“I don’t think I can say all that in Aramaic,” Sostratos warned.
“Try.”
Sostratos dipped his head. He made what to Menedemos sounded like horrible choking noises. The Phoenicians in the fishing boat shouted back. This time, they seemed less impassioned. So did Sostratos when he replied to them. After a bit, he turned to Menedemos and said, “Euge, my dear. Sidon is a couple of hours’ sail to the south. A very nice bit of navigating.”
“Euge is right, skipper,” Diokles agreed. “All that water to cross, and then to make it to the coast almost right where we wanted to be…” He raised his voice, calling out to the sailors, “Give the captain a cheer, boys! He put us right where he wanted to.”
“Euge!” the men called. Menedemos grinned and waved. Somebody added, “The skipper always puts it right where he wants to.” Menedemos laughed at that. After a moment, though, he felt like scowling again. Thanks to his bargain with his cousin, he might not have the chance to put it where he wanted to.
“Shall I send them on their way?” Sostratos asked.
“Yes, go ahead,” Menedemos answered. “We’ve found out what we needed to know. If they’re telling the truth, that is.”
“Not much point to lying about something like that,” Sostratos said. “We’d find the truth soon enough, and their lie wouldn’t do us any harm, no matter how much they might wish it would.” He shouted once more, in incomprehensible Aramaic. The fishermen understood it well enough, though, whether Menedemos did or not. They steered away from the Aphrodite, and were no doubt delighted when the akatos, which dwarfed their little boat, did not match their course.
Sidon, once the merchant galley reached it, proved to lie on a small promontory behind a line of islets running parallel to the coast. “It’s not a very big place, is it?” Menedemos said, none too happily-he wanted a good market for the Aphrodite’s wares.
“But look at the buildings,” Sostratos said. “I’ve heard the Phoenicians build tall, and now I see it’s true. They go up and up and up.”
He was right. Few buildings in a polis full of Hellenes rose more than two stories above the street, so that the temples and other public structures stood out. Sidon was different. Every other building seemed to tower four or five stories high. Menedemos said, “The Sidonians must have strong legs, from going up and down all those stairs so often.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right,” his cousin answered. “They have to get their exercise somewhere, I suppose. There certainly doesn’t look to be room in the town for a gymnasion.” He paused, then laughed. “In fact, the very idea of a gymnasion in a place like Sidon is absurd.”
“Why? “ Menedemos asked. “They could squeeze one in if they wanted to badly enough.”
Sostratos gave him the sort of look he hated, the look that said he’d been so blatantly stupid, he should have been ashamed of himself. Menedemos scratched his head. He couldn’t see why, which only made things worse. Holding on to patience with both hands-and making a point of doing so-Sostratos said, “What is a gymnasion? Literally, that is-what does the word mean?”
“A place to go nak-” Menedemos stopped. “Oh. Phoenicians don’t go naked, do they?”
He could see they didn’t for himself. The day was warm, warmer than it was likely to have been in Rhodes at this season of the year. It was more than warm enough for a lot of male Hellenes to have stripped off their chitons and gone through the streets bare without a second thought. They took nudity in stride and took it for granted.
But almost all the people he could see in Sidon covered themselves in cloth all the way down to their feet. The only exceptions were men- probably slaves-bearing heavy burdens, and even they wore loincloths. Those were the only exceptions Menedemos spotted, at any rate. Sostratos pointed to a knot of men on a quay and said, “Look. They’re Hellenes, or maybe Macedonians.”
He was right. He usually was. Some of the men he’d spotted wore short tunics like the ones he and Menedemos had on. A couple of others were in linen corselets and bronze helms with tall horsehair crests. Menedemos couldn’t imagine why they wanted to show they were soldiers in a town unlikely to be attacked. All it would do was make them sweat more than they had to. But that was their worry, not his.
Sostratos did some more pointing, this time at some of the ships and, more important, at the large ship sheds by the water’s edge. “Look at all the war galleys Antigonos has here,” he said. “Do you suppose Menelaos knows about that, over in Salamis?”
Menedemos laughed. No matter how much Sostratos knew, he could be naive as a child. “My dear, think about how many ships go back and forth between here and Salamis,” Menedemos said. “If I were Menelaos, I wouldn’t just know how many ships old One-Eye has here. I’d know the name of every rower on every one of them, and I’d know the name of every rower’s father, too. And you can bet your last obolos that Menelaos does.”
Now it was his cousin’s turn to say, “Oh,” in a gratifyingly small voice. “Yes, that is reasonable, isn’t it?”
Menedemos guided the Aphrodite to a mooring place at the end of a quay. The longshoremen who caught the lines to make the ship fast stared at the scantily clad Hellenes aboard her. They shouted questions in their harsh language. Sostratos gave halting answers. Menedemos caught the merchant galley’s name, those of his father and uncle, and that of Rhodes. But for the handful of names, he understood not a word his cousin was saying.
A big round ship was tied up next to the akatos. More longshoremen carried sacks of grain off her, down the quay, and into the city. As they worked, they chanted: “Hilni hiya holla-ouahillok holya.”
“What does that mean?” Menedemos asked Sostratos.
“What does what mean?” his cousin answered. Menedemos pointed to the men unloading the round ship. Sostratos cocked his head to one side. Menedemos got the idea he hadn’t even noticed the chant till it was pointed out to him. After a bit, Sostratos shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think it means anything at all, though I wouldn’t swear to that. If I had to guess, I’d say it was something rhythmic they sing to help the time pass while they work.”
“Could be,” Menedemos said. “We have chants like that. I just wondered if this one made any sense.”
“Not to me.” Sostratos pointed toward the far end of the wharf. “And here comes an officer to ask us questions.”
“Oh, hurrah,” Menedemos said, meaning anything but, “Gods-detested arrogant snoops, the lot of them. I don’t care if they work for Antigonos or Ptolemaios or one of the other Macedonian marshals. To the crows with ‘em all.”
Antigonos’ man was quite tall-several digits taller than Sostratos and close to twice as wide through the shoulders. He had blue eyes, blondish hair, and a once-fiery beard now streaked with gray. Menedemos wondered for a moment if he was a Keltic mercenary, but he proved to be a Macedonian. “Who are you, and where are you from?” he asked, not bothering to sharpen his slurred accent. “Don’t see many strange Hellenes here, and that’s a fact.”
“This is the Aphrodite, out of Rhodes,” Menedemos told him.
“ Rhodes, eh?” The Macedonian didn’t seem to know what to make of that. “Your little island built some ships for Antigonos, but you do a lot of business with Ptolemaios, too.”
“Yes, we’re neutral,” Menedemos said, wondering if there were any such thing with the world as it was these days. “We have no quarrel with anybody.”
“Ah, but what happens when somebody has a quarrel with you}” the Macedonian asked. Then he shrugged. “What are you carrying?”