Owl to Athens

by H. N. Turteltaub

  He hurried toward the quays, dodging past a fisherman carrying a basket of sprats, some of them still wiggling a little; another fisherman with a basket of eels for customers who could afford better than sprats; a naked sponge diver, his eyes blood-red from staying open in the sea, a couple of sponges under his arms; a gray-haired, unveiled woman selling little cheese pies; a shaven-headed Egyptian sailor coming out of a brothel with a sated smirk on his face; and a net-seller or -mender all draped with his wares. Flies buzzed. Sparrows hopped around, pecking at this and that. A dog with half its left ear missing gnawed a length of pig gut a sausage-seller must have thrown away. It growled when Menedemos walked by. He raised a leg to kick it if it tried to bite, and it shrank back in fear.

  As Menedemos neared the pier to which the Aphrodite was tied, someone called his name. He turned. There was Sostratos, waving. Menedemos waved back and said, “Hail! What are you doing here? I thought you’d be up in the city.”

  “I sold some ink to a fellow who thinks he’s the next Euripides, and then found I’d got rid of all the jars we’d brought up to Protomakhos’ house.” Sostratos looked disgusted with himself. “I hate making mistakes like that.”

  “Reminds me you’re human,” Menedemos said.

  By his cousin’s expression, Sostratos didn’t care to be reminded. But he also recalled enough humanity to stay polite, which he didn’t always. He asked, “How about you?”

  “I just sold some crimson dye to a dyer whose shop can’t be more than three or four plethra from the Aphrodite,” Menedemos said. “Got a decent price for it, too.”

  “How much?” Sostratos asked. Menedemos told him. He dipped his head, “Yes, that’s not bad,” he agreed. “Nothing to make Kroisos the Lydian king jealous, but not bad.”

  “Kroisos collected taxes and tribute,” Menedemos said. “We have to earn our money.”

  “So we—” Sostratos broke off and pointed out to sea. “By the dog of Egypt!” he whispered. “Will you look at that?”

  Menedemos looked. There approaching the harbor was an immense fleet of war galleys and transports. He started to count them, but rapidly gave up. There had to be well over a hundred. He and Sostratos weren’t the only ones who’d spotted them, either. Everywhere, people on the street and on the quays stopped whatever they were doing and pointed out to sea like Sostratos.

  “Who do you suppose they are?” Sostratos asked in a small voice.

  “You said it yourself-—’by the dog of Egypt,’“ Menedemos answered, “They have to belong to Ptolemaios. Otherwise the Athenians and Kassandros’ men would be trying to shut the harbor against them and beat them back, and they’re not.”

  They certainly weren’t. A couple of Kassandros’ Macedonians waved to the officers on the deck of an approaching war galley—an immense ship, at least a six, with two men per oar on all three banks of oars. One of the men on the galley waved back. His red cloak clung to his shoulders; the breeze blew from off the sea.

  Blowing from off the sea, it carried the stench of the galleys to the shore. Menedemos made a face. “Pheu!” he said in disgust. “That’s a worse reek than the one I came away from at Adrastos’ dyeshop.”

  “A lot of men packed close together on a lot of warships, without much water for washing.” Sostratos, as usual, wanted to get to the bottom of things. Usually, that was a virtue. Today, it irritated Menedemos.

  “I know, my dear,” he said. “No matter what you may think, I’m not a fool. And whatever the reason, that’s a horrible stink.”

  Transports started tying up wherever there was room along a pier. Naked sailors tossed lines to longshoremen; who made the ships fast. Gangplanks thumped out onto the quays. Soldiers tramped along the gangplanks, up the quays, and onto dry land. They wore their helmets and corselets and carried both spears and shields. The longshoremen got out of their way as fast as they could.

  “They look ready for business, don’t they?” Sostratos said.

  “They sure do,” Menedemos answered.

  “I don’t understand,” Sostratos said, “Is Ptolemaios going to help Kassandros garrison Athens? If he is, will Kassandros move some of his men somewhere else? To the north, say, to fight against Lysimakhos? There’s been no rumor about any of this.” By the way he sounded, he took that as a personal affront.

  But he wasn’t the only one puzzled. The Macedonians who’d waved to the approaching fleet came up to the closest column of soldiers. One of them asked a question. Menedemos couldn’t make out the words, but it had to be something like, What’s going on here?

  Quite casually, an oncoming soldier lowered his long spear—it was more than twice the height of a man—and thrust it into the Macedonian’s gut. His companion stared in astonished disbelief. Before he could do anything but stare, another soldier speared him. Both men let out bubbling wails of anguish as they crumpled, their blood spilling into the dust. They died without ever knowing why.

  “Forward, men!” called an officer with the soldiers. “Now we take hold of this place.”

  Forward they came, sandals thumping. And, as they came, they shouted out their war cry: “Demetrios son of Antigonos! Eleleu! Demetrios son of Antigonos!”

  Menedemos and Sostratos gaped at each other as the column pounded past. That wasn’t Demetrios of Phaleron the soldiers were shouting for. It was Demetrios the son of Antigonos the One-Eyed, Macedonian marshal and deadly foe to Ptolemaios and Kassandros both. However he’d done it, his men were swarming into Pekaieus—and, for all Menedemos knew, into Mounykhia, too—in what looked like overwhelming numbers.

  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 wi
ll 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 D
emetrios 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.