Harry Turtledove - Over the Wine-Dark Sea

Someone knocked on the door to the rented house. "If that's the Samnite here so soon, I wish you had a spear, too," Sostratos said. But it wasn't - it was Aristeidas, back from the Aphrodite with half a dozen men, Diokles among them.

"So you've sold a couple of birds, have you?" the oarmaster said. "That'll make a nice pile of silver, I expect. Don't blame you a bit for wanting to make sure you get it." He carried a stout, iron-headed club in place of a sword. Sostratos wouldn't have wanted to stand against him.

A couple of the sailors looked a little the worse for wear from wine, but they all seemed ready to fight if it came to that. Sostratos hoped it wouldn't. But his cousin was right: being ready for trouble made it less likely.

Half an hour later, another knock sounded. Sostratos opened the door again. There stood Herennius Egnatius. He had a sword on his hip, too. The four stocky, broad shouldered men at his back didn't look like slaves - they looked like soldiers. They all wore helmets, three of bronze, one of iron. One of them did carry a spear; the others wore swords. Seeing the blade on Sostratos' belt, the Samnite said, "I don't care to be robbed carrying money through the streets."

"Of course not," Sostratos answered smoothly. He stood aside. "Come in."

The Samnite's retainers and the sailors from the Aphrodite eyed one another. Herennius Egnatius took the armed Hellenes in stride. "I see you are men who let no one use you unjustly," he said. "That is very good."

"Not that you would have done such a thing," Sostratos said, not raising an eyebrow - much.

"Of course not," Herennius Egnatius said blandly. "Perhaps it is just as well that we have no misunderstandings."

"Indeed." Sostratos' eyebrow climbed a little higher. "I hope you did bring the money as well as your retainers, on the off chance you might need it."

"I did." If Herennius Egnatius noticed Sostratos' sarcasm, he didn't acknowledge it. He spoke to one of his own men in Oscan. Again, Sostratos was struck by how similar the sounds of the language were to those of Greek, though he could make out none of the words. The Samnite had to repeat himself, raising his voice the second time; his retainers were as captivated by their first sight of the peacock as he had been. The bird's display even kept them from sending quite so many mute challenges to the sailors from the Aphrodite.

The leather sack the Samnite retainer handed to Sostratos was nicely heavy with silver. "I thank you," Sostratos said. By the shrug the Samnite gave him, the fellow knew no Greek. Sostratos turned back to Herennius Egnatius. "As soon as I have counted the coins, the birds are yours."

Counting out 875 drakhmai took some little while. There were fewer than 875 coins in the sack, for it held didrakhms and tetradrakhms as well as the pieces of silver worth a single drakhma. Not all of them were Tarentine coins; a fair number came from Syracuse. Sostratos went into a back room and weighed a Syracusan drakhma against a Tarentine counterpart. When the coin from Syracuse proved heavier, he came back and went on counting without another word.

At last, he dipped his head. "This is payment in full for the peacock and for one peahen," he said formally, and held out his hand to Herennius Egnatius. As formally, the Samnite clasped it.

"How shall I take the birds back to my guest-friend's house?" Herennius Egnatius asked.

"If you'd like, I can sell you the cages in which we brought the birds from Hellas," Sostratos replied. "Or, if you would rather, you can put ropes round their necks so they don't run away. I wouldn't try just herding them through the streets of Taras - they can run about as fast as a man can."

Herennius Egnatius drew himself up straight again. Speaking as proudly as a Hellene might have, he said, "I think five men can control two birds." He switched languages. After a couple of sentences of Oscan, his followers nodded. They thought they could handle the peafowl, too.

Sostratos shrugged. "The birds are yours, O best one. Do with them as you please. You asked me a question, and I answered it as best I could."

Maybe a couple of the Samnites had experience herding geese, for they managed to chivvy the peacock and peahen out the door and onto the street without too much trouble. Sostratos closed the door after them. When he came back into the courtyard, Menedemos said, "There's two of the miserable birds gone, anyhow."

"Many good-byes to them, too," Sostratos said. "May we get rid of the rest soon." The two cousins both dipped their heads.

Gylippos was a fat fellow who'd made a fortune in dried fish. His andron was large and, by Tarentine standards, splendidly decorated, though to Menedemos the wall paintings, the couches, and even the wine cups in the men's chamber were gaudy and busy. Gylippos himself was gaudy, too, with heavy gold rings on several fingers.

He wagged one of those fingers at Menedemos, who reclined on the couch next to his. "You were a naughty fellow, selling that barbarian the one peacock you had," he said.

Menedemos answered, "He paid me well. His silver's as good as anyone else's." Better than yours would have been, he thought, because you'd have been careful to give me the exact weight of metal we agreed on, and not an obolos more. Had all cities coined to the same standard, life would have been simpler. As things were, the fellow who took pains in his dealings with money had the edge on the man who didn't.

Gylippos wagged that finger again. His slaves had already cleared away the supper plates - he'd served squid and octopus and oysters and eels with the sitos: no dried fish for his guests - but the symposion that would follow hadn't started yet. He said, "And the scene he made in the streets getting the peacock to the house where he's staying! My dear fellow, you couldn't have done more to build demand for the birds if you'd tried for a year. Everybody saw the peacock, and everybody wants it."

Sostratos shared the couch with Menedemos. As usual, Menedemos had taken the head, though his cousin was older. Sostratos hadn't complained; he never did. He did speak up now, though: "That parade was the Samnite's idea, not ours. I offered to sell him two peafowl cages. I even suggested that he use ropes to keep the birds from running every which way. He wouldn't listen."

"And so," Menedemos added with a grin, "he had half the people in Taras chasing his precious peacock - and the peahen, too. You're right, best one" - he inclined his head to Gylippos - "we couldn't have made more folk notice the birds with anything we did on purpose."

"You certain couldn't." The purveyor of dried fish looked past Menedemos to Sostratos. "As for trying to tell an Italian anything, well . . ." He tossed his head. "I don't think it can be done. Samnites are stubborn as mules, and the Romans to the north of them are just as bad. It's no wonder they're bumping heads again."

"Again?" Sostratos looked interested. Menedemos recognized the eagerness in his cousin's voice - he hoped he'd find out about some obscure bit of history he hadn't known before. Sure enough, Sostratos went on, "They've fought before?" It was, Menedemos supposed, a harmless vice.

"Yes, a generation ago," Gylippos answered. "The Romans won that fight, and the Samnites went to war with them again ten or twelve years ago. They won a big battle early on, but the Romans were too stubborn to quit, so they've just been hammering away at each other ever since."

Another guest of Gylippos', a Tarentine with a face like one of the host's dried fish, said, "The Samnites who overran some of our poleis in Campania are almost civilized these days."

"Well, so they are, Makrobios - some of them." But Gylippos didn't seem much impressed. "And some of the Hellenes who have to live under their rule are almost civilized, too, if you know what I mean. Greek with an Oscan accent is ugly whether it comes out of a Samnite's mouth or out of a Hellene's."