“Here is a jar of dye I bought from him.” The Rhodian set it on the counter between them. “I can sell you about as much as you want, at prices as good as you’ll get from any man of Sidon or Byblos.”

The Phrygian picked up the jar, holding it on one plump palm and slowly turning it with his other hand. “Truly, this is the very style of jar Tenashtart uses.” He yanked out the stopper and sniffed. The dye had a nasty reek from the shellfish of which it was made, though Menedemos marveled that Adrastos could smell anything through the pungent odor of urine permeating his shop. The dyer nodded, and then, as if to show he really had learned Hellenic customs, dipped his head, too. Menedemos hid a smile; he’d seen other barbarians do the same. Adrastos said, “It does appear to be the true crimson dye. May I test it with a scrap of cloth?”

“Please do, most noble one,” Menedemos told him. “That’s why I brought it.”

Adrastos poked the corner of a rag into the jar, then pulled it out. He studied the deep red color. “Yes, that’s Sidonian crimson, sure enough. It’s not as good as what Tyre used to make before Alexander sacked the town. Tyrian crimson was brighter, and wouldn’t fade no matter what. Such a color! I was just a youth getting started in my father’s business-you would have been a little boy then. You don’t see the like any more. The men who knew how to make it are dead, or else they’re slaves doing something that’s got nothing to do with dye. This isn’t bad for what you can get nowadays, but it doesn’t come up to Tyrian.” He sighed.

Menedemos would have thought he was trying to beat the price down, but other men who knew about the dyes the Phoenicians made had told him the same thing. “Is it good enough for you to want it?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” Adrastos said. “As long as I can get a decent price, that is.” He named one.

“That’s not decent. That’s indecent!” Menedemos yelped. “You want me to give it away.” He named his own, considerably higher, price.

Adrastos howled like a wolf. “Any Phoenician tried to charge me that, I’d fling him into a vat of piss.” He sent Menedemos a speculative look, as if wondering how the Rhodian would look all wet and dripping.

“Some people,” Menedemos remarked, “think they’re the only ones who work a trade. In a polis the size of Athens, I can always sell to someone else.”

“Sell, certainly. Steal from honest folk with your prices? Not likely!” Adrastos said.

They traded more insults. The Phrygian came up a little. Menedemos went down a little. They both knew ahead of time about where they would end up. As they drew closer to that point, they haggled harder. Finally, Menedemos said, “Have we got a bargain?”

“Yes,.Rhodian. I think we do.” The dyer stuck out his hand, which was stained with crimson and saffron and woad and other dyes. Menedemos clasped it. Adrastos asked, “And how soon can I have the dye?”

“My ship is tied up here in Peiraieus,” Menedemos said. “Let me walk over, and I’ll get it for you. You’ll have the silver waiting?”

“Oh, yes. The world would squeak to a stop if not for silver,” Adrastos answered, “I pay what I say I’ll pay. You don’t need to worry about that.”

When some men told Menedemos he didn’t need to worry, he worried harder than ever. The Phrygian didn’t strike him as being one of that sort, though. Yes, Adrastos dressed gaudily, but how else was a dyer supposed to show off his skill? The man’s shop was neat and clean. He couldn’t help the way it smelled, not in the business he was in. And the owls he gave Menedemos wouldn’t stink. With a smile at that conceit, Menedemos said, “All right, O best one. I’ll be back in a little while with the dye, then.”

He hurried toward the quays, dodging past a fisherman carrying a basket of sprats, some of them still wiggling a little; another fisherman with a basket of eels for customers who could afford better than sprats; a naked sponge diver, his eyes blood-red from staying open in the sea, a couple of sponges under his arms; a gray-haired, unveiled woman selling little cheese pies; a shaven-headed Egyptian sailor coming out of a brothel with a sated smirk on his face; and a net-seller or -mender all draped with his wares. Flies buzzed. Sparrows hopped around, pecking at this and that. A dog with half its left ear missing gnawed a length of pig gut a sausage-seller must have thrown away. It growled when Menedemos walked by. He raised a leg to kick it if it tried to bite, and it shrank back in fear.

As Menedemos neared the pier to which the Aphrodite was tied, someone called his name. He turned. There was Sostratos, waving. Menedemos waved back and said, “Hail! What are you doing here? I thought you’d be up in the city.”

“I sold some ink to a fellow who thinks he’s the next Euripides, and then found I’d got rid of all the jars we’d brought up to Protomakhos’ house.” Sostratos looked disgusted with himself. “I hate making mistakes like that.”

“Reminds me you’re human,” Menedemos said.

By his cousin’s expression, Sostratos didn’t care to be reminded. But he also recalled enough humanity to stay polite, which he didn’t always. He asked, “How about you?”

“I just sold some crimson dye to a dyer whose shop can’t be more than three or four plethra from the Aphrodite,” Menedemos said. “Got a decent price for it, too.”

“How much?” Sostratos asked. Menedemos told him. He dipped his head, “Yes, that’s not bad,” he agreed. “Nothing to make Kroisos the Lydian king jealous, but not bad.”

“Kroisos collected taxes and tribute,” Menedemos said. “We have to earn our money.”

“So we-” Sostratos broke off and pointed out to sea. “By the dog of Egypt!” he whispered. “Will you look at that?”

Menedemos looked. There approaching the harbor was an immense fleet of war galleys and transports. He started to count them, but rapidly gave up. There had to be well over a hundred. He and Sostratos weren’t the only ones who’d spotted them, either. Everywhere, people on the street and on the quays stopped whatever they were doing and pointed out to sea like Sostratos.

“Who do you suppose they are?” Sostratos asked in a small voice.

“You said it yourself-’by the dog of Egypt,’“ Menedemos answered, “They have to belong to Ptolemaios. Otherwise the Athenians and Kassandros’ men would be trying to shut the harbor against them and beat them back, and they’re not.”

They certainly weren’t. A couple of Kassandros’ Macedonians waved to the officers on the deck of an approaching war galley-an immense ship, at least a six, with two men per oar on all three banks of oars. One of the men on the galley waved back. His red cloak clung to his shoulders; the breeze blew from off the sea.

Blowing from off the sea, it carried the stench of the galleys to the shore. Menedemos made a face. “Pheu!” he said in disgust. “That’s a worse reek than the one I came away from at Adrastos’ dyeshop.”

“A lot of men packed close together on a lot of warships, without much water for washing.” Sostratos, as usual, wanted to get to the bottom of things. Usually, that was a virtue. Today, it irritated Menedemos.

“I know, my dear,” he said. “No matter what you may think, I’m not a fool. And whatever the reason, that’s a horrible stink.”

Transports started tying up wherever there was room along a pier. Naked sailors tossed lines to longshoremen; who made the ships fast. Gangplanks thumped out onto the quays. Soldiers tramped along the gangplanks, up the quays, and onto dry land. They wore their helmets and corselets and carried both spears and shields. The longshoremen got out of their way as fast as they could.

“They look ready for business, don’t they?” Sostratos said.

“They sure do,” Menedemos answered.

“I don’t understand,” Sostratos said, “Is Ptolemaios going to help Kassandros garrison Athens? If he is, will Kassandros move some of his men somewhere else? To the north, say, to fight against Lysimakhos? There’s been no rumor about any of this.” By the way he sounded, he took that as a personal affront.