Over the Wine-Dark Sea H. N.Turteltaub  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATESBOOKNew Yorkwww.ebookyes.com  This is a work offiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are eitherfictitious or are used fictitiously. OVER THE WINE-DARK SEA Copyright  2001 by H. N.Turteltaub All rights reserved,including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. Edited by PatrickNielsen Hayden Map by Mark SteinStudios A Forge BookPublished by Tom DohertyAssociates, LLC175 Fifth AvenueNew York, NY 10010 www.tor.com Forge is a registeredtrademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC. ISBN 0-312-70193-4 First Edition: July 2001  By H. N. Turteltaub fromTom Doherty Associates JustinianOver the Wine-Dark Sea This book is forProfessor Stanley Burstein of California State University, Los Angeles, and forNoreen Doyle, with many thanks for their friendship and for their help with myresearch.

A NOTE ONWEIGHTS, MEASURES, AND MONEY I have, as best I could, used in this novel the weights,measures, and coinages my characters would have used and encountered in theirjourney. Here are some approximate equivalents (precise values would havevaried from city to city, further complicating things): 1 digit = 3/4 inch

4 digits = 1 palm

6 palms = 1 cubit

1 cubit = 1 1/2 feet

1 plethron = 100 feet

1 stadion = 600 feet 12 khalkoi = 1 obolos

6 oboloi = 1 drakhma

100 drakhmai = 1 mina

(about 1 pound of silver)

60 minai = 1 talent As noted, these are all approximate. As a measure of howwidely they could vary, the talent in Athens was about 57 pounds, while that ofAigina, less than thirty miles away, was about 83 pounds.  

1 Menedemos and his cousinSostratos walked down toward the Aphrodite in the main harbor of Rhodes. Both young men wore thigh-length wool chitons. Sostratos had a wool chlamys on over histunic. He didn't really need the cloak, though; it was still late in the monthof Anthesterion, before the vernal equinox, but the sun shone warm out of aclear blue sky. Like any men who often went to sea, the two cousins wentbarefoot even on dry land.