Owls to Athens

by Harry Turtledove

  “Come here, sweetheart!” Alketas beckoned to one of the dancers. She came, probably not least because the meaty, hairy arm with which he’d beckoned had on it a heavy golden armlet. He shifted on the couch so his feet came down onto the floor and splayed his legs apart. “Why don’t you make me feel good?”

  “That’s what I am here for, my master,” she said, and dropped to her knees. Her head bobbed up and down. Sostratos wondered what she was thinking. Had she been born a slave and known no other life?

  Or had some misfortune brought this fate upon her? She spoke Greek like a Hellene.

  Alketas put his hand on her head, setting her rhythm. Her dark hair spilled out between his ringers. He grunted. She pulled away, gulping and choking a little. “That was fine,” the Macedonian said. “Here.” He gave her a fat, heavy tetradrakhm, an enormous fee for what she’d done.

  “Thank you, most noble one,” she said. She had nowhere obvious to store the coin, but it disappeared nonetheless.

  Alketas pointed to Sostratos. “Take care of my friend here, too.”

  “Yes, sir.” She dipped her head, which probably meant she was a Hellene. Looking at Sostratos, she asked, “What would you like?”

  “What you did for him,” Sostratos answered with dull embarrassment. He didn’t like performing in public, but he also didn’t want to take the girl outside into the darkness and have Alketas laugh at him. He was, after all, trying to sell the man more wine.

  “Shift a little, sir, if you please,” the girl said. Sostratos did. She knelt in front of him and began. For a little while, his embarrassment kept him from rising. That would have made Alketas laugh at him, too; the Macedonians enjoyed sneering at effete Hellenes. But then the pleasure her mouth brought led him to forget embarrassment and everything else except what she was doing. As the tetrarkhos had, he pressed her head down on him and groaned when she brought him to the peak.

  Afterwards, he gave her a didrakhm: a compromise between the usual price of such things and his desire not to seem too stingy after the Macedonian’s extravagant generosity. Again, she made the coin vanish even though she was naked.

  Sostratos turned to Alketas to talk about Byblian. Before he could, a brawl broke out. This was no game—the Macedonians overturned couches as they pummeled each other. One smashed a cup over the other’s head. More men leaped into the fight, not to break it up but to join it. More crockery smashed. Howls of pain mingled with howls of glee.

  Alketas yelled something in Macedonian. He turned to Sostratos and went back to intelligible Greek: “Now we’re getting somewhere!”

  “Are we?” Sostratos said. Alketas didn’t even bother answering. He flung himself into the fray, fists and feet flying. A cup whizzed past Sostratos’ head and shattered on the frame of the couch behind him. He wished he were somewhere, anywhere, else. Wishing did as much good as it usually did.

  “Good day, best one,” Menedemos said, stepping into Protomakhos’ andron. The sun was just coming up. The day promised to be warm and clear. A roller, a jackdaw-sized bird with a blue-green head and breast and a chestnut back, perched on the roof tiles across the courtyard. Its croaking call put Menedemos in mind of a crow’s, but no crow ever wore such gorgeous feathers.

  “And to you,” the Rhodian proxenos replied. He pointed to the mixing bowl. “Have some wine. A slave will bring you porridge in a moment.”

  “Thanks.” Menedemos dipped out a cup for himself. He raised it in salute. “Health to you.” When he drank, he raised an eyebrow. “This is a strong mix, especially for the morning. Is there a reason?” Protomakhos didn’t seem the sort of man to start out the day by getting pie-eyed, but more than one cup of this wine would do the trick. Menedemos sipped cautiously. As the proxenos had said, a slave brought him breakfast.

  “I should say there is.” Pride rang in Protomakhos’ voice. The pull he took at his cup wasn’t cautious in the least. “I’m going to be a father.”

  “Congratulations, best one! That’s very good news indeed. May it be a son.” Menedemos spoke as naturally as he could. Part of the good news he saw was that Xenokleia must have slept with Protomakhos recently enough for him to be sure he was going to be a father. Menedemos wasn’t nearly so sure of that himself, but Protomakhos’ opinion was the one that mattered.

  “I hope so. We had a son, years ago, but he died before his first birthday.” Protomakhos’ smile faded. “So many children do. You know you’re taking a chance loving them, but you really can’t help it when they smile at you. And then they sicken, and. ...” He spread his hands. After another sip of wine, he went on, “We have our daughter, too, who’s married and gone to her husband’s household. Do you know, I think I’ll rear this child even if it turns out to be a girl, too.”

  “Good for you,” Menedemos said. “Not many families raise two daughters.”

  “I know it’s seldom done,” Protomakhos replied. “But with so many years between the two of them, I can afford it.” He started to raise his cup once more, then stared down into it, a bemused expression on his face: he seemed taken by surprise to find it empty. Even after he filled it, though, the bemusement remained. “Women are funny,” he remarked, apropos of nothing in particular.

  “Oh, yes,” Menedemos said. He’d never thought much about the custom of exposing unwanted infants up till now. It was just something people did when they needed to. To put a baby that might be his out for the elements, though . . . He knew a startling amount of relief that Protomakhos had said he wouldn’t.

  If the proxenos hadn’t poured down that first cup of strong wine so early in the day, he might not have gone on. But he did: “For a while now, my wife and I have done what we could to make sure she wouldn’t conceive. Lately, though, she decided to try to have another child. I was glad enough to go along—more fun finishing inside than spilling seed on her belly. More fun than her prokton, too, though I don’t suppose everyone would go along with me there.”

  “Some men probably wouldn’t,” Menedemos said. “Me, I agree with you.” Xenokleia hadn’t had him take any of those precautions. A good thing she’d managed to get Protomakhos to abandon them without rousing his suspicions.

  “A son,” the Rhodian proxenos murmured. “I’m very fond of our grandson—don’t get me wrong—but a son is something else. I hope I live to see him out of boyhood.” He shrugged. “That’s in the hands of the gods, though, not in mine.”

  “Yes.” Menedemos snapped his fingers. “Do you know what, best one? Your grandson will have an uncle or aunt who’s younger than he is.”

  Protomakhos stared, then guffawed. “You’re right, by the dog! I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Sostratos came into the andron, yawning and looking red-eyed and bleary. “Hail,” Menedemos said. “Another long night with the Macedonians, my dear?”

  His cousin dipped his head—cautiously, as if it hurt. “Afraid so. This symposion wasn’t quite so bad as the one a couple of weeks ago where it turned into a free-for-all at the end, but it was bad enough.” A slave poured him a cup of wine. “I thank you,” he said, but he blinked when he raised the cup to his lips. “Have we got swilling Macedonians here today? This can’t be weaker than one to one, and that’s too potent for first thing in the morning.”

  “I have my reasons for a strong mix,” Protomakhos answered, and explained what they were.

  “Oh.” Sostratos blinked again, this time in surprise of a different sort. To Menedemos’ relief, his cousin had the sense not to look at him. Sostratos went on, “That’s splendid news. Congratulations!”

  “For which I thank you.” The Rhodian proxenos raised his cup in salute. “And on account of which I say, drink up!”

  Menedemos was happy enough to pour down the rest of his wine. No matter what Sostratos said about him, he wasn’t a man who usually started out the day drinking hard. If he had been, he would have worried more about it. As things were, he knew he could get away with it once in a while.

  And Sostratos also dr
ained his cup. He said, “Maybe some more wine going down will ease the headache I have from what I drank last night. By Dionysos, you drink more wine with Macedonians than you can hope to sell them. It feels like that, anyhow.” He held his head in both hands.

  “They’re paying our prices,” Menedemos said. His cousin— gingerly—dipped his head. Menedemos went on, “And you’ve sold them some truffles, too. You can’t eat those faster than they buy them.”

  “I wish I could, for they’re better than food has any business being,” Sostratos said. “But I am glad I’ve made the sale. Demetrios of Phaleron does seem to be annoyed enough at us not to want to buy any more of what we’ve got.”

  “I told you that would happen,” Protomakhos said.

  “It’s not Demetrios,” Menedemos said. “He probably wouldn’t know our names if you gave him over to a Persian torturer. It’s that polluted Kleokritos—he’s paying us back by not paying us anymore.”

  “Many goodbyes to him!” Sostratos said. “A man who thinks he’s been cheated because we caught him cheating us ... I’m just as happy not to deal with a man like that.”

  “No one has challenged Kleokritos in a long time,” Protomakhos said. “He’s not used to it. Demetrios of Phaleron has held Athens for Kassandros for ten years now. We’ve spoken of this—he hasn’t been so harsh as he might—but he might, and no one wants to find out if he would. I admire your courage for standing up to his man.”

  “That didn’t even occur to me,” Sostratos said. “I just wanted things to be right. Too many cheats running around loose. We fall foul of these petty chiselers every trading run, it seems. They try to gouge us out of a few drakhmai here and a few drakhmai there, and then when we catch them at it they seem surprised—no, not surprised, angry—we’re making a fuss. But if anybody tried to do them out of half an obolos, they’d scream bloody murder.”

  Menedemos rose from his stool and set a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “Well, my dear, we spoiled Kleokritos’ fun, and we’re unloading the things he might have bought on the Macedonians. I’d say that’s a good revenge.”

  “Good enough,” Sostratos agreed. “But I’d be happier if we didn’t need to take revenge on him.”

  “I’m going back to the storeroom and get myself some more perfume,” Menedemos said. “Then to the agora. No drunken Macedonians have been buying what I peddle.”

  “You haven’t brought back any lewd tales for us,” Protomakhos said. “Not much luck with the hetairai?”

  With a shrug, Menedemos answered, “Well, best one, there’s luck, and then again there’s luck. I’ve sold a lot of perfume, and sold it at good prices. But I’ve dealt with the women through their slaves, and I haven’t lain with any of them. Who knows, though? I may yet.”

  He hurried off to get the perfume. Behind him, Sostratos’ voice floated out of the andron: “If Menedemos sees a pile of horse turds, he’s sure he’ll find a team hitched to a chariot around the next corner, just waiting for him to hop on and ride.”

  Protomakhos laughed. Menedemos started to turn around and shout at Sostratos for talking about him behind his back. But then he checked himself. What his cousin had said wasn’t an insult, and was true. Menedemos always did hope for the best. Why not? Some people expected the worst, to shield themselves from disappointment. As far as Menedemos was concerned, that wasn’t living; it was only existing and waiting to die. He wanted to go through life aiming higher than that.

  A slave barred Protomakhos’ front door after he left. By now, he knew the way to the agora well enough not to need to look up at the great frowning bulk of the akropolis to get his bearings. Turn here, turn there, don’t go down the street with the baker’s shop at the corner because it’s a dead end and you’ll only have to turn around, pick up a rock before you come by the shoemaker’s place so you can fling it at his polluted hound if the beast runs up snarling again.

  The sun was already shining on the agora by the time Menedemos got there. He’d put on his petasos. The wide-brimmed hat would help keep Helios from cooking his brains inside his skull. That wasn’t why he grumbled. Showing up later than he had been doing meant other hucksters had already staked claims to the choicest spots.

  Well, no help for it. He found a place not far from the Painted Stoa, on the north side of the agora. “Fine perfume from Rhodes!” he called, holding up a jar. “Sweet rose perfume from Rhodes, the island of roses!”

  Even as he made his sales pitch, though, his eyes kept going to the paintings and other memorials in the shadows under the covered colonnade. No one but people who couldn’t afford it seemed interested in his perfume. About halfway through the morning, curiosity got the better of him. It’s like the Parthenon, he told himself. Not much point coming to Athens if I don’t see this.

  Most famous of the paintings on wooden panels was the one of the battle of Marathon by Polygnotos. There were the Athenians (and the Boiotians from Plataia) driving back the Persians toward their ships, which were manned by bearded, long-robed Phoenicians. Other panels showed Athenians fighting Spartans; Theseus and more Athenians fighting the bare-breasted Amazons in ancient days; and the Akhaioi just after the fall of Troy, with the Trojan women, Kassandra among them, captive before Aias. Shields preserved against time and verdigris by a coat of pitch hung between the panels—they came from the Spartan citizens who’d surrendered on the island of Sphakteria when the Peloponnesian War had been going well for Athens.

  After seeing what there was to see, Menedemos bought a little fried octopus and a cup of wine. Then he went back to crying the virtues of Rhodian perfume. He didn’t sell any all that day. Somehow, though, he cared much less than he’d thought he would. Seeing the Painted Stoa had given him a profit of a different sort.

  Sostratos winced when he left Athens by the people’s gate and headed east toward the base of Mount Lykabettos, Up till now, he’d never gone back to visit a lover after leaving. Returning to the Lykeion, though, felt exactly like that. He’d spent the happiest days of his young life there. Then he’d had to go. Now he was coming back, yes, but he wasn’t the same person as he had been when he reckoned the place the center of his life. Herakleitos had had it right. You couldn’t step into the same river twice. The river wasn’t the same the second time, and you weren’t the same, either.

  As they had for at least three centuries, youths learning the use of arms and armor paraded on the flat land of the Lykeion, between the olive groves. Some of them, probably, were young men who’d received their panoplies in the theater at the Dionysia now recently past. A drill-master’s voice pursued the epheboi: “Left! . . . Left! , . . No, you clumsy fool, that’s not your left! . . . Left!” Sostratos smiled. Those same irate shouts had been part of the background while he studied here.

  After a moment, his smile faded. Would the Athenian phalanx ever amount to anything again? Or would Athens be nothing more than a counter Kassandros and the rest of the Macedonians shoved back and forth across their gaming board? Things weren’t as they had been a hundred years before, when this polis came close to becoming the lord of Hellas—and when Macedonia was full of backwoods bumpkins who battled among themselves and were hardly ever seen in Hellas proper.

  Macedonia, of course, remained full of backwoods bumpkins who battled among themselves. Now, though, they did it over almost the entire reach of the civilized world, from Hellas east all the way to Persia and beyond. Sostratos dimly remembered having a similar thought at one symposion or another. Was this an improvement? He formed that question intending the answer to be, certainly not. But if the Macedonians weren’t battling among themselves, wouldn’t Hellenes be doing it in their place? From everything the Rhodian knew of his people’s history that seemed altogether too likely.

  He got a glimpse of other men walking about, too, those under and among the olive trees rather than out in the open. They weren’t marching under the direction of a drillmaster, either, obedient to a single will. They all traveled together, all searching—as fre
e men should—for knowledge and truth.

  “Peripatetics,” Sostratos murmured. That was what Aristoteles had called the men who studied with and under him, for they walked about—peripateo was the verb in Greek-—discussing one philosophical topic or another. The name lived on under Theophrastos, Aristoteles’ nephew and successor.

  Seeing the scholars, Sostratos suddenly wanted to turn and run back towards Athens, / studied here, he thought. I studied here, and now I’m coming back as a tradesman. The leather sack of papyrus he carried in his left hand all at once seemed to weigh fifty talents. They’ll recognize me. They’ll remember. Won’t they think of me as respectable women think of a widow who’s had to turn to whoring to keep food on the table for herself and her children?

  He made himself keep walking toward the gray-branched, pale-leaved olive trees. Some of the Athenian epheboi would have a harder time going into battle than he did going forward now.

  The man doing most of the talking there under the trees was a dapper fellow in a fine chiton with a himation elegantly draped over one shoulder. His hair and beard were white, his back still straight and his eyes still sharp and keen even though he had to be well up into his sixties. When Sostratos saw him, he almost fled again. Oh, by the gods, that’s Theophrastos himself! Too soon, too soon! I wasn’t ready yet.

  Theophrastos was saying, “And speaking of the ridiculous, there is the phrase, ‘A big fish is a poor nobody.’ This is said to have first been used by the kitharist Stratonikos against Propis of Rhodes, who sang to the kithara. Propis was a large man, but one without much talent. It packs a lot of insult into a few words, for it says that Propis was large, was no good, was a nobody, and had no more voice than a fish.”

  A couple of the younger men with Theophrastos scribbled notes on waxed tablets. Stratonikos’ insults were famous wherever Greek was spoken. Not so long before, in Cyprian Salamis, one of them had cost him his life.