The Sacred Land

“It can’t be,” Sostratos answered. “He went back to Alexandria from Kos this past fall with his new baby.” He snapped his fingers. “This must be Menelaos, his brother. He commands here on Cyprus.”

“Mm, I suppose you’re right,” Menedemos said after a second glance. “Sure does look like him, though, doesn’t it?”

Perhaps sensing their eyes on him, Menelaos looked their way. He smiled and waved. Menedemos found himself waving back. Ptolemaios’ brother seemed friendlier than the lord of Egypt. “He has less on his shoulders than Ptolemaios does,” Sostratos said when Menedemos remarked on that.

Menedemos thought it over, then dipped his head, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were right.”

Where Menelaos and his officers got the best seats in the house, a Rhodian merchant skipper and a couple of his officers had to take whatever they could get. Sostratos, of all people, was the one who spotted a table in the back of the tavern. All three Rhodians rushed to claim it. They got there just ahead of somebody who, by the gold rings on his fingers and his crimson-bordered himation, might have bought and sold them. The fellow gave them a sour stare before looking for somewhere else to sit.

Once his own fundament was on a stool, Menedemos discovered he could barely see the raised platform where Areios would perform. “He’s not a flute-girl at a symposion,” Sostratos said when he complained. “We came to listen to him, not to watch him dance or take his clothes off.”

“I know, but I would like to have some idea what he looks like,” Menedemos answered.

Before he could do any more grumbling, a serving woman came up and asked, “What are ye fain to drink, gentles?”

Menedemos hid a smile. He enjoyed listening to Cypriots talk; it was almost like hearing Homer and his contemporaries come to life. “What have you got?” he asked.

“We’ve wine from Khios and Kos and Lesbos and Thasos and Naxos and…” The woman went on to name almost every island in the Aegean and every part of the mainland adjacent to it. She finished, “And, of course, we’ve the local, and also wine of dates, in the which the Phoenicians take much pleasure.”

“A cup of the local will suit me fine,” Menedemos said.

“Same for me,” Diokles said.

The serving woman’s eyes called them both cheapskates. Menedemos didn’t care. A place like this was liable to pad its profits by claiming a cheap wine was really something more and charging three times as much for it as would have been right. With the local, at least he knew what he was getting.

“And what of you, most noble?” the woman asked when Sostratos didn’t answer right away.

“Let me have a cup of date wine, if you please,” Sostratos said. With a shrug, the serving woman went away.

“Why do you want to drink that horrid nasty stuff, young sir?” Diokles said.

“We’re going to Phoenicia. I might as well find out what the Phoenicians like, don’t you think?” Sostratos said. “If it is nasty, I won’t drink it again.”

After longer than she should have taken, the serving woman brought them their drinks. Menedemos tasted the local and made a face. He hadn’t expected much, and he hadn’t got it, either. Diokles drank without a word of complaint. Menedemos took another sip. He shrugged. It wasn’t that much worse than the wine the Aphrodite carried for the crew.

“What about yours, Sostratos?” he asked.

His cousin held out the cheap earthenware cup. “Have a taste yourself, if you care to.”

“Why not?” Menedemos said, though that was a question with an obvious answer. He sipped cautiously, then handed the cup back to Sostratos. “Too sweet for my taste, and thick as glue. The Phoenicians are welcome to it, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I wouldn’t drink it every day, either,” Sostratos said, “but I don’t think it’s as nasty as Diokles made it out to be. Better than drinking water, that’s certain.”

“I should hope so,” Menedemos said. “After all, what isn’t?”

“There’s that sour stuff the Egyptians and Thracians and Kelts brew from barley,” Sostratos said. “By all accounts, beer’s pretty bad. This tastes as though it wants to be wine, anyhow.” He drank some more, then thoughtfully smacked his lips. “Yes, it could be worse.”

“Thracians use butter instead of olive oil, so it’s plain they have no taste,” Menedemos said. Sostratos and Diokles both dipped their heads; for good measure, the oarmaster also made a disgusted face.

A fat, bejeweled man-Menedemos guessed he was the fellow who owned the tavern-came up onto the platform and spoke in throaty, Phoenician-accented Greek: “Hail, best ones! Hail also to the lovely ladies we have with us this evening.”

That made Menedemos look around. It also made Sostratos cough sharply. “You stop that,” Menedemos told him. “Hetairai aren’t wives.” Sostratos spread his hands, admitting as much. Menedemos did spot a couple of women; they wore veils, as if they were respectable, but they wouldn’t have come to a tavern if they had been. One sat with a big Macedonian a couple of tables away from Menelaos and his comrades. The other accompanied a man with the sleek look of a rich landowner.

Menedemos had missed some of what the tavernkeeper had to say. “-Here direct from appearances in Athens and Corinth and Alexandria,” the man went on, “My friends, I give you the famous… Areios!”

He clapped his hands, holding them above his head to signal everyone else to applaud, too. Menedemos clapped a few times. So did Diokles. Sostratos, Menedemos noted, sat quietly, waiting to find out whether the kitharist would be worth hearing. Sometimes Sostratos was too sensible for his own good.

“Thank you very much!” Areios waved to the crowd as he came out onto the platform. Lean and spare, he spoke a polished Attic Greek. He’d probably been a striking youth. Even now, though the gray in his hair argued that he had to be close to fifty, he shaved his face to make himself look younger. By lamp- and torchlight, the illusion worked remarkably well. “I’m very pleased to be here,” he went on with a grin. “By the gods, I’m very pleased to be anywhere that isn’t apt to get sacked in the next hour.”

He got his laugh. Menelaos called, “That won’t happen in Cyprus. Cyprus belongs to my brother, and he’ll keep it!”

“As long as he keeps it till after I’ve sailed away, that’s fine with me,” Areios replied, and won a louder laugh.

“Another kitharist who thinks he can make fun of powerful men,” Menedemos said. “Doesn’t he remember what happened to Stratonikos here?” He paused. “Menelaos does seem a more cheerful sort than Nikokreon was-I will say that.”

“I wonder how he feels about being the second most important man in Ptolemaios’ realm,” Sostratos said. “Does he ever wonder what things would have been like if he’d been born before his brother?”

“Why ask me?” Menedemos said. “Why not go over there and ask him?”

For a bad moment, he thought Sostratos would get up and do just that. But his cousin was only shifting on the stool. Sostratos pointed to the kithara Areios cradled in his arms. “Have you ever seen a finer instrument?”

Menedemos had to crane his neck to see it at all, but answered, “I don’t believe I have.”

Large and heavy, the kithara was the instrument of choice of professional musicians. It had seven strings, and an enormous sound box that amplified the tones the kitharist struck from them. Areios’ kithara was of pale oak, and gleamed as if rubbed with beeswax. It had Inlays of ivory and of some dark wood, perhaps walnut, perhaps something more exotic-and more expensive. From supporting the instrument he played, Areios’ arms were as muscular as a pankratiast’s.

But then Areios ran his fingers over the strings, and Menedemos stopped noticing anything but the music. Not only was his one of the most beautiful kitharas Menedemos had ever seen, it was also one of the most perfectly tuned he’d ever heard. Tuning the kithara-or its relatives, the lyre, the barbitos, and the phorminx-was anything but easy. Like anyone who’d been to school, Menedemos had learned to play the lyre… after a fashion.