Harry Turtledove: Over the Wine-Dark Sea

"The older I get, the more sense I think Nestor makes," his father answered. "And as for you, it's a wonder you're not singing the praises of Thersites."

"Homer makes Thersites a loudmouthed fool," Menedemos said. Then, seeing the gleam in his father's eye, he retreated in a hurry.

Sostratos wrapped his himation around himself and over his left shoulder. He peered down, trying to study the effect. He was hoping for philosophical; his beard would help there. But a true philosopher wouldn't have worn a tunic under the himation, or else wouldn't have put the wrap on over a chiton. Sokrates had gone about in nothing but his tunic in all kinds of weather. Sostratos shrugged. He wasn't Sokrates. He felt the chill.

Someone knocked on the door. His father: Lysistratos said, "Are you ready?"

"Yes, Father." Sostratos opened the door. His father inspected him like an officer looking over a soldier in his phalanx. Sostratos flushed. "I won't disgrace us."

"No, of course not," Lysistratos said, though he didn't sound completely convinced. "Come on, it's sundown. Let's grab a torch and go on over to my brother's."

They needed the torch; this late in the month, the moon wouldn't rise until a little before sunup. More guests, also carrying torches, were rapping on Philodemos' door as they walked up. One of the men turned to Sostratos and Lysistratos and said, "Hail, best ones. Is it you that bought peafowl from Himilkon the Phoenician?"

"I didn't, Lykon," Lysistratos answered. "My son made the bargain, along with his cousin Menedemos."

Lykon shot questions at Sostratos as if he were a slinger shooting lead bullets. As Sostratos was answering them, another merchant, a plump fellow named Telephos, came up to the doorway and started asking some of the same ones over again.

To Sostratos' relief, he didn't have to answer them twice, for the door opened and Philodemos said, "Welcome, my friends. Hail, Lysistratos. Hail, Sostratos. Come in, all of you." He sniffed. "By all means, come in. You can already smell the opson cooking, and it will be ready soon."

The odor of frying seafood came wafting out through the doorway. The guests jostled one another, each more eager than the next to get inside. Sostratos dipped his head in greeting to Philodemos. "Hail, Uncle," he said.

"Hail," Philodemos said again, his voice more sour than not. "I thought, when you went down to the Aphrodite, you would keep Menedemos out of mischief. Instead, I find you joining in. Three hundred twenty-five drakhmai. Pheu!"

"Three hundred twenty-four and three oboloi, actually," Sostratos replied. "And we'll bring back more from Italy. I truly think we will." He was also truly annoyed Philodemos should reckon him hardly better than a pedagogue, a slave who took a boy to and from his teacher's and kept an eye on him to make sure he stayed out of mischief on the way.

"I hope you do." By the way his uncle said it, he might hope, but he didn't expect.

Menedemos stood in the entranceway to the andron, silhouetted by the torches and lamps within. "Hail," he said as Sostratos came up.

Sostratos sniffed again. The ambrosial aromas from the kitchen weren't all he smelled. "Roses?" he asked.

"And why not?" Menedemos replied. He'd always been something of a dandy. "Rhodes is the city of the rose. There's a rose stamped onto the port side of the Aphrodite's ram, along with far-shooting Apollo on the other. I thought I'd deck myself out with scented oil tonight." He lowered his voice: "I hoped it would help sweeten Father, too, but no luck there. What did he say to you on the way in?"

"Nothing too good," Sostratos said, and his cousin winced. He went on, "But the bargain stands. We still have the chance for the last laugh - as long as the birds don't take sick." Menedemos spat into the bosom of his chiton to avert the evil omen. Sostratos asked, "Where will you have us reclining?"

"Almost all the way over to the right, of course, on the couch next to Father and me," Menedemos said. "Why? Did you think we would slight you?"

"Not really," Sostratos said.

He must have sounded hesitant. His cousin said, "Father may be angry at you and me, but he'd never insult Uncle Lysistratos by moving him, and he can't very well move you alone and give your father a new couchmate. As far as the outside world knows, all's well - mm, well enough - among us."

"The outside world certainly knows about the peafowl," Sostratos said. "I hope Himilkon hasn't been going through the wineshops boasting of getting the better of us. That'd be all we need."

Menedemos made as if to spit into his bosom again, but refrained. "Go on in," he said. "We'll eat, then we'll drink, and we'll have fun with the flutegirls and the acrobat. And tomorrow is another day, and we'll drink our morning wine fast and eat raw cabbage to ease our sore heads."

To Sostratos' way of thinking, the best way to ease back into things after a night of excess was to drink well-watered wine the next day. That didn't seem to cross Menedemos' mind. Sostratos' cousin had never been one to do things by halves.

"Go on in, boys, go on in," Telephos said. "If you stand in the doorway, a hefty fellow like me can't squeeze by." He patted his paunch and wheezed laughter.

If you spent more time at the gymnasion and less with a bowl of sweetmeats beside you, you'd have no trouble fitting through a doorway, Sostratos thought. But he and Menedemos went into the andron, and Telephos followed. Menedemos' father, bustling about like a goose trying to keep track of all her goslings at once, escorted the plump merchant to the couch he'd chosen for him.

Cushions rested on all the couches. Sostratos took his place beside his father on the couch next to that of their hosts. Lysistratos, being the elder, leaned on his elbow at the head of the couch. Sostratos reclined farther down, so that his feet hung off the edge.

He prodded his cushion, trying to get comfortable. It wasn't easy. In a low voice, he told his father, "I'm not what you'd call fond of fancy dinners. My arm goes to sleep, and I always spill food on my clothes."

Lysistratos shrugged. "It's the custom, and custom - "

"Is king of all," Sostratos finished, quoting Herodotos quoting Pindaros. His father dipped his head in agreement.

"All right, where's Kleagoras?" Menedemos said when only one space on one of the seven couches remained unfilled. "Late again, I see."

"Kleagoras would be late to his own funeral," Philodemos said sourly.

"Well, there are worse things," Sostratos' father remarked. "I wouldn't mind being late to mine, to tell you the truth." That drew chuckles from the three sides of the open-frontect rectangle in which the couches were arranged.

"Yes, Uncle, but at your funeral you wouldn't be waiting to eat Sikon's good fish and hoping it didn't burn," Menedemos said.

Kleagoras came bustling in just then. He always moved as if in a hurry, but somehow never got anywhere on time. "A thousand pardons, best ones," he said, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Very good to be here, very good indeed." He was panting as he slid down onto his couch. He might have run all the way from his house to this one, but running hadn't done him much good.

"You made it at last, Kleagoras, and I'm glad you did." Philodemos sounded welcoming and annoyed at the same time. Kleagoras' answering smile was sheepish. Philodemos turned to a slave who hovered by his couch. "Go to the kitchen and tell Sikon we can begin." The young man trotted away.

A moment later, more slaves came into the andron, setting a low, small table in front of each couch. They brought out bowls of pickled olives and onions to start the meal. Sostratos took an olive with his right hand and popped it into his mouth. When he'd worked off all the tart flesh, he spat the pit on the floor. After the feast was over and before the symposion began, the house slaves would clear away the debris.