'Go on, Father,' Sostratos insisted. That was both respect for his father's years and genuine liking; Lysistratos hadn't beaten him more than he deserved when he was a boy, and more than once hadn't beaten him at all when he knew he deserved it. His father dipped his head in assent. 'Xanthos was here a little while ago,' he began. 'Yes, I know - Gyges told me when I came in,' Sostratos said. 'All right, then. You know how Xanthos is. You have to hear about the state of his bowels, and the speech he made in the last Assembly meeting - which must have been as boring as all the rest he's ever made - and how much worse we are these days than the heroes of the Trojan War.' Lysistratos rolled his eyes. 'But there's usually a little wheat mixed in with all the chaff, and there was today, too.' 'Tell me,' Sostratos urged. 'I will. You know the town of Amphipolis, next door to Macedonia?' 'Oh, yes.' Sostratos dipped his head. 'The historian Thoukydides talks about the place in his fifth book. Brasidas the Spartan beat Kleon of Athens there, though they both died in the battle.' His father looked impatient. 'I don't mean Amphipolis in the old days, son. I'm talking about now. You know how Kassandros, the commander in Europe, has been holding Roxane and Alexandros, her son by Alexander the Great, in the fortress there.' 'Oh, yes,' Sostratos repeated. 'Alexandros would be - what, twelve now? I know he was born after Alexander died. He'll be old enough to make a proper king of Macedonia before too long.' Lysistratos tossed his head. 'Oh, no, he won't. That was Xanthos' news: some time this past winter, when word would travel slow, Kassandros killed Alexandros - and Roxane, too, for good measure.' Sostratos whistled softly and shivered, as if the andron had suddenly got colder. 'Then it's just the generals now, to quarrel over the bones of Alexander's empire. Kassandros in Macedonia, Lysimakhos in Thrace, Antigonos in Anatolia and farther Asia, and Ptolemaios down in Egypt.' 'And Polyperkhon over in the Pelopennesos, and that Seleukos fellow who's squabbling with Antigonos in inner Asia,' Lysistratos said. 'I wonder how long the peace your four made last summer will last. No longer than one of them sees an advantage in breaking it, or I miss my guess.' 'You're bound to be right.' Sostratos shivered again. He wondered what Thoukydides would have thought of the world as it was nowadays. Nothing good; he was sure of that. In the historian's day, each polis in Hellas had been free to go its own way. Now almost all the Greek city-states danced to the tune of one Macedonian warlord or another. Rhodes remained free and independent, but even his own polis had had to throw out a Macedonian garrison after Alexander died. Lysistratos might have been thinking along similar lines, for he said, 'Being a polis these days is a lot like being a sardine in a school of tunny. But what's your news, son? I hope it's cheerier than mine.'
Вы читаете Over the Wine Dark Sea
