“May it be so,” Sostratos said. Thinking of Menedemos as someone who’d done something important for Rhodes didn’t come easy. More than a little bemusedly, Sostratos continued, “To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t mind putting to sea in one of those new trihemioliai instead of our akatos here. We’re going east this year, so we’ll have to sail past the Lykian coast, and the Lykians are pirates at sea and bandits on land.”

“Isn’t that the truth? Miserable barbarians.” Khremes paused. “Do you suppose you could use a trihemiolia for a merchant galley?”

“No,” Sostratos answered without hesitation, and tossed his head to emphasize the word. “However much I’d like to, there’s not a chance it’d work,”

“Why not?” the carpenter said. “You’d be the fastest trader on the sea.”

“Yes, and also the most expensive,” Sostratos pointed out. “The Aphrodite sails with forty rowers, plus enough extra men to handle the sail with all the rowing benches filled. They all make at least a drakhma a day; most of them make a drakhma and a half. That’s two minai of silver every three days in wages, more or less. But a trihemiolia would carry more than three times as many men to pull the oars. That’d be-let me see- Zeus, that’d be about two minai every single day. We’d have to carry nothing but gold and rubies to have any chance of breaking even with expenses like that.”

“Ah.” Khremes dipped his head. “No doubt you’re right, best one. I hadn’t thought about costs, only about the ship.”

Sostratos was toikharkhos aboard the Aphrodite , Everything that had to do with the cargo fell to him. He thought of costs first, last, and always. But, because he liked Khremes, he let him down easy: “Well, my dear fellow, I wouldn’t know where to begin when it comes to putting a ship together.”

“You begin at the beginning-where else?” the carpenter said. “You make your shell of planks, and you fasten them all together with mortises and tenons so the shell’s good and strong, and then you nail some ribs to the inside for a little extra stiffness.”