its freedom. May we keep it in the future as we regained it in the past.' He reclined again. The symposiasts clapped their hands, Sostratos among them - and Menedemos, too, he noted. Philodemos had struck an important chord, all the more important because Ptolemaios and Antigonos were fighting again. When giants clashed, how could a dwarf like Rhodes stay safe? That comparison made Sostratos smile. Host and symposiarch, Lysistratos got to his feet last of all. 'I'll be brief, for we've got people waiting in the courtyard,' Sostratos' father said. 'A voyage to Great Hellas is always a risk. I thank the gods that my son and my nephew and almost all the crew came home safe. That's the most important thing. You always have another chance if it's true, even if the business end of things didn't go so well. But when they not only sailed west but came back with one of the biggest profits an akatos ever brought home - well, my friends, all I can tell you is that I'm proud to be kin to both of them. Euge, Sostratos! Euge, Menedemos!' 'Euge!' the symposiasts shouted, and clapped their hands and raised their cups in salute. 'Euge! Euge!' 'Thank you all,' Sostratos said. 'A man who deserves special praise is our bold keleustes Diokles there. You couldn't hope to find a better sailor. Euge, Diokles!' 'Euge!' the symposiasts echoed. Diokles' lined features wore the bashful, proud grin of a boy praised for his beauty for the first time. 'Now everybody here will try to hire him away from us,' Menedemos said. 'Tell me he hasn't earned the chance,' Sostratos said, and Menedemos only shrugged. He couldn't do it, and they both knew as much. Lysistratos beckoned to Gyges. He spoke in the majordomo's ear. The Lydian slave hurried out into the dark courtyard. As Sostratos' father had said, the entertainers were waiting there. A moment later, a couple of flutegirls in chitons of thin, filmy Koan silk pranced into the andron and began to play. The symposiasts whooped and cheered. A couple of them reached out to try to grab the girls, but they had no luck. Only a very raw slave would have let herself become a plaything so soon. And then the men in the andron stopped reaching for the girls. There would be plenty of time for that later, and they'd done it plenty of times before. They whooped again, on a different note this time, and howled laughter, for into the room behind the flute girls bounded a naked dancing dwarf. His head and genitals were the size of a normal man's, his body and limbs sadly shrunken. 'Think I'm pretty funny, don't you?' he said in a light, true tenor as he spun in time to the music. 'I'll tell you something, friends - if everybody looked like me, you'd be the monsters.' That made most of the symposiasts laugh harder than ever. Menedemos choked on his wine, and all but drowned. Sostratos had been laughing, too. He'd known his father had hired the dwarf; that was what had touched off his thought about the large realms Antigonos and Ptolemaios held, with little Rhodes doing her best not to get crushed between them. But, though the dancing dwarf had made his gibe to amuse the symposiasts, it also made Sostratos think. Most people reckoned dwarfs less intelligent than normal men, but this fellow sounded bright enough. How did he feel, when he was able to make his living only by showing himself off for others to laugh at? Sostratos thought about
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