Menedemos said, "Let me have another cup of wine." When the taverner gave it to him, he poured a small libation onto the dirt floor. "That's for the Earthshaker, for not shaking too hard this time." Then he drained the cup. "And that's for me."
"It's the Spartans' curse, that's what it is," the tavernkeeper said.
"The what?" Menedemos asked.
Sostratos spoke before the taverner could: "A long time ago, back before the Peloponnesian War, some helots took refuge in Poseidon's temple here. The Spartans hauled them out and killed them. Not long afterwards, a big earthquake almost knocked Sparta flat. Plenty of people claimed it was Poseidon's vengeance."
"How did you know that?" The tavernkeeper stared at him. "You said you were a Rhodian."
"I am," Sostratos said.
"He must have read it in a book," Menedemos said. "He reads all sorts of things in books." Sostratos had trouble gauging his cousin's smile: was it proud or mocking? Some of each, he thought. Menedemos asked, "Is that your pal Herodotos again?"
"No, it's in Thoukydides' history," Sostratos replied.
"A book," the tavernkeeper said. "A book. Well, ain't that something? Don't have my letters myself, nor much want 'em, neither, but ain't that something?"
"Ain't that something?" Menedemos echoed wickedly as Sostratos and he headed for a cookshop not far away.
"Oh, shut up," Sostratos said, which made his cousin laugh out loud. Irked, he went on, "Natural philosophers say that earthquakes aren't Poseidon's fault at all, that they're as much a natural phenomenon as waves stirred up by wind."
"I don't know that I can believe that," Menedemos said. "What could cause them, if they're natural?"
"No one knows for sure," Sostratos replied, "but I've heard people suggest it's the motion of gas through subterranean caverns pushing the ground now this way, now that."
He'd always thought that seemed not only probable but sober and logical to boot. Menedemos, however, took it another way. His whoop of delight made several passing mercenaries whirl to gape at him. "Earthfarts!" he said. "Instead of Poseidon Earthshaker, we've got Kyamos Earthfarter. Bow down!" He stuck out his backside.
"No one ever made a bean into a god until you did just now," Sostratos said severely, resisting the urge to kick the proffered part. "You complain about the way I think sometimes, but you're more blasphemous than I'd ever be. If you ask me, all that Aristophanes has curdled your wits."
His cousin tossed his head. "No, and I'll tell you why not. Aristophanes has fun mocking the gods, and so do I. When you say you don't believe, you mean it."
Sostratos grunted. That held more truth than he cared to admit. Instead of admitting it, he said, "Come on, let's tell this fellow we're looking for passengers."
"All right." Menedemos made a very rude noise. "Earthfarts!" He giggled. Sostratos wished he'd never started talking about the natural causes of earthquakes.
To get a measure of revenge - and perhaps expiation as well - he all but dragged Menedemos to Poseidon's temple. Sure enough, there among the offerings stood the statue of Arion astride the dolphin. Sostratos clicked his tongue between his teeth. "It's not so fine a piece of work as I thought it would be. See how stiff and old-fashioned it looks?"
"Arion jumped into the sea a long time ago," Menedemos said reasonably. "You can't expect the statue to look as if the sculptor set it there yesterday."
"I suppose not," Sostratos said, "but even so - "
"No. But me no buts," Menedemos said. "If you laid Aphrodite, you'd complain she wasn't as good in bed as you expected."
If I laid Aphrodite, she'd complain I wasn't as good in bed as she expected, Sostratos thought, and then, Or would she? She being a goddess, wouldn't she know ahead of time what I was like in bed? He scratched his head. After pondering that for a little while, he said, "The problem of how much the gods can see of the future is a complicated one, don't you think?"
"What I think is, I haven't got the faintest idea of what you're talking about," Menedemos answered, and Sostratos realized he'd assumed his cousin could follow along in a conversation he'd had with himself. While he was still feeling foolish, Menedemos went on, "Let's get back to the boat and see if we've got any passengers looking to go west."
"All right," Sostratos said. When they left the temple precinct, he let out a sigh. "Except for this shrine, Tainaron's about as unholy a place as I've ever seen."
"It's not Delphi," Menedemos agreed, "but we wouldn't pick up mercenaries bound for Italy at Delphi, now would we?" Sostratos could hardly argue with that. What he could do - and what he did - was keep a wary eye out for thieves and cutpurses all the way down to the beach. He credited his eagle eye for their getting to the boat unmolested.
A couple of brawny, sun-browned men with scars on their arms and legs and cheeks were talking with Diokles when Sostratos and Menedemos came up. The oarmaster looked very much at home with them: but for the scars, he might have been one of their number himself. "Here's the skipper and the toikharkhos," he said. "They'll tell you everything you need to know."
"Twelve drakhmai to Syracuse, we heard," one of the mercenaries said. "That right?"
Sostratos tossed his head. "Twelve drakhmai to Taras," he answered. "I don't know if we'll be putting in at Syracuse at all. There's no way to tell, not till we hear how the war with Carthage is going."
"Twelve drakhmai to Italy is a lot of money," the other mercenary grumbled, "especially when I've got to pay for my own food, too."
"That's the way things work," Menedemos said. "That's the way they've always worked. You don't expect me to change them, do you?"
To Sostratos, expecting things to work a certain way because they always had was nothing but foolishness. He started to say so, then shut up with a snap; as far as a dicker with mercenaries went, his cousin had come up with an excellent argument. "All right, all right," the second hired soldier said. "When do you figure you'll sail?"
"We have room for five or six passengers," Menedemos replied. "We'll stay till we've got 'em all, or till we decide we're not going to."
"Well, you've got one, even if you are a thief," the second mercenary said. "I'm Philippos."
"Two," the other Hellene said. "My name's Kallikrates son of Eumakhos."
"I'm the son of Megakles myself," Philippos added. He pointed out to the Aphrodite. "You're not sailing today, though?"
"Not unless we get three or four more passengers in a tearing hurry," Sostratos assured him. "We have some cargo to unload, too. Come down to the beach every morning for the next few days, and we won't leave without you."
"Fair enough," Philippos said. Kallikrates dipped his head in agreement. They both ambled off the beach and back up toward the town that had sprung into being at Tainaron.
"Well, there's two," Menedemos said to Sostratos. "Not so bad, the first day we anchor offshore."
"No, not so bad, provided we get away with coming here in the first place," Sostratos replied. "If this were a proper harbor, a harbor where honest men came, we wouldn't have to anchor offshore."
"This is a harbor where honest men come," Menedemos said with a grin he no doubt intended as disarming. "We're here, aren't we?"
"Yes, and I still wish we weren't," Sostratos said. His cousin's grin turned sour. That didn't keep Menedemos from getting into the boat with him and returning to the Aphrodite. Sostratos raised an eyebrow as they climbed up into the akatos. "I don't see you spending the night ashore, honest man."
This time, Menedemos was the one who said, "Oh, shut up," from which Sostratos concluded he'd made his point.
They got another passenger the next day, a Cretan slinger named Rhoikos. "I'm right glad to get out of here," he said, his Doric drawl far thicker than that of the Rhodians. "Everything's dear as can be in these here parts, and I was eating up my silver waiting around for somebody to hire me. Don't reckon I'll have much trouble getting 'em to take me on over across the sea. Always a war somewheres in them parts."