Owls to Athens

by Harry Turtledove

  “Context.” Menedemos rolled his eyes and addressed some invisible audience: “He takes one look at Attic soil and starts babbling about context. What’ll he be like when we actually set foot in Athens? Odds are, no one will be able to understand his Greek at all.”

  “Oh, go howl!” Sostratos pointed back toward the southeast, not at Andros but up into the heavens. “What would you say the phase of the moon is?”

  Menedemos looked over his shoulder to see the moon, white and pale in the late-afternoon sky. “First quarter—perhaps a day after.”

  “That’s what I thought, too.” Sostratos beamed. “That means it’s the seventh or eighth of Elaphebolion. The Greater Dionysia starts on the tenth. We’re going to make the festival.”

  “Good,” Menedemos said. “I like the theater as well as the next fellow—unless the next fellow happens to be you, maybe—but I also know we have to do business. I keep hoping you’ll remember that, too.”

  “How could I possibly forget, having you to remind me?” Sostratos spoke with such surpassing sweetness, anyone who didn’t know him would have been sure he meant every word and was grateful.

  Menedemos, who knew Sostratos as well as any man alive, was sure his cousin meant every word and wanted to push him over the rail. With a sweet smile of his own, he said, “All right, then. As long as we understand each other.”

  “We usually do.” Again, Sostratos sounded altogether acquiescent. Again, Menedemos was not deceived. But then his cousin grew serious. “Do you think we can round Cape Sounion today, perhaps go all the way to Anaphlystos harbor?”

  After studying the sun, Menedemos tossed his head. “What I think is, we’ll be lucky to get to Sounion. More likely, we’ll lie up in one of the little bays on Helen’s island.” Sostratos looked as if Menedemos had just kicked a puppy. Relenting a little, Menedemos added, “Even so, we should have no trouble reaching Peiraieus tomorrow.”

  Sostratos brightened. Menedemos had known his cousin would. He could have said the ship would spend the night in Persia—or, for that matter, in Tartaros—as long as he also said it would get to the harbor of Athens the next day. Sostratos said, “I wonder why Helen is tied to so many islands. There’s another one, to the west, that’s supposed to be where she first slept with Paris on the way to Troy.”

  “That I don’t know,” Menedemos said. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t worried about it much, either. When I think about Helen, I’d rather think about why Paris wanted her than why they remember her on islands.”

  “But everyone knows why Paris wanted her,” Sostratos said. “The other question’s much more interesting, because it doesn’t have an obvious answer.”

  “That makes it more interesting?” Menedemos said. Sostratos dipped his head. They stared at each other in perfect mutual incomprehension.

  The Aphrodite reached an inlet at the north end of Helen’s island as the sun slid behind the highland of Cape Sounion. The island ran from north to south, and was much longer than it was wide. No polis stood anywhere on it, nor even a village. Sheep and goats wandered the low, rolling ground, cropping grass and bushes. As darkness spread over sea and land, herdsmen’s campfires glowed like golden stars off in the distance.

  No one came up to the ship to ask for news or give any of his own. That saddened Menedemos. “The shepherds think we’ll grab ‘em and sell ‘em into slavery,” he said.

  “We wouldn’t,” Sostratos said.

  “No, of course not. Couldn’t very well sell ‘em in Athens even if we did grab ‘em,” Menedemos said. “I wouldn’t care to enslave free Hellenes anyway—if the herders are free Hellenes and not already enslaved like Eumaios the swineherd in the Odyssey.”

  “They don’t know where we’re from or where we’re bound,” Sostratos said. “For all they can tell, we might be Tyrrhenians who’d sell them in the slave markets at Carthage.”

  “I know. That’s what bothers me,” Menedemos said. “Even so close to Athens, people worry about pirates and raiders.”

  “These are sorry times, when men think of themselves first and everything else only afterwards,” Sostratos said, but after a moment he ruefully tossed his head. “When didn’t men think of themselves first?

  After the Peloponnesian War, the Thirty Tyrants made themselves hateful. And before that, Themistokles had to trick most of the Hellenes into fighting Xerxes by Salamis.”

  “Athenians both times,” Menedemos remarked.

  “Oh, yes,” his cousin said. “Athens has shown the world more of man at his best and worst than any other polis in Athens. But thinking of yourself first goes back to long before Athens was such a great city. Look at Akhilleus in the Iliad. How many strong-greaved Akhaioi died because he stayed in his tent after his quarrel with Agamemnon?”

  “Well, but Agamemnon was in the wrong, too, for taking Brisei’s away from Akhilleus.” Menedemos held up a hand before his cousin could speak. “I know what you’re going to say next. You’ll say that was Agamemnon putting what he wanted ahead of what the Akhaioi needed. And he did.”

  Sostratos looked disappointed at not having an argument on his hands. He glanced up at the moon. So did Menedemos. It seemed brighter and more golden now that the sun had left the sky. Sostratos said, “In the city, they’re getting ready for the festival. And tomorrow we’ll be there! I don’t know how I’m going to sleep tonight.”

  He managed. Menedemos had to wake him in the morning. But Sostratos didn’t complain, not when Menedemos said, “Rise and shine, my dear. Today we’re going to Athens.”

  “Athenaze,” Sostratos echoed dreamily. Then he said it once more, as if for good measure: “To Athens.”

  “0öP!” DIOKLES CALLED, and the Aphrodite’s rowers rested at their oars. Sailors tossed lines to longshoremen in loincloths, who made the akatos fast to the quay. Just hearing the harbor workers brought Sostratos a thrill. What educated man didn’t want to sound as if he came from Athens? And here were these probably illiterate laborers, using the dialect of Plato and Euripides. They were speaking commonplaces, but they sounded good doing it.

  Or so Sostratos thought, anyway. In the broad Doric of Rhodes, one of the sailors said, “Who do those fellows think they are, anyhow? Slaves could do their jobs, but they talk like a bunch of toffs.”

  Menedemos pointed up one of the long, straight streets of Peiraieus. “At least this town is laid out sensibly,” he said.

  “This is one of the first places Hippodamos of Miletos designed,”

  Sostratos answered. “Perikles had him do it. That would have been thirty years or so before he laid out the polis of Rhodes.”

  “Did he do anything with Athens proper?” Menedemos asked, peering toward the great buildings of the Athenian akropolis thirty-five or forty stadia inland.

  “I’m afraid not,” Sostratos said. “I wish he would have. The streets there are the wildest tangle anybody’s ever seen. The Athenians take pride in being able to find their way around—except when they get lost, too.”

  His cousin pointed to the base of the pier. “Here comes an officer to question us.” Indeed, the fellow looked splendid in crested helm and crimson cloak thrown back over his shoulders—as splendid as Antigonos’ man, almost identically dressed, had at Mytilene. Menedemos went on, “Now, for half a drakhma, is he a Macedonian or an Athenian?”

  Sostratos looked the man over. He was of average height, on the lean side, with dark hair, an olive complexion, a thin face, and ironic eyebrows. More than anything else, those eyebrows decided Sostratos. “Athenian.”

  “We’ll know in a moment,” Menedemos said. “Wait till he opens his mouth. If we don’t have any trouble understanding him, you win. If he starts spewing Macedonian at us, I do.”

  “What ship are you, and where are you from?” The officer asked the usual questions in perfectly intelligible Attic Greek. Menedemos grimaced. Sostratos hid a smile.

  “We’re the Aphrodite, out of Rhodes,” he answered, as he seemed to do whenever the akat
os pulled into a new port.

  “Ah. Rhodians.” The officer brightened. “You’ll be friendly to Ptolemaios, then.”

  Kassandros, who’d ruled Athens for the past decade through Demetrios of Phaleron, was friendly to Ptolemaios. Sostratos dipped his head, not wanting to disagree openly. “We try to be,” he answered. “But then, we’re neutral, so we try to be friendly to everybody.”

  “I see.” The Athenian looked less happy. “Where did you stop on your way here?”

  “Kos,” Sostratos said, which pleased the fellow—Kos belonged to Ptolemaios—and then, “and Samos and Khios, both briefly, and then Lesbos. We have Lesbian wine for sale, and Lesbian truffles, too.”

  “I... see.” The officer’s pinched face was made for frowning. The last three islands belonged to Antigonos, with whom Kassandros was anything but friendly. After a moment’s sour thought, the man decided to make the best of it, asking, “What’s the old Cyclops up to? Did you see anything interesting along the way? “

  “I didn’t.” Sostratos turned to his cousin. “Did you, Menedemos?”

  “Can’t say that I did,” Menedemos answered. “He has war galleys in the harbors and on patrol, but then he would, especially after Ptolemaios took so much of the southern coast of Anatolia away from him a couple of years ago. Ptolemaios laid siege to Halikarnassos, too, remember, but it didn’t fall.” He sounded disappointed.

  Sostratos knew why. The officer didn’t. He said, “Yes, I do recall that. It was Antigonos’ son Philippos who relieved the town, wasn’t it?”

  “No, the other son, the older one—he’s named Demetrios, too,” Sostratos said.

  That got a grunt from the Athenian. He served Demetrios of Phaleron. Maybe he didn’t love him. After the grunt, he asked the next inevitable question: “What are you carrying besides wine and truffles?”

  “Koan silk,” Sostratos said. The officer approved of Kos.

  “Rhodian perfume,” Menedemos added. That was safe, too.

  “Papyrus and ink,” Sostratos said. Papyrus came from Egypt, while the ink was Rhodian.

  “Beeswax,” Menedemos said. Beeswax could come from anywhere under the sun. “Embroidered cloth. And crimson dye from Sidon.”

  Sidon belonged to Antigonos, but he didn’t say the Aphrodite had been there. He let the officer assume the Rhodians had got it in their home polis rather than going to Phoenicia themselves—which, in connection with their stops at other places belonging to Antigonos, might have made the fellow more suspicious. As things were, the officer said, “All right. I hope you have a profitable time trading here. You do know you’ll have to change your silver for Athenian owls?”

  “Yes, best one,” Sostratos said, at the same time as Menedemos was saying, “Yes, most noble one.” Neither of them looked at the other. Money-changers charged a fat commission for their services. They kept some for themselves; the polis got the rest. Both Rhodians intended to evade Athenian law as much as they could. Plenty of people in any polis worried more about the weight of the silver they got than whether it bore the Athenian owl or the rose of Rhodes.

  As the officer turned to go back down the pier, Sostratos said, “Excuse me, best one, but is Iphikrates son of Leon still the Rhodian proxenos here?”

  The Athenian tossed his head. “No, he died two, maybe three years ago. Protomakhos son of Alypetos represents your polis here these days.”

  “Not a name I know,” Sostratos said. Menedemos dipped his head in agreement. Sostratos went on, “Is his house here in Peiraieus, or does he live up in Athens?”

  “He’s in Athens, not far from the theater,” the officer replied, which made Sostratos’ heart leap with joy and, by Menedemos’ expression, made his cousin fight back laughter. The Athenian added, “He deals in marble and other stone himself. He has a good name in the city.”

  “Glad to hear that,” Sostratos said.

  As the soldier did leave the quay, Menedemos’ swallowed snickers broke free. “The proxenos has a house by the theater!” he said. “I’m sure your heart’s breaking because we’ll have to walk all the way into Athens to meet this Protomakhos. A pig dreams of swill, a sheep dreams of clover, and you—you dream of a house by the theater in Athens. And now your dream’s come true.”

  Sostratos wanted to tell him he was talking nonsense—wanted to, but knew he couldn’t. He gave back a rather sickly smile. “We really ought to go meet the fellow, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know.” Menedemos sounded both judicious and dubious. “I was thinking of selling our goods at the marketplace right here in Peiraieus, and so we won’t—”

  “What?” Sostratos yelped. “Are you out of your mind? They sell timber and oil and wheat here, not the kind of. ...” He fumbled to a stop when his cousin started laughing again, this time harder than ever. Sostratos sent him an aggrieved stare. “Oh. You’re having me on. Ha. Ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha.” That wasn’t laughter. He repeated the empty syllables to show how funny he thought the joke was.

  Menedemos set a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, my dear. I truly am. I just couldn’t resist. The look on your face—”

  “Couldn’t resist?” Sostratos said. “You didn’t even try.”

  “Well, maybe not.” Menedemos gauged the sun. “Do you think we’ve got time to go into town today and find this Protomakhos, or would we do better waiting till tomorrow? “

  Sostratos looked at the sinking sun, too: looked at it and let out a long, mournful sigh. “Tomorrow would be better,” he said, “and you have no idea how much I wish I could tell you otherwise.” And then, suddenly, he snapped his fingers. “No, I take it back—we’d better go now.”

  “And how have you talked yourself into that?” Menedemos asked, amused.

  “Simple. Tomorrow’s either the ninth or the tenth of Elaphebolion.” His gaze swung to the ripening moon, which announced the date. “I think it’ll be the tenth. If it is, it’s the first day of the Dionysia. There’ll be a big parade and all sorts of other things going on, and nobody will want to do any business. That’s why we ought to meet Protomakhos today.”

  His cousin thought it over. “Well, when you’re right, you’re right. We’d better go. Diokles, keep enough men on board and sober tonight to make sure none of these clever, light-fingered Athenians walks off with the akatos.”

  “I’ll take care of it, skipper,” the oarmaster promised. “You can count on me.”

  “I know. I do,” Menedemos said. “And now I’d better get moving. Look at Sostratos there, shifting from foot to foot like a comic actor about to shit himself.”

  “I am not!” Sostratos said indignantly, and made sure he did not rise up onto the toes of his left foot. “I’m just . . eager.”

  “That’s what boys say when they shoot too soon the first time they visit a brothel,” Menedemos retorted. Sostratos yelped again, even more indignantly than before. His cousin laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go, then.”

  Even setting foot in Peiraieus was enough to excite Sostratos. He made himself hurry past the long colonnade that housed the harbor-side market. Most of the port wasn’t worth looking at: nondescript houses and shops, mud-brick with red tile roofs. Some of them were whitewashed, rather more weren’t. The goods on display were of the cheap, flashy sort he might have seen in any good-sized polis around the Inner Sea. But the people were speaking Attic Greek. Even the barbarians in business in Peiraieus, of whom there were a good many, spoke Attic flavored by their foreign accents. Hearing it made Sostratos smile.

  Menedemos pointed. “What’s that temple? It sure stands out amongst all this boring stuff.”

  “That’s the sacred enclosure of Athena and Zeus,” Sostratos answered. “Both deities are portrayed in bronze. Athena’s holding a spear; Zeus has a rod in one hand and a Victory in the other. There’s also a fine painting of Leosthenes and his family by Arkesilaos. That’s new; the statues aren’t.”

  “Leosthenes?” Menedemos frowned. “I can’t place the name.”


  “The Athenian general who fought the Macedonians right after Alexander died, when we were just going from boys to youths,” Sostratos said. “He beat them a couple of times up in Boiotia, but they won the war.”

  “All right. I remember that,” Menedemos said. “I couldn’t have come up with his name if you’d handed me to a Persian torturer, though.” He pointed off to the right, toward the east. “And what’s that big thing?”

  “That’s the fortress at Mounykhia, the harbor next door,” Sostratos told him. “It’s full of Kassandros’ Macedonians.”

  “It would be, wouldn’t it?” Menedemos said.

  “What? You don’t suppose the Athenians would line up with Kassandros if he didn’t hold them down?” Sostratos did his best to sound artfully shocked. His cousin chuckled. He went on, “If there weren’t any Macedonians around, Athens—and all the other poleis in Hellas— would go back to squabbling amongst themselves, the way they did before Philip put his foot on them.”

  “Not all the other poleis.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Thebes isn’t there anymore. Alexander destroyed it.”

  “That’s true,” Sostratos said. “I’ve heard people are starting to live on the site, though. One of these days, it’ll be a city again.”

  “I suppose so,” his cousin said. They walked on through Peiraieus and up toward Athens through the Long Walls joining the port to the great city. Menedemos nodded to the soldiers on the walls. “They’d be more Macedonians, wouldn’t they?”

  Sostratos eyed the men. “Probably. They’re bigger and fairer than most Athenians, anyhow. But Demetrios of Phaleron is the glove to Kassandros’ hand: what Kassandros wants done, Demetrios does. So they may be Athenians doing the Macedonians’ bidding.”

  “I thought these walls would be more impressive,” Menedemos said. “They aren’t that tall, and they aren’t that strong.”

  “They were first built in Perikles’ day, and generals then knew less about besieging cities than they do now, so the works didn’t have to be that strong to serve,” Sostratos answered. “They were strong enough to keep the Spartans out. Athens wasn’t stormed at the end of the Peloponnesian War. The Spartans starved her into surrender, and then made the Athenians pull down a stretch of the walls afterwards.”