The Sacred Land

“Yes-one mullet, for one sailor out of the whole crew,” Menedemos said. “Those aren’t good odds, you know.”

“Too true,” Sostratos agreed. “But I do wonder what sort of interesting fish they catch off Cyprus and Phoenicia.”

“We found out some of the people thereabouts don’t eat fish at all- and you say your Ioudaioi won’t eat pork, isn’t that right?” Menedemos said. Sostratos dipped his head. His cousin laughed. “Who can guess why barbarians have the strange customs they do? If they didn’t, they’d be Hellenes.”

Once more, Sostratos quoted Herodotos quoting Pindaros: “ ‘Custom is king of all,’ That’s true wherever one goes, I’m sure, with Hellenes as well as barbarians.”

By the next afternoon, he could clearly see the forested hills of Cyprus’ eastern spike of land. Hawks wheeled above the woods. Now and then one would swoop down after prey it could see and Sostratos couldn’t. A gull that was resting contentedly on the masthead took off all at once with a harsh squawk of fear and a mad flapping of wings. The falcon that flew past paid it no heed but went on its way straight and swift as an arrow.

“Splendid bird,” Sostratos murmured.

“The gull didn’t think so,” Menedemos said.

“Yes, the gull hared out of there,” Sostratos replied, and his cousin made a face at the pun on laros and lagos. Sostratos smiled. As far as he was concerned, that pun welcomed him to Cyprus.

4

Menedemos looked ahead to the port approaching on his right hand. Thanks to favorable winds, they’d reached it on the second afternoon after coming to Cyprus. He pointed toward the narrow mouth of the harbor. “There’s a place with a famous name.”

“Salamis?” Sostratos answered. “Yes, my dear, I should hope so. It’s a name that means liberty for all Hellenes, a name that means Xerxes the Persian king watching from the shore as his ships were beaten.” He laughed. “The only trouble is, it’s the wrong Salamis for that.”

“Yes, I know,” Menedemos said, wondering if his cousin thought him so ignorant as not to know. “I wonder how a town in Cyprus got the same name as an island off the coast of Attica.” Then he snapped his fingers. “No, I don’t wonder. I know.”

“Tell me,” Sostratos said.

“Teukros founded this Salamis, didn’t he?” Menedemos said.

“So they say,” Sostratos answered.

“Well, then, Teukros was Telamon’s bastard, right?” Menedemos waited for his cousin to dip his head, then continued, “And who’s Telamon’s legitimate son?”

“You’re the one who knows the Iliad backwards and forwards,” Sostratos said.

“Oh, come on!” Menedemos said. “Everybody knows this one. Telamon’s son is-”

“Aias.” Sostratos supplied the right answer. Menedemos clapped his hands. Sostratos went on, “I see. I have it now. Because there are two Hellenic heroes named Aias in the Iliad, there must be two places named Salamis by the sea.”

“No, no, no!” Menedemos exclaimed. Only then did he notice the wicked gleam in his cousin’s eye. “You-you cacodaemon!” he burst out. Sostratos laughed out loud, Menedemos glared at him. “Now you’re going to hear the right answer, curse it, you scoffer, you.” Sostratos bowed, as if at a compliment. Menedemos doggedly plowed ahead: “Teukros founded this Salamis-and Alas, his half brother, was lord of the Salamis in Attica.” He quoted the Iliad:

“ ‘And Aias from Salamis led two-and-ten ships

And, having led them, placed them where the Athenians’ formations stood.’

So you see, this Salamis is named for the other one-in spite of your dreadful jokes.”

“Some people say the Athenians put those two lines into the Catalogue of Ships themselves, to justify their claim to the island of Salamis,” Sostratos said. That rocked Menedemos. To him, Homer ’s poems were perfect and unchanging as they passed from one generation to the next. Adding lines for political reasons seemed as vile as adulterating barley for the sake of profit. But if people did the latter-and they did-why not the former, too? His cousin added, “Can’t fault your argument, though. If Aias was lord of Salamis and if Teukros founded this Salamis, this one is named after the other. You can think logically when you want to. If only you’d want to more often.”

Menedemos hardly noticed the gibe. He was thinking about the rest of the Iliad. Aias wasn’t associated with Menestheus of Athens anywhere but in the Catalogue of Ships, as best he could remember. His ships were sometimes mentioned as lying alongside those Protesilaos-first to land at Troy, and first to die there-had brought from Phylake, up in Thessalia. He sometimes fought in the company of the other, smaller, Aias. Except in that one passage, he had nothing to do with the Athenians.

“Filthy,” Menedemos muttered.

“What’s that?” Sostratos asked.

“Perverting the Iliad for the sake of politics.”

Sostratos’ smile looked anything but pleasant. “Shall I really disgust you?”

“How?” Menedemos asked. “Do I want to know?”

“I don’t know. Do you?” Sostratos returned. “Here’s how: there are a couple of lines in place of the ones you quoted, lines that tie Salamis to Megara, which also claimed it in the old days. But those lines don’t say how many ships Aias led to Troy, the way the Catalogue of Ships does for all the other places and heroes, so they probably aren’t genuine, either.”

“Well, what did Homer truly say, then?” Menedemos asked. “He can’t have left Aias out of the picture altogether-Aias is too great a warrior. He’s the only one among the strong-greaved Akhaioi who keeps fighting back when Hektor goes on his rampage. The poet wouldn’t-couldn’t- have just forgotten him in the Catalogue of Ships.”

His cousin shrugged. “I agree with you. That doesn’t seem likely, and both the Athenian lines and the ones from Megara are suspect. I don’t think there’s any way now to find out what Homer first sang.”

That bothered Menedemos, too. He wanted to think Homer ’s words had passed inviolate from generation to generation. So much of what being a Hellene meant was contained in the Iliad and Odyssey. Of course, one of the things being a Hellene meant was carefully examining the world in which you lived. Homer ’s poems were part of the world in which all Hellenes lived, and so… Menedemos still wished people had kept their hands and minds off them.

Musing thus, he almost took the Aphrodite right past the opening to Salamis’ harbor. It was even narrower than that leading into the Great Harbor at Rhodes, with room for no more than ten or twelve ships abreast. If he’d daydreamed any longer, he would have had to double back to go in. In the akatos, that would have drawn jeers from Sostratos and silent scorn-which might have hurt more-from Diokles. In a round ship that had to beat back against the wind, it would have been worse than merely embarrassing.

When the Aphrodite did enter the harbor, it was full of ships: big war galleys displaying Ptolemaios’ eagle, a few on lowered sails, all on ba

“Even worse, I do believe,” Sostratos said. “About one merchantman in three looks like a Phoenician. I’ve never seen so many foreign-looking ships all in one place.”

“I think you’re right,” Menedemos said. Telling Phoenician ships from those sailed by Hellenes wasn’t usually a matter of lines; both folk built their vessels in much the same way. But a thousand things, from the choice of paints to the shape of the eyes the ships carried at their prows to the way the lines were coiled to the fact that Phoenician sailors stayed fully clothed even in warm weather, shouted that those vessels belonged to barbarians.