“By the dog of Egypt, Nikokreon had it coming, too,” Sostratos said, his voice suddenly savage. “I’d forgotten what Ptolemaios made him do, but it wasn’t half what he deserved.”
“Why?” Menedemos asked. “I’d never even heard of him till word got to Rhodes that he’d slain himself. Life’s too short to keep track of every little Cypriot kinglet who comes along.”
“Life’s never too short to keep track of anything,” Sostratos said.
Menedemos would have bet his cousin would come out with something like that. He retorted, “You’re the one who forgot Nikokreon’s dead, back there earlier today.”
Sostratos turned red. “Well, I shouldn’t have. What he did deserves remembering, whether you usually keep track of such things or not.”
“Now you’ve got me curious,” Menedemos said. “What did he do, my dear?”
“He’s the abandoned rogue who tortured Anaxarkhos of Abdera to death,” Sostratos answered. Menedemos must have looked blank, for Sostratos continued, “Anaxarkhos was a philosopher from the school of Demokritos.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of him,” Menedemos replied with some relief. “The fellow who says everything’s made up of tiny particles too small to cut up any more--atoms, right?” To his relief, Sostratos dipped his head. Menedemos said, “All right, Anaxarkhos followed him. What then?”
“He was a man who spoke his mind, Anaxarkhos was. Once when Alexander got hurt, Anaxarkhos pointed to the wound and said, ‘That is the blood of a man, not a god.’ But Alexander liked him, and didn’t take offense. Nikokreon was different.”
“You’re a tease, do you know that? If you were a hetaira, you’d have more customers than you knew what to do with, the way you promise and promise without actually giving very much.” Menedemos poked his cousin in the ribs.
“If I were a hetaira, all the men would run screaming, and I don’t mean on account of my beard,” Sostratos replied. “I know what my looks are.”
Menedemos had been a much-courted youth before his beard sprouted. No one had paid the least attention to his tall, gawky, horse-faced cousin. At the time and since, Sostratos had made a good game show of not caring. But, down deep, it must have rankled. Here, ten years later, Menedemos saw it coming out. He made a point of not overtly noticing. “Nikokreon was different, you say? How? What did this- Anaxagoras?-do?”
“Anaxarkhos,” Sostratos corrected. “ Anaxagoras was a philosopher, too, but a long time ago, in the days of Perikles.”
“All right, Anaxarkhos,” Menedemos said agreeably, glad he’d steered his cousin away from thinking about himself. “What did he do to get dear Nikokreon angry at him?”
“That I don’t know, not exactly, but it must have been something special, because Nikokreon thought up a special death for him,” Sostratos replied. “He threw him into a big stone mortar and had him pounded to death with iron hammers.”
“Pheu!” Menedemos said. “That’s a nasty way to go. Did the philosopher die well?”
“Anaxarkhos? I should say so,” Sostratos said. “He told the Salaminian, ‘Go ahead and pound my body, for you can’t pound my soul.’ That made Nikokreon so furious, he ordered Anaxarkhos’ tongue torn out, but Anaxarkhos bit it off before the torturer could get to him, and he spat it in Nikokreon’s face. And so you see, my dear, Nikokreon might have got off better than he deserved when Ptolemaios told him to slay himself. If I’d been the one giving the orders…”
“You sound as bloodthirsty as any of the Macedonians,” Menedemos said, eyeing Sostratos with unwonted wariness. “More often than not, you’re as gentle as any man I’ve ever known. Every once in a while, though…” He tossed his head.
“Someone who tries to kill knowledge, to kill wisdom, deserves whatever happens to him,” Sostratos said. “That polluted whoreson pirate who stole the gryphon’s skull, for instance. If I got my hands on him, I’d send for a torturer from Persia and another one from Carthage, and let them see who could do worse to him. I’d pay them both, and gladly.”
Menedemos started to laugh, but stopped before the sound escaped. When he looked at Sostratos, his cousin’s expression said he hadn’t been joking. That pirate was lucky he’d managed to get off the Aphrodite. And he’d stay lucky if he never complained in a tavern about the old bones he’d taken in lieu of other loot more worth having. If word of such grumbling ever got back to Sostratos, that pirate would have to look to his life.
When they returned to the merchant galley, Diokles proved to have done some scouting of his own. The oarmaster said, “They’ve got a fine kitharist from Corinth playing at one of the inns here. They say he’s the first kitharist to play in Salamis since Nikokreon flung the one named Stratonikos into the sea. Now that the king’s dead, they dare show their faces here again.”
“Oh, by Zeus!” Menedemos exclaimed. “Another one Nikokreon put to death?”
“Another one?” Diokles asked.
“But you have to remember, too, it wasn’t a king who killed Sokrates.”
“Democracy isn’t perfect, either-the gods know that’s so,” Sostratos said. “If we didn’t live in a democracy, we wouldn’t have to listen to Xanthos blather on and on whenever the Assembly meets, for instance.”
“You’re right,” Menedemos said. “One more reason to be glad we can get out of Rhodes half the year on trading runs.”
“Pity we can’t hear Stratonikos, though,” Sostratos said. “Who’s the kitharist who is in town, Diokles?”
“Areios, his name is,” the keleustes answered.
Menedemos nudged Sostratos. “What did old Stratonikos have to say about him, eh, best one?”
“He told him to go to the crows once,” Sostratos answered. “That’s all I know.”
“Sounds like Stratonikos told everybody to go to the crows,” Menedemos said. “That doesn’t make this Areios out to be anybody special. I wonder if we should bother seeing him.”
“What else is there to do in Salamis of nights?” Sostratos asked.
“Get drunk. Get laid.” Menedemos named the two obvious choices in any harbor town. They were, when he thought about it, the two obvious choices in towns that didn’t lie by the coast, too.
“We can drink and listen to Areios at the same time,” his cousin said. “And if you decide you want a woman or a boy, you can probably find one not far away.”
“He’s right, skipper,” Diokles said.
“Well, so he is,” Menedemos agreed. “He’s right a lot of the time.” He nudged Sostratos in the ribs. “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?”
“Because I sail with you?” Sostratos asked innocently. Before Menedemos could get angry, his cousin went on, “A couple of hundred years ago, people asked Thales of Miletos that same question till he got sick of hearing it. He cornered the olive-oil market in those parts one year, and after that he was rich.”
“Good for him. I don’t suppose there’s any law that says philosophers can’t enjoy silver just like anybody else,” Menedemos said. “And I don’t suppose he got rich by trying to sell his oil to all the neighboring poleis that already had plenty of their own.”
Sostratos grimaced. “No, I don’t suppose so, either. We just have to do the best we can with it, that’s all.”
Together, Menedemos and Sostratos told him about Anaxarkhos. Then Menedemos asked, “What happened to Stratonikos?”
“Why, he spoke freer about Nikokreon’s family than he should have,” the keleustes answered. “That’s why the king drowned him.”
“This has a familiar ring, doesn’t it?” Sostratos said, and Menedemos dipped his head. Sostratos went on, “I believe it about Stratonikos, too. I saw him in Athens, years ago. Marvelous kitharist, but he would say the first thing that popped into his mind, and he didn’t care where he was or to whom he said it.”