Over the Wine Dark Sea

  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.   Bread came next, with olive oil for dipping. Like everyone else, Sostratos ate the bread with his left hand. From his couch over on the far side of the andron, the long-winded merchant named Xanthos said, 'Did you know -  I have it for a fact, certain sure -  that Kassandros murdered Alexandros and Roxane? Killed them both, I tell you, sent their souls down to the house of Hades. They're dead. Both of them are dead, dead as salt-fish, no doubt about it.'   That got exclamations from everyone who hadn't already heard it. The exclamations got Xanthos to tell the news over again. He took longer the second time through, but, as far as Sostratos could see, he added no new details. The other feasters seemed to notice the same thing, for they quickly stopped asking him questions. That, of course, didn't stop him from starting to give the news a third time.   Lysistratos leaned over toward Philodemos and asked, 'Did you have to invite him?' He yawned behind his hand.   But Menedemos' father dipped his head. 'Unfortunately, I did. I heard from someone who ought to know that he's got some new perfumes we ought to have aboard the Aphrodite. I think he'll let me have them, because his ships stick to the Aegean and don't risk the longer trips west.'   'All right.' Sostratos' father sighed. 'The things we do in search of profit.'   A moment later, though, Xanthos fell silent: the slaves brought in baskets of rolls dusted with poppy seeds and plates of shrimp fried in their shells. 'The opson!' someone said reverently.   Sostratos and his father, like Menedemos and his, had no trouble sharing from the plate set before their couch. Sostratos took each shrimp with his right thumb and index finger; had he been eating salt-fish, he would have used his middle finger, too. He couldn't remember when he'd learned the rules -  sitos with the left hand, opson with the right; one finger for fresh fish, two for salt. But, like anyone with manners, he had. He wondered if some of the feasters did have manners. Where the two men on a couch were just acquaintances, they seemed to race to see who could eat the shrimp faster.   Sostratos savored the garlic and pungent silphium from Kyrene that flavored the shrimp. 'Sikon's done it again,' he told Menedemos, tossing an empty shell to the plastered floor after getting the last of the meat from the tail.   Out came more rolls, with squid to accompany them. Then the slaves brought in flat sheets of barley bread, and chunks of eel cooked in cheese with leeks to serve as their relish.   'Truly our host is a prince of generosity!' said portly Telephos. He plainly thought the eel the last course of opson. So did Sostratos, who joined in the applause when the dogfish came in afterwards. 'A king of generosity!' Telephos cried, and no one contradicted him.   Some of the feasters left their bread all but untouched to concentrate on the opson. Not Sostratos; to him, the relish was relish, and the sitos the staple. Sokrates would have approved, he thought, even if he got rather less fish than some others.   Honey cakes and dried fruit finished the meal. Slaves brought in little bowls of water so the guests