Owls to Athens

by Harry Turtledove

  As things are, though, it’s too much to ask of the sailors on their first day out. We’ll put in at Syme.”

  “All right.” Sostratos would have done the same himself. Sometimes, though, Menedemos liked to push things. Sostratos pointed to the little island ahead. “Will you use that bay in the south where we put in a few years ago?”

  “No, I was thinking of anchoring at the town on the north coast,” Menedemos answered. “It’s not much of a town, I know, but in a way that’s all the better. The men can go into a tavern without being tempted to run off and desert.”

  “Gods know that’s true,” Sostratos agreed. “Nobody in his right mind would want to desert at Syme. No matter what you were trying to escape, what could be worse than staying there the rest of your days?”

  Menedemos considered that. He didn’t need long to shudder. “Nothing I can think of,” he replied.

  Little fishing boats coming back from their day’s work bobbed around the Aphrodite as her bow anchors went into the sea in front of the town of Syme. The town lay on a sheltered bay of the island with which it shared a name. Most of the fishing boats beached themselves, the men aboard them hauling them farther out of the water than oars could drive them. Menedemos had beached the merchant galley in the sheltered bay of which Sostratos had spoken. He didn’t feel like doing it here. If trouble came, he wanted to be able to get away in a hurry. He couldn’t very well do that with a beached ship.

  “These folks are probably all right,” Diokles said, bearing down just a little on the word probably.

  “I know,” Menedemos said. “If two or three other ships were here with us, I think I’d run her up onto the sand. This way . . . no. When fall came and we didn’t get back to Rhodes, somebody could come after us, and they might say, ‘The Aphrodite? Oh, no, she didn’t put in here. She must have come to grief somewhere else.’ Who could give ‘em the lie? I don’t think they’d do that, mind you, but why tempt ‘em?”

  “You get no arguments from me, skipper,” the keleustes said. “Why tempt ‘em? is just right, far as I’m concerned.”

  Up and down the length of the , sailors stretched and twisted, working kinks out of muscles they hadn’t used all winter. Some of them rubbed olive oil onto their blisters. Teleutas, who happened to be back by the poop deck, rubbed something else on them instead, from a small flask he’d stuck under his bench. Menedemos sniffed. “Isn’t that turpentine?” he asked, his eyebrows leaping in surprise.

  “That’s right,” the sailor said.

  “Doesn’t it burn like fire?” Menedemos said.

  “It’s not so bad,” Teleutas answered. “It hardens the flesh instead of making it soft, the way oil does. I was talking with an Epeirote sailor in a tavern. He said they use it up there, and I thought I’d give it a try.”

  “Better you than me,” Menedemos said.

  Another rower, a former sponge diver named Moskhion, asked, “Can we take the boat and go ashore, skipper? We can buy ourselves some wine and some better grub than we’ve got on the ship here. Maybe there’s a brothel in town, too.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Menedemos said. “This isn’t what you’d call a big place, and ships don’t put in here all that often. But yes, you can go find out, if you have a mind to.”

  The merchant galley towed her boat behind her, on a line tied to the sternpost. The boat was new. She’d lost the old one the sailing season before, on the way back to from Phoenicia. When two pirate ships attacked off the Lykian coast, a sailor had cut the old boat loose to help the fight them off. And so she had—but she hadn’t been able to go back and recover the boat.

  Soldiers pulled the new boat alongside the akatos and clambered down into her. She carried half a dozen oars—small ones, compared to the nine-cubit sweeps that propelled the —and could hold a dozen men. The sailors briefly argued over who would row her back to the ship for the next group, then set off for the town of Syme.

  “Are you going ashore?” Sostratos asked.

  Menedemos tossed his head and mimed an enormous yawn. “Not likely, my dear. I might never wake up again. What about you?”

  “I’m tempted,” his cousin answered. “After all, Syme’s less than a day’s sail from . You can see this place any time you look west. Even so, I’ve never been into the town.”

  “Yes, and we both know why, too: it’s not worth going into,” Menedemos said.

  “Too true.” Sostratos thought for a moment, then shrugged. “I live in Rhodes. I’ve stayed in Athens. I’ve visited Taras and Syracuse— poleis that are poleis, if you know what I mean. I’m sorry, but I can’t get excited about Syme. This is one step up from a village—and a small step, too.”

  “That’s the way I feel about it,” Menedemos said. “Well, if we’re going to stay aboard ship, shall we have supper? What Syracusan wouldn’t be jealous of our feast?”

  Sostratos laughed. Syracuse was famous for its fancy cooking. Some cooks from the Sicilian city had even written books of their favorite recipes for opson, recipes full of rare, expensive fish, spices from all around the Inner Sea and beyond, and rich cheeses. The carried coarse, hard barley rolls for sitos and olives and onions and hard, crumbly, salty cheese for opson to go with it. If the crew wanted fish as a relish, they had to put lines over the side and catch it themselves.

  The rough red wine in the amphorai was a suitable match for the rest of the meal. Menedemos could think of no worse condemnation. “This stuff almost makes you want to drink water,” he said.

  “Drinking water isn’t healthy,” Sostratos said.

  “You think this wine is?” Menedemos returned. “You can taste more of the pitch on the inside of the jar than you can of the grapes.” He sipped again, and pulled a face. “Of course, considering what the grapes do taste like, maybe that’s just as well.”

  “It’s not supposed to be anything special. It’s just supposed to be wine,” his cousin said. “And even if it isn’t the best stuff Dionysos ever made, it won’t give you a flux of the bowels, the way water would.”

  “Well, that’s true.” Menedemos flipped a couple of more drops of wine onto the poop deck. “My thanks, great Dionysos, for arranging that we don’t get the galloping shits from wine—for we’d surely drink it even if we did.”

  “That’s peculiar praise for the god,” Sostratos said, smiling. “But then, Dionysos is a peculiar sort of god.”

  “How do you mean?” Menedemos asked.

  “Just for instance, doesn’t say much about him,” Sostratos answered. “He talks much more about the other Olympians—even Hephaistos has a couple of scenes where he’s the center of attention, but Dionysos doesn’t.”

  “That’s true,” Menedemos said thoughtfully. “There is that passage in the sixth book of the Iliad, though. You know the one I mean:

  ‘I would not fight with the gods who dwell in the heavens.

  For not even the son of Dryas, mighty Lykourgos,

  Could stay at strife for long with the gods who dwell in the heavens.

  He once drove off the attendants of madness-bringing Dionysos

  Near sacred Nyseion: they all

  Let their mystical gear fall to the ground. Dionysos, afraid,

  Plunged into the salt sea, and received him into her bosom

  While he feared. For the man put him in great terror through his shout.’“

  “Yes, that’s probably the place where the poet talks most about him,” Sostratos said. “But isn’t it strange to have a god who’s a coward?”

  “Dionysos did have his revenge later,” Menedemos said.

  “But that was later,” Sostratos reminded him. “Can you imagine any of the other Olympians, even , leaping into the sea on account of a mortal man’s shout?”

  “Well, no,” Menedemos admitted.

  “And Herodotos says Dionysos came from Egypt, and says he came out of India, and just about everyone says he came from Thrace,” Sostratos said. “None of the rest of the Olympians is foreign. And
some of Dionysos’ rites ...” He shivered, though the evening was fine and mild. “Give me a god like any day.”

  “Dionysos’ rites on aren’t so bad,” Menedemos said.

  “No, not on ,” his cousin agreed. “But Rhodes is a tidy, modern, civilized place. Even back on , though, they get wilder if you leave our polis and the other towns and go out into the countryside. And in some of the backwoods places on the mainland of Hellas ... My dear fellow, knew what he was talking about when he wrote the rending scenes in the Bakkhai.”

  “That’s a play I’ve only heard about,” Menedemos said. “I’ve never seen it performed, and I’ve never read it.”

  “Oh, you must, best one!” Sostratos exclaimed. “If we’re lucky, maybe they’ll revive it in Athens while we’re there. It’s . . . quite something. I don’t think there’s ever been another play that shows the power of a god so strongly.”

  “If a freethinker like you says that, I suppose I have to take it seriously,” Menedemos said.

  “It’s a marvelous play,” Sostratos said earnestly. “And the poetry in the choruses is almost unearthly, it’s so beautiful. No one else ever wrote anything like it—and never wrote anything else like it, either.”

  Menedemos respected his cousin’s judgment, even if he didn’t always agree with it. “If I ever get the chance, I’ll see it,” he said.

  “You should,” Sostratos said. “In fact, you ought to find someone who has a copy and read it. There are bound to be a few in a polis the size of —and of course there’ll be more than a few in Athens.”

  “If I ever get the chance,” Menedemos repeated. He spat an olive pit into the bay. From the shore came the noise of raucous song. He grinned. “Sounds like the men are having a good time. I hope Syme’s still standing in the morning, what there is of it.”

  “It should be,” Sostratos said. “They were in yesterday, and they only just put to sea. They shouldn’t have that urge to tear places to pieces—it’s too early in the voyage.”

  The crash that followed on the heels of his words could only have been an amphora shattering. Menedemos sighed and said, “Let’s hope nobody broke that over anybody’s head.” He got out his himation. Sailors prided themselves in going about in nothing but a chiton regardless of the weather, but a mantle also made a good blanket. He wrapped himself in the rectangle of thick woolen cloth and lay down on the poop deck.

  Sostratos did the same. As he twisted and turned, trying to get comfortable, he said, “We’ve been sleeping in beds all winter long. Bare planks aren’t so comfortable any more.”

  “It’s not too bad,” Menedemos said, cradling his head in his arms. “If it were raining, now ...” He yawned. He wasn’t really that sleepy; he was trying to convince himself as well as Sostratos. It must have worked, for the next thing he knew the eastern horizon glowed pink and gold. He yawned and stretched. Something in his back crackled. He got to his feet.

  Sostratos still lay there snoring. Given the chance, he usually slept later than Menedemos. He didn’t get the chance today—Menedemos stirred him with his foot. Sostratos’ eyes flew open. “What was that for?” he asked blurrily.

  “Time to get up. Time to get going,” Menedemos answered. When he was awake, he was awake. “We’ve got a full day’s sailing ahead of us.” Sostratos groaned and pulled the himation up over his head. Menedemos stirred him again, less gently this time. He drew another groan from his cousin, who emerged from the mantle like a tortoise poking its nose out of its shell. “Come on, my dear,” Menedemos said cheerfully. “Like it or not, rosy-fingered dawn has found us.”

  Like an old, old man, Sostratos stood up. “I don’t like it,” he said.

  Watered wine and barley rolls dipped in olive oil helped reconcile Sostratos to being awake. At Diokles’ command, the rowers backed oars. They pulled hard, as if eager to get the away from Syme as soon as they could. None of them had a bandaged head, so Sostratos supposed that amphora the evening before hadn’t fractured a skull.

  “Let’s get in a little practice,” Menedemos said. “At the oarmaster’s command—starboard oars hold the backstroke, port oars forward.”

  “Port oars . . . forward!” Diokles bawled. The rowers obeyed quite smoothly. The spun, turning almost in her own length. When her bow pointed north, out to sea, the keleustes called, “Both sides . . . forward!” The akatos sped away.

  Sostratos spent the first couple of hours of the day’s sailing arguing with Menedemos. “Why do you want to stop at Knidos?” he asked.

  “Uh, to trade?” When Menedemos sounded most reasonable, he also sounded most annoying. So it seemed to Sostratos, anyhow.

  “Very well, O best one: to trade. And what will they have in Knidos to trade?” Sostratos never stopped to wonder if, when he sounded most like Sokrates, he also sounded most annoying.

  “Well, the usual run of things they have there,” Menedemos replied.

  “Exactly—the usual run of things,” Sostratos agreed. “If we were going somewhere besides Athens, that might be good enough. But since we are bound for Athens, why waste the time at Knidos? Why not head straight for Kos? Koan silk is special enough to do well anywhere. The rich Athenians will like it, and so will the Macedonian officers in Kassandros’ garrison.”

  “Koan silk isn’t so special as we thought it was,” Menedemos said.

  “That stuff I got in Sidon last summer, that stuff from out of the east, puts it in the shade. I didn’t think even the gods could weave cloth like that.”

  “Neither did I,” Sostratos admitted. “But the trader had only that little bit of it, and we got a good price for it from Ptolemaios’ brother, Menelaos. As far as the Athenians are concerned, Koan silk is the best there is. And so, we ought to stop at Kos.”

  “Why not Knidos and Kos?” Menedemos asked.

  “Because we probably won’t find anything in Knidos that’s worth taking to Athens. And because, if we stop at every ordinary polis between here and Athens, we’ll never get there in time for the Greater Dionysia.”

  His cousin took his right hand off the steering-oar tiller and wagged a finger at him. “That’s the real reason you want to hurry. You hardly care about trade at all. What kind of merchant does that make you?”

  “One who likes drama,” Sostratos said. “Don’t you?”

  “Of course I do, but I like profit more,” Menedemos said.

  “So do I,” Sostratos said. “And I’m telling you there’s not enough profit in Knidos to make stopping there worth our while.”

  “I’m the captain, by the dog of Egypt,” Menedemos said. “If I want to stop at Knidos, I cursed well will.”

  “I’m the toikharkhos,” Sostratos retorted. “If you won’t listen to me when it comes to cargo and money, why bring me along? “

  They went round and round and back and forth. They did it in a low voice, neither showing too much excitement, for neither wanted the crew to know how seriously they disagreed. Every so often, Menedemos would break off to steer the ship or call an order to the men handling the sail. Then he would turn back to Sostratos and start up again. When he said, “I’m the captain,” for the fourth time, Sostratos really did lose his temper.

  “Yes, you’re the captain. Euge! for you,” he said. “But what’s the rest of the crew supposed to do when the captain is an idiot?”

  “Don’t tell me how to sail the ship,” Menedemos snapped.

  “I’m not. I’m trying to tell you where to sail her, which is a different matter altogether. Where has to do with what we buy and sell, and that’s my business. Let me ask it another way: can we make Kos by sundown if this wind holds?”

  Menedemos looked as if he wanted to say no. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. Sostratos would know he was lying. They could make Kos even if the wind died, but that would strain the rowers. Sostratos could see why Menedemos wouldn’t want to make them work too hard on the second day out from Rhodes.

  “Perhaps you’d sooner go to Halikarnassos—the strait between Ko
s and mainland isn’t even close to a hundred stadia wide,” Sostratos said sweetly.

  His cousin gave him a harried look, and muttered, “Oh, shut up.” Thanks to his affair with that prominent citizen’s wife, he couldn’t set foot in Halikarnassos without the risk—the likelihood—of getting killed. After a moment, though, he glared at Sostratos. “Maybe the fellow got killed in Ptolemaios’ siege summer before last.”

  “Yes, O marvelous one, maybe he did,” Sostratos said. “On the other hand, maybe he didn’t. Do you care to take the chance?”

  For a moment, he wondered if he’d made a mistake. Menedemos took an appalling number of chances, and enjoyed doing it. Here, though, he tossed his head, which only proved how serious the prominent Halikarnassian had been about sending him across the Styx. He glanced longingly in the direction of Knidos, which lay dead ahead, but then pulled the steering-oar tiller in his left hand a little toward him and pushed the steering-oar tiller in his right away from him. The swung slightly to port, so she would skirt the peninsula at whose tip Knidos sat.

  “We’ll go to Kos,” Menedemos said. “Are you happy now? Will you quit nagging me? If I had a wife and she pestered me like that, I’d make her sorry for it.”

  “I think it’s a good business decision,” Sostratos said.

  “I know you do,” Menedemos answered. “I’m not nearly sure I agree with you, but you win this time. You’re stubborn as a donkey, do you know that?” He looked Sostratos up and down. “The resemblance doesn’t end there, either.”

  “Thank you so much, my dear,” Sostratos said. His cousin took no notice of him, but concentrated—most ostentatiously concentrated— on steering the ship. Stung, Sostratos made his way past the grunting, sweating rowers and the rest of the Aphrodite’s crew to the merchant galley’s tiny foredeck. Whenever he stood up there, he thought of the peafowl the had carried west to Great Hellas three years before. They’d made good money on the birds from rich Italiote Hellenes, and from a richer Samnite visiting who’d bought the peacock. They’d made good money, yes, but Sostratos hoped he never saw another peafowl as long as he lived.