Over the Wine-Dark Sea

It soon became clear that the Syracusans were much more interested in Agathokles' doings than in those of the generals in the east. The latter might have been exciting to hear about, but didn't affect them personally. No one from out of the east had come to Sicily with conquest on his mind since the Athenians a century before. But war with Carthage was a matter of freedom or slavery, life or death. A Carthaginian army remained outside the walls. If it ever broke into Syracuse . . . Menedemos wasn't sorry he'd be sailing soon.

He grabbed a couple of olives from a red earthenware bowl on the counter in front of the tavernkeeper. The fellow didn't charge for them, and he quickly discovered why: they were perhaps the saltiest he'd ever tasted. The extra wine the taverner sold on account of them was bound to make up, and more than make up, for the few khalkoi they cost.

Fortunately, his own cup was half full. He gulped it down to water the new desert in his throat, then left the tavern for the harbor not far away. As he got back to the Aphrodite, he saw her boat making the short pull from Ortygia. The rowers' strokes were so perfectly smooth and regular, they might have been serving one of the Athenian processional galleys, not an akatos' boat.

Sostratos sat near the stern of the boat. "I've got news," he called when he saw Menedemos. "Agathokles has landed in Africa!"

That was news to most of the sailors aboard the merchant galley; they exclaimed in surprise. But Menedemos only grinned and answered, "Yes, and he burned all his ships once he did it, too."

The sailors exclaimed again, even louder this time. Sostratos blinked. "How did you know that?" he asked. "I just heard it myself."

"I was wasting my time in a tavern -  or that's what you would call it," Menedemos said as his cousin and the rowers came aboard at the stern. "A fellow came across from Ortygia practically on fire with the word, and earned himself some free wine to put the fire out."

"Oh." Sostratos gave the impression of an air-filled pig's bladder that had sprung a leak. Then he snapped his fingers, plainly remembering something, and brightened. "Well, I've got some other news, too."

"Tell me, O best one," Menedemos heard. "I haven't heard it all."

"Only the best parts of it," Sostratos said unhappily. "But I managed to sell all the papyrus and ink we had left, and I got a good price for them, too."

"Did you?" Menedemos clapped him on the back, glad to give credit where it was due. "You were right about that, then."

His cousin dipped his head. "Thanks to the war with Carthage, Agathokles' chancery was almost out of papyrus altogether. They were scraping the ink off old sheets and writing on boards and potsherds, the way people did in the old days. One of the chief clerks kissed me when I told him how much we had."

"He must have been excited," Menedemos murmured. Sostratos dipped his head again. Then, a moment too late, he glared. As a youth, Menedemos had had more than his fair share of older men as admirers; he'd quite enjoyed playing the heartbreaker. Sostratos, on the other hand, had been tall and skinny and angular, all shanks and knees and elbows and pointy nose. So far as Menedemos knew, nobody'd bothered pursuing his cousin, either in Rhodes or, later, in Athens. Changing the subject looked like a good idea: "Just how much did you get?"

Sostratos told him. Menedemos whistled and clapped him on the back again. Sostratos said, "It's not so much when you set it against what we made for hauling the grain and for the last of the peacocks, but it's a lot more than we would have got in Athens. That's where everyone with papyrus and ink goes."

"Bad for prices," Menedemos agreed. "And that's one less stop we'll have to make on the way back to Rhodes."

"What's wrong with stopping in Athens?" Sostratos asked. "I like Athens fine."

"I like Athens fine, too, when we've got time for it," Menedemos said. "But we're a long way from home, and it's starting to get late in the sailing season: we're less than a month from the fall equinox. Things get murky when the days go short; you can't tell your landmarks the way you should. And there's always the chance of a storm, too. Why take the extra risk?"

"All right." Sostratos threw his hands in the air. "If it's enough to make you careful, that's plenty to convince me." Before Menedemos could reply, Sostratos added, "If there were a woman in Athens, you'd stop no matter whose wife she was."

"Not if she were yours," Menedemos said. Sostratos gave him an ironic bow. As Menedemos returned it, he wondered if he'd just told the truth.

Sostratos hadn't seen much of Syracuse during his time in the polis. He couldn't have gone up onto the wall to walk around the town, not unless he wanted an arrow in his ribs. And he couldn't have ridden out to see the countryside, as he had up at Pompaia; the next sight he would have seen was the inside of a Carthaginian slave pen.