Rhodes, 310 BC. Greek traders dominate the Eastern Mediterranean, from Italy and Carthage in the west to the Levant in the east. The great Alexander is thirteen years dead, and his feuding generals gaze covetously at one another's portions of empire. Amidst mounting tension, the trading city of Rhodes is prosperous - and studiedly neutral. There in Rhodes, Menedemos is a young, daring sea captain; scholarly, reserved Sostratos is his cousin. Their fathers jointly own a merchant galley, the Aphrodite, and they expect Menedemos and Sostratos to use it to enrich their families. But now the cousins 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. Each of them has strengths the other lacks. Now, in the troubled waters off of Sicily, they face a chance at untold riches...if they can evade the massed strength of the Carthaginian fleet.