“Two pirate ships?” Boulanax’s eyes widened again. “Euge! That’s fine work. Many goodbyes to them.” No Rhodian would say a word against someone who hurt pirates, even if he didn’t care for the man.
“Menedemos was the one who suggested building trihemioliai in the first place,” Sostratos added, twisting the knife a little. “They’re so fast, they’ve been giving pirates a hard time in these waters.”
“Good.” Boulanax hesitated, then went on, “I hope you’ll excuse me, O best one, but I… just recalled I’m late for an appointment. Good day. Farewell.” He hurried off.
Sostratos suspected that the appointment was mythical, that Boulanax had heard as much good news about Menedemos as he could stand. Selling truffles or wine or crimson dye in Athens wouldn’t have impressed him; that was commerce, and commerce was vulgar. But thinking of a new type of war galley and burning pirate ships- things like those were a different story. They helped the polis, something every Rhodian citizen aspired to do. Boulanax couldn’t look down his nose at Menedemos for them, no matter how much he might want to.
After glancing around in vain for another wrestling partner-the men he saw were too small to make a fair match-Sostratos went back to the javelin range and got in a few more throws. Then he rubbed himself down with fresh olive oil and scraped it from his sandy, sweaty skin with a curved bronze strigil. He put on his chiton and left the gymnasion.
The agora lay close by. It was smaller and less storied than Athens’, but to Sostratos it was home. He’d come here with his father or with a pedagogue since he was a little boy. Here Rhodians gathered to spread and talk over the news of the day. And here Rhodians and all sorts of foreigners gathered to buy and sell and trade.
Even so late in the sailing season, Sostratos heard Hellenes speaking several different dialects: Dorians from Rhodes; Ionians with their dropped rough breathings; Athenians, who called the tongue glotta instead of glossa and the sea thalatta instead of thalassa; old-fashioned Cypriots; the buzzing, lisping sounds of those who used Aiolic; and Macedonians, whose native tongue was hardly Greek at all.
Phoenicians flavored Greek with their own harsh, guttural accent. Swaggering Keltic mercenaries turned it musical. Lykians spoke sneezingly. Karians and Lydians did their best to beat Hellenes at their own game. And-Sostratos eyed the fellow with interest-there was an Italian in a toga: a Samnite, or perhaps even a Roman from farther up the peninsula. Sostratos had no use for Romans. On the Aphrodites last trip west, three years earlier, a Roman trireme had almost sunk her.
He strolled through the market square, mostly listening or watching, now and then pausing to examine merchandise or to gossip or to spend an obolos for a handful of chickpeas fried in olive oil. The name of Demetrios son of Antigonos was on a lot of men’s lips. With his youth and energy-and with his spectacular swoop on Athens-he seemed to have eclipsed his father in many people’s minds. “What will Demetrios do next?” was a question Sostratos heard again and again.
He heard it so often, in fact, he finally lost patience and said, “ Demetrios will do whatever Antigonos tells him to do, that’s what. He’s Antigonos’ right arm and right hand, yes, with his brother Philippos the left, but Antigonos is the brain and the heart.”
“And how do you know so much about it, O marvelous one?” sneered the last What will Demetrios do next?-sayer, a man who stood behind a table full of painted terra-cotta statuettes.
“Because I got back from Athens less than a month ago,” Sostratos answered. “Because I heard Demetrios speak in the Assembly, and heard how he always gave credit to his father for everything he did. Because I had supper with him, when my cousin and I sold him truffles and wine. And because Antigonos has been an important marshal for more than thirty years now-since the days of Philip of Macedon- and he’s not going to disappear like so much dandelion fluff.”
The man with the table next to the statuette-seller’s laughed. “Guess he told you, Lapheides.”
Lapheides remained unquelled. “Huh!” he said. “Antigonos is as old as Zeus by now.”
“He’s almost as sly as Zeus, too,” Sostratos said. “Forget Demetrios. Would you want Antigonos for an enemy? Would you want Rhodes to have Antigonos for an enemy? I know I wouldn’t.”
“I’d rather have him than Demetrios,” Lapheides said stubbornly.
Sostratos wondered how some people could be so blind, and how Rhodes could hope to survive if they were. The only answer occurring to him was that other poleis also had their share of such fools, and so things evened out. That left him imperfectly reassured. “Don’t you see?” he said, almost pleading. “You can’t have Demetrios without Antigonos, because Demetrios doesn’t do anything his father doesn’t tell him to.”
“He screws pretty women-lots of ‘em, by what people say,” Lapheides replied.
Was he changing the subject? Or did he honestly think that was a real comeback to what Sostratos had said? Sostratos wasn’t sure, but suspected the worst. He said, “The best thing that could happen to Rhodes would be for both Antigonos and Demetrios ”-he used the dual number to show the two of them made a natural pair-”to forget all about her.”
Grammatical subtleties were lost on Lapheides. The statuette-seller stuck out his bristly chin and said, “I’m not afraid of ‘em.”
“You’re surely swift-footed Akhilleus come again,” Sostratos said. Taking the sarcasm for a compliment, Lapheides preened. Sostratos sighed. He’d feared the statuette-seller would.
12
Baukis turned a pirouette in the courtyard. The hem of her long chiton flew up for a moment, displaying a pair of shapely ankles. Menedemos watched appreciatively while doing his best not to be noticed at it: she was showing off for his father, not for him. Sounding anxious, she asked, “Do I look all right?”
Menedemos couldn’t help dipping his head. Philodemos’ eyes, fortunately, were on Baukis. The older man dipped his head, too. “You look fine, my dear,” he said. There, for once, he and Menedemos agreed completely.
His wife clapped her hands together in excitement. Gold glittered on her fingers and on her wrists and in her ears. One of her rings held a big, deep-green emerald Philodemos had bought for himself-for her, in other words-after Menedemos got a good many of the precious stones from a merchant skipper from Alexandria.
“I get to go out in the city!” Baukis said-squeaked, really. She clapped her hands again. “I get to go out in the city without a veil! I even get to go out of the city without a veil!”
Philodemos muttered something, but had the sense not to make it any too clear. The parade to the temple of Hera eight or ten stadia south of the city wall-out beyond the graveyards-was a festival the women of Rhodes looked forward to every year. It gave them a momentary taste of the free and open life custom kept them from living most of the time.
Clouds drifted across the sky. The setting sun tinged them with pink. “I hope it doesn’t rain,” Baukis exclaimed. “That would be awful.”
Philodemos and Menedemos shared an amused glance. Both of them were weatherwise. “I don’t think you need to worry about that, my dear,” Philodemos said, and Menedemos dipped his head. “No rain in those clouds. That shower we had day before yesterday was enough to lay the dust, but we shouldn’t expect much more till later in the rainy season.”
“Oh, good.” Baukis’ smile showed her projecting front teeth, but it also showed how very happy she was. “If you two sailors tell me it’s so, then it must be.” She pointed at Philodemos. “And if it does rain now, I’ll blame you. You know that, don’t you?”