Read Online GreekQuest by Herbie Brennan - Free Book Online

you proudly. “And lots of other fish if you’re feeling fishy. Thessaly puddings here if you like Thessally puddings. And prime ribs of beef.”
    Since you’re not hungry at the moment you ask, “What are you doing selling stuff here?”
    â€œIt’s my job,” he says. “You sound like a barbarian, so I’ll fill you in. I’m from Athens and we’ve got four social classes. There’s the pentakosiomedimnoi - they’re the nobs. Then there’s the hippeis, who’ve enough cash to buy a horse. After that you’ve got the zeugitai, who’ve at least got a plough and two oxen and finally there’s the thetes - they’re the poorest landowners.”
    â€œAnd which are you?”
    â€œNone of them,” he says. “I’m a metoikoi. That makes me lower than a thetes. Actually it makes me even lower than a woman, which is saying something. A metoikoi is a Greek from another city state who’s currently living in Athens. Since we’re not allowed to own land and we don’t have the vote and aren’t thought of as citizens, we usually become merchants, which is what I did.”
    His range of goods is extraordinary. As well as the food, he shows you sails, rigging and papyrus from Egypt, ivory from Africa, raisins from Rhodes, carpets from Carthage, spices, ceramics and much, much more.
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    You can buy anything you want from the items mentioned at a nominal sum of three obols each since he’s taken a liking to you. After that, the paths out of here lead north west to 156 , north east to 112 , or south east to 99 .
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104
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    â€œAn excellent choice!” exclaims King Menelaus. “I was thinking of making a huge wooden horse, filling it with men and leaving it outside the walls of Troy while the rest of us pretend to retreat. Paris is so thick he’ll think it’s a gift and take it inside. When he does, our men will jump from the horse and open the gates for the rest of us. What do you think?”
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    If you like the notion, go to 160 . If you think it’s the dumbest idea you’ve ever heard in your life, you can tell him so at 73 .
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106
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    â€œThat’s all very well,” you say haughtily, “but you’d better make an exception in my case since Zeus sent me.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you say!” exclaims the priest. “Follow me!”
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    With which he leads you to 82 .
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109
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    The first day of the two-day run to Athens proves uneventful and you’ve lots of time to admire the scenery. The country is amazingly picturesque in a rocky, mountainy sort of way, and while the soil doesn’t look all that wonderful, the slave farmers manage to grow oranges, olives, dates, pomegranates, figs and even cotton.
    In the wilder areas, you get to admire tulips, hyacinths, and laurel which seem to have come up without any help from anybody.
    Although Pheidippides wants to keep going, you insist on taking a short rest in the heat of the afternoon. Pheidippides has gone off to find a stream to refill your water skins and you’ve just settled down gratefully in the shade of a tree when you hear a peculiar snuffling sound. You look round to discover a large black boar is watching you with beady brown eyes.
    You start to scramble to your feet. “Nice boar,” you say soothingly. “Pretty piggy.”
    The boar charges.
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    This bad tempered animal has only 20 Life Points, but it will automatically get in the first strike and it has tusks that will do you +5 damage. If this little hassle kills you, go to 13 .
    If you survive, you should know that roast wild boar not only tastes delicious, but is low in fat and if cooked in oil pressed from olives, high in polyunsaturates, so each meal will restore a double dice