Owls to Athens

“I love you,” Menedemos said softly.

“I love you.” Baukis’ smile crumpled like the thin timbers of a fishing boat when a trihemiolia’s ram slammed into them at full speed. “Oh, Menedemos, what are we going to do? We can’t… I mean, we mustn’t…”

“I know.” He reached out and took her hands in his. By the way she held on to him, she might have been pitched from the deck into a sea full of sharks. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers. He wanted to do so much more than that. He wanted to, but knew he couldn’t. Even that little was too much, for it left him all on fire inside- on fire, and feeling as if a torturer were flaying him, one digit of hide at a time.

“After the festival, we never should have…” Baukis kept on leaving her sentences unfinished, but Menedemos kept on knowing how she would have ended them.

“I know,” he said again. Regardless of what he said, though, he wouldn’t have traded those few minutes for any in the rest of his life- or for all the rest of his life put together.

“I can’t look at your father-at my husband-the same way anymore,” Baukis said miserably, but her hands kept clutching Menedemos’. He dipped his head. He couldn’t look at his father the same way anymore, either. Sudden alarm-no, sudden terror-in her voice, she asked, “Where is Philodemos?”

“He’s not here. He decided I needed a wife, and he’s gone off to start looking for a match.” Menedemos spoke the truth without thinking.

Baukis gasped in dismay. “Oh, no! I couldn’t stand it if-” She broke off again. Now she grabbed Menedemos’ hands hard enough to hurt.

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “Nothing will come of it right away, if anything comes of it at all.” He knew something would come of it in a couple of years, but that felt like forever to him.

“What will we do? What can we do?” Baukis moaned.

Before Menedemos could find any sort of answer, a noise in the courtyard sent the two of them flying apart. Baukis scurried down the stairs. Menedemos went up to the second story two steps at a time. That wasn’t why his heart thuttered as he walked down the hall to his room, though.

What will we do? What can we do? He had no idea. He saw no good end ahead, either, no matter what happened. He couldn’t even escape from Rhodes till spring, and spring seemed a hundred years away. And for Baukis there was no escape, no escape at all.

Historical Note

Owls to Athens is set in 307 B.C. Menedemos is a historical character, though little is known of him. The rest of his family is fictitious in all respects. Other historical characters who appear in the novel include Demetrios of Phaleron, Demetrios son of Antigonos, Dionysios the commander at Mounykhia, Dromokleides of Sphettos, Eu-xenides of Phaselis, Kratesipolis, Menandros the playwright, Stratokles, and Theophrastos. The Macedonian marshals mentioned from time to time-Antigonos (Demetrios ’ father), Lysimakhos, Ptolemaios, and Seleukos-are also historical, as is Demetrios son of Antigonos’ brother, Philippos. Though Philip of Macedon died in 336 B.C. and his son, Alexander the Great, in 323 B.C., their shadows dominate this period.

The decrees honoring Antigonos and his son Demetrios voted by the Athenians after the ouster of Demetrios of Phaleron may seem extravagant, but they are attested to by inscriptions, by the history of Diodoros of Sicily, and by Plutarch’s biography of Demetrios son of Antigonos; the latter two are our principal literary sources for what Antigonos and Demetrios called the restoration of Athenian democracy. Some scholars believe Dromokleides of Sphettos’ decree came later than those of Stratokles, during another conquest of Athens by Demetrios. This is certainly possible, but Plutarch puts them all together under the events of 307 B.C., and a mere novelist may tread where a historian fears to go.

It is not known in what year Menandros offered The Flatterer, which survives in fragments. Other plays and poets said to be at the Greater Dionysia are fictitious.

As usual in this series, all translations from the Greek are my own. I claim no great poetic virtues for them, but do hope they accurately present what their originals say. Most names of persons and places are transliterated directly from Greek into English, with no detour through Latin: Demetrios, not Demetrius; Euboia, not Euboea. Where names are very well known in a particular form-Alexander, Athens-I have for the most part preserved that form. Transliteration is always a compromise, and compromises rarely make anyone perfectly happy.