The Sacred Land

Menedemos scratched his head in thought. Then he scratched again, this time in earnest. “I hope that miserable i

“I won’t tell you anything of the sort. I’ll just ask a question.” If there was anything Sostratos enjoyed, it was the chance to play Sokrates. “If caring enough to use the right word isn’t part of loving wisdom, what is it?”

“I don’t suppose you’d put up with anything so ordinary as just trying to say the right thing, would you?”

“Is that all Homer was doing-just trying to say the right thing, I mean?”

“ Homer always said the right thing.” Menedemos sounded very sure. “And he never heard of philosophy.”

Sostratos wanted to argue that, but soon decided he couldn’t. “He doesn’t use the word for wisdom at all, does he?”

“ Sophie? Let me think.” After a moment, Menedemos said, “No, that’s not true. He uses it once, in the fifteenth-I think-book of the Iliad: ‘And he who, thanks to the inspiration of Athene, knows well every skill.’ But he’s not talking about a philosopher-he’s talking about a carpenter. And sophie in the Iliad doesn’t mean abstract knowledge, the way it does with us. It means knowing how to do the things a carpenter does.”

“You can still use it that way,” Sostratos said, “but not, I admit, if you’re going to talk about philosophy.”

“No,” Menedemos said. “ Homer ’s a very down-to-earth poet. Even his gods on Olympos are down-to-earth, if you know what I mean.”

“They certainly are-they behave like a bunch of bad-tempered Macedonians,” Sostratos said, which made Menedemos laugh. More seriously, Sostratos went on, “They’re so down-to-earth, in fact, that some people who love wisdom have trouble believing in them.”

His cousin’s expression curdled like sour milk. Sostratos hadn’t included himself in that group, but he hadn’t excluded himself from it. He suspected he knew why Homer said nothing about philosophy. The poet had lived a long time ago, before any Hellenes began seriously asking questions of the world around them and following logic wherever it took them. We were as ignorant as any barbarians, he thought, bemused. And some of us still are, and don’t want to be any different.

Menedemos said, “Some people say they love wisdom when all they really love is making their neighbors uncomfortable.” He gave Sostratos a pointed stare.

Sostratos returned it. “Some people think that just because their great-grandfathers believed something was so, it has to be so. If we all had that attitude, we wouldn’t use iron-or even bronze, come to that-and we would have thrown back the alpha-beta like a worthless fish that nobody eats.”

They glared at each other. Then Menedemos asked, “What do you suppose would happen if you made that argument to the Phoenicians or the Ioudaioi?”

“Nothing pretty. Nothing pleasant. But they’re barbarians, and they don’t know any better. We’re Hellenes. What’s the point of being a Hellene, if not to use the wits the gods-whatever they may be-gave us?”

“You think you have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

“No. Not at all.” Sostratos tossed his head. “I think we should use our wits, though, to try to find answers, and not rely on whatever our forefathers said. They might have been wrong. A lot of the time, they were wrong. If I’d managed to get that gryphon’s skull to Athens, for instance, it would have shown people how wrong they were about the beasts.”

“Yes, but how important are gryphons?” Menedemos asked.

“Gryphons aren’t important, not by themselves,” Sostratos said. “But the men of the Lykeion and the Academy would have looked at the evidence and changed their views to fit. They wouldn’t have said, ‘No, we won’t believe what the skull tells us, because our great-grandfathers told us something else.’ And that’s important, don’t you see?” He sounded as if he was pleading, and he sadly wondered whether Menedemos understood at all.

6

Menedemos clapped Sostratos on the back, then cupped his hands and interlaced his fingers to give his cousin a leg-up. With his help, Sostratos swung up onto the back of the mule he’d bought. Sostratos looked around with a grin, saying, “I’m not used to being so far off the ground.”

“Well, O best one, you’d better get used to it,” Menedemos answered. “You’re going to be on that mule for a while.”

“That’s right,” Aristeidas agreed with a grin. “You’ll come back to Sidon all bowlegged.” He stumped around with his legs splayed wide apart.

“Go howl!” Sostratos said, laughing.

“No, Aristeidas is right, or he should be. I like that,” Menedemos said, laughing, too. “Your legs’ll look like an omega, thus.” He wrote the letter-?.-in the dust of the street with his right big toe, then he also imitated a bowlegged man. “And when you get back, you won’t be any taller than I am.”

“In your dreams,” Sostratos retorted. That held more truth than he might have guessed, for Menedemos, especially when they were both growing up, had dreamt of matching his gangling cousin’s height. Sostratos went on, “You’d burst like a squashed melon if Prokroustes tried stretching you on his rack till you were my size.”

“Ha!” Menedemos said. “Prokroustes’d be cutting you down to size if he ever got you to sleep in his bed, and he’d start with your tongue.”

Sostratos stuck out the organ in question. Menedemos made as if to grab for his belt knife. Sostratos looked from him to Aristeidas, Teleutas, and Moskhion. The former sponge diver carried a pike as tall as he was, while the other two men wore swords on their hips. “Some bodyguards,” Sostratos said. He had a sword himself; a leather bowcase held Menedemos’ bow, several spare bowstrings, and twenty arrows. All four men wore cheap bell-shaped bronze helmets that would keep a club from knocking their brains out. The helms offered no protection for the face, but were far lighter and cooler than the all-enclosing ones hoplites used.

“I think we’re ready,” Sostratos said. As if to agree with him, Aristeidas picked up the lead rope of the donkey that carried their trade goods and money. The donkey brayed in protest. A moment later, the mule joined in, its voice louder and deeper.

“Wing-foot Hermes keep you safe,” Menedemos said. He set his hand on Sostratos’ leg for a moment. His cousin covered it with his own hand. Then Sostratos flicked the reins and squeezed the mule’s barrel with his knees and calves. The beast brayed again. For a moment, Menedemos thought it would do no more. But, ears twitching resentfully, it began to walk. Aristeidas had to yank on the ass’ lead line to get it to follow. The four Hellenes and two animals left the harbor and disappeared into Sidon. Before long, they’d be off in the wilds of the land of the Ioudaioi.

“Keep an eye on him, all of you,” Menedemos muttered. He wondered if he was talking to the sailors from the Aphrodite who accompanied Sostratos or to the gods high above. By then, the sailors were too far away to hear him. He hoped the gods weren’t.

Sighing, he walked back up the pier to the Aphrodite . Diokles said, “Hope everything goes good for him, skipper.”

“Yes. So do I,” Menedemos replied.

“He’s a clever fellow, your cousin,” the oarmaster said, doing his best to sound reassuring. “He’ll be fine.”

Menedemos remained un-reassured. “Oh, yes, Sostratos is very clever,” he said. “But has he got any common sense? There are times when I don’t think he’s got as much as the gods gave a gecko.”

“He’s got more than you think,” Diokles said. “The two of you, you’re kin, so of course you can’t see each other straight.”

“Maybe you’re right. I hope you’re right,” Menedemos said. “Still and all, though, I wish he weren’t wandering around among the barbarians. When he goes and does something strange, Hellenes know how to make allowances: almost everybody’s seen someone who’s more cut out to be a philosopher than to live in the real world. But what do these silly Ioudaioi know about philosophy? Not a thing. Not a single, solitary thing. How could they? They’re just barbarians. They’ll think he’s crazy, is what they’ll think.”