“A good thing, too,” Menedemos said. “Otherwise, we’d have come home from our trading run without having sold anything. That’d be a first. And I’ll tell you something else, too: one way or another, my father would manage to blame me for everything that went wrong.”
He often complained about his father. Sostratos had never had any particular trouble with Uncle Philodemos, but he wasn’t Philodemos’ son, either. And, from everything he’d seen, Menedemos had cause for his complaints, too. “What is it between the two of you, anyhow?” Sostratos asked. “Whatever it is, can’t you find some way to cure it?”
“I don’t know. I doubt it.” Menedemos sounded surprisingly bleak. He also sounded as if he was lying, or at least not telling all of the truth.
Sostratos thought about calling him on it. Menedemos had frozen up a couple of times before when Sostratos asked him questions like that. It was as if he knew the answer but didn’t want to air it to anyone, perhaps even-perhaps especially-to himself. What could it be? Sostratos’ ever-lively curiosity sniffed at that like a Molossian hound sniffing for the scent of a hare, but found nothing.
That being so, changing the subject looked like a good idea. Sostratos said, “The king of Salamis and all these little Cypriot kings have to pay tribute to Ptolemaios nowadays. I wonder how they like it.”
“Not much, unless I miss my guess, and I don’t think I do,” Menedemos answered. Sostratos dipped his head in agreement. His cousin went on in musing tones: “I wonder why towns full of Hellenes here on Cyprus have kings, where most poleis back in Hellas itself and over in Great Hellas are democracies or oligarchies or what have you.”
“There’s Sparta,” Sostratos said.
“I said most poleis. I didn’t say all poleis. And Macedonia isn’t a polls, but it’s got a king, too.”
“At the moment, it hasn’t got a king, which is why all the marshals are hitting one another over the head with anything they can lay their hands on,” Sostratos pointed out. He thought for a little while. “That’s an interesting question, you know.”
“Give me an interesting answer, then,” Menedemos said.
“Hmm. One thing Cyprus and Macedonia have in common is that they’re right at the edge of the Hellenic world. Old-fashioned things stick around in places like this. Listen to the dialect the Cypriots use. And Macedonian’s even worse.”
“I should say so,” Menedemos agreed. “I’m not even sure it’s properly Greek at all. But tell me, then, O best one: are kings old-fashioned? What about Alexander?”
“Certainly not,” Sostratos said, as if he were responding to a question from Sokrates in a Platonic dialogue. In those dialogues, though, Sokrates got all the best lines. Here, Sostratos had some hope of having some himself. He went on. “But even if Alexander was something special, kingship isn’t. It is archaic in most of Hellas. Sparta’s the most conservative polls around. Add that to kings hanging on in backwoods places like this and Macedonia, and to other evidence-”
“What other evidence?” Menedemos broke in.
“Look at Athens, for instance,” Sostratos said. “Athens hasn’t had a king since the days of myth and legend, since King Kodros went out to fight knowing he would get killed, but would bring his city victory doing it.”
“Why talk about Athens, then?”
“If you’ll let me talk, my dear, I’ll tell you. Athens doesn’t have a king- hasn’t had one for ages. But it still has an arkhon called the king, who takes the place of the king it used to have in some religious ceremonies. So Athens is a place that once had a king, that shows it once had a king by keeping an official with the name but none of the power, but that doesn’t need him any more than a bird needs the eggshell it hatched out of. You see? Evidence.”
“Well, if you went to trial with It, I don’t know if you’d convince enough jurors to win a conviction, but you’ve convinced me; I will say that.” Menedemos clapped his hands together. Sostratos grinned. He didn’t win an argument with Menedemos-or rather, Menedemos didn’t admit he’d won one-every day. But his cousin added, “No matter how old-fashioned kinging it is, the Macedonian marshals have all of the job except for the name, and they seem to like it pretty well.”
“Of course they do,” Sostratos said. “They’re all rich as you please- Ptolemaios especially-and nobody dares tell them no. How can you not like that? But do the people in their realms like it? That’s liable to be a different question.”
“Except in Macedonia itself, most of those people are just barbarians. They don’t know what freedom is-they lived under the Great Kings of Persia before the Macedonians came,” Menedemos answered. “And, from everything I’ve ever heard, Egyptians don’t like anything foreign.”
“Yes, I’ve heard the same,” Sostratos agreed. “From what Himilkon says, it sounds as if the Ioudaioi don’t fancy foreigners, either.”
“All the more reason for you to have some guards along, then,” Menedemos said. “If the people you’re going to do business with want to kill you because you’re foreign-”
“Nobody said they wanted to kill me,” Sostratos broke in. “And I’ve agreed to bring along some sailors, remember? You’d better remember- and you’d better remember what you agreed to, too. Do you?”
“Yes, O best one,” Menedemos answered glumly,
Menedemos was in a sulky mood as he and Sostratos made their way back to the harbor from Salamis’ market square. No adultery, no chance for adultery, for the rest of the sailing season? He came close to wishing he’d let his fool of a cousin go off alone and get himself killed. It would serve him right, wouldn’t it?
After contemplating that, Menedemos reluctantly-very reluctantly- tossed his head. He did like Sostratos, in an almost avuncular way, and they would be able to make a lot of money on Engedi balsam if they could bring it back to Hellas without having to pay any Phoenician middlemen.
All the same,.. “The sacrifices I make,” he muttered.
“What’s that?” Sostratos asked.
“Never mind,” Menedemos told him. “I’d have to explain to my father-and to yours-how I happened to lose you to bandits, and that’s more trouble than it’s worth. Just as well, then, you’re going with guards.” And if I happen to have to pay a price for it, I pay a price for it, that’s all.
Then Sostratos pointed to a peculiar structure off to the left and asked, “What’s that?” in an altogether different tone of voice.
“Why are you asking me?” Menedemos asked in turn, “I don’t know. It’s sure funny-looking, though, whatever it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?” The more he looked at it, the stranger it seemed, too. “Some sort of shrine?”
“Beats me.” Sostratos was staring, too. The base of the structure was of mud brick, with a mound of what looked like charcoal raised above it. Statues of a man, a woman, and three children surrounded the strange erection. Sostratos was normally a shy man, but curiosity could make him bold. He stepped in front of a passing Salaminian and asked, “I beg your pardon, but could you tell me what this building is?”
“Know you not?” the local said in surprise. But when Menedemos and Sostratos both tossed their heads, he said, “Why, ‘tis the cenotaph of King Nikokreon, of course.”
“Oh, a pestilence!” Menedemos snapped his fingers, annoyed at himself. “I should have thought of that. Ptolemaios made him kill himself when he took over Cyprus, didn’t he? So there isn’t any king of Salamis any more, Sostratos, Two or three years ago, it would have been. I heard about it in Rhodes.”
“Aye, you have’t,” the Salaminian said. “‘Twas not Nikokreon alone made to slay himself, but wife and offspring as well. The monument you see here raised commemorates them all. Farewell.” He walked on.
“Ptolemaios doesn’t like murdering people,” Menedemos remarked, “Maybe, to his way of thinking, there’s no blood guilt if he makes them kill themselves. Polemaios last year in Kos, and Niknkrcon here, too. I daresay Polemaios had it coming, though, I never would have trusted him at my back, anyhow.”