Olmia: In the Eddisian stories of the old gods, Olmia the weaver made a hat from bird feathers for the god Eugenides.

Onarkus: The head of the queen of Attolia’s kitchen.

Oneis: A heroic figure from the Epic of Oneis.

The Oracle: Oracle and high priestess at the new temple being built for Hephestia above the palace in Attolia.

Ornon: A minster to the queen of Eddis. Ambassador to Attolia. Subsequently Attolia’s Ambassador to the Mede empire.

Pelles: One of Eugenides’s attendants.

Petrus: Attolia’s personal physician for years.

Philia: One of the goddesses of the Attolian pantheon. She is goddess of mercy.

Philologos: Youngest but highest ranking of Eugenides’s attendants.

Phoros: A baron in Eddis; father of Agape, Hegite, and two other daughters.

Phresine: Oldest of Attolia’s attendants.

Piloxides: One of Attolia’s generals.

Pol: Captain of Sophos’s father’s guard; a soldier.

Polyfemus: One of the giants who supposedly built the old walls of Sounis’s prison and the roads of Eddis.

Proas: An Eddisian god of green and growing things.

Prokep: A Mede god; a statue of him was made by the sculptor Sudesh.

Queen of the Night: Sister of Death and mother of Unse-Sek.

Relius: Attolia’s secretary of the archives before being arrested for treason.

Roamanj: A caravan master who hires Costis and Kamet as guards.

Sejanus: The youngest child of Baron Erondites.

Senabid: A character in skits, a slave who makes a fool of his master.

Shef: A slave dealer in the Mede Empire.

Shesmegah: In the Mede pantheon, goddess of mercy, forgiveness, and second chances.

Sky (god): Created by Earth, he is the second god in the Eddisian pantheon.

Sophos (Useless the Younger): Apprentice of the magus; future duke; nephew of the king and his heir. He becomes king of Sounis.

Sotis: One of Eugenides’s senior attendants.

Sounis: Sophos’s uncle and king of Sounis. He had no children of his own. In exchange for his half brother’s support he has named his nephew, Sophos, as his heir.

Stadicos: One of Attolia’s barons, corrupted by the Mede ambassador, Nahuseresh.

Stenides: Eugenides’s brother, a watchmaker.

Susa: One of Attolia’s barons. Devious, but not necessarily an enemy of the queen. He is baron over the lands where Costis’s family has their farm.

Teleus: captain of the queen of Attolia’s personal guard.

Temenus: Gen’s brother, a soldier.

Tenep: Usually the most gentle of the gods, she turns her anger on the world when Ennikar steals from her.

Thales: Wrote about the basic elements of the universe; Eugenides was copying his scroll before he went on his mission to Attolia.

Thalia: Costis’s younger sister.

Themis: Erondites recruits Themis and hopes to make her the king’s mistress, but Eugenides only dances with Themis’s younger sister, Heiro.

Therespides: A member of the Eddisian court, known for his philandering.

Timos: Cousin of Eugenides and Eddis. He dies stopping Attolia’s advance up the main pass into Eddis.

Titus: Gen’s cousin who once broke several of Gen’s ribs in a beating.

Unse-Sek: A terrible monster that roamed the isthmus in the stories of Immakuk and Ennikar, child of the Queen of the Night.

Witch of Urkell: In the Epic of Immakuk and Ennikar, she is Ennikar’s lover and the daughter of Ninur.

Xanthe: Eddis’s most senior attendant.

Xenophon: One of Eddis’s generals.

Zerchus: A cook in Attolia’s kitchens.

A TRIP TO MYCENAE

BY MEGAN WHALEN TURNER

The inspiration for the underwater temple in THE THIEF is actually a cistern at the ancient city of Mycenae in Greece.

In 1992 I went to Greece for the first time. Back then they had a sign up at the entrance to every archeological site threatening dire consequences if you so much as picked the flowers, but otherwise, they pretty much let you explore on your own. I loved it, even though there wasn’t much information provided and many things you had to figure out for yourself. The best you could hope for were these little square signs like glorified tent pegs scattered around a site with numbers on them. The numbers corresponded to entries in the Michelin Green Guide and if you didn’t have a Green Guide, too bad. Fortunately, I did have one and still have it. I take it with me whenever I go back to Greece.

If there was very little signage, there were also very few restrictions. When we took the ferry to the island of Delos, which is one vast archeological site, they dropped us off on a little dock, said to be sure not to miss the last ferry back to Mykonos, and then they motored away. My husband and I spent the entire day wandering all over the island—stepping carefully through ruined buildings, looking at the mosaic floors, standing under the massive stones propped against one another to make the roof of a shrine. If we’d been in the US there would have been a boardwalk, lined with fences, and we wouldn’t have been allowed to touch anything, and everything I most wanted to see would be miles from the path, because that’s what always happens to me.

If the Department of Antiquities wasn’t interested in keeping tourists cooped up behind fences, it wasn’t much interested in keeping them safe, either. It’s not always clear in pictures, but the Parthenon, for example, on top of Athens’s Acropolis, is at the edge of a perpendicular drop. This drop is marked with a line of those ankle-high tent peg signs, this time connected by the low swags of a rope, really more likely to trip you and help you over the edge than anything else. I got the impression that if you were dumb enough to fall off the Acropolis, the Department of Antiquities didn’t care so long as you didn’t break an Antiquity when you landed.

That is why when we were standing outside the entrance to an underground cistern several thousand years old, dressed in our tourist uniform of khaki camp shorts, white T-shirts, and hiking boots, we were stupidly considering taking the stairs down into the dark. We were in Mycenae, the most powerful city in the Peloponnese during the days of Helen of Troy. The day before we’d been in Corinth and we’d taken another inviting set of stairs into the remains of a Roman cistern, a gloriously huge room with an arched ceiling held up by rows and rows of pillars, lit by the sun’s rays puncturing its broken roof, shining on the rubble underneath. It had been perfectly safe, I’m sure.