'A drakhma and a half a day,' Sostratos answered. Leptines made a horrible face. 'And you've got what, twenty-five rowers on a side?' 'Twenty.' 'Even so. That's a lot of silver to have to lay out every day.' Leptines chuckled. 'I think about having to spend money like that and all of a sudden I stop caring so much that I don't get places in a hurry. Hail.' He went back to his own ship. 'He's a piker,' Menedemos said, but in a low voice so the other skipper wouldn't overhear. 'He worries about money going out, but he doesn't think about how to bring lots of money in.' He grinned. 'All the better for us.' 'I should say so,' Sostratos answered. 'And if this Pompaia place is even half as rich as he makes it out to be, we ought to do well for ourselves there.' 'Worth a try,' Menedemos said. 'I don't expect it to reward us the way Aphrodite rewarded Paris, but worth a try.' 'What would we do with Helen if we had her?' Sostratos pointed at Menedemos. 'I know what you'd do, you satyr. But that's not profitable. Wouldn't you rather be rewarded as Kroisos the Lydian king rewarded Solon of Athens? He let Solon into his treasury to carry out as much gold as he could hold, and Solon went in wearing baggy boots and a tunic too big for him and even greased his hair with olive oil so gold dust would stick to it.' Menedemos laughed. 'No, I wouldn't mind that. But I don't mind women, either. Why can't I want everything at once?' 'You can want everything at once,' Sostratos said. 'But you can't be too disappointed when you don't get it. How many men do?' 'Some must,' Menedemos insisted. 'Some, maybe, but only a handful,' Sostratos said. 'When Kroisos asked Solon who the happiest man in the world was, he thought Solon would name him. But Solon picked Athenians who'd lived long and died well. Kroisos was offended, but Solon turned out to be right in the end, for the Lydian king first lost his son in a hunting accident and then lost his kingdom to the Persians. Was he happy at the last? Not likely.' 'But he had plenty of good times before that last,' his cousin said. Sostratos sighed. 'You're incorrigible.' Menedemos gave him half a bow, as if at a compliment. Sostratos sighed again. 9 On the second day after leaving Laos, the Aphrodite sailed between the island of Kapreai and the Cape of the Sirennousai. As Menedemos swung the merchant galley east toward Pompaia, he pointed to an old, tumbledown temple on the headland of the cape and remarked, 'They say Odysseus built that place. And they say some of the
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