Owls to Athens sam-4 Read online

  “And Seleukos,” somebody else said. “Don’t forget Seleukos, way off in the east. Antigonos tried to squash him a couple of years ago, but he couldn’t do it.”

  “You’re right,” Menedemos said. “He’s like a reveler who hears a symposion and invites himself in. I think the other four will have to keep an eye on him now that he’s inside the andron, or he’ll walk off with the furniture.”

  “Anybody old One-Eye can’t beat is someone to keep an eye on, sure enough,” said the man who looked like a mercenary.

  “ Alexander showed the world one man could lead the Hellenes- and the Macedonians, too,” the gray-haired fellow said. “Now that he’s proved it can be done, the marshals will keep banging away till only one’s left standing, the way pankratiasts do at the Olympic Games.”

  “They’ll try-that’s certain enough,” Menedemos said. “But they don’t fight the way pankratiasts do. It’s not one against one. They make treaties with one another-they make ‘em, and then they break ‘em. For one man to win, he’d have to defeat all the others at once, and nobody’s managed it yet.”

  “Which probably means it can’t be done,” said the younger man who’d first disagreed with the older one. “Don’t you see that, Xenomenes?”

  “No.” The man with gray hair tossed his head. “Fifty years ago, you would have told me nobody could ever rule all the Hellenes. Then Philip of Macedon went and did it, and Alexander held on to them afterwards. So I don’t see why the same shouldn’t hold true here.”

  That produced a thoughtful silence. Menedemos wondered what Sostratos would have had to say about it; his cousin was fond of such arguments, too. But he stubbornly stuck to his own view: “Maybe it can happen, but that doesn’t mean it’s likely to.”

  “Ha!” Xenomenes said. “Tell it to Antigonos, not me. He’s the one the rest worry about the most-and they need to.”

  “Ptolemaios stung him a couple of years ago, taking away the southern coast of Anatolia,” the man who looked like a mercenary said.

  “But he’s still got Phoenicia and a lot of the Hellenic cities along the west coast of Anatolia,” Menedemos said. “That means he can still build up his navy-and he hires pirates, the same as he hires men to fight on land.”

  All the Rhodians muttered at that. Their polis lived by trade. They hated pirates, and used their navy to try to keep them down. Menedemos had fought them on each of his last two voyages. He had no use for a man who abetted them.

  Neither did any of the others. One of them said, “If he hires pirates, he’s liable to hire them against us one fine day, unless we do just what he tells us.”

  Menedemos pulled at the neckline of his tunic and spat into his bosom to turn aside the evil omen. Three other Rhodians did the same thing. Mournfully, Xenomenes said, “All we want to do is stay free and autonomous-well, really free and autonomous.”

  A lot of poleis that called themselves by those two proud names were free to do whatever the marshal controlling them said and autonomous of the rest of the marshals. Such was the level to which Hellenic independence had sunk in the past generation. Even Rhodes had briefly had a Macedonian garrison, but had expelled it after Alexander died. Now she truly was free and autonomous, able to do business with Ptolemaios and Antigonos alike-and with the other, more distant, marshals as well.

  Xenomenes went on, “How can we hope to keep our freedom, though, if one of the Macedonians triumphs over the rest? He’d swallow us up, the same as he’d swallow everything and everybody else.”

  “But you’re still assuming something you haven’t shown: that one marshal could beat all the rest,” Menedemos said. “Until you show that, it’s like worrying about what would happen if an elephant fell out of the sky without showing how an elephant could fly in the first place.”

  The older man gave him a nasty look. Several of the other Rhodians laughed, which only made Xenomenes more irate. They argued about the marshals and whatever else came to mind for the next couple of hours. Every now and then, someone new would join the circle, as Menedemos had, or one of the men already there would wander off to do something else. Menedemos couldn’t think of a better way to pass the time-unless it was keeping company with a woman, of course.

  When he finally went back to his house, his father was waiting in the andron. Menedemos politely dipped his head and walked toward the stairs. He didn’t feel like another argument now. But when Philodemos waved in a peremptory way, he had no choice but to stop and go over and ask, “What is it, Father?”

  “How soon can the Aphrodite sail?” Philodemos rapped out.

  Menedemos dug a finger into his ear, wondering if he’d heard straight. “How soon can she sail?” he echoed, half in disbelief.

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?” his father replied irritably.

  “Yes, sir.” Menedemos frowned in thought. “Loading her and rounding up a crew won’t take more than a day or two. Wouldn’t even be that long if we didn’t need so many rowers. But most of them will be men who’ve pulled an oar in her before.”

  “Go ahead and get ready, then,” Philodemos said. “The sooner, the better. Can’t be too soon, by Poseidon ’s beard.”

  “Wait.” Menedemos held up a hand. “Just a couple of days ago, you were complaining I wanted to go out too early to suit you. Why have you changed your mind all of a sudden?”

  Before Philodemos could answer, a slave brought him a cup of wine. He poured out a small libation, then drained the cup. “Ahh!” he said, wiping his mouth on his arm, and then, “I’ll tell you what made me change my mind: I just had another session with your cousin’s brother-in-law, that’s what. Zeus on Olympos!” By the way he looked around, he wished he had more wine.

  “Papai!” Menedemos exclaimed. “I thought you’d persuaded him we weren’t going to load the Aphrodite up with his olive oil, and that was the end of it.”

  “I thought the same thing,” his father said. “I thought so, but I was wrong. The only way to persuade Damonax of anything is to clout him in the head with a rock. Even then, you have to keep clouting him, because the first wallop doesn’t get through.”

  “Why can’t he understand we won’t make enough money with his oil for it to be worth our while? We’ve told him often enough,” Menedemos said.

  “I think he does understand,” Philodemos answered, peering down into his winecup as if hoping it held more. “I don’t think he cares, which isn’t the same thing. He’s convinced we owe him a living, regardless of what that does to our prospects.”

  “Well, Furies take him, then,” Menedemos said.

  “That’s just what I told him, when I saw I couldn’t get through to him any other way,” his father said.

  “Good for you.” Menedemos dipped his head in complete agreement. He and his father might-did-quarrel about a great many things. Neither of them, though, suffered fools gladly.

  “And so, you see, that’s why I want you to sail,” Philodemos said now. “If you’re gone, Damonax can’t possibly nag me about loading oil onto the merchant galley-at least, not till next sailing season rolls around.”

  “I’ll take care of it. You know I’ve been eager to go for a while now,” Menedemos said. That was true. He couldn’t squabble with his father if a couple of thousand stadia separated them. He couldn’t make love to his father’s wife if a couple of thousand stadia separated them, either. Part of him regretted that. The more sensible part-and the larger part, as well-knew nothing but relief. A slow smile stole over his face. I’ll make love to other men’s wives instead, he thought.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” his father growled, and pointed an accusing finger at him. “You’re thinking about adultery with all those loose Athenian women again, that’s what. I can tell.”

  Menedemos hoped his father didn’t see him wince. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said with such dignity as he could muster.

  “A pestilence take me if you don’t,” Philodemos said. Menedemos did his best
to look innocent. He was guilty of what his father had accused him of, yes. Next to what his father didn’t know, though, that was as nothing.

  The sooner he sailed for Athens, the better.

  “Oimoi!” Sostratos said in dismay, and then switched from Greek to slow, halting, angry Aramaic: “My master, you are a thief.”

  Himilkon the Phoenician looked aggrieved. “Your servant cannot imagine why you would say such a thing,” he replied in his own language, and then clutched his long robe with both hands, as if to rend the garment in dismay.

  Sostratos went back to Greek: “Why? I’ll tell you why. You’ve been quietly buying up papyrus all winter long, that’s why, and the price you want for it is outrageous.”

  “If you do not care for that price, buy somewhere else.” Himilkon’s Greek, though gutturally accented, was better than Sostratos’ Aramaic. In fact, he’d taught Sostratos what Aramaic he knew.

  “I don’t seem to be able to buy anywhere else,” Sostratos said. “If I could, I would, believe me. But no one else has any, so I have to come to you.” He glowered at the merchant from Byblos. “You knew the Aphrodite would go to Athens this season.”

  “You didn’t keep it a secret, most noble one,” Himilkon replied. “As soon as you came back from Phoenicia last fall, you started talking about how you planned to go to Athens and sell some of the goods you’d got. And even if you hadn’t, how smart would I have to be to figure out that you would want to go west instead of east this time?”

  Every word of that was nothing but truth and common sense. None of it made Sostratos any happier. If anything, he got more upset, saying, “You have no right to hold us for ransom like a pirate.”

  “For ransom? No, indeed.” Himilkon shook his head. “I do not want to kill you if you do not pay. I do not want to burn down your house. All I want to do is what any merchant wants: I want to make a profit.”

  “You know Athens uses more papyrus than any other place in the world except maybe Alexandria-and they grow the stuff in Egypt,” Sostratos said. “You want me to pay you your ridiculous price for it so the Aphrodite can sell it in the Athenian agora.”

  The Phoenician gave him a sly smile. “You can raise the price you charge for it, too.”

  “Not that far,” Sostratos said. “We won’t be the only ones selling it, you know. If we have to ask twice as much as anybody else just to get our silver back, we won’t do a whole lot of business there.”

  “It won’t be so bad,” Himilkon said. “Remember, most papyrus comes through Rhodes -and if it came through Rhodes lately, I bought it. You’ll have less competition than you think.”

  “But papyrus is always a luxury item. People don’t have to have it,” Sostratos said.

  “Of course. But that’s true of anything you’d carry on an akatos, wouldn’t you say?” Himilkon tugged on the gold hoop he wore in his left ear, as if settling it more comfortably. He scratched at his curly black beard. “I fear the reason you are most upset with me, O best one, is that 1 have the advantage in this dicker.”

  Sostratos feared he was right. The Rhodian wasn’t about to admit it. “No, indeed,” he said. “We’ve made plenty of bargains where you had the advantage. Remember the peafowl a few years ago?”

  “Oh, yes, I remember them very well,” Himilkon replied. “And when you sailed to Great Hellas with them, how much of a profit did you squeeze out of the Italiote Hellenes?”

  “Peafowl were unique, though. Papyrus is anything but,” Sostratos insisted.

  Himilkon’s only response was a shrug. “If you don’t care for the price I set, my master, you are welcome to sail for Athens without papyrus.”

  “All right.” Sostratos got to his feet. He automatically ducked his head as he rose from his stool; Himilkon’s ramshackle harborside warehouse had shelves that stuck out at odd angles and a low ceiling. On the shelves lay packets and bales and jars of goods from all around the Inner Sea and from lands far to the east and north: the Phoenician dealt in many things besides papyrus. Sostratos, at the moment, didn’t care. He said, “Always a pleasure talking with you, O marvelous one. Farewell.”

  He turned to go. Sometimes the best bargains were ones you didn’t make. He’d taken several steps toward the door before Himilkon, in a voice full of pain, called, “Wait.”

  “Why?” Sostratos asked. “What more do we have to talk about?” He’d hoped the Phoenician would stop him, but he hadn’t counted on it. Sometimes the only way to keep a dicker alive was to show you weren’t afraid to kill it, too. Sometimes. Judging when… Judging when was what made a merchant.

  “If you’re going to be… difficult, I suppose I can get by with less than three drakhmai, three oboloi for a roll of twenty sheets,” Himilkon said. “A little less, mind you.”

  “I should hope so,” Sostratos said. “One drakhma, two oboloi is a more usual price-that’s only a bit more than a third of what you were trying to squeeze out of me.”

  “That’s the price when everyone is bringing lots of papyrus into Athens,” Himilkon said. “Since most Egyptian shipping comes through Rhodes, and since I’ve been buying up the stock since last fall, it isn’t likely to be so cheap this season.”

  “So you say now,” Sostratos said. “But all we need to worry about is one round ship from Alexandria sailing straight for Athens. Their main cargo is always grain, but their captains carry other things, too, to make extra on the side, and papyrus is something that always brings them a nice profit.”

  “It could bring you a nice profit, too,” Himilkon said, doing his best to make the idea sound tempting.

  Sostratos refused to show he was tempted. “It could,” he said pointedly, “if you gave me room to move on the price. Otherwise…” He tossed his head.

  The Phoenician clapped both hands to his face in melodramatic dismay. “And you called me a thief! I suppose you expect me to lose all the profit I expected to make from getting the papyrus in the first place.”

  “You won’t get any if you make it too expensive to be worth my while,” Sostratos said. “And you have to leave me room to push up the price and make my own profit in Athens. If I can’t charge a halfway decent price for it, nobody will buy any from me. I might as well not bring it if I can’t sell it.”

  Himilkon said something pungent in Aramaic. Sostratos said something else, just as pungent, in the same language to remind Himilkon he understood. They yelled at each other in Greek. Himilkon edged his price down by a couple of oboloi. Sostratos laughed scornfully. The Phoenician, looking harassed, came down again.

  That made Sostratos come up-by an obolos a roll. Himilkon bawled as if a branding iron were searing his flesh. Sostratos ignored the theatrics, which only made Himilkon more theatrical. “You want my wife and my children to starve!” he shouted.

  “You want me to starve,” Sostratos retorted.

  Himilkon came down again-and then again. He was discovering the papyrus he’d bought did him less good than he’d expected. If he didn’t sell it to Sostratos, to whom would he sell it? Rhodes boasted only two or three scribes, who among them wouldn’t use in five years what he’d accumulated. As long as Sostratos made it plain he would go to Athens without papyrus if the Phoenician didn’t meet his price, he had a good chance of getting it.

  And he did. In the end, Himilkon sold him the writing material for one drakhma, four oboloi the roll: less than half of what he’d first proposed. Sostratos knew he would still have to hope papyrus was in short supply in Athens. That would let him bump up his selling price to the point where he made decent money. If it wasn’t…

  If it’s not, he thought, the Aphrodite might as well be carrying Damonax’s olive oil, for all the profit we’ll show on papyrus. But then he tossed his head. Olive oil was heavy and bulky and took up lots of room. Papyrus wasn’t, and didn’t. And I’d sooner haggle with scribes and writers than with oil merchants any day.

  2

  Bright morning sun sparkled off seawater in the Great Harbor at Rhodes. M
enedemos stood at the stern of the Aphrodite , steering-oar tillers in his hands. He was ready to leave on the instant, even if the akatos remained tied up at the quay. “We’ve got all our cargo, don’t we?” he asked Sostratos, for the third time since they’d come to the merchant galley at dawn.

  “Yes, we’re fully laden,” his cousin answered. “That is, unless Damonax’s slaves come rushing up with a couple of hundred amphorai of olive oil at the last instant.”

  “They’d better not, by the dog!” Menedemos said. “Your precious brother-in-law doesn’t think we’re sailing till day after tomorrow, does he? Let his slaves bring the oil then-and let ‘em lug it back when they find out we’re gone.”

  “That will be a good joke-then,” Sostratos said. “We’ll hear about it when we get home. Our fathers will hear about it right away, I’m sure.” He sighed. “Family.” By the way he said it, he meant it for a curse.

  Up on the quay, Menedemos’ father said, “Looks like your crew is still a couple of men light.”

  Family, Menedemos thought, in much the same way as Sostratos had said it. Aloud, he replied only, “Yes, Father.” Turning to his keleustes, he said, “They should be here any moment now, shouldn’t they, Diokles?”

  “They should have been here already, skipper,” the oarmaster answered unhappily. Diokles was sun-browned, in his mid-forties, with the broad shoulders and callused hands of a man who’d spent a lot of years pulling an oar. “I told ‘em to show up early. If they’re having a last carouse and holding us up, I’ll make ‘em pay once they do come aboard, you see if I don’t.”

  Menedemos wouldn’t have wanted Diokles angry at him. Yes, he was somewhere between fifteen and twenty years younger than the oarmaster, but Diokles had courage to spare and a formidable physique his loincloth displayed to good advantage. Most of the time, Diokles was as good-natured as any man could be. When he wasn’t, though…