Over the Wine Dark Sea

'You're right,' Menedemos answered. 'I wouldn't quarrel with a single word you said. But tell me, would we have got away from a pirate ship?'   'Well . . .' The keleustes looked unhappy. 'We'd've needed some luck, wouldn't we? They did get her up as fast as she'll go.'   'I know they did,' Menedemos said. 'The trouble is, she won't quite go fast enough.' The Aphrodite carried cargo, not just rowers who doubled as fighting men. She was beamier than a hemiolia or a pentekonter, too, which meant there was more of her to resist the sea than held true for their lean, deadly shapes. And she rode deeper in the water, because of her cargo and because her timbers were more waterlogged and heavier than those of pampered pirate ships, which dried out on the beach every night. Because of all that, odds were a ship full of pirates could overhaul them from behind.   'We're all right if we've got a friendly port we can run for,' Diokles said.   'Of course we are. But if we don't, we're going to have to fight.' Menedemos drummed his fingers on the steering-oar tiller. 'I'd sooner do it ship against ship, not man against man. They'll have bigger crews than we do.'   'Pirate crews mostly aren't disciplined,' the keleustes observed. 'They don't want to fight unless they have to. They're out to rob and kidnap, either for ransom or for slaves.'   'We've got a lot of men who've put in time aboard war galleys,' Menedemos said. 'Once we sail west from Khios -  maybe even sooner -  we will work hard.'   'Good,' Diokles replied.   Though the sun was not far from setting when the Aphrodite glided into Samos' harbor, Menedemos had enough light to reach the quays and tie up without any trouble. A temple dedicated to Hera lay to the left, where the Imbrasos River ran down into the sea from the mountains in the island's interior. To the right was a shrine for Poseidon that looked across a seven-stadia strait to the mainland.   As longshoremen made the akatos fast to the wharf, the rowers rested at their oars, still worn with the effort they'd put forth in the sprint. One of them said the worst thing he could think of: 'I'm liable to be too tired to want to go into town and screw.'   'Well, if you are, I hear there are girls up in Khios, too,' Menedemos said.   'Likely there are,' the sailor agreed, 'but I hate to waste a chance.' Since Menedemos hated to waste a chance, too, he just laughed and dipped his head.   As kos lay under Ptolemaios' thumb, so Samos belonged to Antigonos. Sostratos wasn't surprised when a couple of officers in gleaming armor tramped up to the quay to inquire about the Aphrodite and where she'd been before coming to Samos. He was surprised when they started asking their questions: he could hardly follow a word they said.   'What is that gibberish?' Menedemos asked out of the side of his mouth.   'Macedonian dialect, thick enough to slice,' Sostratos replied, also in a whisper. He raised his voice: 'Please speak slowly, O best ones. I will gladly answer