Owls to Athens is the fourth book in the Hellenic Traders series by H N Turteltaub. Like the others in the series it is a work of historical fiction concerning the adventures of a pair of Greek traders from Rhodes. "Taking owls to Athens" was a contemporary Greek saying, roughly the equivalent of the modern "selling snow to eskimos" or "carrying coals to Newcastle".
Famous quotes containing the words owls and/or athens:
“There was an old man with a beard,
who said, “It is just as I feared!—
Two owls and a hen, four larks and a wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!””
—Edward Lear (1812–1888)
“If one doubts whether Grecian valor and patriotism are not a fiction of the poets, he may go to Athens and see still upon the walls of the temple of Minerva the circular marks made by the shields taken from the enemy in the Persian war, which were suspended there. We have not far to seek for living and unquestionable evidence. The very dust takes shape and confirms some story which we had read.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)