The Sacred Land

4

Menedemos looked ahead to the port approaching on his right hand. Thanks to favorable winds, they’d reached it on the second afternoon after coming to Cyprus. He pointed toward the narrow mouth of the harbor. “There’s a place with a famous name.”

“Salamis?” Sostratos answered. “Yes, my dear, I should hope so. It’s a name that means liberty for all Hellenes, a name that means Xerxes the Persian king watching from the shore as his ships were beaten.” He laughed. “The only trouble is, it’s the wrong Salamis for that.”

“Yes, I know,” Menedemos said, wondering if his cousin thought him so ignorant as not to know. “I wonder how a town in Cyprus got the same name as an island off the coast of Attica.” Then he snapped his fingers. “No, I don’t wonder. I know.”

“Tell me,” Sostratos said.

“Teukros founded this Salamis, didn’t he?” Menedemos said.

“So they say,” Sostratos answered.

“Well, then, Teukros was Telamon’s bastard, right?” Menedemos waited for his cousin to dip his head, then continued, “And who’s Telamon’s legitimate son?”

“You’re the one who knows the Iliad backwards and forwards,” Sostratos said.

“Oh, come on!” Menedemos said. “Everybody knows this one. Telamon’s son is-”

“Aias.” Sostratos supplied the right answer. Menedemos clapped his hands. Sostratos went on, “I see. I have it now. Because there are two Hellenic heroes named Aias in the Iliad, there must be two places named Salamis by the sea.”

“No, no, no!” Menedemos exclaimed. Only then did he notice the wicked gleam in his cousin’s eye. “You-you cacodaemon!” he burst out. Sostratos laughed out loud, Menedemos glared at him. “Now you’re going to hear the right answer, curse it, you scoffer, you.” Sostratos bowed, as if at a compliment. Menedemos doggedly plowed ahead: “Teukros founded this Salamis-and Alas, his half brother, was lord of the Salamis in Attica.” He quoted the Iliad:

“ ‘And Aias from Salamis led two-and-ten ships

And, having led them, placed them where the Athenians’ formations stood.’

So you see, this Salamis is named for the other one-in spite of your dreadful jokes.”

“Some people say the Athenians put those two lines into the Catalogue of Ships themselves, to justify their claim to the island of Salamis,” Sostratos said. That rocked Menedemos. To him, Homer ’s poems were perfect and unchanging as they passed from one generation to the next. Adding lines for political reasons seemed as vile as adulterating barley for the sake of profit. But if people did the latter-and they did-why not the former, too? His cousin added, “Can’t fault your argument, though. If Aias was lord of Salamis and if Teukros founded this Salamis, this one is named after the other. You can think logically when you want to. If only you’d want to more often.”

Menedemos hardly noticed the gibe. He was thinking about the rest of the Iliad. Aias wasn’t associated with Menestheus of Athens anywhere but in the Catalogue of Ships, as best he could remember. His ships were sometimes mentioned as lying alongside those Protesilaos-first to land at Troy, and first to die there-had brought from Phylake, up in Thessalia. He sometimes fought in the company of the other, smaller, Aias. Except in that one passage, he had nothing to do with the Athenians.

“Filthy,” Menedemos muttered.

“What’s that?” Sostratos asked.

“Perverting the Iliad for the sake of politics.”

Sostratos’ smile looked anything but pleasant. “Shall I really disgust you?”

“How?” Menedemos asked. “Do I want to know?”

“I don’t know. Do you?” Sostratos returned. “Here’s how: there are a couple of lines in place of the ones you quoted, lines that tie Salamis to Megara, which also claimed it in the old days. But those lines don’t say how many ships Aias led to Troy, the way the Catalogue of Ships does for all the other places and heroes, so they probably aren’t genuine, either.”

“Well, what did Homer truly say, then?” Menedemos asked. “He can’t have left Aias out of the picture altogether-Aias is too great a warrior. He’s the only one among the strong-greaved Akhaioi who keeps fighting back when Hektor goes on his rampage. The poet wouldn’t-couldn’t- have just forgotten him in the Catalogue of Ships.”

His cousin shrugged. “I agree with you. That doesn’t seem likely, and both the Athenian lines and the ones from Megara are suspect. I don’t think there’s any way now to find out what Homer first sang.”

That bothered Menedemos, too. He wanted to think Homer ’s words had passed inviolate from generation to generation. So much of what being a Hellene meant was contained in the Iliad and Odyssey. Of course, one of the things being a Hellene meant was carefully examining the world in which you lived. Homer ’s poems were part of the world in which all Hellenes lived, and so… Menedemos still wished people had kept their hands and minds off them.

Musing thus, he almost took the Aphrodite right past the opening to Salamis’ harbor. It was even narrower than that leading into the Great Harbor at Rhodes, with room for no more than ten or twelve ships abreast. If he’d daydreamed any longer, he would have had to double back to go in. In the akatos, that would have drawn jeers from Sostratos and silent scorn-which might have hurt more-from Diokles. In a round ship that had to beat back against the wind, it would have been worse than merely embarrassing.

When the Aphrodite did enter the harbor, it was full of ships: big war galleys displaying Ptolemaios’ eagle, a few on lowered sails, all on banners at stern and bow; little fishing boats, some of them no more than one-man rowboats; and everything in between. “Same sort of jumble as we saw at Kos last year,” Diokles remarked.

“Even worse, I do believe,” Sostratos said. “About one merchantman in three looks like a Phoenician. I’ve never seen so many foreign-looking ships all in one place.”

“I think you’re right,” Menedemos said. Telling Phoenician ships from those sailed by Hellenes wasn’t usually a matter of lines; both folk built their vessels in much the same way. But a thousand things, from the choice of paints to the shape of the eyes the ships carried at their prows to the way the lines were coiled to the fact that Phoenician sailors stayed fully clothed even in warm weather, shouted that those vessels belonged to barbarians.

“I wonder if we seem as strange to them as they do to us,” Sostratos said.

“If we do, too bad, by the gods,” Menedemos said. “They fought for the Great King against Alexander and they lost, and they’d better get used to it.”

Diokles pointed. “There’s a mooring space, skipper.”

Menedemos wished a Phoenician ship were making for it, too. He could get there first and score his own triumph over the barbarians. As things were, he had no competition. The Aphrodite slid into the space. The rowers backed oars for a few strokes to stop her in the water, then rested on the oars and shipped them, bringing them inboard.

Sailors tossed lines to longshoremen, who made the merchant galley fast to the quay. One of the Salaminians asked, “What ship have we here? Whence come ye?”

Smiling a little at the old-fashioned Cypriot dialect, Menedemos answered, “We’re the Aphrodite , out of Rhodes.” He named himself and Sostratos.

“Gods give ye good day, O best ones,” the local said. “And what cargo bring ye hither?”

Sostratos spoke up: “We have ink and papyrus, Koan silk, Rhodian perfume, the finest olive oil from our native land, books to make the time pass by, Lykian hams, and smoked eels from Phaselis-they melt in your mouth.”

“And melt silver from you, too, I doubt not,” the Salaminian said with a longing sigh. He glanced down toward the base of the quay. “And now, meseems, you shall answer these same questions over again, and more besides.”

Sure enough, a soldier strode importantly toward the Aphrodite . At almost every port the past couple of years, Menedemos thought sourly, soldiers had had questions for him and Sostratos. Sometimes they belonged to Antigonos; sometimes, as now, to Ptolemaios. Who paid them didn’t matter (with so many of them mercenaries, it often didn’t matter even to them). Their attitude was always the same: that a mere merchant skipper ought to go to the closest temple to offer sacrifice in thanks that they didn’t take everything he had.

This one was an exceptionally big man, with fair skin weathered bronze and with piercing gray eyes. When he barked, “Who are you?” he proved to have his own accent, very different from that of the longshoreman. If he wasn’t a Macedonian, Menedemos had never heard one.

“We’re the Aphrodite , out of Rhodes,” Menedemos answered, as he had before. Then, because he couldn’t resist, he added, “And who are you?”

“I’m Kleob-” The Macedonian, probably Kleoboulos, caught himself. “I ask the questions!” he roared. “Have you got that? It’s none of your gods-detested business who I am. Have you got that}”

Sostratos clucked reproachfully, as Menedemos had been sure he would. He had a point, too. Getting smart with Macedonians wasn’t the wisest thing Menedemos might have done.

“Have you got that?” the officer shouted again.

“Yes, O marvelous one,” Menedemos said.

Sostratos clucked again. But the Macedonian, as Menedemos had hoped, took irony for frightened politeness. “That’s better,” he growled. “Now tell me your cargo, and no more back talk.” Menedemos let Sostratos do that. After his cousin had gone down the list, the officer ran a hand through his gray-streaked auburn hair. “Books? Who’s going to buy books?”

“People who like to read?” Sostratos suggested.

The Macedonian tossed his head. Plainly, the idea was alien to him. He shrugged and found another question: “Where are you bound?”

“Phoenicia,” Menedemos answered unwillingly. “We’re going to trade for scarlet dye and balsam and whatever else we can find.”

“Are you?” Those gray eyes went hard and predatory. “Or are you here spying for Antigonos the Cyclops?”

“By the gods!” Menedemos exclaimed. “Last year we did a service for Ptolemaios, and now his servant calls us spies. I like that!”

“A service? What sort of service? His laundry? Did you fetch him a clean chiton or two?” the officer jeered. “Or did you bend over and give him a different kind of service? You’re pretty enough; he might’ve enjoyed that. And so might you.”

Accusing a free adult male Hellene of playing the boy for another man was one of the nastier insults someone could hurl. Menedemos steamed. His hands balled into fists, “Easy,” Sostratos murmured.

“Easy? I’ll tell him to-” But Menedemos caught himself. In Rhodes, he could have told the Macedonian anything he pleased. Not here. Cyprian Salamis was Ptolemaios’ city. One of the lord of Egypt’s officers carried far more weight than a merchant skipper from a distant polis. Mastering himself wasn’t easy, but Menedemos did it. “No, sir,” he told the Macedonian in the iciest tones he could summon. “Last year, he brought Polemaios son of Polemaios from Khalkis on the island of Euboia to Ptolemaios, who was then staying at the city of Kos, on the island of the same name.”

The officer gaped. Whatever answer he’d expected, that wasn’t it. He tried to rally: “A likely story. What did he pay you for it?”

“One talent of silver, of his own weight,” Sostratos answered. “I have it listed in the accounts here. Would you care to examine them?”

“No,” the Macedonian growled. He spun on his heel and clumped back up the pier, scarlet cape billowing around him.

“Euge!” Menedemos said. “But tell me, why on earth have you brought last year’s accounts along?” His cousin was mad for keeping every little detail straight, but that seemed excessive even for him.

Sostratos grinned. “Oh, I haven’t. But, by the way he laughed at the idea that anyone might want to buy a book, I guessed he probably didn’t have his letters. And that turned out to be right.”

“That’s sly, young sir,” Diokles said admiringly. “That’s mighty sly.”

“It seemed reasonable,” Sostratos answered, shrugging. “But I want to say euge to my cousin. When that Macedonian oaf reviled him, he didn’t lose his temper. He stayed calm, and the Macedonian ended up playing the fool.”

Menedemos wasn’t-emphatically wasn’t-used to praise from Sostratos. His cousin was more apt to call him things like a thick-skulled bonehead who thought with his prick. He was used to that. This, though… “Thank you very much, my dear,” he said. “Are you sure you’re well?”

“Quite sure, thanks,” Sostratos answered. “And I think-though I can’t be so sure-you may be starting to grow up at last.”

“Me?” Menedemos tossed his head. “It’s not likely, let me tell you.”

“I don’t know,” Sostratos said. “My guess is, a couple of years ago you would have called him something filthy you got out of Aristophanes, and that would have spilled the perfume into the soup.”

Menedemos thought it over. Much as he would have liked to, he couldn’t deny it. Now he shrugged. “I didn’t, and that’s all there is to it. Now maybe these cistern-arsed titty-gropers will leave us alone and let us get some business done.”

“Er-yes,” Sostratos said. “More Aristophanes?”

“Of course, my dear,” Menedemos answered. “Only the best.”

When Sostratos and Menedemos walked into Salamis’ market square the next morning, Sostratos stopped, stared in delight, and pointed. “Look!” he exclaimed. “Phoenicians! Lots of Phoenicians!” Sure enough, many of the men in the agora were swarthy and hook-nosed, and wore long robes despite what promised to be a warm day. The harsh gutturals of their language mixed with the rhythmic rise and fall of Greek.

Sostratos’ cousin laughed at him. “Well, of course there are lots of Phoenicians here, my dear,” Menedemos said. “We’re close to the Phoenician coast, there are Phoenician towns on Cyprus, and all those Phoenician ships in the harbor didn’t get here without sailors and merchants in ‘em.”

“No, of course not,” Sostratos said. “But now I get to find out if they understand my Aramaic-and I understand theirs. I thought we’d run into more of them in Lykia and Pamphylia and Kilikia, but”-he shrugged-”we didn’t.”

“It’s the war,” Menedemos said. “Antigonos rules Phoenicia, but Ptolemaios just took the southern coast of Anatolia away from him. The Phoenicians are probably nervous about going there.”

“Maybe-but maybe not, too,” Sostratos said. “Ptolemaios also holds Cyprus, so why don’t the Phoenicians stay away from Salamis?”

“For one thing, like I said, Kition and some other Phoenician cities are here on Cyprus, and Ptolemaios holds them, too,” Menedemos answered. “For another, he’s held Cyprus longer, so things here have settled down. And, for a third, if Phoenicians don’t come here, they don’t come anywhere. “

Since he was manifestly right, Sostratos didn’t argue with him. Instead, he went up to the closest Phoenician merchant, a fellow who’d set up a stand with jars of crimson dye. “Good day, my master,” Sostratos said in Aramaic, his heart thumping nervously. “Would you tell your servant what city you are from?” Speaking Greek, he wouldn’t have cared to sound so submissive even to a Macedonian marshal. But Aramaic, as he’d discovered to his frequent dismay, did things differently.

The Phoenician blinked, then showed white, white teeth in an enormous grin. “An Ionian who speaks my language!” he said; in Aramaic, all Hellenes were Ionians. “And may I go through the fire if you didn’t learn it from a man of Byblos. Am I right, my master, or am I wrong?”

“From a man of Byblos, yes.” Sostratos had all he could do not to dance with delight. This fellow had followed his Aramaic, and he’d understood the reply.

That grin got wider yet. “Your servant is from Sidon,” the Phoenician said, bowing. “I am called Abibaal son of Eshmunhillek. And how does my master call himself?”

Sostratos gave his own name, and that of his father. He also introduced Menedemos, adding, “He speaks no Aramaic.”

“That is only a small thing,” Abibaal replied. He bowed to Menedemos as he had to Sostratos and said, “Hail, my master,” in good Greek.

“Hail,” Menedemos replied. He chuckled and poked Sostratos in the ribs with an elbow. “See? He knows Greek.”

“Yes, he does,” Sostratos said patiently. “But before long we’ll be getting to places where people don’t.”

“Would you rather go on in Greek?” Abibaal asked in that language.

“No,” Sostratos said in Aramaic, and tossed his head. “I want to use your speech, please.”

Abibaal gave him another bow. “It shall be as you desire in all ways, of course. Would your heart be gladdened to think on the many fine qualities of the crimson dye I have here? “ He patted one of the jars on his little display.

“I do not know,” Sostratos answered: a useful phrase. He paused to think, then went on, “How much more charge you here than in Sidon?”

That made Abibaal blink and then laugh. “Eshmun smite me if my master is not a merchant himself.”

“Yes.” Sostratos dipped his head. Then he remembered to nod instead. It felt most unnatural. “Please answer your servant’s question, if you would be so generous.”

“Surely, sir, you know a man must make a profit to live, and-”

“Yes, yes,” Sostratos said impatiently. “You must make a profit, but I must make a profit, too.” He pointed first to the Sidonian, then to himself, to make sure he was understood.

Some of Abibaal’s patience began to wear thin. “ I charge only a twelfth part more here in Salamis than in my own city.”

Sostratos returned to Greek to speak to Menedemos: “Come on. Let’s go.”

“What’s the matter?” his cousin asked. “You sounded like you had something stuck in your throat and couldn’t get it out.”

As the two Rhodians started on their way, Abibaal called after them in Greek: “What is the trouble, best ones? Whatever it is, I can make it right.”

“No. You lied to me,” Sostratos told him, sticking to Greek himself now. “No man would take such a small extra charge after shipping his goods across the sea. How can I trust you when you will not tell me the truth?”

“You will find no finer dye anywhere in Phoenicia,” Abibaal said.

“That may be, or it may not. Because you lied to me before, I have a harder time believing you now,” Sostratos answered. “But whether it’s so or not, I’m sure I can find cheaper dye there, and I intend to.”

“You told him,” Menedemos said as the dye merchant from Sidon stared after them.

“I don’t like being taken for a fool.” Sostratos could, in fact, think of few things he liked less. After muttering darkly to himself, he went on, “Actually, my dear, you’ll be the one buying dye and such in the coastal cities. I aim to go to that Engedi place and buy balsam straight from the source.”

“I know what you aim to do.” Menedemos didn’t sound happy. “One Hellene wandering through a country full of barbarians where he barely speaks the language-”

“I did well enough with Abibaal.”

“And maybe you would again. But maybe you wouldn’t, too,” his cousin said. “Besides, a lone traveler is asking to be robbed and murdered. I would like to see you again,”

“Would you? I didn’t know you cared.” Sostratos batted his eyelashes. Menedemos laughed. But Sostratos wasn’t about to be deflected from his purpose. “We’ve been talking about this since the end of last summer. You knew I was going to do it.”

“Yes, but the more I think about what it means, the less I like it,” Menedemos replied. Sostratos started to get angry. Before he could say anything, though, Menedemos continued, “Why don’t you take four or five sailors with you? Bandits would think twice before they bothered a band of armed men.”

“I don’t want-” Sostratos checked himself. It wasn’t the worst idea he’d ever heard. He still saw difficulties with it, though. “They speak nothing but Greek. I’d have to translate for them all the time. And, sailors being what they are ashore, they’d want to spend their time pouring down wine and bedding women, not traveling and bargaining.”

“Oh, I think that, if one of them found a pretty girl, he’d want to dicker,” Menedemos said innocently. Sostratos made a horrible face. Grinning, his cousin went on, “I’d sooner see you come back safe, even if you did have to keep an eye on your guards while you were away.”

“We’d need to pay them a bonus, too, to tempt them away from the taverns and brothels of whatever cities we go through,” Sostratos said.

“Maybe we could make it payable afterwards, for good behavior,” Menedemos said.

“Maybe.” Sostratos wasn’t convinced. “And maybe none of them would want to go for the sake of a bonus he might not earn. Besides, who says I want to play nursemaid to a squad of men who don’t want to be with me? And how could I learn anything about the countryside and its history if I am playing nursemaid?”

Menedemos pointed an accusing finger at him. “There’s your real reason!” he exclaimed. “You’re not making this jaunt just for the sake of the balsam. You want to spy out these Ioudaioi and see what you can find out about their funny customs.”

“Well, what if I do?” Sostratos said. Herodotos had managed to travel for the sake of travel, or so it seemed from his history. Sostratos wished he could do the same, but no such luck. “As long as I bring back the balsam, how can you complain about what else I do?”

“How? Easy as you please. You never miss a chance to complain when I find some bored, pretty wife whose husband’s not giving her enough of what she craves.”

The unfairness of that almost choked Sostratos. “Lying with other men’s wives-especially with our customers’ wives-is bad for business, and it’s liable to get you killed. Remember Halikarnassos. Remember Taras.”

“Getting robbed and murdered because you’re stupid enough to travel by yourself is bad for business, too,” Menedemos retorted. “And it’s also liable to get you killed. And it’s not nearly so much fun as getting laid. Either you take an escort or you don’t go to Engedi,”

Sostratos glared. “I’ll make a bargain with you. I’ll take an escort along if you swear not to commit adultery this sailing season. If your spear gets too stiff to bear, go to a brothel and buy your relief.”

“It’s not the same at a brothel, and you know it,” Menedemos said. “The girls there have to give you what you ask for, whether they want to or not-and mostly they don’t. But there’s nothing randier than a wife who’s done without for too long, and you know it’s more fun when the woman enjoys herself, too,”

“I’d have more fun going to Engedi alone,” Sostratos answered.

“Till the first arrow got you in the ribs, you would.”

“That’s the chance you take in your games, too. You ask me to give up something, but you won’t do the same. Where’s the justice in that?”

“By Zeus, I’m the captain,” Menedemos said.

“But you’re not Zeus yourself, even if you swear by him, and you’re not a tyrant, either,” Sostratos replied. “Have we got a bargain, or haven’t we? Maybe I’ll just stay along the coast myself, and to the crows with getting the best price for the balsam at Engedi.”

“What? That’s mutiny!” Menedemos squawked. “We set off to the east to buy balsam. You learned that horrible language they speak so we could buy balsam. And now you say you won’t go where they have it?”

“Not with a squad of clumping, gallumphing sailors, not unless you give me something in return,” Sostratos said. “That’s not mutiny, my dear-that’s haggling. Are you saying you can’t keep away from other men’s wives till I get back from Engedi? What kind of weakling are you, if that’s so?”

“Oh, all right!” Menedemos kicked at the ground, sending a pebble spinning. “All right. You’ll go with guards, and I’ll fight shy of adultery till you’re back. What oath would you have me swear?” He held up a hand. “Wait! I know! We need some wine first, though.” In Salamis’ bustling agora, buying some was a matter of a moment. “All right. Here: ‘These things fulfilling, may I drink from this source.’ “ He sipped the wine and passed it to Sostratos, who did likewise. Menedemos finished, “ ‘But if I should break it, may the cup be full of water,’ Now you repeat it after me.”

Sostratos did. Then he said, “That’s a good oath. But why did you use a feminine participle there?-’these things fulfilling,’ I mean.”

His cousin grinned. “That’s the end of the oath Lysistrate and the other women swore in Aristophanes ’ comedy-the oath not to let their husbands have them till they ended the Peloponnesian War. It fits here, doesn’t it?”

Laughing, Sostratos dipped his head. “It could hardly fit better, my dear. Shall we finish that wine now?” They did and gave the cup back to the skinny little Hellene who’d sold the wine to them.

By the time they’d gone through the market square, Sostratos had got a lot of practice saying, “No thank you, not today,” and other such phrases in Aramaic. The Phoenicians--and the Hellenes-in the agora were slaveringly eager to sell to the Rhodians. Sostratos could easily have spent every obolos he had. Whether he could sell what he bought for enough to turn a profit was a different question, though he had a hard time convincing the merchants at Salamis of that.

He also discovered that Damonax’s olive oil was going to be even harder to move than he’d feared. Whenever he mentioned it to a trader, whether a Hellene or a Phoenician, the fellow would roll his eyes and say something like, “We make plenty at home.”

Wearily, Sostratos would offer a protest: “But this is the finest oil, from the very first picking, from the very first pressing. The gods couldn’t make better oil than this.”

“Let it be as you say, my master,” a Phoenician told him. “Let everything be just as you say. I will pay a premium for fine oil, certainly. But I will not pay a big premium, because the difference between the finest oil and an ordinary oil is so much less than the difference between the finest wine and an ordinary wine. It is there. You will find a few people who seek it out. But you will find only a few. My heart is full of grief to have to tell you this, my master, but it is so.”

Sostratos would have been more irate had he not heard variations on the theme from merchants along the southern coast of Anatolia. He went on his way, wondering if urging his father to let Damonax marry into the family had been such a good idea after all.

“What are we going to do with that oil?” Menedemos said morosely after he’d translated.

“Burn it in lamps, for all I care,” Sostratos answered. “Rub it all over yourself. If my brother-in-law were here, I’d give him an enema with it, as much as he could hold.”

Menedemos let out a startled laugh, “And I thought I was the one who liked Aristophanes.”

“I won’t say anything about Aristophanes one way or the other,” Sostratos told him. “What I will say is, I don’t much like my brother-in-law right now.”

“We could have carried quite a few things we’d have had an easier time selling,” Menedemos agreed. “We’d probably have made more money from them, too.”

“I know. I know.” Sostratos had been thinking about that even before Damonax’s slaves stowed amphora after amphora of olive oil aboard the Aphrodite . “At least we have some room for other cargo. He wanted us to fill her to the gunwales, remember. I did manage to talk my father out of letting him get away with that.”

“A good thing, too,” Menedemos said. “Otherwise, we’d have come home from our trading run without having sold anything. That’d be a first. And I’ll tell you something else, too: one way or another, my father would manage to blame me for everything that went wrong.”

He often complained about his father. Sostratos had never had any particular trouble with Uncle Philodemos, but he wasn’t Philodemos’ son, either. And, from everything he’d seen, Menedemos had cause for his complaints, too. “What is it between the two of you, anyhow?” Sostratos asked. “Whatever it is, can’t you find some way to cure it?”

“I don’t know. I doubt it.” Menedemos sounded surprisingly bleak. He also sounded as if he was lying, or at least not telling all of the truth.

Sostratos thought about calling him on it. Menedemos had frozen up a couple of times before when Sostratos asked him questions like that. It was as if he knew the answer but didn’t want to air it to anyone, perhaps even-perhaps especially-to himself. What could it be? Sostratos’ ever-lively curiosity sniffed at that like a Molossian hound sniffing for the scent of a hare, but found nothing.

That being so, changing the subject looked like a good idea. Sostratos said, “The king of Salamis and all these little Cypriot kings have to pay tribute to Ptolemaios nowadays. I wonder how they like it.”

“Not much, unless I miss my guess, and I don’t think I do,” Menedemos answered. Sostratos dipped his head in agreement. His cousin went on in musing tones: “I wonder why towns full of Hellenes here on Cyprus have kings, where most poleis back in Hellas itself and over in Great Hellas are democracies or oligarchies or what have you.”

“There’s Sparta,” Sostratos said.

“I said most poleis. I didn’t say all poleis. And Macedonia isn’t a polls, but it’s got a king, too.”

“At the moment, it hasn’t got a king, which is why all the marshals are hitting one another over the head with anything they can lay their hands on,” Sostratos pointed out. He thought for a little while. “That’s an interesting question, you know.”

“Give me an interesting answer, then,” Menedemos said.

“Hmm. One thing Cyprus and Macedonia have in common is that they’re right at the edge of the Hellenic world. Old-fashioned things stick around in places like this. Listen to the dialect the Cypriots use. And Macedonian’s even worse.”

“I should say so,” Menedemos agreed. “I’m not even sure it’s properly Greek at all. But tell me, then, O best one: are kings old-fashioned? What about Alexander?”

“Certainly not,” Sostratos said, as if he were responding to a question from Sokrates in a Platonic dialogue. In those dialogues, though, Sokrates got all the best lines. Here, Sostratos had some hope of having some himself. He went on. “But even if Alexander was something special, kingship isn’t. It is archaic in most of Hellas. Sparta’s the most conservative polls around. Add that to kings hanging on in backwoods places like this and Macedonia, and to other evidence-”

“What other evidence?” Menedemos broke in.

“Look at Athens, for instance,” Sostratos said. “Athens hasn’t had a king since the days of myth and legend, since King Kodros went out to fight knowing he would get killed, but would bring his city victory doing it.”

“Why talk about Athens, then?”

“If you’ll let me talk, my dear, I’ll tell you. Athens doesn’t have a king- hasn’t had one for ages. But it still has an arkhon called the king, who takes the place of the king it used to have in some religious ceremonies. So Athens is a place that once had a king, that shows it once had a king by keeping an official with the name but none of the power, but that doesn’t need him any more than a bird needs the eggshell it hatched out of. You see? Evidence.”

“Well, if you went to trial with It, I don’t know if you’d convince enough jurors to win a conviction, but you’ve convinced me; I will say that.” Menedemos clapped his hands together. Sostratos grinned. He didn’t win an argument with Menedemos-or rather, Menedemos didn’t admit he’d won one-every day. But his cousin added, “No matter how old-fashioned kinging it is, the Macedonian marshals have all of the job except for the name, and they seem to like it pretty well.”

“Of course they do,” Sostratos said. “They’re all rich as you please- Ptolemaios especially-and nobody dares tell them no. How can you not like that? But do the people in their realms like it? That’s liable to be a different question.”

“Except in Macedonia itself, most of those people are just barbarians. They don’t know what freedom is-they lived under the Great Kings of Persia before the Macedonians came,” Menedemos answered. “And, from everything I’ve ever heard, Egyptians don’t like anything foreign.”

“Yes, I’ve heard the same,” Sostratos agreed. “From what Himilkon says, it sounds as if the Ioudaioi don’t fancy foreigners, either.”

“All the more reason for you to have some guards along, then,” Menedemos said. “If the people you’re going to do business with want to kill you because you’re foreign-”

“Nobody said they wanted to kill me,” Sostratos broke in. “And I’ve agreed to bring along some sailors, remember? You’d better remember- and you’d better remember what you agreed to, too. Do you?”

“Yes, O best one,” Menedemos answered glumly,

Menedemos was in a sulky mood as he and Sostratos made their way back to the harbor from Salamis’ market square. No adultery, no chance for adultery, for the rest of the sailing season? He came close to wishing he’d let his fool of a cousin go off alone and get himself killed. It would serve him right, wouldn’t it?

After contemplating that, Menedemos reluctantly-very reluctantly- tossed his head. He did like Sostratos, in an almost avuncular way, and they would be able to make a lot of money on Engedi balsam if they could bring it back to Hellas without having to pay any Phoenician middlemen.

All the same,.. “The sacrifices I make,” he muttered.

“What’s that?” Sostratos asked.

“Never mind,” Menedemos told him. “I’d have to explain to my father-and to yours-how I happened to lose you to bandits, and that’s more trouble than it’s worth. Just as well, then, you’re going with guards.” And if I happen to have to pay a price for it, I pay a price for it, that’s all.

Then Sostratos pointed to a peculiar structure off to the left and asked, “What’s that?” in an altogether different tone of voice.

“Why are you asking me?” Menedemos asked in turn, “I don’t know. It’s sure funny-looking, though, whatever it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?” The more he looked at it, the stranger it seemed, too. “Some sort of shrine?”

“Beats me.” Sostratos was staring, too. The base of the structure was of mud brick, with a mound of what looked like charcoal raised above it. Statues of a man, a woman, and three children surrounded the strange erection. Sostratos was normally a shy man, but curiosity could make him bold. He stepped in front of a passing Salaminian and asked, “I beg your pardon, but could you tell me what this building is?”

“Know you not?” the local said in surprise. But when Menedemos and Sostratos both tossed their heads, he said, “Why, ‘tis the cenotaph of King Nikokreon, of course.”

“Oh, a pestilence!” Menedemos snapped his fingers, annoyed at himself. “I should have thought of that. Ptolemaios made him kill himself when he took over Cyprus, didn’t he? So there isn’t any king of Salamis any more, Sostratos, Two or three years ago, it would have been. I heard about it in Rhodes.”

“Aye, you have’t,” the Salaminian said. “‘Twas not Nikokreon alone made to slay himself, but wife and offspring as well. The monument you see here raised commemorates them all. Farewell.” He walked on.

“Ptolemaios doesn’t like murdering people,” Menedemos remarked, “Maybe, to his way of thinking, there’s no blood guilt if he makes them kill themselves. Polemaios last year in Kos, and Niknkrcon here, too. I daresay Polemaios had it coming, though, I never would have trusted him at my back, anyhow.”

“By the dog of Egypt, Nikokreon had it coming, too,” Sostratos said, his voice suddenly savage. “I’d forgotten what Ptolemaios made him do, but it wasn’t half what he deserved.”

“Why?” Menedemos asked. “I’d never even heard of him till word got to Rhodes that he’d slain himself. Life’s too short to keep track of every little Cypriot kinglet who comes along.”

“Life’s never too short to keep track of anything,” Sostratos said.

Menedemos would have bet his cousin would come out with something like that. He retorted, “You’re the one who forgot Nikokreon’s dead, back there earlier today.”

Sostratos turned red. “Well, I shouldn’t have. What he did deserves remembering, whether you usually keep track of such things or not.”

“Now you’ve got me curious,” Menedemos said. “What did he do, my dear?”

“He’s the abandoned rogue who tortured Anaxarkhos of Abdera to death,” Sostratos answered. Menedemos must have looked blank, for Sostratos continued, “Anaxarkhos was a philosopher from the school of Demokritos.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of him,” Menedemos replied with some relief. “The fellow who says everything’s made up of tiny particles too small to cut up any more--atoms, right?” To his relief, Sostratos dipped his head. Menedemos said, “All right, Anaxarkhos followed him. What then?”

“He was a man who spoke his mind, Anaxarkhos was. Once when Alexander got hurt, Anaxarkhos pointed to the wound and said, ‘That is the blood of a man, not a god.’ But Alexander liked him, and didn’t take offense. Nikokreon was different.”

“You’re a tease, do you know that? If you were a hetaira, you’d have more customers than you knew what to do with, the way you promise and promise without actually giving very much.” Menedemos poked his cousin in the ribs.

“If I were a hetaira, all the men would run screaming, and I don’t mean on account of my beard,” Sostratos replied. “I know what my looks are.”

Menedemos had been a much-courted youth before his beard sprouted. No one had paid the least attention to his tall, gawky, horse-faced cousin. At the time and since, Sostratos had made a good game show of not caring. But, down deep, it must have rankled. Here, ten years later, Menedemos saw it coming out. He made a point of not overtly noticing. “Nikokreon was different, you say? How? What did this- Anaxagoras?-do?”

“Anaxarkhos,” Sostratos corrected. “ Anaxagoras was a philosopher, too, but a long time ago, in the days of Perikles.”

“All right, Anaxarkhos,” Menedemos said agreeably, glad he’d steered his cousin away from thinking about himself. “What did he do to get dear Nikokreon angry at him?”

“That I don’t know, not exactly, but it must have been something special, because Nikokreon thought up a special death for him,” Sostratos replied. “He threw him into a big stone mortar and had him pounded to death with iron hammers.”

“Pheu!” Menedemos said. “That’s a nasty way to go. Did the philosopher die well?”

“Anaxarkhos? I should say so,” Sostratos said. “He told the Salaminian, ‘Go ahead and pound my body, for you can’t pound my soul.’ That made Nikokreon so furious, he ordered Anaxarkhos’ tongue torn out, but Anaxarkhos bit it off before the torturer could get to him, and he spat it in Nikokreon’s face. And so you see, my dear, Nikokreon might have got off better than he deserved when Ptolemaios told him to slay himself. If I’d been the one giving the orders…”

“You sound as bloodthirsty as any of the Macedonians,” Menedemos said, eyeing Sostratos with unwonted wariness. “More often than not, you’re as gentle as any man I’ve ever known. Every once in a while, though…” He tossed his head.

“Someone who tries to kill knowledge, to kill wisdom, deserves whatever happens to him,” Sostratos said. “That polluted whoreson pirate who stole the gryphon’s skull, for instance. If I got my hands on him, I’d send for a torturer from Persia and another one from Carthage, and let them see who could do worse to him. I’d pay them both, and gladly.”

Menedemos started to laugh, but stopped before the sound escaped. When he looked at Sostratos, his cousin’s expression said he hadn’t been joking. That pirate was lucky he’d managed to get off the Aphrodite . And he’d stay lucky if he never complained in a tavern about the old bones he’d taken in lieu of other loot more worth having. If word of such grumbling ever got back to Sostratos, that pirate would have to look to his life.

When they returned to the merchant galley, Diokles proved to have done some scouting of his own. The oarmaster said, “They’ve got a fine kitharist from Corinth playing at one of the inns here. They say he’s the first kitharist to play in Salamis since Nikokreon flung the one named Stratonikos into the sea. Now that the king’s dead, they dare show their faces here again.”

“Oh, by Zeus!” Menedemos exclaimed. “Another one Nikokreon put to death?”

“Another one?” Diokles asked.

“But you have to remember, too, it wasn’t a king who killed Sokrates.”

“Democracy isn’t perfect, either-the gods know that’s so,” Sostratos said. “If we didn’t live in a democracy, we wouldn’t have to listen to Xanthos blather on and on whenever the Assembly meets, for instance.”

“You’re right,” Menedemos said. “One more reason to be glad we can get out of Rhodes half the year on trading runs.”

“Pity we can’t hear Stratonikos, though,” Sostratos said. “Who’s the kitharist who is in town, Diokles?”

“Areios, his name is,” the keleustes answered.

Menedemos nudged Sostratos. “What did old Stratonikos have to say about him, eh, best one?”

“He told him to go to the crows once,” Sostratos answered. “That’s all I know.”

“Sounds like Stratonikos told everybody to go to the crows,” Menedemos said. “That doesn’t make this Areios out to be anybody special. I wonder if we should bother seeing him.”

“What else is there to do in Salamis of nights?” Sostratos asked.

“Get drunk. Get laid.” Menedemos named the two obvious choices in any harbor town. They were, when he thought about it, the two obvious choices in towns that didn’t lie by the coast, too.

“We can drink and listen to Areios at the same time,” his cousin said. “And if you decide you want a woman or a boy, you can probably find one not far away.”

“He’s right, skipper,” Diokles said.

“Well, so he is,” Menedemos agreed. “He’s right a lot of the time.” He nudged Sostratos in the ribs. “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?”

“Because I sail with you?” Sostratos asked innocently. Before Menedemos could get angry, his cousin went on, “A couple of hundred years ago, people asked Thales of Miletos that same question till he got sick of hearing it. He cornered the olive-oil market in those parts one year, and after that he was rich.”

“Good for him. I don’t suppose there’s any law that says philosophers can’t enjoy silver just like anybody else,” Menedemos said. “And I don’t suppose he got rich by trying to sell his oil to all the neighboring poleis that already had plenty of their own.”

Sostratos grimaced. “No, I don’t suppose so, either. We just have to do the best we can with it, that’s all.”

Together, Menedemos and Sostratos told him about Anaxarkhos. Then Menedemos asked, “What happened to Stratonikos?”

“Why, he spoke freer about Nikokreon’s family than he should have,” the keleustes answered. “That’s why the king drowned him.”

“This has a familiar ring, doesn’t it?” Sostratos said, and Menedemos dipped his head. Sostratos went on, “I believe it about Stratonikos, too. I saw him in Athens, years ago. Marvelous kitharist, but he would say the first thing that popped into his mind, and he didn’t care where he was or to whom he said it.”

“Tell me more,” Menedemos urged,

“He was the fellow who called Byzantion the armpit of Hellas,” Sostratos said, and Menedemos guffawed. His cousin added, “When he was coming out of Herakleia, he looked around carefully, this way and that. Somebody asked him why. ‘I’m ashamed oi being seen,’ he answered. ‘It’s like coming out of a brothel.’“

“Oh, dear,” Menedemos said, “No, I don’t think he’d have got on well with Nikokreon.”

“He didn’t get on well with anybody,” Sostratos said. “When he was playing in Corinth, an old woman kept staring and staring at him. Finally, he asked her why. She said, ‘It’s a wonder your mother bore you for ten months when we can’t bear you for even a day’ But by Apollo, Menedemos, he played the kithara like no man since Orpheus.”

“He must have, or somebody would have drowned him sooner.” Menedemos turned to Diokles. “How did he fall foul of the king of Salamis?”

“I know he insulted Nikokreon’s two sons, but I don’t know how,” the oarmaster answered. “But once when the king’s wife-Axiothea, her name was-came in for supper, she happened to fart. And then later on she stepped on an almond while she was wearing a slipper from Sikyon- and Stratonikos sang out, ‘That’s not the same sound!”

“Oimoil” Menedemos exclaimed. “If he said that to anyone from my family, I’d probably pop him in the chops myself.”

“Ah, but would you kill him?” Sostratos asked, “That’s what’s wrong with what Nikokreon did-nobody could stop him if he set his mind on killing or torturing someone. That’s what’s wrong with kings generally, if you ask me.”

“I’m as good a democrat as you are, my dear,” Menedemos answered.

The answer was soft enough to keep Menedemos from going any further with his complaints. And he knew Sostratos didn’t want to have the oil aboard the Aphrodite , either, even if it had come from his brother-in-law’s groves. With a sigh, he turned to Diokles. “Whereabouts is this Areios playing?”

“It’s not far,” the oarmaster answered. “I was going to go over there myself, listen for a while, and see how overpriced the wine is. You gents coming? “

“Why not?” Menedemos said, and Sostratos dipped his head, too.

Diokles led them to the tavern where the kitharist was performing. When Menedemos saw where it was, he started to laugh. So did Sostratos, who said, “Call it Stratonikos’ revenge.” Nikokreon’s cenotaph stood only fifteen or twenty cubits away, with the statue of the late king of Salamis looking back toward the tavern.

“Play loud, Areios,” Menedemos said. “Let’s hope Nikokreon’s shade is listening,”

The place was crowded when Menedemos, his cousin, and the keleustes went inside. He heard the archaic Cypriot dialect, Macedonian, several less unusual varieties of Greek, and assorted retching gutturals from a table full of Phoenicians.

“By the dog of Egypt!” Menedemos exclaimed. “Isn’t that Ptolemaios?” He pointed to a blunt-featured, middle-aged man sitting at the best table in the place.

“It can’t be,” Sostratos answered. “He went back to Alexandria from Kos this past fall with his new baby.” He snapped his fingers. “This must be Menelaos, his brother. He commands here on Cyprus.”

“Mm, I suppose you’re right,” Menedemos said after a second glance. “Sure does look like him, though, doesn’t it?”

Perhaps sensing their eyes on him, Menelaos looked their way. He smiled and waved. Menedemos found himself waving back. Ptolemaios’ brother seemed friendlier than the lord of Egypt. “He has less on his shoulders than Ptolemaios does,” Sostratos said when Menedemos remarked on that.

Menedemos thought it over, then dipped his head, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were right.”

Where Menelaos and his officers got the best seats in the house, a Rhodian merchant skipper and a couple of his officers had to take whatever they could get. Sostratos, of all people, was the one who spotted a table in the back of the tavern. All three Rhodians rushed to claim it. They got there just ahead of somebody who, by the gold rings on his fingers and his crimson-bordered himation, might have bought and sold them. The fellow gave them a sour stare before looking for somewhere else to sit.

Once his own fundament was on a stool, Menedemos discovered he could barely see the raised platform where Areios would perform. “He’s not a flute-girl at a symposion,” Sostratos said when he complained. “We came to listen to him, not to watch him dance or take his clothes off.”

“I know, but I would like to have some idea what he looks like,” Menedemos answered.

Before he could do any more grumbling, a serving woman came up and asked, “What are ye fain to drink, gentles?”

Menedemos hid a smile. He enjoyed listening to Cypriots talk; it was almost like hearing Homer and his contemporaries come to life. “What have you got?” he asked.

“We’ve wine from Khios and Kos and Lesbos and Thasos and Naxos and…” The woman went on to name almost every island in the Aegean and every part of the mainland adjacent to it. She finished, “And, of course, we’ve the local, and also wine of dates, in the which the Phoenicians take much pleasure.”

“A cup of the local will suit me fine,” Menedemos said.

“Same for me,” Diokles said.

The serving woman’s eyes called them both cheapskates. Menedemos didn’t care. A place like this was liable to pad its profits by claiming a cheap wine was really something more and charging three times as much for it as would have been right. With the local, at least he knew what he was getting.

“And what of you, most noble?” the woman asked when Sostratos didn’t answer right away.

“Let me have a cup of date wine, if you please,” Sostratos said. With a shrug, the serving woman went away.

“Why do you want to drink that horrid nasty stuff, young sir?” Diokles said.

“We’re going to Phoenicia. I might as well find out what the Phoenicians like, don’t you think?” Sostratos said. “If it is nasty, I won’t drink it again.”

After longer than she should have taken, the serving woman brought them their drinks. Menedemos tasted the local and made a face. He hadn’t expected much, and he hadn’t got it, either. Diokles drank without a word of complaint. Menedemos took another sip. He shrugged. It wasn’t that much worse than the wine the Aphrodite carried for the crew.

“What about yours, Sostratos?” he asked.

His cousin held out the cheap earthenware cup. “Have a taste yourself, if you care to.”

“Why not?” Menedemos said, though that was a question with an obvious answer. He sipped cautiously, then handed the cup back to Sostratos. “Too sweet for my taste, and thick as glue. The Phoenicians are welcome to it, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I wouldn’t drink it every day, either,” Sostratos said, “but I don’t think it’s as nasty as Diokles made it out to be. Better than drinking water, that’s certain.”

“I should hope so,” Menedemos said. “After all, what isn’t?”

“There’s that sour stuff the Egyptians and Thracians and Kelts brew from barley,” Sostratos said. “By all accounts, beer’s pretty bad. This tastes as though it wants to be wine, anyhow.” He drank some more, then thoughtfully smacked his lips. “Yes, it could be worse.”

“Thracians use butter instead of olive oil, so it’s plain they have no taste,” Menedemos said. Sostratos and Diokles both dipped their heads; for good measure, the oarmaster also made a disgusted face.

A fat, bejeweled man-Menedemos guessed he was the fellow who owned the tavern-came up onto the platform and spoke in throaty, Phoenician-accented Greek: “Hail, best ones! Hail also to the lovely ladies we have with us this evening.”

That made Menedemos look around. It also made Sostratos cough sharply. “You stop that,” Menedemos told him. “Hetairai aren’t wives.” Sostratos spread his hands, admitting as much. Menedemos did spot a couple of women; they wore veils, as if they were respectable, but they wouldn’t have come to a tavern if they had been. One sat with a big Macedonian a couple of tables away from Menelaos and his comrades. The other accompanied a man with the sleek look of a rich landowner.

Menedemos had missed some of what the tavernkeeper had to say. “-Here direct from appearances in Athens and Corinth and Alexandria,” the man went on, “My friends, I give you the famous… Areios!”

He clapped his hands, holding them above his head to signal everyone else to applaud, too. Menedemos clapped a few times. So did Diokles. Sostratos, Menedemos noted, sat quietly, waiting to find out whether the kitharist would be worth hearing. Sometimes Sostratos was too sensible for his own good.

“Thank you very much!” Areios waved to the crowd as he came out onto the platform. Lean and spare, he spoke a polished Attic Greek. He’d probably been a striking youth. Even now, though the gray in his hair argued that he had to be close to fifty, he shaved his face to make himself look younger. By lamp- and torchlight, the illusion worked remarkably well. “I’m very pleased to be here,” he went on with a grin. “By the gods, I’m very pleased to be anywhere that isn’t apt to get sacked in the next hour.”

He got his laugh. Menelaos called, “That won’t happen in Cyprus. Cyprus belongs to my brother, and he’ll keep it!”

“As long as he keeps it till after I’ve sailed away, that’s fine with me,” Areios replied, and won a louder laugh.

“Another kitharist who thinks he can make fun of powerful men,” Menedemos said. “Doesn’t he remember what happened to Stratonikos here?” He paused. “Menelaos does seem a more cheerful sort than Nikokreon was-I will say that.”

“I wonder how he feels about being the second most important man in Ptolemaios’ realm,” Sostratos said. “Does he ever wonder what things would have been like if he’d been born before his brother?”

“Why ask me?” Menedemos said. “Why not go over there and ask him?”

For a bad moment, he thought Sostratos would get up and do just that. But his cousin was only shifting on the stool. Sostratos pointed to the kithara Areios cradled in his arms. “Have you ever seen a finer instrument?”

Menedemos had to crane his neck to see it at all, but answered, “I don’t believe I have.”

Large and heavy, the kithara was the instrument of choice of professional musicians. It had seven strings, and an enormous sound box that amplified the tones the kitharist struck from them. Areios’ kithara was of pale oak, and gleamed as if rubbed with beeswax. It had Inlays of ivory and of some dark wood, perhaps walnut, perhaps something more exotic-and more expensive. From supporting the instrument he played, Areios’ arms were as muscular as a pankratiast’s.

But then Areios ran his fingers over the strings, and Menedemos stopped noticing anything but the music. Not only was his one of the most beautiful kitharas Menedemos had ever seen, it was also one of the most perfectly tuned he’d ever heard. Tuning the kithara-or its relatives, the lyre, the barbitos, and the phorminx-was anything but easy. Like anyone who’d been to school, Menedemos had learned to play the lyre… after a fashion.

The strings-four in a lyre, more in the other instruments-were attached to the sound box at the bottom by a string bar and bridge. Things were more complicated at the other end. The strings were wound around the crosspiece and held in place by a piece of hide cut from the neck of a cow or goat and rubbed with sticky grease to make them adhere to it. Menedemos remembered endless plucking, endless adjustments- and the schoolmaster’s stick coming down on his back when he couldn’t get the tone right no matter what. And even when he managed to persuade the strings to yield notes somewhere close to what they should have been, a little playing would put them out again. It was enough-more than enough-to drive anybody mad.

Here, though, the tones weren’t close to what they should have been. They were exactly right and seemed to pierce Menedemos’ very soul. “Pure as water from a mountain spring,” Sostratos whispered. Menedemos dipped his head, and then waved his cousin to silence. He didn’t want to hear anything but the music.

Areios played a little bit of everything, from the lyric poetry of the generations following Homer to the latest love songs out of Alexandria. Everything he did play had a slight sardonic edge to it. He chose Arkhilokhos’ old poem about throwing away his shield and leaving it for some Thracian to find. And the Alexandrian song was about a woman trying to bewitch her lover away from her rival-a boy.

At last, the kitharist struck one more perfect chord, bowed very low, said, “I thank you, most noble ones,” and left the stage.

Menedemos clapped till his palms were sore. He wasn’t the only one, either; a tremendous din of applause filled the tavern, enough to make his head ring. Cries of “Euge!” rang out from all sides.

“How is he next to Stratonikos?” Menedemos asked as they left the building.

“It’s been a while since I heard Stratonikos,” Sostratos replied, judicious as usual. “I think Areios is at least as good with the kithara itself-and I’ve never heard one better tuned-

“Yes, I thought the same thing myself,” Menedemos said.

Diokles dipped his head. “Me, too.”

“But Stratonikos, if I remember rightly, had a better voice,” Sostratos finished.

“I’m glad we went,” Menedemos said. He clapped the keleustes on the back. “Good thing you heard he was playing, Diokles-and I hope Nikokreon’s shade got himself an earful tonight.”

Sostratos wasn’t sorry to see Cyprus recede behind the Aphrodite ’s goose-headed sternpost and the boat the akatos towed in her wake. He also was not eager to face Phoenicia or the land of the Ioudaioi. What he was was coldly furious at his brother-in-law. “When we get back to Rhodes,” he said, “I’m going to pour melted cheese and garlic over Damonax and fry him in his own olive oil. We’ll have plenty left to do the job, with some left over for the barley rolls we’ll serve with his polluted carcass.”

“You must be angry, if you’ve got the whole menu planned,” Menedemos said.

“Herodotos puts the Androphagoi far to the north of the Skythian plains, beyond a great desert,” Sostratos replied. “I wonder what he would have thought if he’d heard a Rhodian wanted to become a man-eater. “

“He’d probably wonder what wine went best with brother-in-law,” Menedemos said. “Something sweet and thick, I’d say.”

“Gods bless you, my dear,” Sostratos said, “for you’re the best man I’ve ever known when it comes to helping someone along with his mood, whatever it happens to be. I’m not surprised men often choose you symposiarch when they throw a drinking party-you’re the one to take them where they want to go.”

“Well, thank you, () best one,” Menedemos answered, raising his right hand from the steering-oar tiller to give Sostratos a salute. “I don’t know that anyone’s ever said anything kinder of me.”

“Now that I think about it,” Sostratos went on in musing tones, “that’s probably the same sort of knack that gets you so many girls, isn’t it?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Menedemos said.

“Papai!” Sostratos exclaimed, now dismayed. He stared at his cousin, hardly believing what he’d heard. “Why not? Don’t you know what Sokrates said?-’The unexamined life is not worth living.’ He’s right.”

“I don’t know about that,” Menedemos said. “I’m usually too busy living my life to step back and take a look at it.”

“Then how do you know if you’re living well or not?”

Menedemos frowned. “If we go down this road, I’m going to get all tangled up. I can see that coming already.” He wagged a finger at Sostratos. “I can see you looking forward to it, too.”

“Who, me?” Sostratos said, not quite innocently enough, “Answer my question, if you please.”

“How do I know if I’m living well?” Menedemos echoed. Sostratos dipped his head. His cousin frowned in thought. “By whether I’m happy or not, I suppose.”

“Amazing, O marvelous one!” Sostratos said. Menedemos shot him a dirty look. Sostratos went on, “Could a dog or a goat speak, it would give the same answer. For a dog or a goat, it would be good enough, too. But for a man? No. Artaxerxes Okhos, the Great King of Persia, was happiest when he was killing people, and he killed a lot of them. Does that mean he lived well?”

“No, but killing people doesn’t make me happy.” Menedemos fixed Sostratos with a mild and speculative stare. “For certain people, I might make an exception.”

“You’re still talking around the question,” Sostratos said. “Just think, too: if you knew why you were so charming, you might get more women yet.”

That made Menedemos look sharply at him. Sostratos had thought it might. “Do you think so?” his cousin asked.

“I don’t see why it wouldn’t,” Sostratos replied. “An archer who knows what he’s doing is more likely to hit the target than one who just picks up the bow and lets fly, isn’t he?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so.” But Menedemos sounded suspicious. A moment later, he explained why: “I still think you’re trying to turn me into a philosopher behind my back.”

“Would I do such a thing?” Again, Sostratos sounded as innocent as he could.

He sounded so very innocent, in fact, that both Menedemos and Diokles burst out laughing. “Oh, no, my dear, not you,” Menedemos said. “No, indeed. Never you. The thought wouldn’t cross your mind.” He laughed some more, louder than ever,

“What I’d like to know,” Sostratos said with more than a little heat, “is what’s so dreadful about the notion that one man should want to persuade another to love wisdom and look for it, instead of just stumbling over it when he chances upon it or turning his back on it altogether. Can you tell me that?”

“Philosophy’s too much like work,” Menedemos said. “I’ve got real work to do, and I haven’t got the time to worry about becomingness or essences or any of that other philosophical nonsense that makes my head ache.”

“Do you have time to think about whether you’re doing the right thing, and why?” Sostratos asked. “Is anything more important than that?”

“Getting the Aphrodite to Phoenicia and not sinking on the way,” his cousin suggested.

“You’re being troublesome on purpose,” Sostratos said. Menedemos grinned at him. Sostratos went on, “Yes, you want to survive. Any living thing wants to survive. But when you get to Phoenicia, will you do good or evil?”

“Good to my friends, evil to my enemies,” Menedemos replied at once.

Any Hellene who answered without thinking was likely to say something much like that. Sostratos tossed his head. “I’m sorry, my dear, but what was good enough for Homer ’s heroes isn’t any more.”

“And why not?” Menedemos demanded. “If anybody does me a bad turn, I’ll give him a knee in the balls first chance I get.”

“What happens then? He’ll give you one back, or his friends will.”

“And then I’ll get my own back, or I’ll have a friend help me against his friend,” Menedemos said.

“And your faction fight will go on for years, maybe for generations,” Sostratos said. “How many poleis have been ruined by feuds like that? How many wars between poleis have started through feuds like that? By the gods, if the poleis of Hellas hadn’t spent their time fighting amongst themselves, could the Macedonians have beaten them?”

He thought that was an invincible argument. But Menedemos said, “Ha! Now I’ve got you!”

“You do not!”

“I do so.” His cousin leered at him. “For one thing, the Macedonians fight amongst themselves, too, even worse than regular Hellenes, Go ahead-tell me I’m wrong. I dare you.” He waited. Sostratos stood silent. He couldn’t disagree. “Ha!” Menedemos said again. “And, for another, if Philip of Macedon hadn’t whipped the Hellenes into line, and if Alexander hadn’t come along right afterwards, who’d be running Phoenicia now? The Great King of Persia, that’s who. So I say hurrah for feuds, I do.”

Sostratos stared at him, then started to laugh, “huge!” he exclaimed. “That’s the best bit of bad argument I think I’ve ever heard. Some people learn to argue from Platon and what he says of Sokrates. You took your model from Aristophanes ’ Clouds.”

“Bad Logic there, you mean?” Menedemos asked, and Sostratos dipped his head. Not a bit abashed, Menedemos made as if to bow. “Bad Logic won, remember. Good Logic gave up and went over to the other side. And it looks like I’ve out-argued you.”

He waited to see whether Sostratos would challenge that. Sostratos didn’t, but gave back the same sort of bow he’d got. “Every once in a while, I surprise you when we wrestle in the gymnasion.” He towered over his cousin, but Menedemos was quicker and stronger and more agile. “Every once in a while, I suppose you can surprise me when we aim winged words at each other.”

“Winged words?” Menedemos echoed. “You knew the Aristophanes, and now you’re quoting Homer. By the dog, which of us is which?”

“Oh, no, you don’t. You won’t get away with that, you rascal. If you say you’re me and I’m you, you get out of the oath you gave me in Salamis.”

They both laughed. Menedemos said, “Well, it wouldn’t be hard for you to keep. You don’t go looking to sleep with other men’s wives anyhow.”

“I should hope not,” Sostratos answered. “But you can’t be me, because you didn’t spend all that time over the winter learning Aramaic.”

“I’m glad I didn’t, too. You sound like you’re choking to death every time you speak it.” Menedemos put on a horrible Phoenician accent: “Dis iz vat joo zound lige.”

“I hope not,” Sostratos said.

“Go ahead and hope. You still do.”

They kept on chaffing each other as Menedemos sailed the Aphrodite southeast. Going due east from Salamis would have shortened their journey across the Inner Sea, but then they would have had to crawl south along the Phoenician coast to get to Sidon, the city from which Sostratos wanted to set out and explore the interior. At this season of the year, with the sun hot and bright and the sea calm, the risk seemed worth taking.

Sostratos looked back toward Salamis. Already, the coast of Cyprus was no more than a low line on the horizon. The akatos would be out of sight of land for three days, maybe four, on the way to Phoenicia. Except for the journey south from Hellas and the islands of the Aegean to Alexandria, it was the longest journey over the open sea a ship was likely to have to make.

“I wouldn’t want to do this in a round ship,” Sostratos said. “Suppose you got halfway across and the wind died? Sitting out there, bobbing in the middle of nothing, hoping you wouldn’t run out of water and wine…” He tossed his head. “No, thanks.”

“That wouldn’t be much fun,” Menedemos agreed. “I don’t like the idea of riding out a storm out of sight of land, either. When that happened on the way west from Hellas to Italy a couple of years ago, we were lucky to make as good a landfall as we did.”

“There ought to be a better way to navigate out on the open sea,” Sostratos said. “Sun and stars, wind and waves, just aren’t enough. Ships that set out for Alexandria can end up almost anywhere along the Egyptian coast, in the Delta or in the desert to the west, and then have to beat their way back.”

“I won’t say you’re wrong, because you’re right,” Menedemos replied. “But how would you do such a thing? What else is there but sun and stars, wind and waves?”

“I don’t know,” Sostratos said fretfully. He’d feared Menedemos would ask him that, for he had no answer to give. “Maybe there’s something, though. After all, T don’t suppose the very first sailors knew enough to cast a line down to the seabed so the lead’s hollow bottom, full of tallow, would bring up sand or marl that helped tell them where they were.”

“That’s… probably true,” Menedemos said, “I don’t remember Homer talking about sounding leads in the Iliad or the Odyssey, and resourceful Odysseus would surely have used one if he’d known about it.”

“Herodotos does mention them, so they’ve been known for more than a hundred years,” Sostratos said. “Sometime between the Trojan War and the Persian Wars, some clever fellow figured that out. I wonder who. I wonder when. I wish I knew. That’s a man whose name deserves to live. I wonder if he was a Hellene or a Phoenician or a gods-detested Lykian pirate. I don’t suppose anyone will ever know for certain.”

His cousin gave him an odd look, “It hadn’t even occurred to me that the fellow who came up with the lead could have been anything but a Hellene.”

“We’ve borrowed all sorts of things,” Sostratos said. “The Phoenicians gave us the alpha-beta. Theirs is older than ours, and you should have heard Himilkon go on and on about how they’re happy with it just the way it is. The Lydians were the first ones to mint real coins, or so Herodotos says-before that, everybody had to weigh out scrap gold and silver. And even Dionysos is supposed to come from out of the distant east, so maybe we learned to make wine from barbarians, too.”

“Wherever we learned it, it’s a good thing we did,” Menedemos said. “I wouldn’t want to spend my whole life drinking water. Or it could be even worse than that. We could drink milk the way the Thracians and the Skythians do.” He made a revolted face, sticking out his tongue like a Gorgon painted on the facing of a hoplite’s shield.

“That would be dreadful.” Sostratos made a nasty face of his own. “Cheese is all very well-cheese is better than all very well, as a matter of fact-but milk?” He tossed his head. “No, thanks.”

“We found out the Syrians don’t fancy seafood, remember,” Menedemos said. “Now that’s ignorance, nothing else but,”

“Of course it is,” Sostratos said. “And that strange god the Ioudaioi worship won’t let them eat pork.” He sent his cousin a warning look. “You’re going to start talking about Pythagoreans and beans and farting again, aren’t you? Don’t.”

“I wasn’t going to do any such thing,” Menedemos insisted. Sostratos didn’t believe him for a moment. But then his cousin went on, “What I was going to do was tell you there’s a little tiny island between Lesbos and the Anatolian mainland that’s called Pordoselene.”

“What? Fartmoon?” Sostratos exclaimed. “I don’t believe it,”

“Apollo smite me if I lie,” Menedemos said solemnly. “It even has a polls of the same name. And there’s another island, even smaller, also called Pordoselene, in front of the polis, and that island has a temple to Apollo on it.”

“Fartmoon,” Sostratos said again, and shrugged in bemusement. ‘‘We’re not even out of sight of land yet, but we’re already getting… peculiar. By the time we spy the Phoenician coast, I expect we’ll all be raving mad.” He sounded as if he was looking forward to it.