The Sacred Land

“And that’s why you build a new ship: to see if she sails the way everybody thinks she will, I mean,” Menedemos answered. “I wouldn’t mind being her skipper, though-I’ll tell you that.”

“If anyone’s earned the right, you have,” his cousin said. “If not for you, there wouldn’t be a trihemiolia.”

Menedemos shrugged. “That’s true. But I’ll tell you something else every bit as true, my dear: I’m out here on the I

“That’s not fair,” Sostratos said.

“The world’s not fair,” Menedemos replied with another shrug. “Anybody who goes out in it a little bit will tell you the same. Sooner or later, I expect I’ll get a chance. And when I do, I’ll show people what kind of officer I am.” That seemed enough of that. He pointed toward Ptolemaios’ approaching merchantmen. “Those are big ships, aren’t they?”

“I think they’re bigger than the ones that brought grain into Syracuse for Agathokles sailing season before last.” Sostratos plucked at his beard. “It makes sense they should be, I suppose, Agathokles had to take what he could get. Ptolemaios can pick and choose.”

“And Ptolemaios has more money than Agathokles ever dreamt of,” Menedemos added.

“I said something about Kroisos a little while ago. Ptolemaios has more money than Kroisos ever dreamt of,” Sostratos said. “Ptolemaios has more money than anybody ever dreamt of, except maybe the Great Kings of Persia-and they held Egypt, too.”

“Egypt’s the richest country in the world. It’s so rich, it hardly seems fair,” Menedemos said. Not only was the land rich in gold (and emeralds, as he had reason to know), but the Nile floods renewed the soil every year. They let the peasants raise enormous crops (some small part of which lay in the holds of those approaching round ships), and let whoever ruled Egypt collect even more enormous amounts of taxes.

“Ahoy!” The shout came thin across the sea from a sailor at the bow of the leading merchantman. “Ahoy, the galley! What ship are you?”

Are you a pirate? If you are a pirate, will you admit it? That was what the fellow meant. Menedemos shouted back: “We’re the Aphrodite, out of Rhodes.”

“Out of Rhodes, eh?” The sailor on the round ship sounded suspicious. He had reason to; with Rhodes a leading trading partner for Egypt, a pirate would do well to disguise himself as coming from that island. “What trading house are you from?”

“Philodemos and Lysistratos’,” Menedemos replied. “Philodemos is my father; Lysistratos is my toikharkhos’ father.” Maybe Ptolemaios’ man knew a bit about Rhodes, or maybe he was just seeing if pirates would stumble trying to invent something plausible. Either way, Menedemos was not the sort of man to let him get by with cheek unchallenged. He shouted a question of his own: “What ship are you?”

And he got an answer. “This is the Isidora, out of Alexandria,” answered the sailor on the round ship. Then the fellow realized he didn’t have to tell Menedemos anything. He shook his fist at the Aphrodite. “It’s none of your business who we are and what we’re doing.”

“No, eh? But it’s your business who we are and what we’re up to?” Menedemos returned. “Well, you can go howl, pal! We’re free Hellenes just the same as you are, and we’ve got as much right to ask you questions as you do with us.”

“Euge!” Sostratos and Diokles said together, A couple of sailors clapped their hands. Menedemos gri

The man on the Isidora had it in full measure, too. He threw back his head and laughed as the two ships passed closest to each other. “Go ahead and bark, little dog,” he said. “When a big dog decides he wants your house, you’ll run away yelping with your tail between your legs.”

Rage ripped through Menedemos. “I ought to sink that son of a whore. Who does he think he is, to talk to me that way?”

Again, Sostratos and Diokles spoke together. This time, they both said, “No!” Menedemos knew they were right, but he still steamed like a sealed pot forgotten in a fire. He felt as if he could burst and scatter shards everywhere.

One after another, the grain ships glided past the Aphrodite, The men aboard them no doubt thought them majestic. To Menedemos, wallowing seemed a better word. They sailed well enough with the wind right behind them, as it was now. Trying to tack against it, though, they were so slow as to be nearly helpless.

A sailor on the Aphrodite shouted, “I hope real pirates get you, you fig-suckers!”

That went too far. “By the dog, Teleutas, keep quiet!” Menedemos hissed. “They aren’t our enemies.”

“No, but they’re acting like a bunch of wide-arsed little pricks,” Teleutas answered. Menedemos snorted out an exasperated breath. He’d had Teleutas aboard for three sailing seasons in a row now, and he kept wondering why. The man did as little as he could to get by. He wasn’t particularly brave. He wasn’t even an entertaining sort, to make up for his other lacks. If he keeps on like this, I’d do better to leave him behind next year, Menedemos thought. Let him drive some other captain crazy-

He’d certainly hit a nerve aboard Ptolemaios’ transports. Mention of pirates did, with honest sailors. The sailors who heard him screamed abuse at the Aphrodite. They made obscene gestures. They shook their fists. One of them even threw something at the merchant galley. Whatever it was, it splashed into the I

“They know who we are,” Sostratos said unhappily. “They won’t forget. They’ll blacken our name in every port Ptolemaios holds-and he holds a lot of them.”

“I know,” Menedemos said. “What can I do about it now, except maybe pitch Teleutas over the side?”

“Nothing.” His cousin scuffed a bare foot across the planks of the poop deck. “I’m the one who took him on a couple of years ago, there right before we sailed. I’ve been sorry at least half a dozen times since.”

“I had the same thought,” Menedemos answered. “He doesn’t really pull his weight, and he does get into trouble-and get us into trouble. But he’s never made me quite angry enough at him to sail off without him… and I did bark at the Alexandrians before he did, curse it. I guess I’m likely not the first captain he’s aggravated, that’s all,”

“Well, there goes the last grain ship,” Sostratos said. “Many goodbyes to them-but I wouldn’t wish pirates on anybody.”

“No, neither would I,” Menedemos said, and then, “Well, hardly anybody.”

He couldn’t tell by the coastline where Lykia stopped and Pamphylia began-the difference lay in the people, not the landscape. But Olbia, a strong fortress on the far side of the Kataraktes River, unquestionably belonged to Pamphylia. The Kataraktes lived up to its name, rushing down from the mountains in back of Olbia toward the sea and booming over the rocks as it came.

Menedemos, used to the little Rhodian streams that dried up in the summertime, eyed the river with no small wonder. Sostratos smiled at him and asked, “If you think this is such a marvel, what will you make of the Nile if we go to Alexandria one day? “

“I haven’t the faintest idea, my dear,” Menedemos replied. “But the Nile, I’m sure, doesn’t make such a racket as it flows into the I

“No, indeed. You’re right about that,” his cousin agreed. “The cataracts of the Nile are thousands of stadia up the stream. Herodotos talks about them.”

“Herodotos talks about everything, doesn’t he?”

“He was curious. He traveled all over the known world to find out what really happened, and how it happened, and, most important of all, why it happened. If it weren’t for him, there might not be any such thing as history today.”