| Owls to Athens | |
| Author: | Harry Turtledove |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | Hellenic Traders |
| Genre: | Historical novel |
| Publisher: | Forge Books (Tor) |
| Release Date: | 2004 |
| Media Type: | |
| Pages: | 382 |
| Isbn: | 0-7653-0038-9 |
| Dewey: | 813/.54 22 |
| Congress: | PS3570.U758 O95 2004 |
| Oclc: | 55625156 |
| Preceded By: | The Sacred Land |
| Followed By: | Salamis |
Owls to Athens is a historical novel written by H.N. Turteltaub (a pseudonym of Harry Turtledove). It was first published in hardcover by Forge Books in December 2004. The book was reissued under the author's real name as a trade paperback and ebook by Phoenix Pick in March 2015. It is the fourth book of the so-called "Hellenic Traders" series of historical novels.
The book features the continuing adventures of a pair of Greek traders from Rhodes. Sostratos and Menedemos arrive in Athens in time for the Dionysia. Sostratos spends much of his time visiting with his old teachers. His cousin, Menedemos, finds himself having a sexual encounter with an important Athenian woman.
"Taking owls to Athens" was a contemporary Greek saying, roughly the equivalent of the modern "selling snow to eskimos" or "carrying coals to Newcastle". The saying referred to the owl depicted on Athenian silver drachmas, Attica being home to large silver mines.
The setting is Athens in 307 BC, sixteen years after the death of Alexander the Great.[1] As in the other books in the series, persons and places are frequently given their original Greek names (Sokrates, Platon, etc.) rather than the Latin-derived ones common in English.