can't.' Menedemos thought about coming back to a Rhodes garrisoned by Antigonos' soldiers, or Ptolemaios'. He imagined mercenaries swaggering through the streets, with rich families hostages for the good behavior of the city as a whole. His own family was far from poor. Not for the first time, he wished Sostratos hadn't made him think so much. Looking ahead to the Italian coastline bathed in the rays of the setting sun helped him not think about what might be happening far away to the east. Maybe Sostratos was doing his best not to think about that, too, for he pointed toward the shore and said, 'It's greener by the town than it is most other places.' 'Some people say Persephone used to come over there from Sicily to gather flowers,' Menedemos answered. 'I don't know whether that's true or not, but the girls from Hipponion go out to those meadows and make themselves flower garlands for festivals and such.' 'How do you know that?' Sostratos asked. 'You've never been here before.' 'Tavern talk,' Menedemos told him. 'You miss a lot of things like that, because you don't like sitting around and chatting with sailors.' 'I don't like going through a talent's weight of talk for half an obolos' worth of something interesting,' Sostratos said tartly. 'But you never know ahead of time what will turn out to be interesting,' Menedemos said. Sostratos tossed his head. 'No. You never know if anything will turn out to be interesting. Usually, nothing is. Most tavern talk is people lying about fish they say they caught and men they say they killed and women they say they had. I don't know how Persephone's name ever came up in a tavern, unless you were drinking with Hades.' That jerked a laugh from Menedemos. 'I wasn't talking about Persephone, exactly. I was talking about Hipponion, and what the anchorage is like.' He pointed ahead. 'It's nothing much, is it?' 'No.' Sostratos tossed his head again. 'You almost wonder why anyone ever decided to build a polis here.' 'You do. You really do,' Menedemos agreed. 'No proper bay to shelter a ship - just a long, straight stretch of coastline. The Hipponians haven't done anything to improve what they found here, either, have they? No mole to protect ships from waves and weather, hardly any quays. If Odysseus did sail up this way, he'd still feel right at home nowadays.' 'If Odysseus did sail up this way, he did it in a pentekonter,' Sostratos said. 'Most of the Danaans who sailed to Troy went in pentekonters, if the Catalogue of Ships is right. To the Trojans, they were probably nothing but the biggest pirate fleet in the world.' Menedemos stared at his cousin. 'Do you know something?' he said at last. 'I care for Homer more than you do, I think.' 'I'm sure you're right,' Sostratos said. 'He's a great poet, but he's not the man I turn to first.' 'I know that,' Menedemos said. 'Still and all, though, you just made me look at the Iliad
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