts of praise for Demetrios. Out of the side of his mouth, Sostratos said, “He may not come into Athens himself till then, but you notice he didn’t say anything about his soldiers.”

“Oh, yes,” Menedemos replied. “I’m just glad you were selling ink to some fellow who fancies himself a poet, and not wine or truffles to Kassandros’ officers over at their fortress. You’d be trapped there if you were.”

“Oimoi!” Sostratos exclaimed. “I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right.”

Demetrios shouted, “Let word go into the city-in fact, I will send it-that I would speak with whatever representative Demetrios of Phaleron will send to me. For he must surely see that his time in Athens is past, that the polis now lies in my hands, and that I will liberate it in accordance with my father’s orders.”

“Let’s take care of our business here and then get back up to Athens as fast as we can,” Sostratos said. “I don’t know if we’ll have the chance much longer.”

“That makes more sense than I wish it did,” Menedemos said. “I hope Demetrios’ men don’t take it into their heads to plunder the Aphrodite.”

“How do you propose to stop them if they do?” Sostratos asked bleakly.

“We can’t,” his cousin replied, which was exactly what Sostratos thought. “That’s why I hope they don’t.”

The two Rhodians hurried to the merchant galley. When they got there, they found the normally unflappable Diokles in a fragile state. “By the gods, young sirs, when I saw those soldiers on the quays, I thought we were going to be somebody’s opson. Maybe I’m wrong, I hope I am. But…” He shuddered. “Those were a bad few minutes there till Demetrios started talking. The Athenians ate that up, didn’t they? He can charm the birds right out of the trees.”

“Sooner or later, though, we’ll find out whether he’s telling the truth,” Sostratos said.

“There is that,” the oarmaster agreed. “What do we do now? Sit tight and hope he is?”

That was Menedemos’ decision, not Sostratos’. “Yes, I think we do,” Menedemos answered. “We’d have to leave more than half the crew behind if we try to sneak out now, and who knows if Demetrios’ fleet will let anybody leave? If he was telling even part of the truth, we’ll be all right.”

“If anybody does give us trouble, we should shout out at the top of our lungs that we’re Rhodians,” Sostratos said. “Plundering Athenians is one thing for Demetrios’ men-up till now, Athens has been on Kassandros’ side, and Kassandros and Antigonos are enemies. But Rhodes is a neutral. Demetrios has to be-well, he’d better be, if he’s smart-leery about offending her.”

Menedemos dipped his head. “Right you are, best one! That makes good sense, and I’m not sure I would have thought of it myself.”

“We’ve got a toikharkhos with a good head on his shoulders,” Diokles said. Sostratos grinned; Diokles’ good opinion mattered to him. Then he remembered that Theophrastos had said the same thing. The philosopher’s good opinion mattered to him, too. Did it matter much more than the keleustes’? Sostratos tossed his head. If that didn’t show how much he’d changed since his student days, he couldn’t imagine what would.

He got the ink, and helped Menedemos carry the jars of crimson dye to Adrastos’ shop. Menedemos took the dyer’s money without counting it. Showing silver now could be dangerous.

“Let’s head back up to the city,” Sostratos said. “The farther away from all these soldiers we get, the better I’ll like it.” His cousin was in many ways a daredevil. Sostratos wanted to throttle Menedemos for taking up with their host’s wife. He seemed to have got away with it, but what if Xenokleia had gone straight to Protomakhos after his first advances toward her? Trouble, that was what. And what if her baby ended up looking like Menedemos? Trouble again, perhaps, though not till the next visit to Athens. But Menedemos showed no desire to play dangerous games with Demetrios’ soldiers. For that, at least, Sostratos was grateful.

Back toward Athens they went. The way up to the city was more crowded than Sostratos had ever seen it. He wasn’t surprised. He and Menedemos couldn’t have been the only ones who wanted to get away from the newly arrived Macedonians. Demetrios’ name was on everyone’s lips. Somewhere up in front of them was the dividing line between people who knew Antigonos’ son was seizing control of the harbors of Athens and those who didn’t. As traders traveling from city to city, Sostratos and Menedemos had often been news-b ringers, on the very edge between those who knew and those who wanted to find out. Not today; their stop at Adrastos’ had let others get ahead.

They hadn’t gone far before hoofbeats thundered behind them. Raucous voices shouted, “Make way! Make way for the envoys of Demetrios son of Antigonos!” The cavalrymen raced past at a fast trot. At that rate, they might get to Athens before any of the people on foot.

Menedemos sighed as the horses went by. “I wish I’d done more riding,” he said.

“Not me.” As far as Sostratos was concerned, that was as much daredeviltry as his cousin’s taste for sleeping with other men’s wives. “I may admire a man who can stay on a horse’s back, but that doesn’t mean I want to imitate him very often. It’s a long way down, the ground is hard, and what have you got to hold on with? Your knees. No, thanks.”

“You were the one who hired a donkey to go exploring when we were in Italy,” Menedemos pointed out.

“That was a donkey,” Sostratos said, nobly resisting the temptation to add, And you’re another one. “It was small, and I’m pretty large. My feet were almost dragging in the dust when I got astride it. It walked. It didn’t trot or gallop.”

“And besides, you were curious then,” Menedemos said. Sostratos didn’t dignify that with a reply, especially since it was true.

On they went. Sweat poured off Sostratos; he wished he’d drunk some wine, or even water, before setting out from Peiraieus. Who could guess what Demetrios’ men were doing back there, though? He looked over his shoulder. No great cloud of black smoke rose into the sky. They hadn’t started burning for the sport of it, anyhow. Demetrios had said he’d come to liberate Athens. Of course, the difference between what a general said and what he did was all too often enormous.

Sostratos and Menedemos had almost got back to Athens when they saw Demetrios’ horsemen again, this time coming the other way. Along with the soldiers rode a worried-looking civilian who looked none too happy on horseback, Sostratos caught a snatch of conversation: a cavalryman said, “Don’t worry, O best one. I’m sure we’ll work something out.”

“I wonder what that means,” Menedemos said.

“Maybe Demetrios son of Antigonos hasn’t got a Persian torturer waiting for Demetrios of Phaleron after all,” Sostratos replied.

“Maybe.” Menedemos laughed a nasty laugh. “Or maybe he wants Demetrios of Phaleron to think he hasn’t got a torturer waiting for him.”

“It could be,” Sostratos admitted. “The Macedonians play the game for keeps, Kassandros has had it all his own way here in Athens for a long time, and so has Demetrios of Phaleron. If the other Demetrios has trouble finding reasons to give him a hard time, I’m sure plenty of Athenians could suggest some.”

Once the Rhodians got into the city, Sostratos found out how right he was. Athens bubbled like grape juice fermenting into wine. For ten years, people had had to keep quiet about what they thought. That was what tyranny did. It had been a genteel tyranny, but tyranny it was nonetheless. Now…,

Now, going through the city toward Protomakhos’ house, Sostratos heard a lot of what people must have been thinking and not saying. “Furies take Demetrios!” was popular. So was, “To the crows with Demetrios!” Someone said, “One of Demetrios’ pals cheated me on a house. I couldn’t do anything about it for a long time, but I’ll get even now.” Somebody else added, “There’s a lot of polluted villains who’d better run before we catch ‘em and hamstring ‘em!” Maybe he was speaking metaphorically. On the other hand, maybe he wasn’t. Had Sostratos been a man who’d enriched himself during Demetrios of Phaleron’s years in power, he didn’t believe he would have cared to linger in Athens to find out.

No matter who ruled Athens, business had to go on. Menedemos went back down to Peiraieus the day after Demetrios son of Antigonos’ men took the port, to make sure the Aphrodite stayed safe. “No trouble here, skipper,” Diokles reported. “The soldiers are under good discipline, and they aren’t plundering.”

“That’s a relief,” Menedemos said, and brought some more perfume up into Athens.

He was haggling with a hetaira’s slave in the agora the following day when a single sentence swept across the market square: “He’s gone!”

“Demetrios of Phaleron?” Menedemos asked.

“Couldn’t be anyone else,” the slave woman answered. She was middle-aged and plain, but her face glowed. “Maybe things will be better here now.”

“I hope so,” Menedemos said, thinking, On the other hand, maybe they won’t. He muttered to himself. That was something more likely to occur to Sostratos. But nobody who’d watched Alexander’s Macedonian marshals bang one another back and forth had an easy time believing any one of them could solve a polis’ problems just by appearing and snapping his fingers. However much they wanted to be, the marshals weren’t gods. About Alexander himself, Menedemos wasn’t so sure.

As he and the slave went on dickering, details followed that first exciting breath of rumor. From what people said, Demetrios son of Antigonos had granted Demetrios of Phaleron a safe-conduct up to the border of Boiotia, which remained in Kassandros’ hands.

“Too bad,” the woman said. “I wanted him up on a cross.”

“What did he do to you?” Menedemos asked.

“Oh, he didn’t do anything to me,” she answered. “But he’s been sucking up to the Macedonians for years, and I’m sick of it.”

“I see,” Menedemos said. “But isn’t Demetrios son of Antigonos a Macedonian, too?”

“Well, what if he is?” the slave woman asked in return. “He said we’re going to be free, so of course I’d rather see him than Demetrios of Phaleron.”

She herself was unlikely to be free no matter which Demetrios called the shots in Athens. Would the polis be free? She certainly seemed to think so. By the excited chattering all around, so did a lot of the Athenians. To Menedemos, their optimism only proved they hadn’t been free for a long time, and weren’t very good at gauging what promises were worth. Demetrios son of Antigonos would promise anything to win the Athenians over, just as Menedemos might to coax a girl into bed. Delivering afterwards? That was liable to be a different story.

Menedemos shrugged. The only thing he could do now was try to stay out of the way of Macedonian soldiers, no matter which marshal they claimed as their master. He went back to haggling with the slave woman. At last, they reached a price that satisfied both of them. She went off to get the silver from her mistress.

She came back with it herself, instead of bringing along an enormous Keltic body servant. Menedemos thought that wise. Before long, soldiers loyal to Demetrios son of Antigonos would be coming into the agora. They were liable to react to an enormous Kelt the way hounds reacted to a boar.

Sure enough, Demetrios’ soldiers did enter the agora later that afternoon. They seemed more travelers than warriors, though. Some of them gaped at the buildings lining the south and west sides of the market square. Others craned their necks to peer up at the even more magnificent buildings of the akropolis. A whiff of panic swept through the agora when they first appeared. As soon as the merchants found out they weren’t intent on rapine and murder, the panic blew away. The Athenians started trying to sell them things instead.

So did Menedemos. He held up one of his little jars. “Perfume! Fine perfume from Rhodes, island of roses! Make some Athenian girl glad to see you when you give her perfume!”

A soldier came over to him, “How much?” he asked. Menedemos told him. He scowled, then tossed his head. “You’ve got to be joking, pal. I can pay a platoon of Athenian girls to be glad to see me for that kind of money.”

“Ah, but the ones you get with this are worth a platoon of the ordinary sort,” Menedemos said.

“Some are better in bed than others, sure,” the soldier said, “but none of ‘em’s that much better,” Menedemos did not make a sale.

When he got back to Protomakhos’ house as the sun was going down, he found Sostratos had news: “They’ve dug a trench around the fortress in Mounykhia. None of Kassandros’ men gets out,”

“You think the fortress will fall?” Menedemos asked.

“I don’t see how it can do anything else,” his cousin answered. “No sign of Demetrios son of Antigonos in Athens yet, either. Maybe he does keep promises. Wouldn’t that be strange?”

“I wish he would come,” Menedemos said. “We’ve still got some wine and truffles and perfume left. He’s Antigonos^’ son. He can’t be poor. Maybe he’ll buy things now that the other Demetrios has fled.”

“Maybe he will, or maybe his officers will,” Sostratos said. “I certainly hope so. Right at the moment, they’re besieging some of our best

customers.”

“Rude of them, isn’t it?” Menedemos remarked.

Sostratos raised an eyebrow. “That’s one way to put it, yes.”

The Rhodians kept trying to do business in Athens, but nobody seemed eager to spend much silver-or perhaps to show much silver- till people saw what sort of master Demetrios son of Antigonos would make. The siege of the fortress at Mounykhia went on. Every so often, a few men came in or went out during brief truces. People said Dionysios, the commander, was dickering with Demetrios over surrender terms. Menedemos had no idea how the people who said that knew it, but say it they did.

Demetrios didn’t need all the soldiers he’d brought along to maintain the siege. He sent others west to Megara, to take that polis away from Kassandros. In the earlier days of Hellas, Megara was a prominent polis, but the rise of Athens eclipsed it. Its walls didn’t hold Demetrios’ men out for long. Only pleas from Athens to spare a former rival kept the city from being plundered.

Protomakhos, who brought word of that to Menedemos and Sostratos, went on, “Demetrios has some sense of what looks good in the eyes of Hellenes. That’s probably why he spared the place,”

“That’s more than his father does,” Sostratos said. “Antigonos is like a shark. He’ll bite off your leg first and worry about what you think of it later.”

“So I’ve heard,” Protomakhos agreed. “But Demetrios is smoother than that. He asked Stilpon the Megaran philosopher if any of his men had robbed him, and Stilpon answered, ‘No, I haven’t seen anybody carrying away any knowledge,’”

Menedemos and Sostratos laughed. Menedemos said, “Demetrios didn’t stop all the plundering, from what I’ve heard. His men might have left the Megarans their immovable property, but they did steal most of the slaves in the town, maybe for themselves, maybe to resell to dealers.”

“I heard the same thing,” the Rhodian proxenos said. “As Demetrios was heading out of Megara, he told Stilpon, ‘I leave this a city of free men.’ And StOpon answered, ‘I should say you do, for you’ve taken all our slaves.’”

“Talking back to the man who’s just captured your city takes nerve,” Menedemos said. Protomakhos dipped his head.

Sostratos asked, “If Demetrios has left Megara, where’s he going?”

“That I don’t know,” Protomakhos answered, “Wherever he can give his foes-and his father’s-the most trouble, is my guess.”

But that guess proved wide of the target. Sostratos was the one who found out what Antigonos’ son had been up to after leaving Megara. A few days after Protomakhos brought the news of Demetrios’ departure, Sostratos said, “He’s gone to Patrai, or rather, just outside of Patrai.”

“To Patrai!” Protomakhos exclaimed. “That’s well west of Corinth, isn’t it?-on the north coast of the Peloponnesos. What made him go there?”

“Not ‘what,’ O best one-’who,’” Sostratos answered. Something in his voice made Menedemos look up sharply. His cousin wasn’t looking his way, but out of the andron and across the courtyard. Still, Menedemos sensed that Sostraios was really talking to him as he continued, “It seems Kratesipolis invited him to pay her a call.”

Menedemos knew the name. Still, he thought it best to let Protomakhos be the one who responded. Respond the Rhodian proxenos did; “The woman who was ruling Sikyon, not far from Patrai, not long ago?”

“That’s the one.” Sostratos dipped his head. “She’s the widow of Alexandras son of Polyperkhon, and she’s still supposed to be a famous beauty.”

“Polyperkhon didn’t amount to much, did he?” Menedemos remarked. No one could possibly have argued with him; the Macedonian officer, a man of the generation of Antigonos and, indeed, of Philip of Macedon, had ruled varying chunks of Hellas since not long after the death of Alexander the Great, but he’d never managed to make himself a major player in the wars of the Macedonian marshals.

“No, my dear, but the story’s about his daughter-in-law-and about Demetrios,” Sostratos said. “He went after her like a hound after a hare. He dashed off to Patrai with just a few officers, and when he got there he set up his tent well apart from theirs. He wanted to have a… private visit with Kratesipolis.”

“He’s a young man, isn’t he? The age of you two Rhodians, more or less?” Protomakhos chuckled reminiscently. “When you’re that age, a lot of the time, your spear stands and you just have to flesh it in piggy-or you think you do, anyhow.”

Now Menedemos was the one who gazed out at the courtyard as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world. If Protomakhos suspected… But he didn’t seem to. Sostratos’ voice still held that sharp edge as he went on, “Demetrios almost paid for his folly with his neck, too. Some of Kassandros’ men got word he was there, and he barely escaped them when they came to call.”

The story wasn’t about adultery. How could it be, with Kratesipolis a widow? But it was about a man doing something stupid on account of a woman and almost dying on account of it. Just for a heartbeat, Menedemos’ gaze flicked toward Sostratos. His cousin looked almost indecently smug. Yes, he’d enjoyed telling it, sure enough.

Blind-fortunately-to the byplay, Protomakhos said, “Maybe Demetrios has learned his lesson. Maybe he’ll come back here and finish off the siege down at Mounykhia. By Zeus, I hope so. Business won’t get back to normal till he does.”

“I hope he does, too,” Sostratos said. “But somebody who’s mad for women like that, he’s liable to keep right on doing crazy things as long as he lives.” No, he wasn’t looking at Menedemos. But he was talking to him.

“Well, I won’t say you’re wrong,” Protomakhos replied. “Whether he’s mad for women or not, though, the way he got into our harbors shows he’s a pretty good general.”

“That’s true,” Sostratos said. “The way he relieved Ptolemaios’ siege of Halikarnassos a couple of years ago, too.”

He got in another jab there, though again not one Protomakhos would notice. Menedemos couldn’t think of Halikarnassos without thinking of the trouble he’d wound up in there on account of that merchant’s wife. He glanced over to Sostratos once more. His cousin had had things all his own way lately when it came to giving. Menedemos knew that was his own fault; his affair with Xenokleia had given Sostratos plenty of openings. But that didn’t mean Menedemos wouldn’t enjoy revenge. Oh, no, it didn’t mean that at all.

Demetrios’ men pummeled the fortress at Mounykhia with dart- and stone-throwing engines. Trapped inside the fort, Dionysios and the garrison fought back as well as they could. But they were badly outnumbered, and the catapults made going up on the battlements worth a man’s life. A few days after Megara fell, Demetrios’ men stormed the stronghold. The Macedonians inside threw down their weapons when they saw they couldn’t hold off their foes; Demetrios’ soldiers took Dionysios alive.

And then, instead of garrisoning the fortress at Mounykhia themselves, Demetrios’ men started tearing it down. That impressed Sostratos more than anything else they’d done. “Maybe Demetrios really means it when he says he wants Athens to be free and independent,” he remarked at supper the day after the fortress fell. “Who would have believed that?”

“Not me,” Protomakhos said, nibbling at an eel. “I just thought we’d go from one foreign overlord to the next. How about you, Menedemos?”

“Me? I just hope we’ll be able to get some business done now,” Menedemos said. “I let Sostratos worry about the political side of things. He’s the one who enjoys fretting over things he can’t change.”

That held more venom than Menedemos usually used to charge his words. Sostratos wondered what he’d done to irritate his cousin. He couldn’t think of anything. He’d just been himself… hadn’t he?

Before he could fix on anything he might have done, Protomakhos said, “They say Demetrios will finally enter the city day after tomorrow to address the Assembly and make everything official.’’

This time, Sostratos didn’t quibble about what they, whoever they were, might say. What the proxenos reported sounded too likely for him to quarrel with it. Sostratos did ask, “Is there any way a foreigner could join the Assembly when Demetrios speaks to it? I’d love to hear that with my own ears.”

“I doubt they’ll be taking roll, not for a meeting like this,” Protomakhos replied.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Sostratos said eagerly. “Want to come, Menedemos?” He tried to sound as friendly as he could.

His cousin started to toss his head, but then shrugged instead. “Well, why not?” he said. “A lot of the people I’d want to see would be at the meeting anyhow.”

The Assembly met in the theater, not far from Protomakhos’ house. The proxenos and the two Rhodians left his home early, as they’d done to see the tragedies and comedies. Even so, the theater was already more than half full by the time they got there. For one thing, admission to the Assembly was free. For another, after so long obeying Demetrios of Phaleron and, through him, Kassandros, the Athenians seemed eager to reclaim their freedom. That struck Sostratos as a good omen.

As the dawn brightened and the sun finally rose, a man strode importantly across the stage. People pointed at him and exclaimed to one another. Sostratos nudged Protomakhos. “Who is that? I don’t recognize him.”

“That’s Stratokles, by Zeus,” Protomakhos answered. “Demetrios could have started better.”

“Why?” Sostratos pricked up his ears at the hint of scandal. “Who is he? What has he done?”

“He’s a debauched, arrogant buffoon,” Protomakhos said. “He played at politics before Demetrios of Phaleron’s day, and none too well. He used to keep a hetaira named Phylakion. One day she brought back some neck bones and brains from the agora for a supper, and Stratokles said, ‘Here are the things we political men play ball with.’”

Sostratos made a disgusted noise. Menedemos said, “Lovely fellow!”

“Isn’t he?” Protomakhos dipped his head. “And then there was the time the year after Alexander died, when the Macedonians beat our fleet off Amorgos. Stratokles got word of the sea fight first somehow, and told everyone it was a victory. He put on a garland and proposed a sacrifice to the gods and a distribution of the meat. Then a couple of days later the truth reached the polis. Everyone started cursing him, and he said, ‘Why blame me when I made you happy for two days?’”

“Lovely fellow indeed,” Sostratos said.

He would have said more than that, but Stratokles spoke then; “Men of Athens, it is my great privilege to present to you our liberator from years of loathsome tyranny, Demetrios son of Antigonos!” He might have been a rogue, but he owned a ringing baritone voice that filled the theater without effort.

Demetrios came out to stand beside him. They made an odd pair, for the Athenian was short and squat, while Demetrios, who had a godlike physique, towered head and shoulders above him. “Hail, people of Athens!” he said, and his voice also outdid Stratokles’. “Antigonos, my father, is concerned for the freedom and autonomy of all poleis of Hellas, and especially for those of Athens, the greatest and most famous polis of them all.”

That won him a warm round of applause. The Athenians were no more immune than anyone else to hearing themselves praised. Demetrios went on, “This being so, my father has ordered me to restore to you your ancient democratic constitution, which tyrants have trampled on for far too long.”

More applause, a great roar of it. Sostratos clapped his hands along with the rest. He lived in a democratic city, and thought well of democracy. But he couldn’t help wonder what sort of strings Antigonos and Demetrios would attach to the restoration.

“My father has also told me to tell you he is pleased to send you 150,000 medimnoi of wheat from Anatolia for your storehouses and your bakeries,” Demetrios said. “And he will also send you timber enough to build a hundred triremes and restore your fleet to the glory it once enjoyed.”

Amid the rapturous cheers from the Athenians all around, Menedemos muttered, “Ha!” Sostratos dipped his head. Rebuilding a navy took more than timber. It took skilled rowers by the thousands. Where would Athens find them? How would she pay for them? Demetrios said nothing about that. And triremes were the small change of fleets these days, anyhow. Fours, fives, and sixes-all full not only of rowers but also of equally expensive marines-did the bulk of the work. Some of Demetrios’ promises were less extravagant than they seemed.

That might have occurred to the two Rhodians. It didn’t seem to have crossed a single Athenian’s mind. Well, that’s their worry, not mine, Sostratos thought. He hoped it wouldn’t be the Athenians’ worry, but feared and expected it would.

As the applause faded, Demetrios bowed to the assembled people of Athens and stepped back, leaving the stage to Stratokles again. The orator said, “With our first decrees as men free once more, let us praise the great Antigonos and Demetrios for liberating us from the hateful yoke of Demetrios of Phaleron and Kassandros, his puppetmaster!”

More cheers rang out. Demetrios son of Antigonos looked artfully astonished, as if he hadn’t imagined Stratokles would propose such a thing. “See how modest he is!” someone behind Sostratos exclaimed.

Sostratos had other ideas. He glanced over at Menedemos, who was also looking his way. “Put-up job,” Sostratos mouthed. His cousin dipped his head.

“May it be propitious,” Stratokles continued: the opening formula for a decree. “Let us set up gilded statues of Antigonos and Demetrios in a chariot, the said statues to stand near those of Harmodios and Aristogeiton in the agora so that one pair of liberators may regard the other. Do I hear an opposing voice?”

No one spoke in opposition. The decree passed without a single mutter. Sostratos thought it extravagant, but shrugged mental shoulders. Harmodios and Aristogeiton were credited with helping to overthrow the tyranny of Hippias and usher in democracy at Athens two hundred years earlier. Anyone who’d read Thoukydides, as Sostratos had, knew things weren’t nearly so simple. But, by now, what the Athenians believed was at least as important as what had really happened.

And-statues! Whoever was making those gilded statues would need beeswax to coat his mold and take the fine detail he would sculpt. “Beeswax,” Sostratos muttered. “Beeswax.” He didn’t want to forget.

Stratokles hadn’t withdrawn. “May it be propitious,” he said again.

“Let us reward our liberators with honorary crowns valued at two hundred talents of silver, to show the world that the Athenians’ gratitude is not to be despised or taken lightly. Do I hear an opposing voice?”

Again, Demetrios looked modest and surprised. Again, no one dissented. Again, the decree passed by acclamation. Sostratos slowly dipped his head. Athens would pay, and pay plenty, for the privilege of liberation. Even for a polis as rich as this one, two hundred talents was a lot of money.

“May it be propitious,” Stratokles said once more, and Sostratos wondered what was coming next. He didn’t have to wait long: “Let us consecrate an altar to Antigonos and Demetrios, this altar to be known as that of the Saviors. And let us consecrate another altar where Demetrios first came down from his chariot and set foot on the soil of Athens, that one to be known as the altar of the Descending Demetrios. And let the chief priest who serves the altar of the Saviors henceforth give his name to the year, as the arkhon does now. Do I hear an opposing voice?”

There stood Demetrios. No matter how abashed he looked, his men had just driven Kassandros’ out of Athens. He said he’d set the city free. What could he do if he changed his mind? Anything he wants to, Sostratos thought. The Athenians no doubt thought the same way. Stratokles heard no opposing voices. The decree-one servile enough to make Sostratos faintly sick to his stomach-passed without a single protest from the Assembly.

And more followed. The newly free-or so Demetrios had named them-people of Athens voted to add to the ten tribes among which they divided up their citizens two more, to be named Antigonis and Demetrias. They voted to hold annual games in honor of Demetrios and his father, with sacrifices and a procession. And they voted to include the portraits of Antigonos and Demetrios on the ceremonial mantle offered to Athena in the Parthenon every five years, “along with the images of the other gods,” as Stratokles said. Like the ones that had come before, those motions passed without dissent.

That seemed to be all of them. As if to prove it was, Demetrios stepped forward once mare. He bowed. “Men of Athens, I thank you for your generosity, and f know my father thanks you as well,” he said.

Sostratos fought down a strong urge to retch. That hadn’t been generosity. It had been the most revolting display of sycophancy he’d ever seen. No one, he was sure, had ever flattered even the Great Kings of Persia like this. But now the Athenians, who’d beaten the Persians at Marathon, at Salamis, and at Plataia, who’d preserved liberty for all of Hellas, wriggled on their bellies to kiss the dust through which Demetrios had walked. And they called that freedom! No, he didn’t want to retch. He warned to cry.

Demetrios went on, “You have been kind to my father and me. Because you have, we shall also be kind to you, in the ways I have promised and in any other ways that seem good to us.”

How the Athenians cheered! Demetrios practiced that abashed smile once more. Or maybe it wasn’t so practiced. Maybe all this praise heaped on him really had turned his head. He surely couldn’t have heard anything like it before. Yes, he was Antigonos’ right-hand man, but Antigonos, by all accounts, was not a man one could safely flatter-he had wit enough to see through it. Nor was he one to spoil his sons, either Demetrios or Philippos.

Sokrates had to drink hemlock here, Sostratos thought. He shivered. Two years before, he’d watched Polemaios drink hemlock. Dying of the drug was neither so neat nor so philosophical as Platon made it out to be. But now the Athenians have found a sweeter poison.

Stratokles moved that the meeting adjourn. That drew no more argument than any of his other motions had. The people of Athens streamed out of the theater, by all appearances well content with what they’d done. The morning remained young.

As long as he and Menedemos were in the midst of the Athenians, Sostratos said nothing. All his cousin said was, “Well, well.” That could have meant anything. Sostratos knew what he thought it meant. He agreed, too.

Protomakhos was also conspicuously quiet as he and the Rhodians made their way back to his house. Once inside, he led them to the andron and called for wine. Then, making sure none of his slaves was in earshot, he spoke in low, intense, furious tones: “You young fellows, you come from a polis with a democracy that really works, isn’t that so?”

“Yes,” Sostratos said. Menedemos dipped his head.

The Rhodian proxenos took a long pull at his winecup. Then he went on, “Me, I’m not a youth any more. I’m old enough to remember how democracy is supposed to go. I recall the days before Philip of Macedon won at Khaironeia and put all of Hellas under his boot. People then cared about the way things went. They cared about doing what was right, doing what was best. They cared about something besides bending over and showing Demetrios how wide their arseholes were.” A disgusted look on his face, he drained the cup and dipped it full again.

Sostratos said the only thing he could think of that might make the Athenian feel a little better; “You haven’t had a real democracy here for quite a while, most noble one. Maybe, now that this is done, your people will get the hang of it again.”

“Do you think so?” Protomakhos asked morosely. “I don’t, Stratokles got to play the sycophant today, but plenty of others haven’t had the chance yet. They’ll take it. And they’ll take revenge on everybody who backed Demetrios of Phaleron, too. You wait and see. If Kleokritos didn’t go over the border with his master, I wouldn’t lay an obolos on his chances of living to grow old. Would you?”

“Well, no,” Sostratos admitted. The proxenos was all too likely to be right. Whenever one faction ousted another, the first thing it usually did was get its own back against its rivals. Sostratos could have gone into detail about that; he’d read Herodotos and Thoukydides and Xenophon. But few Hellenes needed to read the historians to understand what their folk were capable of. Protomakhos almost certainly hadn’t. Hellenes who knew themselves, knew their own kind, could see what was coming.

Menedemos said, “As long as the city doesn’t break out in civil war”-he might have been talking about a pestilence-”we’ll do all right. And so should you, best one,” he added, pointing to Protomakhos. “They’ll probably want to buy lots of slabs of marble to inscribe the decrees they passed today”

“Yes, I suppose they will.” Protomakhos seemed less than delighted at the prospect. But then he brightened, a little. “If they are going to buy them, they may as well buy them from me.”

“That’s the spirit!” Menedemos dipped his head. He seemed perfectly friendly toward the dealer in stone. Knowing how… friendly Menedemos had been with Protomakhos’ wife, Sostratos found that bemusing. He knew Menedemos shouldn’t jeer at the man he’d cuckolded, but his cousin was proving an even better actor than he’d expected.

With an effort, Sostratos wrenched his thoughts away from adultery. Commerce, he told himself. Think of commerce. Turning to Protomakhos, he asked, “Do you know who’s likely to do the statues of Antigonos and Demetrios in their chariot? I’d like to see him as soon as I can-that will be my best chance to sell all the beeswax I got in Ioudaia.”

“Euge, my dear!” Menedemos exclaimed. He beamed at Sostratos. To Protomakhos, he said, “Isn’t my cousin the cleverest fellow?”

Oh, yes, Sostratos thought. You like my wits well enough when I turn them toward ways of making us money. But when I use the same logic to point out how you might want to choose a different road for your own life, you don’t want to hear me. But what’s more important in the end, silver or satisfaction? He clicked his tongue between his teeth. Menedemos, no doubt, would define satisfaction differently.

Protomakhos played the diplomat: “Both you Rhodians are doing well for yourselves. As for sculptors, my guess would be they’ll choose Hermippos son of Lakritos. He trained under the great Lysippos, and he’s the best in the polis nowadays.”

“Lysippos was a fine sculptor, sure enough,” Sostratos said. “There’s that Herakles of his back in Rhodes-people admire it.”

“Oh, that one,” Menedemos said. “I know the one you mean. Yes, he could make bronze and marble breathe, sure enough.”

“I’ve seen some of his work, too,” Protomakhos said. “Hermippos isn’t quite in the same class, but he does well enough.”

Sostratos almost remarked on that, but held his peace. People would admire Lysippos’ work for generations; his name would live on. For every Lysippos, though, how many men did well enough to make a living, perhaps even well enough to gain some reputation while they were alive, but would be utterly forgotten five years after earth covered them? Others besides Thoukydides had written about the Pelopon-nesian War. What scribe copied their works these days? Before long- if it hadn’t happened already-mice would nibble the last papyrus roll that held their histories, and then they would be gone. Other bards besides Homer must have sung. Who remembered them?

Are you sure you want to write a history? Sostratos wondered. If you don’t write it, you’ll surely be forgotten, he answered himself. If you do, you have a chance of living on. Any chance is better than none.

He dragged his mind back to the business at hand. “Where does this Hermippos have his shop?” he asked Protomakhos.

“Just north and west of the agora,” Protomakhos replied. “The Street of the Panathenaia divides, one road going to the Sacred Gate, the other to the Dipylon Gate. Hermippos’ shop is on the road to the Dipylon Gate, a couple of plethra past the boundary stone that marks the quarter of the Kerameikos.”

The next morning, Sostratos got his lump of beeswax out of the prox-enos’ storeroom and made his way up the street leading to the Dipylon Gate. To his relief-and more than a little to his surprise-he found Hermippos’ shop without much trouble. The sculptor was an excitable litde man in his thirties, with broad shoulders and big hands. “No, you thumb-fingered idiot, this way! How many times do I have to tell you?” he shouted at a harried-looking apprentice as Sostratos came up. He glowered at the Rhodian. “And what do you want?”

“Hail, Hermippos,” Sostratos said, eyeing the work in progress: an armored Athena in marble, a competent piece but with nothing about it to draw the eye back for a second look. Protomakhos had gauged the man well. “Are you going to be making the gilded statues of Antigonos and Demetrios? “

“Why do you want to know?” the sculptor asked suspiciously. “I don’t need any new ‘prentices; the one I’ve got gives me enough headaches. And if you think you can wangle some kind of kickback from me for the commission, to the crows with you. I’ve got it straight from Stratokles.”

“You misunderstand, O best one,” Sostratos said, instantly glad he didn’t have to deal with Hermippos every day. “I have fine beeswax to sell you.”

That got Hermippos’ notice. “You do, eh? Let’s see it. Some people would try to sell me cow turds and call ‘em wax.”

“No cow turds,” Sostratos said. “Here.” He took the lump out of the sack. “See for yourself.”

“Hmm. Hmm,” Hermippos looked pleased in spite of himself. He reached out to feel of the beeswax as Sostratos set it on the counter. Sostratos watched his hands in fascination. He had long, elegant fingers, but they bore the scars of countless burns and cuts. His palms were nearly as callused as those of a rower. The pale blotches of burn scars went most of the way up his forearms. Hermippos nipped off a tiny piece of wax with the nails of his thumb and forefinger so he could taste it as well. After smacking his lips, he dipped his head. “Yes, that’s the genuine article. I’ve had people try to sell me tallow, too, the abandoned temple-robbers.”

“I don’t play those games,” Sostratos said. “I’ll get the best price I can, but I sell top-quality goods.”

“I’ve never heard anybody who doesn’t say that.” Hermippos turned to his apprentice. “Do something useful for a change-give me a chisel.”

Muttering, the young man obeyed. Sostratos wouldn’t have wanted to work for Hermippos. He also wouldn’t have wanted to be Hermippos in a sculptor’s studio, working side by side with someone he constantly abused. Too many lethal implements were too handy. What was to keep that apprentice from driving that chisel into his back or picking up a hammer and smashing in his skull? Only the fellow’s own self-restraint, and Hermippos seemed to enjoy flaying that every time he opened his mouth.

The sculptor thrust the chisel into the beeswax again and again, grunting with effort. He finally grunted one last time and, without a word of warning, tossed the chisel back to the apprentice. Taken by surprise, the fellow dropped it on his foot-fortunately, not point-down. He yelped anyhow. “Just be more careful next time,” Hermippos snapped. He gave Sostratos another grudging dip of the head. “You didn’t hide any rocks in there to make it seem heavier than it is.”

“No,” Sostratos said. “I made the same check when I bought it from a Phoenician.”

“You weren’t born a fool, then.” Hermippos raked his apprentice with a glance. “Unlike some people I could name.” He took a deep breath. “All right, Rhodian. You’ve got it. I want it. How much are you going to try to gouge me for?”

“Four minai,” Sostratos answered.

“What?” Hermippos howled. “Why, you cistern-arsed, dung-eating catamite! Furies take you! I could buy a slave for that. Maybe T should. I’d get more use from him than I do from this two-legged donkey here.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the apprentice.

Sostratos sent the harried youngster a sympathetic glance. The apprentice’s lips moved silently. Squeeze him, he mouthed. He needs the wax. Nothing on Sostratos’ face showed that he’d seen. Inside, though, he smiled. Hermippos’ bad temper was going to cost him money.

“I’ll give you a mina and a half, and you ought to be glad to get that much,” the sculptor growled.

“No. Good day.” Sostratos picked up the lump of beeswax and made as if to go.

He didn’t miss the look of alarm that flitted across Hermippos’ face. “Well, two minai,” Hermippos said. Sostratos didn’t put down the beeswax. He started to walk away. “Two and a half!” Hermippos called. Sostratos kept walking. “All right, three, then!” the sculptor cried.

That was enough to make Sostratos stop. He ended up selling the wax for three minai, seventy-five drakhmai. When Hermippos went to get the silver, Sostratos told the apprentice, “I’ll gladly give you five drakhmai for the tip. Come to the house of Protomakhos, near the theater. “

“I wish I could say I didn’t need it, but Hermippos doesn’t pay me well enough to make that anything but a lie,” the young man said. “I’ll be there. I-” He broke off, for Hermippos came back with the silver just then. Sostratos carefully counted it, but the sculptor hadn’t tried to cheat him. He headed back to Protomakhos¹ house well pleased with himself, even if he was paying a small commission.

“Perfume from Rhodes!” Menedemos held up a jar in the agora. “What man could resist a woman who wears perfume from Rhodes, the island of roses? Fine perfume from Rhodes!”

Plenty of people seemed able to resist his sales pitch. They walked past as if he didn’t exist. He’d seen that only in the very largest and most sophisticated poleis: Rhodes, Taras, Syracuse, and now here in Athens. Most places, people stopped and listened to the pitch even if they didn’t intend to buy. What else did they have in the way of entertainment? Things were different here, though. Athenians had more choices available than people in most towns did. They’d seen too many men trying to sell too many different kinds of things. Unless they felt like buying-which no one at the moment seemed to-one more didn’t much interest them.

Several of Demetrios’ soldiers strolled through the agora, looking now here, now there. They spoke a wide variety of Greek dialects; Menedemos wondered how they understood one another. One of them, a handsome, well-built man in the early years of middle age, broke away from his friends and came over to Menedemos, saying, “Hail, Rhodian. We’ve met before.”

Menedemos hated people who introduced themselves like that. This fellow did look familiar, but… He snapped his fingers. “Euxenides of Phaselis!” he exclaimed, recognizing the man-he’d taken Euxenides from Rhodes to Miletos a couple of years before. “By the dog, O best one, so we have. You’re one of the best carpenters I’ve ever seen. That steering oar you made… What are you doing in Athens?”

“Making catapults. That’s what I do best,” Euxenides answered. I’ll tell you, the Athenians have junk, too. They won’t, though, not when I’m through.” His Greek, though basically a Doric dialect like Menedemos’, held overtones of hissing and sneezing; Phaselis, on the southern coast of Anatolia, was a town inhabited by both Hellenes and Lykians.

“Isn’t a catapult a catapult?” Menedemos asked.

All of Demetrios’ soldiers laughed. “Hear the civilian!” Euxenides exclaimed, a smile on his face. “No, indeed, my friend. There are two main types-flexion machines, which are bent like overgrown bows, and torsion engines, which use twisted skeins of hair or sinew for their hurling force. Torsion engines throw harder and throw farther, but most of what they’ve got here are the old-fashioned flexion type, I’ll fix that, by Hephaistos… if I can lay my hands on enough sinew.” That made him look worried. Then, suddenly, he pointed at Menedemos. “You’re a merchant. You wouldn’t happen to know who might have a supply, would you?”

“Sorry, but no,” the Rhodian answered. “If I wanted sinew, though, I’d go to a butcher, or maybe to a priest after sacrifice.”

“About what I aim to do,” Euxenides said.

“Did you stop just to say hail, or can I really sell you some perfume?” Menedemos asked, “If you’ve got a sweetheart or a hetaira you want to impress, there’s nothing better.”

“Haven’t been in town long enough to latch on to a woman,” Demetrios’ officer replied. “I like it here, though. I wouldn’t mind settling down if I have the chance,”

“They’ll never let you become a citizen. They’re even fussier about that here than they are in most poleis,” Menedemos warned.

Euxenides of Phaselis only shrugged. “I don’t mind. From what I’ve seen, they treat resident aliens well here. They’d better-they’ve got a lot of them, I don’t care if I can marry an Athenian girl or not, and I really don’t care if I get to vote in the Assembly.” His chuckle had a nasty edge, “Besides, who knows how long the Assembly will stay in business this time around, anyhow?”

He could see that. Menedemos could see it, too. He wondered why the Athenians couldn’t see it for themselves. They’d gone without democracy for only about fifteen years all told. Was that long enough to turn them into blind men and fools? Evidently.

Euxenides said, “I owe you and your cousin a good turn. You could have turned me over to Ptolemaios’ men when you stopped in Kos. You likely would have picked up a nice little reward, but you didn’t do it. So what can I do for you?”

“Can you put our names in Demetrios’ ear?” Menedemos asked. “We still have some luxury goods he might fancy-truffles from Mytilene, Lesbian and Byblian wine, things of that sort. If he gets any truffle-flavored olive oil from Demetrios of Phaleron’s house, the other Demetrios bought that from us.”

“I’ll do it,” Euxenides said at once. “My pleasure. Where are you staying?”

“At the house of Protomakhos, the Rhodian proxenos, a little south of the theater. It’s not hard to find-at least not by the standards of this place.”

“Oh, yes.” Euxenides dipped his head. “Phaselis isn’t easy for strangers, either, but Phaselis is a little town. You get lost here, you can stay lost for days. Good thing my sense of direction works.” He turned to go. “Farewell, Rhodian. I won’t forget to mention you to the big boss.”

“Thanks.” Menedemos hoped the soldier meant it. Too many people promised to do something like that and then forgot about it as soon as they turned a comer. Menedemos shrugged. He’d made the effort. If Euxenides delivered, splendid. If he didn’t… Well, Menedemos and Sostratos were no worse off.

After crying his perfume in the agora till close to sundown-and selling two jars to a greasy fellow who wouldn’t say what he did, but who looked like a brothelkeeper-Menedemos made his way back to Protomakhos’ house. The proxenos wasn’t there, which raised Menedemos’ hopes of sneaking up to Xenokleia’s room after dark. But Sostratos returned a few minutes after he did, and Protomakhos a few minutes after his cousin. Oh, well, Menedemos thought.

Sostratos looked pleased with himself. “I’ve been going through the polis talking with physicians,” he said. “Sold a lot of balsam of Engedi today.”

“Euge,”Protomakhos said.

“Euge, indeed,” Menedemos added. “How much more could you have sold if you didn’t fritter away time talking shop with the physicians?”

Reddening, Sostratos said, “I learn things talking with them. It doesn’t cost a lot of time, and one day I might help a sailor who gets sick or hurts himself.” He enjoyed playing the role of a physician aboard the Aphrodite. How much good he did was a different question. But then, how much good any physician did was often a matter of opinion. Fortunately, most of the rowers were young and healthy, and didn’t need much in the way of medical care.

“Nothing wrong with talking shop,” Protomakhos said. “I’ve picked up enough chatting with builders and sculptors that I sometimes think I could run up a temple or carve the cult statue to go inside it. Odds are I’m wrong, but I do think so.”

“Menedemos would sooner talk shop with hetairai,” Sostratos said slyly.

“I’d rather talk about their business than about the best cure for chilblains or hammertoes, yes,” Menedemos said. “If you don’t think the one is more interesting than the other, that’s your affair.”

“There’s a time and a place for everything,” Sostratos said. “I don’t think about piggies every moment of every day.”

Protomakhos wagged a finger at him. “I’d say you’re too hard on your cousin, O best one. From what I’ve seen of Menedemos, he doesn’t chase women every hour of the day and night like some men I’ve known.”

A long, long silence followed. Sostratos looked at the ceiling. Menedemos looked at the floor. At last, several heartbeats later than he should have, Sostratos said, “Well, you may be right.”

“I’m sure I am.” Protomakhos, to Menedemos’ vast relief, seemed to notice nothing amiss. He went on, “I know how kinsfolk can be. My brother and I still quarrel whenever we set eyes on each other, and as for one of my brothers-in-law…” He rolled his eyes.

“Brothers-in-law! Oimoi! By the dog, yes!” Sostratos exclaimed, and started telling the proxenos about some of the things Damonax had done and had wanted him to do. Protomakhos listened sympathetically, and the awkward moment passed. Menedemos had never before been praised for his moderation with women by a man he was cuckolding. He’d thought he was hardened to most of the things that could happen, but this embarrassed him. It was like being praised for honesty by a man whose house you’d just robbed.

Three days later, the Rhodians and Protomakhos were about to sit down to supper when someone pounded on the door. “Who’s that?” Protomakhos said in annoyance. “Whoever it is, why did he have to pick now, when I can smell the fish cooking?”

“Some people have no consideration,” agreed Menedemos, who’d been able to indulge his passion for opson no less than other passions, and far more openly.

But instead of some bore who wanted to gossip with Protomakhos- Menedemos thought of the Athenian equivalent of his father’s long-winded friend, Xanthos-it was Euxenides of Phaselis. “Hail, Rhodians,” he said. “Are those the best tunics you’ve got? They’ll have to do, I suppose. Demetrios bids you to supper, and I’m to take you there. Come along with me, the both of you.”

“You kept your word!” Menedemos blurted.

“Sure I did,” Euxenides said. “You did right by me, so the least I can do is right by you. Come on. We don’t want to keep him waiting.”

“Let’s go,” Sostratos said. “Just let me grab the truffles I still have…”

Euxenides impatiently shifted from foot to foot while Sostratos did. Protomakhos said, “All that lovely opson, and only my wife and me to eat it.” He didn’t sound disappointed; he sounded like a man with a gods-given excuse to make an opsophagos of himself.

Out the door Euxenides of Phaselis went, the two Rhodians in tow behind him. Though Euxenides had been in Athens only a few days, he moved confidently through its labyrinth of streets. When Menedemos remarked on that, the soldier shrugged and said, “I told you, I’ve always had a good sense of direction.”

After that, Menedemos waited for him to get lost. But he didn’t. He brought the Rhodians to a large house north of the akropolis. Hulking Macedonians in full armor stood guard in front of the door. One of them said something to Euxenides. Menedemos couldn’t follow it. Euxenides of Phaselis not only did, he answered in the same dialect. The bodyguards stood aside.

As Euxenides led the Rhodians inside, he remarked, “This is where Demetrios of Phaleron lived before he, ah, decided to move elsewhere.”

“Wait here just a moment, best ones,” a slave said in the entry hall. He hurried away, then returned. “All right, come ahead.” As Menedemos entered the courtyard, he got a fleeting glimpse of a very pretty girl hurrying to the stairway. He wondered just what she and Demetrios had been doing. Beside him, Sostratos let out a warning cough, Menedemos sent his cousin a hurt look. Killing himself by jumping from a high place would end quicker and hurt less than letting the son of a Macedonian marshal catch him sniffing after a mistress.

Demetrios son of Antigonos lounged on a couch in the andron with a cup of wine. “Hail, Rhodians,” he said when Euxenides presented Menedemos and Sostratos to him. He was very large and very strong and, up close, perhaps the handsomest man Menedemos-a handsome fellow himself-had ever seen. As the Rhodian had noted in the theater, he had a man of action’s thrusting chin. With it went a voluptuary’s wide-lipped, sensual mouth; a long, straight nose and prominent cheekbones; a mane of light brown hair; and eyes green as marble. “Forgive me for not rising,” he went on, “but I’m getting over a fever.”

“Yes, I saw her just now as she was going away,” Menedemos said blandly.

Sostratos coughed again, this time in horror. But Demetrios threw back his head and laughed, “Very neat,” he said, “That’s the sort of crack my father would make,” His voice, when he wasn’t using it to fill the theater of Dionysos, was extraordinarily smooth and musical. The gods had blessed him with all they could give a man. He waved Menedemos and Sostratos to couches on either side of his own, and Euxenides to another. A slave brought them wine. “I found several amphorai of Thasian in Demetrios of Phaleron’s cellars,” Antigonos’ son told them. “Coming from the north myself, I’m partial to northern vintages.”

The wine was sweet as honey-so sweet, in fact, that Menedemos wondered if it had honey mixed into it. The vintners of Thasos sometimes did that. It was also neat. Sostratos said, “Most noble one, could we please have a mixing bowl and some water? Otherwise, your men may have to carry us back to our host’s house.”

Demetrios laughed again. “As you wish, though mixing wine seems as silly to me as drinking it neat does to you. If I want water, I’ll drink water; if wine-wine. Some of one, some of the other? Who needs that?”

Menedemos wanted to fuss at Sostratos for acting like a little old woman. He thought about continuing to drink his wine without added water. That, he feared, would only make his cousin look worse. And Demetrios was a large man, and used to neat wine. Menedemos himself was much smaller, and used to drinking it mixed. Getting hopelessly plastered while his host stayed sober would do nothing to improve him in the Macedonian’s eyes. And so, when Sostratos mixed one part wine to two of water-a little on the strong side, no doubt in deference to Demetrios, but only a little-Menedemos sipped along with his cousin. Euxemdes of Phaselis drank his Thasian without water. He was a soldier, though, and by now surely used to Macedonian ways.

They chatted for a while. Demetrios had a lively wit, and a gift-if that was what it was-for puns that made Menedemos cringe and even forced a couple of groans from Sostratos, who was also formidable in such sports. “If you think I’m bad, you should hear my father,” Demetrios said with a reminiscent smile. “Strong men run screaming when he gets started-you’d best believe they do.”

His affection for Antigonos seemed altogether unfeigned. He was one of the most powerful men in Hellas-no, in the whole civilized world-yet he remained fond of and obedient to his father. To Menedemos, who’d been striking sparks with his father ever since his voice began to change, that seemed very strange,

As twilight thickened outside, a slave lit more torches and lamps in the andron, holding darkness at bay. Another slave carried in a tray piled high with some of the finest, whitest loaves of wheat bread Menedemos had ever seen. They were still warm from the oven, and so light and airy the Rhodian marveled that they didn’t float off the tray and hang in the air like dandelion fluff. The olive oil in which the diners dipped their sitos was some of the truffle-flavored stuff Menedemos and Sostratos had sold to Demetrios of Phaleron.

“Mighty fine,” Euxenides of Phaselis said, ripping another loaf to pieces so he could soak up more of the precious oil.

“It is, isn’t it?” Demetrios son of Antigonos agreed complacently. “The other Demetrios bought it, but I’m the one who gets to enjoy it.” The glow in his eyes showed how much he enjoyed it. He seemed to enjoy everything that came his way-food, wine, women, acclaim. And yet he was also a solid soldier-more than a solid soldier-and had displaced his cousin, Polemaios, at Antigonos’ right hand. He probably enjoyed soldiering, too.

Menedemos knew he was jealous. He also knew how foolish such jealousy was. A monkey could be jealous of Aphrodite s beauty, and it would do the animal no more good. Not only did Demetrios have his multifarious gifts, he also had the chance to make the most of them. Like almost all men, Menedemos needed to devote the larger part of his energy just to getting by from day to clay. What he might have done got lost in what he had to do.

Back in Ioudaia, Sostratos had despised Hekataios of Abdera for being able to travel as he pleased and having the leisure in which to write history… and for not knowing how lucky he was. Menedemos’ sympathy when he heard about that had been distinctly muted. Now, though, now he understood.

“Have you got more of this oil?” Demetrios asked, licking his fingers.

“Sorry, but no,” Menedemos said, while Sostratos, whose mouth was full, tossed his head. Menedemos went on, “Your, ah, predecessor bought all we brought here.”

“Demetrios of Phaleron is a man of taste; no way around that,” Demetrios son of Antigonos said. “Clever fellow, and a nice fellow, too. Pity he chose the other side and not my father’s. I wonder where he’ll turn up next, and what he’ll do there. As long as he’s not working against Father’s interests, I wish him well.”

He sounded as if he meant it. Menedemos doubted he could have been so dispassionate about an enemy. But he hadn’t heard too many Athenians who truly despised Demetrios of Phaleron. Yes, they were glad to see their ancient democracy restored (though some of the decrees they’d passed made it look as if they’d forgotten the point of ruling themselves). But the general opinion was that Kassandros’ puppet could have been worse. For a man who’d ruled as a tyrant for ten years, the verdict could have been far harsher.

Having swallowed, Sostratos said, “We have no more oil, O Demetrios, but we do have truffles from Lesbos. Your cooks can shave them, if you like, and steep the shavings in oil. Or they can cook the truffles themselves, if you’d rather,”

“If I’d rather?” Demetrios laughed another of his easy laughs. “Don’t you find, in your households, that the cooks think they’re the lords and everyone else their subjects? Mine certainly do. Myriads of soldiers jump to obey my orders, but if I tell a cook to steam a fish and he’s intent on baking it, I’ll have baked fish for supper that night.”

“Oh, yes,” Menedemos said. “My father’s cook has been squabbling with my stepmother ever since Father remarried a few years ago.”

“My family’s cook isn’t quite so temperamental as Menedemos’,” Sostratos said. “But there are times when he has a whim of iron; no doubt about it.”

“After supper, talk to my servants. I’ll buy whatever truffles you have left,” Demetrios said, “Let the men know I want them. You’ll get a fair price, I promise.”

Now Menedemos didn’t look at Sostratos. Still, he was sure his cousin was as delighted as he was. Demetrios’ servants would have to buy after orders Like that, and would have to pay a price better than just fair. Demetrios was one of the richest men in the world. To him, a silver drakhma counted for less than a bronze khalkos did for most mere mortals-hardly even small change.

More slaves brought in course after course of opson; stewed eels, steaks cut from the belly of a tuna, roast dogfish. There were also smoking beef ribs. They obviously came from an animal butchered on purpose; they weren’t the gobbets handed out at random after a sacrifice. Menedemos occasionally ate pork, but he didn’t think he’d had deliberately butchered beef before.

Maybe his surprise showed on his face, for Demetrios said, “We Macedonians live lives closer to those of Homer’s heroes than most Hellenes do. We’re meat-eaters, for we have broader lands on which to pasture cattle.”

“I wasn’t complaining, most noble one,” Menedemos replied. “Is that cumin in the sauce?” He smacked his lips. “Tasty.”

“I do believe it is, and black pepper from Arabia, too,” Demetrios said.

After the ribs came fruit candied in honey and a cheesecake similarly sweetened. “A splendid supper,” Sostratos said. “We thank you for your kindness.”

“My pleasure.” Demetrios’ smile fairly glowed. He had charm; no doubt of that. After a sip from his cup of wine, he went on, “And where does Rhodes stand amidst all the confusions of the world that’s taken shape since Alexander died?”

It seemed nothing but a casual, friendly question. Menedemos answered it the same way: “We’re neutrals, and happy to be neutral. We have no quarrel with anyone.”

Euxenides of Phaselis spoke up: “The Rhodian certainly speaks the truth for himself and his cousin, Demetrios. They carried me the same as they would have carried one of Ptolemaios’ men a couple of years ago.

“Good. That’s good.” Demetrios’ smile remained charming. But he went on, “What was true a couple of years ago could be less true now, though. And it isn’t easy to stay neutral when one is a small polls in a world of large… powers.” What had he almost said? Kingdoms? None of Alexander’s squabbling marshals claimed a crown for himself, though all of them were kings in everything but name.

“So long as we do business with everyone, and so long as we stay free and autonomous, we’ll hold on to our neutrality,” Sostratos said.

“Oh, yes. So long as.” Demetrios’ voice also stayed silky-smooth. “But when you do the bulk of your business with one fellow, well, naturally your other neighbors wonder just how free and autonomous you truly are. Athens, after all, claimed to be free and autonomous before I liberated her.”

Rhodes did much more business with Ptolemaios’ Egypt than with the lands of any other marshal… including Antigonos. And Antigonos’ lands were near neighbors to Rhodes. Menedemos didn’t care for the turn the conversation had taken, especially since he doubted whether Athens was any freer or more autonomous now than before her “liberation.”

Sostratos said, “Surely, most noble one, you can’t be thinking of Rhodes. Why, we’ve built ships for your father’s fleets. If that isn’t how a proper neutral behaves, I don’t know what would be.”

“Just so.” Menedemos beamed across Demetrios’ couch toward his cousin. Nobody could match Sostratos when it came to bolstering arguments with good, solid facts. His cousin was so logical, so rational, disagreeing with him seemed impossible.

And Demetrios didn’t disagree with him. Smiling still, Antigonos’ son said, “I do hope you can see, my friends, that free and autonomous poleis like Athens and Rhodes can sometimes need protection against those who would try to force them into leaning in an… unfortunate direction.”

“Not being an Athenian, I would not presume to speak for Athens,” Sostratos said. “As far as Rhodes goes, since only we Rhodians choose how we lean or if we lean, the question doesn’t arise.”

“I certainly hope it never will,” Demetrios said. “That could be… very unfortunate indeed.”

Was he giving them a warning? It sounded like one. Menedemos said, “I’m sure all my fellow Rhodians will be glad to know of your concern.”

“Oh, good. I hope they are.” Demetrios turned his head and shouted for more wine. Out it came: that splendid Thasian, thick and sweet and potent even when mixed. No one worried about anything as abstract as neutrality for the rest of the evening.