what will he think? He'll think the same thing half the fishermen in Great Hellas - and over in the Aegean, too - have already thought: that we're pirates ourselves. We don't look anything like a round ship, after all. And he'll leave us alone.' 'Here's hoping you're right.' Menedemos looked back over his shoulder toward the rocks of Cape Iapygia, the southeasternmost point of Italy. Soon it would disappear from view, and the Aphrodite would be out of sight of land till Korkyra or the mainland of Hellas or Macedonia crawled up over the eastern horizon. 'But dogs eat dogs. Why shouldn't pirates eat pirates?' 'You've said it yourself: we've got enough men aboard to put up a good fight,' Sostratos said. Menedemos' laugh was less cheerful than he would have liked. 'Well, maybe we'll find out if I'm as smart as I think I am.' They got their chance to find out sooner than he would have liked. It wasn't Aristeidas who sang out, 'Sail ho!' but a sailor who was pissing from the Aphrodite's stern. Menedemos turned to look back over his shoulder, as he had for Cape lapygia. He had to follow the sailor's pointing finger to spot the sail, which wasn't much different in color from the sky or the sea. Whoever captained that ship didn't want it seen. 'Fast,' Diokles remarked as the sail got bigger and the hull came into view. It too was painted greenish blue, so as not to stand out against waves and sky. 'Almost bound to be a pirate, with that turn of speed and that paint job.' 'I was thinking the same thing.' Menedemos raised his voice: 'Take your weapons, men. We may have a fight on our hands.' The skipper of that other ship was bound to be making calculations about the Aphrodite. Yes, she was a galley, but she didn't try to disguise herself and she was on the beamy side for a rowed vessel. That made her an akatos, not a pentekonter or hemiolia - probably not a pirate ship herself, but still a vessel with a formidable crew, one not to be taken lightly. When Menedemos got a better look at the pirate ship, he saw she wasn't quite so long and low as he'd expected. She carried two banks of oars, though the rowers' benches of the upper deck aft of the mast could be taken out in a hurry to stow the mast and yard and sail. 'Hemiolia,' Sostratos remarked, coming up onto the poop deck: he'd noted the same thing. 'Which would mark her for a pirate even without her paint job,' Menedemos said. 'Not much use for hemioliai except to steal from slow ships and run away from fast ones.' 'They might make naval auxiliaries,' said Sostratos, who sometimes showed himself altogether too good at looking at all sides of a question to suit Menedemos. But the hemiolia coming up behind the Aphrodite was without a doubt, without argument even from Sostratos, a pirate. Menedemos, who couldn't conveniently take down his own mast, could and did order the sail brailed up to the yard and put a full complement on the oars. As he'd done twice before, he swung his ship toward the pirate, showing he was ready for a fight if her skipper wanted one. That skipper didn't run, as the other two had done. But he didn't attack the merchant galley, either. Instead, he shouted across a couple of plethra of seawater: 'Ahoy! You coming from Italy? What news?' His Greek held a peculiar accent, perhaps Macedonian, more likely Epeirote.
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