John Roberts - The Princess and the Pirates

“That’s the last thing my wife needs.” Something occurred to me. “Isn’t there some sort of Parthian monopoly on the silk trade these days?”

“King Hyrodes claims that privilege, but the caravaneers are adept at avoiding his customs collectors. Just now the trade lanes are open, courtesy of your General Gabinius.”

No doubt, I thought, a large piece of the trade stuck to his fingers, too. Gabinius had been quite successful in the East, although he had not gained the sort of renown that Caesar and Pompey had acquired; but our generals were accustomed to enriching themselves at the expense of the barbarians, and Gabinius had done well out of his proconsulship.

I bade the silk merchant good-bye and continued my explorations. As one might expect in a sea-lanes emporium like Paphos, wares from the whole eastern sea were on display, some for domestic sale but most to attract other merchants who might buy in bulk for transshipment farther west. If a merchant had one fine glass vase on his table, he was sure to have a warehouse full of them down at the docks, ready to load up for you, cheap.

I stopped in the Temple of Poseidon and made the promised sacrifice and admired the wonderful statue of that maritime god, executed by Praxiteles more than three hundred years before. In the great days of the Greek colonies, each city had competed with all the others to commission the finest sculptures and paintings from the greatest artists. Paphos, it seemed, had done especially well.

“Where now?” Hermes asked, as we left the temple.

“The naval docks. It’s time to act like an official.”

The naval basin of Paphos lay to one side of the commercial harbor, just within the long breakwater built to protect the ships from the worst effects of storms. It was an artificial harbor forming a half circle lined with low-roofed stone sheds to accommodate thirty ships. Inside the sheds the floors sloped upward so that the ships could be floated in, their masts and oars removed, then hauled up out of the water for repairs: to have their bottoms scraped, tarred, and painted, or for other work. During the stormy season, the ships were stored in these sheds, high and dry.

This facility turned out to be in the care of one Harmodias, a retired naval shipmaster who took his time about responding to my shouts and door pounding. His office was a little house situated among the warehouses for naval stores next to the sheds. He opened the door, blinking his one eye and scratching in his beard, wrapped in a moth-eaten garment that was also the blanket he had been sleeping in.

“What’s all this racket?” he demanded, last night’s wine still strong on his breath.

“I am Senator Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger,” I announced grandly. “I bear a senatorial commission to scour this area for pirates.”

He removed his hand from his beard and scratched his backside. “Well, good luck.” He walked to a small fountain that bubbled into a shell-shaped basin near his doorway and plunged his face into the water, shook his head and blew a while, then straightened, wiping his face with a corner of the disreputable robe.

“I expect your cooperation,” I said.

“If I had any to give, you’d be welcome to it,” he assured me. “But, as you can see, Roman naval power on Cyprus is diminished since its days of glory.”

“I noticed. What happened to the ships?”

He sat on a stone bench and worked his toes against the pavement as if they were numb. Clearly this man woke up a part at a time. “Well, let’s see. Five years ago I had ten fine triremes, ten Liburnians, and five penteconters, perfectly immaculate and with all their gear. Then General Crassus wanted them for his Parthian war. After that, General Gabinius wanted them for his campaigns in Syria and Egypt. Last year, General Pompey requisitioned them and sent them out to support General Caesar’s war in Gaul. That’s where they are now, if they’re still afloat.”

“Generals put a high demand on Rome’s military resources,” I commiserated.

“You’ve got that right. When I first went to sea, it was admirals used the ships for sea battles. Now all the navy does is ferry supplies for the legions, get them across water obstacles, run errands for them, anything but cruise and fight. It’s no work for a real sailor, I can tell you.”

“Well, I’ve work for you now. I’m here with three ships-” He snorted loudly. “Ships! I saw them yesterday. Senator, your ships are cockleshells, and your crews are scum. Go sacrifice to Poseidon and ask him to keep a wide stretch of water between your little fleet and those pirates.”

“I’ve already sacrificed. I asked for good cruising weather, and Neptune is cooperating so far. I’ll be needing arms and provisions, so if you’ll kindly unlock your storehouses I will inspect what you have.”

“That won’t take long,” he grumbled, getting up and lurching back into his house. He returned with a ring of massive, iron keys. He had straightened his clothing somewhat and now wore a patch over the ruin of his left eye. Fully awake and walking steadily, he looked more like my idea of an old salt relegated by age to shore duty.

“As you might imagine,” he said, as he strolled toward the smallest of the storehouses, “our squabbling generals got most of the stores as well. I didn’t want to be totally stripped, so I hid some of my stores on a farm inland. That way I’d have a little something should we have to deal with an emergency.”

He twisted a key in one of the large, double doors and tugged it open. “I mean, if you have to, you can press a merchantman into service, even build a serviceable ship in a few days out of green wood if you’ve the carpenters for it. But try to come up with one of these on short notice.” He slapped a hand down on a massive bronze object that rested waist-high on wooden supports. It was molded in a rough semblance of Neptune’s trident, but it probably weighed four or five hundred pounds. It was a ship’s ram, and there were ten more like it, each of a different shape: boar’s head, eagle, thunderbolt, crocodile, and so forth, each of them capable of ripping a great hole in a ship’s hull and sending it to the bottom.

“This is the arsenal. Shields are over there on that wall.” He pointed to a wall covered with perhaps two hundred shields. “They used to cover all the walls and the ceiling beams. Swords are on those racks in the back. Bows and arrows are stored in chests in the rear room, along with barrels of lead sling pellets.”

“Catapults?” I asked. “Ballistae?”

“Not a one. Gabinius got the last of them.” He shrugged. “Those things deteriorate fast in storage anyway. Best to build new ones for each season’s fighting.”

The next building held spars, masts, oars, and other woodwork; another held sails and awnings; another chains, ropes, and other cordage. The whole lot: arms, wood, cloth, rope, and iron work would have fit easily into one of the buildings and left plenty of room to spare.

“What about provisions?” I asked, without much hope.

“Not a bite. What the generals didn’t get, the mice did. Not so much as a sack of raisins left. I’ve plenty of good jars, but you’ll have to fill them with wine, water, oil, and vinegar yourself. There are plenty of ship’s victuallers in the town. I can tell you which of them are the least dishonest.”

“I was afraid of this.” As I pondered my dismal situation, I noticed a small storehouse separated from the others by some distance. “What’s in there?”

“Pitch, paint, and naptha,” Harmodias said. “That’s why it’s kept at a distance. One spark in there and the whole harbor could go up.”

“Let’s have a look at it.”

“Whatever you say, Senator.” We walked to the small storehouse. Like the others it was stoutly built of massive stone, roofed with red tiles, its small windows covered with bronze grates. Even before the Greek got the door open, I could smell the contents. Even the pungency of the pitch and paint was overwhelmed by the powerful odor of naptha.