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Gerochus the farmer enters the tavern and glances around to see if he recognizes anyone. It’s hard to tell, because Phanagora keeps the lighting to a few oil lamps near the wine amphorae. She even dislikes having the lamps at the windows, though this is necessary to let customers know that the establishment is open. She does this, not from parsimony, though olive oil is expensive, but mainly because naked flames, olive oil and drunks do not play well together in a confined and flammable space.
So the room is a shadowy place, with the drinkers mere dark silhouettes hunched over their cups, squinting at dice or engaging in the passionate, high-volume conversation-arguments that are an Athenian speciality. Gerochus has chosen the place and the hour so as to be anonymous. The person he is meeting is there – the grey man in the corner with his back to the room. He is accompanied by a large and truculent sailor who glares at anyone who even thinks of taking the stool opposite.
But as Gerochus slips past and pulls up the stool the sailor merely nods and wanders off in search of refreshment. Gerochus had collected a drink from the landlady as he went by, and now takes a swig, paying no attention to the man opposite.
Evidently the Neriad made good time getting into harbour. Which, admittedly, is more than Gerochus has done getting to the tavern. Palionautos had expected this meeting to happen over an hour ago.
However, Gerochus had to get back from his orchard. And he prefers it when the tavern is gloomy so people won’t recognize him. All it takes is someone who also knows that Palionautos is a sailor and they’ll be exposed: fig farmer plus sailor clearly signals a smuggling operation. If the authorities suspect Gerochus of illegal activity, things could become difficult for all of them.
Gerochus knows that Palionautos thinks these precautions over-dramatic. After all, the old sailor lives across two seas and does not fraternize with Athenians. Yet still he might be recognized by harbour officials or other sailors. Actually, all it would take to trip them up would be a tavern patron observant enough to see that Gerochus is talking to someone with a deep-water tan. No – better the business gets done after dark. The Athenians have zero sense of humour when it comes to people exporting their beloved figs.
Palionautos is silent for a moment. Then he asks, ‘How are the figs this year?’
Gerochus shrugs. It’s a bit early to tell. The season’s shaping up, and there has not been much rain recently. (If it rains while the fruit is ripening, the figs split.) But Gerochus’ first harvest is looking good. If that goes well, then he’ll have a bumper crop in late summer. ‘All is well,’ he replies. ‘I’ll always have figs for you, thanks to my little wasps.’
Gerochus refers to the unusual symbiosis between fig trees and their wasps. Every type of fig tree has a specialist wasp evolved to live and breed within just that fig. Figs are not really fruit at all, but a specialized environment called a syconium. Within the syconium, tiny fig flowers develop without ever seeing sunlight. They are fertilized by equally tiny fig wasps, which mate in one syconium before the females lay their eggs in another, thus spreading the pollen. The actual ‘fruits’ of a fig tree are the many tiny single-seeded fruit contained within the skin of the syconium.
The fig wasp has a short (but thanks to its environment, very sweet) life of weeks or even days. This has affected human development because, to keep their insect symbionts alive, fig trees are among the very few plants that produce some fruit all year round, with the bulk of the fruit coming in the spring and late summer. Because they produce a consistent food supply, fig trees were among the first domesticated plants. There were fig orchards thousands of years before wheat fields.
The first figs arrived in Greece from the Middle East. Indeed, the name for the trees in Gerochus’ orchard, Ficus carica, reflects the Greek belief that the trees came from Caria in Asia Minor. But as far as Gerochus is concerned, his figs are native to Athenian soil, given to a grateful populace as the bounty of the god Dionysus. Sweet and tasty, figs are the food of Olympic champions and the restorer of health to the sick. (Which is none too surprising as figs are packed with fibre, vitamins and minerals.)
‘So the usual load? One-fifth fresh, the rest dried?’
By ‘fresh’, Palionautos means picked the day he sails. He has got to ship his highly perishable cargo across the Aegean and straight to market in Cyzicus. One bad headwind, and a fortune goes rotten in his hold. The fresher the figs the longer they last, and even the freshest figs don’t last that long – a week at best.
Fresh Attic figs are a delicacy even in Athens. They taste fantastic, but they rot quickly. And because figs stop ripening as soon they are taken off the tree, they can only be picked ripe. Thereafter it’s a race to get them to market. Most figs are sold dried, which Gerochus much prefers. If pests (human, animal and insect) are kept away from the finished product, dried figs can remain in storage for up to a year. And another way that figs are different from most fruit is that figs have almost the same nutritional value dried or fresh.
Getting the dried figs on to the Neriad will be a simple matter. For months, Gerochus has been quietly stashing barrels away for that purpose in a hidden cellar under the orchard work shed. The fresh figs are trickier. The morning that the Neriad sails, Gerochus will strip his orchard of all the ripe fruit he can find. Fresh figs have to be discovered by careful examination – the ripe fruit feels slightly soft when squeezed, and sometimes the skin cracks to reveal the pulp beneath.
There will be figs enough, but only just. Once again Gerochus feels a bitter spasm of hatred towards the Spartans who hacked down his beloved trees during the last war. Those were mature trees, several times the height of a man. Some were hundreds of years old, producing their bounty for Gerochus, his father and generations before that. All killed by Spartan hoplites in a pointless spasm of destruction. The gods curse them.
It is only this year that the new trees have started to bear fruit. Gerochus, with tears streaming down his face, had selected two-year growth from the fallen trees, and carefully prepared cuttings from which his new trees would rise. Four years, it had taken. Four years of working as a labourer by day and tending saplings by night, and only now were his trees producing fruit. Even so, Gerochus needs another eight years before his orchard is back in full production.
THE MARKET IN ANCIENT ATHENS
Palionautos will pay cash on receipt of the goods. He could not pay earlier even if he wanted to (and he doesn’t want to) because he won’t have the silver until the grain merchants pay him for his cargo. But at least Gerochus will get paid in Athenian coinage – pure silver minted into Attic owls.
‘The war was easy enough on you merchantmen, wasn’t it?’ remarks Gerochus rather bitterly. ‘You were safely away in the Euxine guarded by the Athenian navy – I even pulled an oar around in those parts myself. Meanwhile, my livelihood was destroyed at home while I was away protecting yours.’
‘Oh, easy. That’s what it was, when your navies were so busy fighting each other that no one suppressed the pirates who came swarming over the seas like flies over a dead dog. Yet when you saw a strange sail on the horizon, you hoped it was pirates. They would just ransom and ruin you, but if the Spartans or their allies found you carrying grain to Athens, they killed you on the spot. If you don’t like foreigners that much, why sell me your figs – especially since it’s against the law?’
It is a sore point. Gerochus is a smuggler because of the debt he accumulated while he was getting his orchard working again. He had received no help from the Athenian state. City voters vote in the interests of city folk, and the problems of country farmers don’t seem to concern them much. They want fresh figs cheap, even if it bankrupts the growers, so Gerochus feels no shame in selling to the highest-paying customer. They’re his figs; what right do those in the city have to keep him from selling to anyone but themselves – at rock-bottom prices, too?
Tomorrow Palionautos will go to Gerochus’ home while the farmer is in his orchard. Gerochus has stashed a couple of sacks in the toolshed so that his customer can examine the goods. Then they will agree the price.
This price is determined by several factors. Firstly there’s the competition. Palionautos is not the only merchantman in Athens who doesn’t mind picking up a high-value cargo on the way home, even if that cargo is illegal.
However, most merchants can smuggle a sackful here, or mix a barrel in with the salted fish there – only the Neriad will take a full harvest, and both Gerochus and Palionautos know it. Also, with the Dionysia coming, the Agora is full of value goods. Palionautos can still do well if he takes a cargo of Italian cloaks and Sicilian cheeses home with him this time.
But Gerochus knows the sailor will certainly check his samples, because no legitimate cargo can offer anything like the same profit margins. He is offering quality figs, because this time they’re from his own orchard. He has even set up a bowl at home for Palionautos to run checks.
This has become necessary since the cargo of illicit figs Gerochus had procured for the Neriad two years ago. Because his own trees were not yet producing, he had begged, borrowed or stolen what he could from the farms of Attica and even harvested figs from wild trees in the rocky ravines on the Boeotian border.
The suspicious Palionautos had demanded a bowl of water. Then he selected a random fresh fig, halved it with a sailor’s knife and placed the halves face down in the bowl. Gerochus had watched miserably as a small maggot quickly wriggled free. Over the next five minutes others followed, and when Palionautos removed the figs, some twenty maggots remained in the bowl, some small as grains of sand, others almost as long as his little fingernail.
Gentlemen of the Jury, many people have come to me, expressing surprise that I have come to the council to accuse these dealers. They say that, no matter how guilty they may be, those who deliver speeches against them are sycophants.
LYSIAS 22 AGAINST THE GRAIN DEALERS (PROLOGUE)
‘A merchant on Thasos showed me that trick,’ Palionautos had remarked conversationally, ‘in the process of slicing my profit margin by three-quarters. Apparently the maggots look almost exactly like the white fibres within the fruit, so you don’t find them until they try to escape from drowning. Did you know that? I’m sure you did.’
Picking up one of the dried figs, Palionautos had scraped away a layer of seeds with his knife. Holding the translucent skin up to the light, he demonstrated how to check dried figs. This specimen had been infested with fruit-fly worms and some larvae, as well as the occasional dead fruit beetle.
Thereafter the deal had been renegotiated, with prices going steeply downwards. On that occasion, Gerochus had settled for little more than he would have got selling the figs to unwary Athenians in the marketplace. Ever since, his quality control has been rigorous. On this occasion, the figs are from Gerochus’ own orchard and he is eager to show off their quality.
Palionautos smiles. Gerochus had been deeply embarrassed by his sub-standard produce, and both parties know that this time around the figs will be excellent. Gerochus suspects that Palionautos is probably looking forward to enjoying a few himself on the voyage home.
Depending how the refit goes, one night soon the Neriad will quietly run up the sandy beach at Phalerum, where Gerochus waits with his illicit barrels in the dunes. Everyone will work fast, rolling the barrels down the beach on to the wet sand and manhandling them into the hold. Then they will carefully add several sack-loads of fresh figs to the smuggled cargo, and a significant amount of silver will change hands.
The entire job will be done in minutes. No one should be on the beach that night, and if there is, it is likely to be another small farmer. These people know how hard the last few years have been for Gerochus and won’t run to the authorities with tales of illicit fig smuggling. No one wants the reputation of being an informer. Those that do are called ‘sycophants’ (literally ‘fig-tellers’). They are not popular.
A city is privileged to have people prepared who prosecute law-breakers. I only wish the public were appropriately grateful. The reality is exactly opposite. Anyone who takes the personal risk of unpopularity for the public good is regarded as a sycophant rather than a patriot.
LYCURGUS AGAINST LEOCRATES 1.3
Business concluded for now, Gerochus is the first to leave. He finishes his wine and stands, casually looking around to see if anyone has been following the conversation. Pentarkes, the assistant tavernkeeper, is standing by the wine amphorae, a cloth in his hands and his face inscrutable in the lamplight. But that’s no problem. Pentarkes and Phanagora know every second secret in the Piraeus. Gerochus smiles to himself as he walks down the darkened street for home. Maybe things will work out after all.
