Diokles called, and the rowers rested at their oars. Sailors tossed lines to a couple of longshoremen, who made the Aphrodite fast to one of the quays in the great harbor of Rhodes. “What are you doing here?” one of the longshoremen asked, looping the coarse flax rope round a post. “Nobody thought you'd be back till fall. Get in trouble up in Kaunos?” He leered at die merchant galley, and at Menedemos in particular. “We had to get out in a hurry, all right,” Menedemos said, and the longshoreman's leer got wider. You haven't heard the news, then, Menedemos thought. He smiled, too, but only to himself. After a suitably dramatic pause, he went on, “Ptolemaios has an army and a fleet operating in Lykia. He's taken Phaselis, and he's heading west— he'll probably take the whole country. Antigonos’ garrison commander in Kaunos was going to seize the Rhodian proxenos there, and maybe us, too, so we grabbed Kissidas and his family and got away. * “Ptolemaios is in Lykia?” That wasn't just the one longshoreman; that was almost everyone within earshot, speaking as if in chorus. Heads swung to the northeast, as if men expected to see Ptolemaios from where they stood. An excited gabble rose. “That will be all over the polis by sunset,” Sostratos remarked. “It should be. It's important,” Menedemos said. “Now we ought to take Kissidas and his people to the Kaunian proxenos here. Do you know who handles Kaunos' affairs in Rhodes?” “Isn't it that moneychanger named Hagesidamos?” Sostratos said. “He'll be easy to find—he'll have a table in the agora where foreigners can turn their silver into Rhodian money.” “And where he can turn a profit,” Menedemos added. “Moneychangers never starve.” He raised his voice: “Kissidas! Oe, Kissidas! Gather up your kin and come along with us. We'll take you to the Kaunian proxenos here. He'll make arrangements for all of you.” “Send the gangplank across to the pier,” Kissidas said. “When I reach dry land again, I'll kiss the ground.” Menedemos gave the order. Bald head shining in the sun, Kissidas hurried up onto the quay, followed by his kinsfolk. He bustled down it to the end, stepped off onto the soil of Rhodes, and kept his promise. Sostratos took an obolos out of his mouth and gave it to a fellow standing on the wharf. “Go to my father's house, near the temple to Demeter in the north end of the city. Let him know we've returned, and that we'll see him soon. Menedemos' father lives next door. Tell him, too.” “Yes, tell my father we're home,” Menedemos echoed with a singular lack of enthusiasm. Eager to put off the moment when he saw Philodemos again, he went on, “Let's go scare up old Hagesidamos.” He started up the gangplank himself. His cousin followed, but kept looking back over his shoulder. “Are you sure. . . things will be all right here?” “I know you.” Menedemos laughed in his face. “You don't mean 'things.' You mean your precious gryphon's skull. Answer me this, my dear: what thief would be mad enough to steal it?” Sostratos' ears turned red. “I think the skull is worth something,” he said with dignity. “I think the philosophers in Athens will agree with me, too.” “Anyone else?” Menedemos asked. Sostratos proved his basic honesty by tossing his head. Menedemos laughed again. It wasn't likely, and he knew it. He waved to Kissidas. “Come along with my cousin and me. We'll take you to the proxenos.”
