“Well, what did Homer truly say, then?” Menedemos asked. “He can’t have left Aias out of the picture altogether-Aias is too great a warrior. He’s the only one among the strong-greaved Akhaioi who keeps fighting back when Hektor goes on his rampage. The poet wouldn’t-couldn’t- have just forgotten him in the Catalogue of Ships.”
His cousin shrugged. “I agree with you. That doesn’t seem likely, and both the Athenian lines and the ones from Megara are suspect. I don’t think there’s any way now to find out what Homer first sang.”
That bothered Menedemos, too. He wanted to think Homer ’s words had passed inviolate from generation to generation. So much of what being a Hellene meant was contained in the Iliad and Odyssey. Of course, one of the things being a Hellene meant was carefully examining the world in which you lived. Homer ’s poems were part of the world in which all Hellenes lived, and so… Menedemos still wished people had kept their hands and minds off them.
Musing thus, he almost took the Aphrodite right past the opening to Salamis’ harbor. It was even narrower than that leading into the Great Harbor at Rhodes, with room for no more than ten or twelve ships abreast. If he’d daydreamed any longer, he would have had to double back to go in. In the akatos, that would have drawn jeers from Sostratos and silent scorn-which might have hurt more-from Diokles. In a round ship that had to beat back against the wind, it would have been worse than merely embarrassing.
When the Aphrodite did enter the harbor, it was full of ships: big war galleys displaying Ptolemaios’ eagle, a few on lowered sails, all on banners at stern and bow; little fishing boats, some of them no more than one-man rowboats; and everything in between. “Same sort of jumble as we saw at Kos last year,” Diokles remarked.
“Even worse, I do believe,” Sostratos said. “About one merchantman in three looks like a Phoenician. I’ve never seen so many foreign-looking ships all in one place.”
“I think you’re right,” Menedemos said. Telling Phoenician ships from those sailed by Hellenes wasn’t usually a matter of lines; both folk built their vessels in much the same way. But a thousand things, from the choice of paints to the shape of the eyes the ships carried at their prows to the way the lines were coiled to the fact that Phoenician sailors stayed fully clothed even in warm weather, shouted that those vessels belonged to barbarians.
“I wonder if we seem as strange to them as they do to us,” Sostratos said.
“If we do, too bad, by the gods,” Menedemos said. “They fought for the Great King against Alexander and they lost, and they’d better get used to it.”
Diokles pointed. “There’s a mooring space, skipper.”
Menedemos wished a Phoenician ship were making for it, too. He could get there first and score his own triumph over the barbarians. As things were, he had no competition. The Aphrodite slid into the space. The rowers backed oars for a few strokes to stop her in the water, then rested on the oars and shipped them, bringing them inboard.
Sailors tossed lines to longshoremen, who made the merchant galley fast to the quay. One of the Salaminians asked, “What ship have we here? Whence come ye?”
Smiling a little at the old-fashioned Cypriot dialect, Menedemos answered, “We’re the Aphrodite, out of Rhodes.” He named himself and Sostratos.
“Gods give ye good day, O best ones,” the local said. “And what cargo bring ye hither?”
Sostratos spoke up: “We have ink and papyrus, Koan silk, Rhodian perfume, the finest olive oil from our native land, books to make the time pass by, Lykian hams, and smoked eels from Phaselis-they melt in your mouth.”
“And melt silver from you, too, I doubt not,” the Salaminian said with a longing sigh. He glanced down toward the base of the quay. “And now, meseems, you shall answer these same questions over again, and more besides.”
Sure enough, a soldier strode importantly toward the Aphrodite. At almost every port the past couple of years, Menedemos thought sourly, soldiers had had questions for him and Sostratos. Sometimes they belonged to Antigonos; sometimes, as now, to Ptolemaios. Who paid them didn’t matter (with so many of them mercenaries, it often didn’t matter even to them). Their attitude was always the same: that a mere merchant skipper ought to go to the closest temple to offer sacrifice in thanks that they didn’t take everything he had.
This one was an exceptionally big man, with fair skin weathered bronze and with piercing gray eyes. When he barked, “Who are you?” he proved to have his own accent, very different from that of the longshoreman. If he wasn’t a Macedonian, Menedemos had never heard one.
“We’re the Aphrodite, out of Rhodes,” Menedemos answered, as he had before. Then, because he couldn’t resist, he added, “And who are you?”
“I’m Kleob-” The Macedonian, probably Kleoboulos, caught himself. “I ask the questions!” he roared. “Have you got that? It’s none of your gods-detested business who I am. Have you got that}”
Sostratos clucked reproachfully, as Menedemos had been sure he would. He had a point, too. Getting smart with Macedonians wasn’t the wisest thing Menedemos might have done.
“Have you got that?” the officer shouted again.
“Yes, O marvelous one,” Menedemos said.
Sostratos clucked again. But the Macedonian, as Menedemos had hoped, took irony for frightened politeness. “That’s better,” he growled. “Now tell me your cargo, and no more back talk.” Menedemos let Sostratos do that. After his cousin had gone down the list, the officer ran a hand through his gray-streaked auburn hair. “Books? Who’s going to buy books?”
“People who like to read?” Sostratos suggested.
The Macedonian tossed his head. Plainly, the idea was alien to him. He shrugged and found another question: “Where are you bound?”
“Phoenicia,” Menedemos answered unwillingly. “We’re going to trade for scarlet dye and balsam and whatever else we can find.”
“Are you?” Those gray eyes went hard and predatory. “Or are you here spying for Antigonos the Cyclops?”
“By the gods!” Menedemos exclaimed. “Last year we did a service for Ptolemaios, and now his servant calls us spies. I like that!”
“A service? What sort of service? His laundry? Did you fetch him a clean chiton or two?” the officer jeered. “Or did you bend over and give him a different kind of service? You’re pretty enough; he might’ve enjoyed that. And so might you.”
Accusing a free adult male Hellene of playing the boy for another man was one of the nastier insults someone could hurl. Menedemos steamed. His hands balled into fists, “Easy,” Sostratos murmured.
“Easy? I’ll tell him to-” But Menedemos caught himself. In Rhodes, he could have told the Macedonian anything he pleased. Not here. Cyprian Salamis was Ptolemaios’ city. One of the lord of Egypt’s officers carried far more weight than a merchant skipper from a distant polis. Mastering himself wasn’t easy, but Menedemos did it. “No, sir,” he told the Macedonian in the iciest tones he could summon. “Last year, he brought Polemaios son of Polemaios from Khalkis on the island of Euboia to Ptolemaios, who was then staying at the city of Kos, on the island of the same name.”
The officer gaped. Whatever answer he’d expected, that wasn’t it. He tried to rally: “A likely story. What did he pay you for it?”
“One talent of silver, of his own weight,” Sostratos answered. “I have it listed in the accounts here. Would you care to examine them?”
“No,” the Macedonian growled. He spun on his heel and clumped back up the pier, scarlet cape billowing around him.
“Euge!” Menedemos said. “But tell me, why on earth have you brought last year’s accounts along?” His cousin was mad for keeping every little detail straight, but that seemed excessive even for him.