Over the Wine Dark Sea

Phyllis quickly set her clothes to rights. 'I've got to go back upstairs,' she said. 'You were sweet.'   'Let me give you half a drakhma,' Menedemos said.   She looked back at him over her shoulder as she hurried toward the stairway. 'Did you think I was one of the house slaves?' Her laugh was all breath and no voice, but full of mirth just the same. With a toss of her head, she told him, 'I'm Gylippos' wife.' She hurried up the steps and was gone.   Menedemos gaped after her as if she'd hit him in the head with a rock. 'Oh, by the gods,' he muttered, 'how do I get myself into these things?' But the answer to that was only too obvious -  and getting into her had been most enjoyable. He laughed, too, though it wouldn't be so funny if his host found out.   When he strolled back into the andron, Gylippos said, 'What were you doing out there so long? Diddling one of the slave girls?'   'As a matter of fact, yes,' Menedemos answered -  he couldn't very well brag to the husband he'd just cuckolded. The answer produced whoops from most of the couches. He rocked his hips forward and back, which produced more whoops. 'She said it was too hot in the women's quarters, but I made it pretty hot out there, too.'   'Resourceful Odysseus,' Gylippos said.   But your Phyllis is no Penelope, Menedemos thought. He wondered if he would have taken her had he know she was the dried-fish magnate's wife. He didn't wonder long. He was no philosopher, but he knew himself pretty well. He hadn't put in at Halikarnassos because a certain prominent merchant there would have done his level best to kill him on account of the good time he'd had with the fellow's wife.   A slave handed him a fresh cup of wine. 'Thanks,' he said. 'Looks like I'll have to drink this standing up -  no room for me on my couch right now.' Sostratos and the redheaded Keltic dancing girl with him were both big people, and the way they were thrashing about left the couch barely big enough for the two of them, let alone anyone else. The flutegirls and the juggler were entertaining other guests, while the other dancing girl, sweaty and unhappy, stood leaning against a wall: aside from Sostratos, nobody seemed much interested in an outsized barbarian bed partner.   By the time Sostratos finished what he was doing, Menedemos had almost finished his wine. He admired his cousin's stamina. So, evidently, did the Keltic girl. 'I hadna thought to find sic a man amongst the Hellenes, indeed and I hadn't,' she said in musically accented Greek. Sostratos' face lit up till he seemed to glow brighter than the torches. That that might well have been purely professional praise never seemed to enter the mind of Menedemos' usually so rational cousin. Menedemos didn't intend to enlighten Sostratos, either. A happy man was easier to deal with than a gloomy one.   Sounds of revelry came from the street. Somebody pounded on the door to Gylippos' house. When one of the house slaves opened it, another band of symposiasts swarmed into the courtyard and then into the andron. Wreaths and ribbons garlanded their hair; more dancing girls came in with them. They seemed a younger, rowdier, drunker crowd than most of Gylippos' guests.   Gylippos, by then, was far enough into his cups not to care. 'Welcome, welcome, three times welcome!' he cried, and called to his slaves for more wine.   Sostratos woke the next morning with a head he would gladly have traded for anything small and worthless and quiet, not that anyone would have wanted his head in its present