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Summary
Summary
In Rhodes, Menedemos is a young, daring sea captain; and scholarly, reserved Sostratos is his cousin. Now Menedemos and Sostratos plan their largest, most audacious trading voyage yet, which will take them from the shores of Asia Minor all the way to the coasts of faraway Italy, and to confrontations with the barbarians of an obscure town called Rome. Along the way they will buy and sell wine, silks, and evento the astonishment of allpeacocks.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
There's a mountain of solid scholarship entertainingly dished out in this fact-based historical tale of an ancient trading mission in the years following the death of Alexander the Great. But the featureless "and then" narration renders the story at once engrossing and flat. Dispensing facts chiefly through dialogue, Turteltaub not so much narrates as lays out the trading journey of the Aphrodite, under the command of two Rhodian cousins, Menedemos and Sostratos, as they attempt to carry, among other items of cargo, a peacock and some peahens safely from Rhodes to Pompeii in Italy. Along the way, the cousins, who are paired off like an ancient Greek version of Oscar and Felix (Menedemos is the roustabout, Sostratos the accountant), take their own and each other's measure and play a part in larger historical events. But because there is little authorial direction with everything communicated through his characters' mouths, third-person narration is almost nonexistent the story and the history are flavorless and forgettable. Turteltaub (familiar to readers of science fiction as Harry Turtledove) may have intended this stripped-down style to add to his tale's realism, but there is little life behind his impressive armada of facts. And since we share their thoughts but little of their inner life, the two main characters rarely rise above their schematic position as opposites. The journey of the trading vessel Aphrodite may have covered hundreds of miles, but the reader will end this novel still waiting for the book's real journey to begin. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Turteltaub (the pseudonym of historical-fantasist Harry Turtledove, Colonization, 2001, etc.) takes an excursion to ancient Greece. In 310 b.c., Greece still dominates the Western (and much of the Eastern) world, but there are some ominous clouds on the horizon: Alexander the Great is dead, his Empire is overextended, and a power struggle among his generals threatens to erupt into civil war. We see all of this through the eyes of the sailor Menedemos and his cousin and sidekick, the mathematician and philosopher Sostratos. Commanding the galley-ship Aphrodite (owned by their merchant fathers), Menedemos and Sostratos are less interested in earning money for their families than they are in capturing fame for themselves. They set out on a longer course than they have ever attempted before, far from their native Rhodes all the way to Italy and a little-known barbarian town called Rome. Sostratos discovers peoples, languages, plants, and animals unheard of in Greece, while the wily Menedemos harbors dreams of glory that go beyond simple riches to reach at the kind of power that was Alexanders downfall. With a cargo of untold rarities captured from the new world of Rome, they try to find their way home to enjoy the fame that awaits them. But there are a few obstacles along the way. . . . Aristotle meets Homer in this original tale of ideas and adventure.
Library Journal Review
A painless way to learn history is to read a well-researched historical novel such as this latest from Turteltaub (a pseudonym for novelist Harry Turtledove, author of Justinian, LJ 6/15/98). Here, he instructs and entertains with a novel of Rhodes in 310 B.C.E. Menedemos and Sostratos, two very engaging (and very different) cousins, are traders on the Mediterranean in such exotic cargo as silks, wine, and peacocks. Their adventures as they journey from Rhodes to Asia Minor and Italy form the basis of the story. Along the way, we learn about sailing, dress, eating, and other everyday customs of the Hellenistic world. Although the book has maps and a table of weights, measures, and money, it suffers from the lack of a glossary; unfamiliar words frequently interrupt the flow and do not always have contextual clues, limiting the pleasure one would take in this otherwise well-written book. Fred M. Gervat, Concordia Coll. Lib., Bronxville, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.