The Sacred Land is the third book in the Hellenic Traders

Hellenic Traders

Hellenic Traders refers to a series of historical fiction books published by TOR and written by H.N. Turteltaub . The books center around cousins Menedemos and Sostratos who work as seaborne traders in the years following the death of Alexander the Great...

 series by H N Turteltaub

Harry Turtledove

Harry Norman Turtledove is an American novelist, who has produced works in several genres including alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction.- Life :...

. Like the others in the series it is a work of historical fiction concerning the adventures of a pair of Greek

Greeks

The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....

 traders from Rhodes

Rhodes

Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...

.

Plot

In the book, Sostratos, the more scholarly of the pair, visits Jerusalem, where he tries to learn more about the odd monotheists

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 who live there. Menedemos, meanwhile, fulfills his usual role of paying more attention to profits than prophets and pays a great deal of attention to women (occasionally those married to other men).

Setting

The setting is in Jerusalem and the surrounding area in the period of time about thirty years after the death of Alexander the Great. As in the other books in the series, persons and places are frequently given their Greek names rather than the English ones (Sokrates, Platon, etc).