all pirates off the sea.” “I wish that might happen myself,” Theagenes said. “The world would be a better place.” Menedemos waved to the rowers waiting for his return. The men waved back. They took him and Sostratos and Theagenes out to the Aphrodite . Dorimakhos' body lay, wrapped in bloodstained sailcloth, at the stern of the boat. As Theagenes neared the akatos, he filled that ancient bowl with seawater. He handed it to Menedemos before scrambling from the boat to the ship. What would he do if I dropped it? Menedemos wondered. But he didn't: he just gave it back to Theagenes. The priest looked at the dark stains on the Aphrodite 's planking. “You did have a hard fight here,” he remarked. “It would have been harder still if we'd lost it,” Sostratos said. “Of course,” Theagenes said. He went up and down the ship, sprinkling the water from the bowl over the planks and murmuring prayers in a low voice. As he came up onto the poop deck, he remarked, “The sea purifies anything it touches.” “I suppose that's why, in the Iliad, Talthybios the herald threw the boar Agamemnon sacrificed when he finally apologized to Akhilleus into the sea,” Menedemos said. “Just so.” Theagenes sounded pleased. “The carcass of the boar carried the burden of Agamemnon's oath. It should not have been eaten by men. The sea was the path of its travel to earth, sun, and the Furies.” The priest beamed at Menedemos. “I see you are a man who thinks on such things.” “Well...” Menedemos was no more modest than he had to be, but he couldn't take that kind of praise with Sostratos standing beside him. He said, “My cousin leans more toward philosophy than I do.” “I don't particularly lean toward philosophy myself,” Theagenes said. “I think we ought to do as the gods want us to do, not make up fine-sounding excuses to do as we please.” Sostratos raised an eyebrow at that. Before he could start the sort of argument that had made Sokrates a candidate for hemlock, Menedemos said, “We do thank you for purifying the ship.” He gave Sostratos a look that said, Please don't. To his relief, Sostratos didn't. Theagenes said, “I am pleased to hear such words from you, young man. A man who loves the gods will be loved by them.” He went down into the waist of the ship and splashed a little seawater on Rhodippos. The wounded man, lost in a fever dream, moaned and muttered to himself. Theagenes sighed. “I fear you're right about him. Death reaches toward him even as we watch.” “I wish something could be done about wounds like his, whether by gods or healers,” Sostratos said—no, he wouldn't casually let it drop after all. “Asklepios has been known to work miracles,” the priest said. “So he has,” Sostratos agreed. “If he did it more often, though, they wouldn't be miracles, and a lot more men would have longer lives.” The priest sent him a sour stare. Menedemos felt like a man standing between two armies just before they shouted the paean and charged each other. Doing his best to change the subject, he said, “Come on boys, let's get
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