‘Good,’ one of the girls remarked. ‘No chance of peppered tuna sauce getting where it’s not wanted.’
As her colleagues giggled, I hoped the pipe halter hid my blushes. The district brotherhood dinners I’m used to are clearly more sedate than these upper-class banquets.
As we were ushered in, the diners were ready to make the first libation of the evening; taking their first and only sip of unmixed wine from the symposium cup that marked the end of the eating and the start of serious drinking.
As Megakles piously entreated the Spirit of Holy Goodness and the cup began to circulate, Potainos gave his musicians the nod. They struck up a hymn of praise and I mimed as the girls sang. They were as good as Hyanthidas had said and I couldn’t blame Potainos for warning off an amateur like me.
As we concluded the hymn, I studied Megakles. A man so well-fleshed could never have gone hungry. His beard barely concealed the slack flab beneath his chin, and his loose, expensively brocaded tunic didn’t do as much as he hoped to conceal the rolls of fat cascading from his chest to his belly.
As host, he stood by his couch behind an enormous wine-mixing vessel. It was one of the fanciest styles, with high decorative handles featuring bunches of grapes. A picture of Dionysos lolling on a boat decorated the curved side. The god was eating grapes from the vines that were coiling up through the rigging while hapless sailors leapt into the sea, to be transformed into dolphins.
It stood twice as tall as my forearm is long, but it would have to be that big to keep every cup filled. This was quite a gathering. Not that this was a problem. Megakles’s opulent dining room was easily big enough to accommodate all his guests as well as this troupe of entertainers.
‘Shall we mix the wine with four measures of water or three?’ Megakles asked no one in particular. Slaves stood patiently waiting, one with the amphora of wine and one with the heavy jug of spring water. Several guests offered opinions, all men used to getting their own way.
I reckoned that helped me identify those who wanted to get down to business before everyone got too drunk. One measure of wine to three of water would be too strong, they insisted. One to four was too weak, protested the others. I guessed they were here to be beguiled like Aristarchos.
Megakles raised a commanding hand. ‘We will mix five of water with two of wine. No!’ He halted the slave about to slosh water into the mixing vessel. ‘How cold is that?’
As he held up a cup for a splash of water in order to check its temperature, two of the men who’d differed on mixing the wine united in their objections to pouring the water first and then adding the wine. Others were equally vociferous, insisting it should be done the other way. Blessed Dionysos save us all from such fussiness.
Megakles acknowledged his guests’ differing opinions with a courteous nod. ‘We will pour the wine first next time and see who can tell the difference. Now,’ he continued, finally allowing the studiously blank-faced slaves to tilt the heavy jug and the amphora, ‘who will give us the first song?’
Four guests fancied themselves as praise singers and eagerly raised their hands. Megakles decided who should perform first and Potainos dutifully handed over his own lyre. I stood behind the other musicians and tried to look as if I was gazing at the room’s fine decor.
It was worth admiring. The walls behind the diners’ couches were painted with fine scenes of ships at anchor in some distant island’s bays where nymphs frolicked in the surf. Twelve benches were raised up on the broad ledge that ringed the room. Each one comfortably accommodated two men reclining on plenty of cushions. Toss a few of the cushions aside and there would be room for a cuddlesome companion, if this had been an evening when the Arkadian lass would earn her silver by spreading her thighs.
But there was no such expectation tonight. All of the benches were occupied, with no spaces left by the door to, welcome latecomers or unexpected arrivals. None of the guests had brought the courtesans so often welcome at such gatherings. This wasn’t a night to leaven the masculine atmosphere with feminine wit, or to satisfy wealthy men’s tastes for sensual pleasures and sex without the risks of robbery or disease.
There were no younger men with perfumed curls, clean-shaven chins and no interest in public affairs, so I was glad we hadn’t pursued that notion to get me in here unrecognised. This was an evening for serious discussion among the great and the good.
Wine circulated and everyone drank a toast to everybody else’s good health. The men who thought this was a normal banquet competed to sing their songs. They were passable performers, making it easy for Megakles and his cronies to flatter them. Finally the winner was agreed: a man who I remembered seeing in the theatre’s marble seats. He wasn’t the only guest I recognised, though I couldn’t put names to them all.
The ones I could name convinced me we were in the right place. The man the Pargasarenes knew as Archilochos was reclining in the humblest seat, ingratiating himself with smiles to all and sundry on the other couches. A few places further along I saw the man who’d insulted me and the Carians in the agora.
Megakles waved to Potainos, to indicate that the girls could begin
