The Sacred Land

When he and Menedemos came to the main market square in Sidon, they both stopped at the edge and stared before plunging in. Everything seemed much more tightly crowded than in an agora in a Hellenic polis. Stalls and tents and stands were everywhere, with only narrow lanes through them for customers-and for hawkers who walked about selling things like dates and cheap jewelry from trays they either carried or secured to their waists with harnesses of leather or rope.

When Sostratos did step into the maelstrom, he felt overwhelmed. Everywhere, people haggled and argued in guttural Aramaic. They gesticulated frantically, to bolster whatever points they were making.

He snapped his fingers. “Heureka!” he exclaimed.

“That’s nice,” Menedemos said. “What have you found?”

“Why this place isn’t like one of our agorai.”

“And the answer is?” his cousin asked.

“They’re just talking business here,” Sostratos said. “Business and nothing else. How much this costs, or how much of that they can buy for so many sigloi-’shekels,’ they say in Aramaic. And that’s all.”

Menedemos yawned. “That’s boring, is what it is. Business is all very well-don’t get me wrong-but there are other things in life, too.”

“I should hope so,” Sostratos said. In a polis full of Hellenes, the agora wasn’t only the place where people bought and sold goods. It was also the beating heart of a city’s life. Men gathered there to talk politics, to gossip, to show off new clothes, to meet friends, and to do all the other things that made life worthwhile. Where did the Phoenicians do those things? Did the Phoenicians do those things? If they did, the market square gave no sign of it.

Looking around, Menedemos said, “It may not be a polis, but there’s sure a lot for sale, isn’t there?”

“Oh, yes, without a doubt. Nobody ever said the Phoenicians weren’t formidable merchants. That’s why we’re here, after all,” Sostratos said. “But the place feels… empty, if you’re a Hellene.”

“I think part of it’s that everybody’s speaking a foreign language,” Menedemos said. “I noticed that in a couple of the Italian towns we visited, and Aramaic sounds a lot less like Greek than Oscan does.”

“That’s part of it,” Sostratos admitted, “but only part. The Italians knew what an agora was for.”

“Well, yes,” his cousin said. “Even so, though, with us likely being here all summer long, I think I’m going to have to rent a room in the town. I don’t see how I can do my business off the Aphrodite .”

“I won’t argue with you, my dear,” Sostratos said. “Do what you have to do. Me, I’m going to look for a donkey tomorrow.” He eyed Menedemos in a thoughtful way. “One I can ride, that is.”

“Ha,” Menedemos said. “Ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. If you were half as fu

As Menedemos haggled with an i

“No,” the Phoenician said now. “Too low. Pay more or-” He pointed toward the doorway.

The wretch had no style, no subtlety. Menedemos lost patience. “Hail,” he said, and walked away.

He was almost to the doorway when the Phoenician said, “Wait.”

“Why?” Menedemos asked. The i

That finally got through to the fellow. He named a price halfway between what Menedemos had offered and what he himself had insisted on up till now. Menedemos tossed his head. The gesture meant nothing to the Phoenician. Remembering he was in a country full of barbarians, Menedemos shook his head, no matter how u

“Thief,” the i

“There, you see? You can be reasonable,” Menedemos said. Odds were, the words went straight past the i

Clasping it, Menedemos wondered if he’d made a good bargain or a bad one. In Rhodes, he would have been pleased to rent a room for this price. But were prices here generally higher or lower than those back home? He didn’t know. Figuring it out wasn’t easy, either. Working back and forth between drakhmai and sigloi made his head ache; the local silver coins were worth just over two Rhodian drakhmai each. Sostratos seemed to have little trouble shifting from one to the other, but Sostratos had been born with a counting board between the ears. Menedemos’ mathematical accomplishments were much more modest.

The room itself was about what he’d expected. It was small and close, furnished with a bed, a couple of rickety stools, and a chamber pot. Who’d been in the bed before? What bugs waited there for the next arrival? Just thinking of the question was enough to make Menedemos start scratching.

He knew he dared not leave anything in the room unguarded. He sighed. That would mean paying a sailor something extra to keep an eye on things while he went out to sell. The expense would make Sostratos grumble. Any expense made Sostratos grumble. But the expense of missing trade goods would be worse.

When Menedemos walked back from the room to the front of the i

But when she saw Menedemos, she broke off berating her husband and, absurdly, batted her eyelashes at the Rhodian. “Good days,” she said in Greek even worse than the i

“Well, thank you,” Menedemos answered. Politely, he added, “And you?”

“Good.” She smiled at him and, turning her face away from her husband, ran her tongue over her lips. Then she batted her eyelashes again.

Oh, by the gods! Menedemos thought in alarm. Sostratos doesn’t want me seducing anybody, and I don’t want this harridan seducing me. He wondered if he ought to find another i

She said something in Aramaic to her husband. Whatever it was, it started the argument once more. Menedemos didn’t want to get stuck in the middle. He was about to retreat to his room when a man came in carrying a chunk of pork. Menedemos remembered Sostratos saying Ioudaioi didn’t eat swine’s flesh. That plainly didn’t hold for Phoenicians. The newcomer gave the i

But it wasn’t so savory as it might have been. The meat couldn’t have smelled better. The oil could have. It wasn’t very fresh, and hadn’t been very good to start with. Menedemos wrinkled his nose. So did the fellow who’d brought in the pork. He said something in Aramaic. Menedemos didn’t know how the i