Over the Wine Dark Sea

'The sea! The sea!' The rest of the sailors took up the cry.   Sostratos, on the other hand, started to laugh. 'What's so funny?' Menedemos asked.   'That's what Xenophon's Ten Thousand, or however many of them were left alive by then, called out when they came to the sea after they got away from the Persians,' Sostratos answered.   'Xenophon was an Athenian, wasn't he?' Menedemos said. When Sostratos dipped his head, Menedemos went on, 'I'm surprised he didn't write, 'Thalatta! Thalatta!' instead.' He pointed at his cousin. 'Some of that Attic dialect has rubbed off on you -  I've heard you say glotta for glossa and things like that.'   Hearing his tongue mentioned, Sostratos stuck it out. Menedemos returned the gesture. Sostratos said, 'As a matter of fact, if I remember rightly, Xenophon did write, 'Thalattta!' '   'Ha!' Menedemos felt vindicated. 'I bet his soldiers, or most of them, said it the way Aristeidas just did.'   'You're probably right,' Sostratos said. 'But if you expect an Athenian to give up his dialect just because it doesn't match the way someone actually said something, you're asking too much.'   'I never expect anything from Athenians,' Menedemos said. 'They'll come up with better excuses for cheating you than . . .' His voice trailed away. His cousin's face had gone hard and cold. A few words too late, Menedemos remembered just how much Sostratos had enjoyed his time at Athens, and just how gloomy he'd been when he first came back to Rhodes. Doing his best to sound casual, Menedemos continued, 'Well, I'd better keep my mind on sailing the ship.'   'Yes, that would be good.' Sostratos sounded like a man holding in anger, too. Menedemos sighed. Sooner or later, he would have to make it up to his cousin.   The Aphrodite wouldn't give him a hard time, not on a fine bright day like today, with only a lazy breeze and the lightest of chop ruffling the blue, blue surface of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Even so, he steered away from land; he wanted a few stadia of leeway between the merchant galley and the shore. You never can tell, he thought. Ashore, with just his own neck to worry about, he took chances that horrified the cautious Sostratos. At sea, with everything at stake . . . He tossed his head. Not usually.   And so when, some time later that morning, Aristeidas called out, 'Sail ho! Sail off the starboard bow!' Menedemos smiled and dipped his head. He wouldn't have to change course -  that other ship, whatever it was, would pass well to leeward of him.   But then Aristeidas called out again: 'Sails to starboard, skipper! That's not just a ship -  that's a regular fleet.'   Menedemos' eyes snapped toward the direction in which the lookout was pointing from the foredeck. He needed only a moment to spot the sails himself, and only another to recognize them for what they were. 'All men to the oars!' he shouted. 'That's a fleet of triremes, and they can have us for lunch if they want us!'   Sailors ran to their places on the benches. Oars bit into the sea. Without waiting for an order from Menedemos, Diokles picked up the stroke. Menedemos swung the Aphrodite away