The road to Jerusalem meandered through olive trees and fields that would have been richer had they not gone uphill at such a steep slope. The closer the Hellenes got to the city, the more impressive its fortifications looked. The walls cunningly took advantage of the ground. The northern part of the place had especially strong works. Even Teleutas said, “I wouldn’t want to try storming this place.”
“No, indeed.” Aristeidas dipped his head. “You’d have to try to starve it out. Otherwise, you could throw away an army in nothing flat.”
On approaching the western gate, Sostratos found some of the guards to be Hellenes and others-who carried spears and shields and wore helmets, but had no body armor-swarthy, hook-nosed Ioudaioi. One of the Hellenes stared at the short chitons Sostratos and the sailors from the Aphrodite had on. He nudged his comrades. They all pointed toward the newcomers. The man who’d first noticed them called out, “Hellemzete?”
“Malista.” Sostratos dipped his head. “Of course we speak Greek.”
“ Poseidon ’s prick, man, what are you castaways doing in this gods-forsaken place?” the gate guard asked him. “We have to be here, to keep Moneybags in Egypt from taking this town away from Antigonos again, but why would anybody in his right mind come here if he didn’t need to?”
“We’re here to trade,” Sostratos said. “We’re bound for Engedi, to buy balsam there, but we’ll do business along the way, too.”
“Not much business to do in these parts,” another guard said, which did nothing to gladden Sostratos’ heart. But then he went on, “What there is of it, though, you’ll do in Jerusalem.”
“Well, that’s good to hear,” Sostratos said. He gave the Ioudaioi at the gate a polite nod, aping barbarous manners as best he could, and switched to Aramaic: “Peace be unto you, my masters.”
The Ioudaioi exclaimed in surprise. So did the Hellenes. “Listen to him make bar-bar noises!” one of them said. “He can talk with these polluted Ioudaian maniacs. He doesn’t have to point and do dumb show and hope you can find one of them who’s picked up a few words of Greek.”
“Where’d you learn this language, pal?” another Hellene asked.
“From a Phoenician merchant on Rhodes,” Sostratos answered. “I don’t speak all that much of it.”
“Better than I can do, and I’ve been out here a couple of years,” the guard told him. “I can ask for a woman-they don’t like you to ask for a boy, on account of they say their god doesn’t go in for that-and for wine and bread, and I can say, ‘Hold still! Hands up!’ And that’s about it.”
In Aramaic, Sostratos asked the Ioudaioi if they spoke Greek. They all shook their heads. By the way a couple of them had looked back and forth when he and the guard were talking, he suspected they understood more than they let on. “Why do they share this duty with you?” he asked the Hellenes.
“Because they shared it with the Persians,” one of them answered.
“That’s the deal we’ve got here-whatever the Ioudaioi had under the Persians, they’ve still got under us. They say Alexander went through here and set that up himself.”
“Bunch of drivel,” another Hellene said. “Like Alexander would come to the middle of nowhere while he was on his way to Egypt. Fat chance! But we smile and play along. It saves trouble, you know what I mean? As long as we don’t mess with their god, everything’s fine. You know about that? You can get into a lot of trouble awful quick if you’re not careful to be nice to their god.”
“Oh, yes,” Sostratos said. “I do know about that. My men and I did well enough coming down here from Sidon, anyhow.”
“All right, then,” the guard said. He and his friends stood aside. “Welcome to Jerusalem.”
Such as it is, Sostratos thought. But he kept that thought to himself, not knowing whether the Ioudaioi with the Hellenes had picked up any Greek. He was perfectly willing to insult Ioudaia in general and Jerusalem in particular, but he didn’t care to do it where the locals might understand. That was bad business.
What he did say was, “Thank you.” After a moment, he added, “Where is the market square in the city, and can you recommend an inn not too far from it?”
“It’s not far from the temple, in the north end of town,” the guard answered. “You know about the temple?”
“Some.” Sostratos dipped his head. “We were trying to spot it as we came up to the town. I’d like to, and to have a look around the place when I get the chance.”
“You can do that.” The guard who’d spoken tossed his head. “I take it back-you can do some of that. But only the outer parts are open to people who aren’t Ioudaioi. Whatever you do, don’t try going where you’re not supposed to. For one thing, the barbarians are liable to murder you. For another, if they don’t, we’re liable to. Poking your nose in where it doesn’t belong is bound to start a riot, and the Ioudaioi get excited enough as things are.”
“All right.” Sostratos hid his disappointment; he’d looked forward to poking his nose in wherever he could. “What about the inn?” he asked again.
“Ask these fellows.” The Hellene pointed to the Ioudaian guards. “You can make the funny noises they do, and they know this miserable place better than we do.”
“Good idea.” Sostratos switched to Aramaic: “My masters, can you tell me where to find an inn near the market square? “
That almost touched off a riot by itself. Every Ioudaian seemed to have a cousin or a brother-in-law who ran an inn. Each of them praised his relative’s establishment and scorned all the others. Their snarling gutturals got louder every minute. They began to shake fists and brandish weapons.
Then one of them said, “My brother-in-law already has an Ionian staying at his inn.”
“What is your brother-in-law’s name? How can I find his inn?” Sostratos asked. The chance to speak his own language with someone else at the inn struck him as too good to pass up.
“He is Ithran son of Akhbor,” the guard replied. “His inn is on the Street of Weavers, near the Street of Coppersmiths.”
“I thank you,” Sostratos said, and gave him an obolos.
One of the Hellenes said, “You paid him too much. Around here, the governors coin these little tiny silver bits, so small it takes ten or twelve of ‘em to make a drakhma. They don’t even bother counting ‘em most of the time-they just weigh ‘em. One of those would have been about right.”
With a shrug, Sostratos said, “I’m not going to worry about an obolos.” He had some of those tiny silver coins, but hadn’t known whether giving the Ioudaian guard so small a gift would have been reckoned an insult. He waved to the sailors. “Come on,” he told them, and booted his mule into motion. They passed into Jerusalem.
In one way, the place seemed more like a polis than Sidon had. Unlike the Phoenicians, the Ioudaioi didn’t build so high as to seem to scrape the sky. Their homes and shops and other buildings had only one or two stories, like those of the Hellenes. In another way, though, Jerusalem was startlingly different from any Hellenic city. Sostratos didn’t notice that himself; Aristeidas did. After the Rhodians had got about halfway to Ithran’s inn-or so Sostratos thought, anyhow-the sharp-eyed sailor said, “Where are all the statues?”
“By the dog!” Sostratos exclaimed in surprise. “You’re right, Aristeidas. I haven’t seen a one-not a Herm, not a carved face anywhere.”
Even the meanest, poorest polis would have had Herms-carved pillars with Hermes ’ face and genitals-in front of houses for luck. It would have had images of the gods, too, and of figures from myth and legend, and, these days, perhaps of prominent citizens as well. Sidon had been similar. The statues had been of a different style and had commemorated different gods and different legends, but they’d been there. In Ioudaia, though…