Owl to Athens

by H. N. Turteltaub

  “Abundance, eh? A good name for a merchant ship,” Sostratos said. “Who owns her?”

  He wondered if the other Rhodian would have the hubris to try to squeeze a second obolos from him. The fellow started to, then visibly thought better of it. He said, “She belongs to Rhodokles son of Simos.”

  “Does she?” Sostratos said, and the lounger dipped his head. “He’s come into some silver, then.” Rhodokles was a competitor. Up till now, he’d never been a serious competitor. His ships had all been older and smaller than the Aphrodite and the other vessels Philodemos and Lysistratos owned. The Thalia, though, could go anywhere on the Inner Sea, and could get where she was going as fast as anything afloat.

  Thoughtfully, Sostratos asked, “Has he got any others like her?”

  This time, the other man did dummy up. Instead of paying him again, Sostratos turned his back. That earned him some of the hottest, earthiest curses he’d ever got. He ignored them and walked away. The lounger cursed louder, which won him no money.

  Sostratos paused by a large, ramshackle warehouse only a long spit from the sea. No one stirred there till he stuck his head in the doorway and called, “Somebody’s giving away decorated drinking cups in the agora.”

  He waited. He didn’t have to wait long. A deep-voiced, gutturally accented rumble came from the bowels of the building: “Giving them away?” Out came Himilkon the Phoenician, swaddled in his long robe. A gold ring gleamed in one ear; more gold shone on several fingers. When he spotted Sostratos, suspicions spread across his narrow, hook-nosed face. “You liar, you cozener, you trickster!” he began, and went on from there. When he ran out of Greek, he switched to Aramaic.

  Since he’d taught Sostratos that language, the Rhodian followed some of it. Even if he hadn’t, the sounds would have been plenty to show Himilkon’s displeasure. With its coughs and grunts and choking noises, Aramaic was a tongue made to show anger.

  When Himilkon at last slowed down a little, Sostratos used a sentence of Aramaic of his own: “Peace be unto you, my friend.”

  “And to you also peace,” Himilkon said grudgingly, “so long as you do not trick an honest man like that. What do you want? Besides trouble, I mean.”

  “Trouble? Me? No.” Sostratos spoke in Aramaic, as the Phoenician merchant had. Having learned the language, he was glad to get a chance to use it, to keep it fresh. He did his best to look innocent. Instead of tossing his head to show that he hadn’t meant to cause trouble, he shook it. He wanted to act as much like a native speaker as he could.

  Himilkon noticed. Very little went on around Himilkon that he didn’t notice. Still in his own language, he said, “Most Ionians”—in Aramaic, all Hellenes were Ionians, probably because Aramaic-speakers had met them first—”Most Ionians, I say, who took the trouble to learn my speech (and precious few care about any language but their own) would not bother with the gestures my folk use.”

  “If I do something, my master, I want to do it well. I want to do it as I should.” In Greek, Sostratos would never have called any man his master. In Aramaic, though, it was only a polite phrase: another illustration of the difference between the two tongues, and of the differences in the thoughts of the men who spoke them. The Rhodian cast about for a word in Himilkon’s language. Failing to find it, he dropped back into Greek: “When I do something, I want to do it thoroughly.”

  “Your slave has known you for some years now, and has noticed this about you, yes.” Even speaking Greek, Himilkon kept flowery Aramaic turns of phrase. Sostratos tried not to talk like a Hellene when using Aramaic; how well he succeeded might have been a different story.

  Sostratos wondered how many people had noticed that about him. When men talked about him while he wasn’t there, did they say things like, “Sostratos will drive you mad, trying to nail down every last little detail”? He hoped they did. A reputation for taking pains was far from the worst thing in the world.

  Himilkon returned to Aramaic: “If you did not come here to wring my liver with your japes, my master, for what reason did you assail my peace?”

  “To see what you got while Menedemos and I were in Athens,” Sostratos replied. He had to pause for a heartbeat to come up with the second-person plural masculine verb form; Aramaic conjugations took gender into account, which Greek verb forms (except participles) didn’t. “To learn if you have anything we might want for the next sailing season.”

  “When you bought papyrus from me last winter, you called me a thief,” Himilkon said. “But now you want to do more business, eh?”

  “I had to beat you down to a price where I could add in my profit and still sell in Athens at a level where other people could afford to buy,” Sostratos said—in Greek, the idea being too complex for his rusty Aramaic. “I managed to do that. And besides, tell me you’ve never called me such names and I’ll tell you you’re a liar.”

  “I?” Himilkon was the picture of affronted dignity. He too went on in Greek: “I am calm. I am restrained. I am judicious.” Sostratos laughed out loud. Himilkon glared. “I am going to bash you in the head with a board.”

  “A calm, restrained, judicious board, I have no doubt,” Sostratos replied.

  That made Himilkon laugh. “No one who grew up speaking Aramaic would ever think to call a board restrained or judicious. You Hellenes can do strange things with your language. That is probably why you are such a peculiar folk.”

  Now Sostratos, reminded he was a Hellene, tossed his head to show he disagreed. “We’re not strange,” he said. “It’s all you folk who aren’t Hellenes who are strange.”

  Himilkon laughed raucously. “No, O marvelous one, this time you are wrong. Everybody from Karia to Carthage, as the saying goes, thinks Hellenes are the ones who are peculiar. And if you go farther east, if you go among Phoenicians or Egyptians or Persians, well, they will all say the same thing. This proves my point; is it not so?”

  Sostratos laughed once more to hear a barbarian use a stock tagline from any number of philosophical dialogues. The Rhodian also tossed his head again. “I’m sorry, my dear, but it proves nothing of the sort.”

  “What? Why not?” Himilkon’s already swarthy features darkened with anger.

  “Well, wouldn’t everyone from Karia to Carthage say Egyptians are strange because of all the funny animal-headed gods they worship and the picture-writing they use?”

  “Certainly. Egyptians are strange,” Himilkon answered. “They do everything the opposite of the way most people do.”

  That made Sostratos laugh yet again, for Herodotos had written almost the same thing about the Egyptians. Sostratos went on, “And wouldn’t everyone say the Ioudaioi are strange, with their god whom no one can see and who forbids them from doing so many perfectly ordinary things?”

  “Oh, yes. The Ioudaioi are strange, too, no doubt about it. They are full of wicked customs.” Himilkon spoke with the certainty and scorn only a neighbor could have.

  “Some people,” Sostratos remarked, “some people, mind you, might even say Phoenicians are strange.”

  “What?” Himilkon stared at him. “What a daft notion! Phoenicians strange? We are the salt of the earth, the most ordinary folk around. How could anyone, even an idiot”—he eyed Sostratos in a speculative way—”think Phoenicians are strange?”

  “Well, for one thing, you burn your own children in times of trouble,” Sostratos replied.

  “That is not strangeness. That is piety, to show the gods we are their slaves and would give them anything and everything we have,” Himilkon said, “It is only because other folk are not religious enough to do the same that it seems odd to them.”

  “There you are!” Sostratos pounced. “Whatever any one folk does will seem odd to other people. That doesn’t prove the folk really is strange.”

  “Well. . . maybe,” Himilkon said. Sostratos thought he’d vanquished the Phoenician, but Himilkon added, “Of course, you Hellenes do a great many odd things, which is why everyone else thinks you are peculiar.”
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br />   “Oh, never mind,” Sostratos said in some irritation. “We were going to go into your warehouse when all this came up.”

  “I suppose we were.” Himilkon didn’t seem angry about the argument. Belatedly, Sostratos realized he was lucky. Some people got offended when you presumed to disagree with them. He didn’t want Himilkon offended, not when he did business with him. The Phoenician asked, “Where do you think you will go next spring? That will have something to do with what I show you.”

  “I’m not certain yet,” Sostratos said. “Perhaps Alexandria. I’ve never been there, but a new, wide-open city like that gives a man plenty of chances for profit.”

  “Alexandria,” Himilkon echoed. “Now there I have never been, either. In your grandfather’s day, you know, or maybe your great-grandfather’s, Rhodes was a new, wide-open city like that.”

  “Maybe.” But Sostratos didn’t sound convinced. “Rhodes never had all the wealth of Egypt to draw on, though.”

  “Not back then, she didn’t,” the Phoenician merchant said. “Now she does.” With all the trade from Ptolemaios’ realm that went through Rhodes these days, that held some truth: quite a bit, in fact. Himilkon ducked into the warehouse and gestured for Sostratos to follow. “Here, come along with me.”

  Sostratos was glad to obey. Himilkon’s place of business fascinated him, for he could never be sure what would turn up there. He paused inside the doorway to let his eyes adapt to the gloom in the warehouse. He needed to see where he was going, for the passageways between cabinets and shelves were narrow. Things stuck out, ready either to trip him or to poke him in the eye. His nostrils twitched. Himilkon stocked frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, and pepper, along with other spices and incenses the Rhodian had more trouble identifying.

  “Here.” Himilkon paused and took down a box of curious workmanship made from a pale wood Sostratos had never seen before. “Tell me what you think of . . this.” With a melodramatic flourish, Himilkon opened the box.

  “Amber!” Sostratos exclaimed. The box was full of the precious, honey-colored stuff. It too had a faint, spicy odor, or maybe Sostratos was still smelling all the other things in the warehouse. He reached out and picked up a piece. Even unpolished like this, it was smooth against his palm. “Is that a fly trapped inside it?” he said, bringing it up close to his face for a better look.

  “Let me see.” Himilkon took it from him. “Some kind of bug, anyway. You find that fairly often in amber, you know. That piece you picked up isn’t the only one in the box with something in it.”

  “I do know that about bugs,” Sostratos said. “I just wonder how they could get into the stone in the first place. It’s almost as if they got stuck in pine resin, and then the resin somehow petrified.”

  “I don’t see how that could happen,” Himilkon said.

  “I don’t, either,” Sostratos admitted. “But it does look that way, doesn’t it?”

  “I suppose so,” the Phoenician said. “But I didn’t show you the amber on account of bugs. I showed it to you because it is something that comes down from the north. Alexandria has all manner of strange and wonderful things that come up the Nile. But does Alexandria have amber? I do not think so. Will the jewelers of Alexandria want amber? There, I think they will.”

  Sostratos thought they would, too. No matter what he thought, he didn’t care to admit it to Himilkon. He said, “I don’t even know yet if I want amber, O best one. That depends on how much I have to pay for it, and on what I can hope to get for it in Alexandria.”

  “Well, yes, of course,” Himilkon said. “I am not in this for my health, either, you know. If I cannot make a profit, I will not sell you the lovely stuff at all.”

  “If I can’t make a profit, I won’t buy,” Sostratos said. They glared at each other. Sostratos had looked for nothing else. In some exasperation, he asked, “How much do you want for all the amber you have in this box?”

  “Three minai,” Himilkon replied at once.

  “Three minai?” Sostratos made as if he couldn’t believe his ears. Actually, the price was more reasonable than he’d expected. But he couldn’t let the Phoenician know that, or he’d lose the dicker before it even began. He threw his hands in the air to show the dismay he was supposed to be feeling. “That’s ridiculous!” he said. “If I want my blood sucked, I’ll go to an inn and let the bedbugs do it.”

  Himilkon made a face, as if he’d just taken a big swig of vinegar. “Funny man,” he said. “You Hellenes write these comedies to go on the stage. This I know. Are you practicing to do one of them? I know you want to write things.”

  “Not comedies, by the dog of Egypt, and I wasn’t joking,” Sostratos answered. “You’ve given me a price you can’t possibly expect me to pay.” The more he pretended to be outraged, the more real outrage he felt. He knew that made no rational sense, but he’d had it happen before in other dickers.

  Setting hands on hips, Himilkon haughtily demanded, “Well, O marvelous one, how much does your Majesty think the amber is worth?”

  “Oh, a mina’s probably a little high, but not too,” Sostratos said.

  “One mina? One?” Himilkon’s eyes bulged. The veins in his neck swelled. So did the smaller ones on his forehead. He let loose with a torrent of Aramaic that should have burned down not only his warehouse but half the city. It amounted to “no,” but he was a good deal more emphatic about it than that.

  “Have a care, my dear, or you’ll do yourself an injury,” Sostratos said.

  “Oh, no. Oh, no.” Himilkon shook his head, too upset to impersonate the Hellenes. “I may do you an injury, but not myself. You are a brigand, a bandit, a pirate ...” He ran out of Greek and went back to his own language again. This sounded even hotter than his first eruption.

  “Gently. Gently.” Now Sostratos held his hands out in front of him in a placating gesture. “Since you’ve let yourself get so overwrought, I suppose I could go up to a mina and twenty drakhmai.” The Rhodian spoke with the air of a man making a great concession. And so, in a way, he was. He never liked being the first one to shift his price in a haggle. Now he had to see how much Himilkon would move—and whether Himilkon was inclined to move at all.

  When the Phoenician kept on fuming in Aramaic, Sostratos feared he wouldn’t move. Three minai wasn’t a bad price, but it wasn’t a great price, either. Sostratos hoped to drive him down further—and the Rhodian knew he could get a lot more in Alexandria, especially if he sold the amber chunk by chunk and not as a single lot.

  At last, grudgingly, Himilkon said, “I don’t suppose I would starve in the street—quite—if you paid me two minai, ninety drakhmai.”

  He hadn’t moved much, but he had moved. He wasn’t wedded to three drakhmai as his price. That was what Sostratos had needed to know. “You only came down half as much as I came up,” he complained.

  “By Ashtart’s pink-tipped tits, you’re lucky I came down at all,” Himilkon growled.

  So I am, Sostratos thought, but that agreement didn’t show on his face. He said, “You’ll have to come down some more, too, if we’re going to make a deal.”

  Himilkon raised his eyes to the heavens, as if asking the gods why they’d given him such a cruel and unfeeling opponent in this dicker. “I try to keep myself from being robbed. I try to keep my family fed. And what does it get me? Nothing, that’s what! Nothing, not a single, solitary thing! Here is amber, the frozen tears of the gods, brought down to the Inner Sea from beyond the lands of the Kelts, and—”

  “Wait.” He’d roused Sostratos’ curiosity. “What do you know about the country from which amber comes? Herodotos says it’s at the ends of the earth, but no more than that.”

  “All I know is, it’s up in the north somewhere.” Himilkon was plainly indifferent. “No: the other thing I know is, you won’t see any of this amber ever again if you don’t come closer to meeting my price. You may be dreaming of making a killing in Alexandria, but you can’t make a killing if you haven’t got the goods.”

>   That, unfortunately, was true. Sostratos made the best comeback he could: “And you can’t hope to make a profit on your amber if you ask an unreasonable price.”

  “Which I do not,” Himilkon said indignantly.

  That, unfortunately, was also true. Sostratos had no intention of admitting it. He did say, “Well, I suppose I could come up another twenty drakhmai.” He sighed and spread his hands again, as if to show he was being magnanimous beyond the bounds of reason by doing so.

  Himilkon came down another ten drakhmai. He grumbled and scowled and fumed, as if to show he was being put upon beyond the bounds of reason by doing so.

  At length, they settled on two minai, forty-five drakhmai. Sostratos couldn’t get the Phoenician to lower his price even another obolos. Part of him felt he’d made a pretty good deal: the part that had noted that even three minai wasn’t a bad price. The other part mourned because he hadn’t been able to get Himilkon down as far as he’d hoped. He shrugged. If he couldn’t decide whether to be pleased, the Phoenician probably had just as many doubts, which meant they were within shouting distance of the right price.

  “Do you have a scale?” Sostratos asked. “I want to weigh the amber.”

  “Why?” Himilkon was suspicion personified. “We already made the bargain.”

  “Yes, of course,” Sostratos said impatiently. “I want to know just how much I have, though, so I can tell my father.”

  “Oh. All right.” Himilkon grunted. “Come this way. I use it mostly to weigh spices.” Sostratos followed him through the warren of the warehouse, reflecting that Theseus probably hadn’t had a harder time finding his way through the Labyrinth. The Rhodian also had another reason for wanting the amber weighed: if he knew just how much he was getting, Himilkon couldn’t make a chunk or two disappear before exchanging it for silver.

  The amber turned out to weigh less than Sostratos had expected. That set him to worrying again. Was Himilkon laughing at him behind his curly beard? Sostratos said, “Let me take one piece to show my father.”