Hey Prime members, you can listen to Tides of History, add free on Amazon Music.

Download the app today. The heart the Mediterranean. Voices called out prices and loading instructions,

haggled over costs, complained about the lateness of an anticipated shipment,

whined about poor treatment, cajoled and argued in Holland. They did so in a bewildering profusion of different languages.

A kaleidoscope of tongues competed for space, their users hailing from all over a vast and interconnected world.

Some had come to the Sijian port from the great grasslands to the north,

others from the coastal city states dotting the many different shores of the sea,

still others from isolated mountain valleys or the depths of the

dark forests to the west. Some had come by choice, driven to seek out adventure or profit or

renown. Others had no say in the matter. The shackles and ropes finding them

marked them as unwilling participants in the market to which they had been brought.

The merchant from Tyre made his way through the crowded alleys, stepping around baskets of fruit and displays of fine ceramics.

He answered a fellow Phoenician in their shared language, replying to a query about the price of grain in Athens and laughing at a joke about the overpriced wine in a city neither cared much for.

He turned to a dialect of Greek, Doric, learned in his youth during a stopover in the city of Corinth

to inquire about the coming autumn storms in the

central Mediterranean.

Muddling through his small stock of Lydian words he managed to exchange a coin for a

cup of sour wine and a hunk of bread still warm from the ovens.

By the time he reached the crowd gathered around the group of slaves waiting to be sold,

he had heard half a dozen different languages at the least, probably more.

The Tyry and I, the twenty or so captives gathered around the cellar with a professional eye.

He noted that they seemed to be in good health, with one or two exceptions.

...