Sostratos went up as close to the terraced stairway leading up to the inner courtyard as he could-close enough to make Hekataios look nervous. He stared at the temple. “How old is it?” he asked.
“It was built, I believe, in the reign of the first Dareios,” Hekataios replied. “But, as I said before, this isn’t the first temple. There was another one before it, but that one was destroyed when Jerusalem was sacked.”
“I wish we could figure out exactly when that was,” Sostratos said.
“Before the days of the Persian Empire, as I said before-that’s all I can tell you,” the other Hellene said with a shrug. Then he snapped his fingers. “Come to think of it, though, the Ioudaioi do have a sort of a history that talks about such things, but who knows what’s in it? It’s not in Greek.”
“A history? A written one?” Sostratos asked. Hekataios dipped his head. Sostratos said, “I read Aramaic-a little, anyhow.”
“Do you? How strange.” Hekataios raised an eyebrow. “But that won’t help, I’m afraid.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because this book the Ioudaioi have isn’t in Aramaic,” Hekataios answered.
“What? Well, by the dog, what language is it in? Egyptian?”
“I don’t think so.” Hekataios pondered, then tossed his head. “No, it can’t be. I know what Egyptian looks like-all those little pictures of people and animals and plants running riot all over everywhere. No, I’ve seen this book, and it looks as if it ought to be in Aramaic, more or less, but it isn’t. It’s written in the language the Ioudaioi used to speak before Aramaic spread all over the countryside, the language the priests use when they pray.” He pointed toward the men in fringed robes and fringed, striped shawls who were sacrificing a sheep at the altar.
“Is that what it is?” Sostratos said in relief. “I was listening to them before we started talking just now, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of what they were saying. I thought it was just me. Whatever language that is, it sounds a lot like Aramaic-it has the same set of noises at the back of the throat-but the words are different.”
“That sort of thing happens with us, too,” Hekataios observed. “Ever try to make sense out of what Macedonians say when they start talking among themselves? You can’t do it, no matter how much the language sounds as though it ought to be proper Greek.”
“Some Hellenes can-the ones from the northwest, whose own dialect isn’t too far away from what the Macedonians speak,” Sostratos said. “So it’s not quite the same.”
“Maybe not. I certainly don’t care to have to try to figure out Macedonian, and I have to do it in Alexandria every now and again.” Hekataios made a wry face. “The men with the money and the power too often aren’t the ones with the culture.”
“No doubt, O best one,” Sostratos said politely. He wanted to scream in Hekataios’ face instead, something like, You stupid, self-centered twit, you don’t know when you’re well off. You’ve got patrons in Alexandria, and what do you do? You complain about them! And yet you have the leisure to travel around doing research, and you’ll be able to sit down and write your book and have scribes make copies of it, so that it has a chance to live forever. How would you like to deal in perfume and beeswax and balsam and linen and silk instead? Do you think you would find the time to touch pen to papyrus then? Good luck!
He hoped none of that showed on his face. If it did, it was liable to look uncommonly like murder. He hadn’t known this sort of savage envy since he’d had to go home from the Lykeion. For him, a spell in Athens had been the capstone on his education. For others there, it had been the first step toward a life lived loving wisdom. He went back to the world of trade. They went on to the world of knowledge. As his ship sailed out of Peiraieus, bound for Rhodes, he’d wanted to kill them, simply because they got to do what he so desperately wanted to do.
Over the years, his resentment of scholars had faded. It had… till he met Hekataios, who complained of problems Sostratos would have been delighted to have.
“Shall we go back?” Sostratos said. “I don’t think I want to see any more.” What he really didn’t want to do was think about Hekataios’ good fortune.
“Well, why not?” Hekataios spoke with obvious relief. Now Sostratos hid a smile, though it was a bitter one. Hekataios must have feared he would try to go up the terraced stairs to the second courtyard, the one forbidden to all but the Ioudaioi. From everything he’d seen of the locals, though, he knew how foolish that would have been. No matter how curious he was, he didn’t want to touch off an insurrection or get himself killed.
He sent a last glance up to the governor’s residence above the temple of the Ioudaioi. That residence was a fortress in its own right. A Hellenic or Macedonian soldier up on the walls peered out and recognized more Hellenes in the lower courtyard below, doubtless by the short chitons they wore and by Hekataios’ clean-shaven face. The sentry waved and called out, “Hail.”
“Hail,” Sostratos replied. Hekataios waved back to the soldier. To Hekataios, Sostratos remarked, “Always good to hear Greek.”
“Oh, my dear, I should say so,” Hekataios replied. “And you, at least, speak some of this ghastly local language. For me, it might as well be the grunting of animals. I shall be so very glad to return to Alexandria, where Greek prevails-though there are Ioudaioi settling there, too, if you can believe it.” He rolled his eyes, but then resumed: “I shall also be glad to have the spare time to gather all my notes and memories together, and then to sit down and write.”
Sostratos did not bend down, pry a cobblestone out of the ground, and brain Hekataios with it. Why he didn’t, he never knew, then or afterwards. The scholar walked on, still breathing, still talking intelligently, still unaware of how much he took for granted and Sostratos craved with a deep, hopeless, desperate yearning.
One of these days. One of these years, Sostratos thought. I’ll do as Thales did, and get so rich I can afford to do as I please. I can gather all my notes and memories together, and then sit down and write. I can. And I will.
Back at the inn, they found chaos. Teleutas, for once, hadn’t caused it: he was off at a brothel down the block. The innkeeper was shouting at Moskhion in bad Greek, and the former sponge diver was shouting right back.
Moskhion turned to Sostratos in obvious relief. “Gods be praised you’re here, young sir. This fellow reckons I’ve done something really dreadful, and I never meant no harm, not to nobody.”
“Outrage! Insult!” Ithran shouted. “He profanes the one god!”
“Calm, O best one. Calm, please,” Sostratos said in Greek. He switched to Aramaic: “Peace be unto you. Peace be unto us all. Tell your slave. I will make it right, if I can.”
“He profanes the one god,” the innkeeper repeated, this time in Aramaic. But he didn’t seem quite so ready to burst into flames as he had a moment before.
“What happened?” Sostratos asked Moskhion, trying to take advantage of the relative peace and quiet.
“I got hungry, young sir,” Moskhion answered. “I craved a bit of meat-haven’t had any for a long time. Wanted some pork, but I couldn’t make this silly barbarian here understand the word for it.”
“Oh, dear.” Now Sostratos knew what sort of trouble he was in. “What did you do then?”
“I asked the abandoned rogue for a potsherd, sir, so I could draw him a picture,” Moskhion said. “He understood ‘potsherd’ well enough, Furies take him. Why couldn’t he understand ‘pork’? He gave me the sherd, and I drew-this.”
He showed Sostratos the piece of broken pot. On it he’d scraped with the tip of a sharp knife a commendable picture of a pig. Sostratos had had no idea he could draw so well. Maybe Moskhion himself hadn’t even known. But the gift, plainly, was there. Sostratos said, “What happened next?”