“I’m sure I am.” Protomakhos, to Menedemos’ vast relief, seemed to notice nothing amiss. He went on, “I know how kinsfolk can be. My brother and I still quarrel whenever we set eyes on each other, and as for one of my brothers-in-law…” He rolled his eyes.

“Brothers-in-law! Oimoi! By the dog, yes!” Sostratos exclaimed, and started telling the proxenos about some of the things Damonax had done and had wanted him to do. Protomakhos listened sympathetically, and the awkward moment passed. Menedemos had never before been praised for his moderation with women by a man he was cuckolding. He’d thought he was hardened to most of the things that could happen, but this embarrassed him. It was like being praised for honesty by a man whose house you’d just robbed.

Three days later, the Rhodians and Protomakhos were about to sit down to supper when someone pounded on the door. “Who’s that?” Protomakhos said in annoyance. “Whoever it is, why did he have to pick now, when I can smell the fish cooking?”

“Some people have no consideration,” agreed Menedemos, who’d been able to indulge his passion for opson no less than other passions, and far more openly.

But instead of some bore who wanted to gossip with Protomakhos- Menedemos thought of the Athenian equivalent of his father’s long-winded friend, Xanthos-it was Euxenides of Phaselis. “Hail, Rhodians,” he said. “Are those the best tunics you’ve got? They’ll have to do, I suppose. Demetrios bids you to supper, and I’m to take you there. Come along with me, the both of you.”

“You kept your word!” Menedemos blurted.

“Sure I did,” Euxenides said. “You did right by me, so the least I can do is right by you. Come on. We don’t want to keep him waiting.”

“Let’s go,” Sostratos said. “Just let me grab the truffles I still have…”

Euxenides impatiently shifted from foot to foot while Sostratos did. Protomakhos said, “All that lovely opson, and only my wife and me to eat it.” He didn’t sound disappointed; he sounded like a man with a gods-given excuse to make an opsophagos of himself.

Out the door Euxenides of Phaselis went, the two Rhodians in tow behind him. Though Euxenides had been in Athens only a few days, he moved confidently through its labyrinth of streets. When Menedemos remarked on that, the soldier shrugged and said, “I told you, I’ve always had a good sense of direction.”

After that, Menedemos waited for him to get lost. But he didn’t. He brought the Rhodians to a large house north of the akropolis. Hulking Macedonians in full armor stood guard in front of the door. One of them said something to Euxenides. Menedemos couldn’t follow it. Euxenides of Phaselis not only did, he answered in the same dialect. The bodyguards stood aside.

As Euxenides led the Rhodians inside, he remarked, “This is where Demetrios of Phaleron lived before he, ah, decided to move elsewhere.”

“Wait here just a moment, best ones,” a slave said in the entry hall. He hurried away, then returned. “All right, come ahead.” As Menedemos entered the courtyard, he got a fleeting glimpse of a very pretty girl hurrying to the stairway. He wondered just what she and Demetrios had been doing. Beside him, Sostratos let out a warning cough, Menedemos sent his cousin a hurt look. Killing himself by jumping from a high place would end quicker and hurt less than letting the son of a Macedonian marshal catch him sniffing after a mistress.

Demetrios son of Antigonos lounged on a couch in the andron with a cup of wine. “Hail, Rhodians,” he said when Euxenides presented Menedemos and Sostratos to him. He was very large and very strong and, up close, perhaps the handsomest man Menedemos-a handsome fellow himself-had ever seen. As the Rhodian had noted in the theater, he had a man of action’s thrusting chin. With it went a voluptuary’s wide-lipped, sensual mouth; a long, straight nose and prominent cheekbones; a mane of light brown hair; and eyes green as marble. “Forgive me for not rising,” he went on, “but I’m getting over a fever.”

“Yes, I saw her just now as she was going away,” Menedemos said blandly.

Sostratos coughed again, this time in horror. But Demetrios threw back his head and laughed, “Very neat,” he said, “That’s the sort of crack my father would make,” His voice, when he wasn’t using it to fill the theater of Dionysos, was extraordinarily smooth and musical. The gods had blessed him with all they could give a man. He waved Menedemos and Sostratos to couches on either side of his own, and Euxenides to another. A slave brought them wine. “I found several amphorai of Thasian in Demetrios of Phaleron’s cellars,” Antigonos’ son told them. “Coming from the north myself, I’m partial to northern vintages.”

The wine was sweet as honey-so sweet, in fact, that Menedemos wondered if it had honey mixed into it. The vintners of Thasos sometimes did that. It was also neat. Sostratos said, “Most noble one, could we please have a mixing bowl and some water? Otherwise, your men may have to carry us back to our host’s house.”

Demetrios laughed again. “As you wish, though mixing wine seems as silly to me as drinking it neat does to you. If I want water, I’ll drink water; if wine-wine. Some of one, some of the other? Who needs that?”

Menedemos wanted to fuss at Sostratos for acting like a little old woman. He thought about continuing to drink his wine without added water. That, he feared, would only make his cousin look worse. And Demetrios was a large man, and used to neat wine. Menedemos himself was much smaller, and used to drinking it mixed. Getting hopelessly plastered while his host stayed sober would do nothing to improve him in the Macedonian’s eyes. And so, when Sostratos mixed one part wine to two of water-a little on the strong side, no doubt in deference to Demetrios, but only a little-Menedemos sipped along with his cousin. Euxemdes of Phaselis drank his Thasian without water. He was a soldier, though, and by now surely used to Macedonian ways.

They chatted for a while. Demetrios had a lively wit, and a gift-if that was what it was-for puns that made Menedemos cringe and even forced a couple of groans from Sostratos, who was also formidable in such sports. “If you think I’m bad, you should hear my father,” Demetrios said with a reminiscent smile. “Strong men run screaming when he gets started-you’d best believe they do.”

His affection for Antigonos seemed altogether unfeigned. He was one of the most powerful men in Hellas-no, in the whole civilized world-yet he remained fond of and obedient to his father. To Menedemos, who’d been striking sparks with his father ever since his voice began to change, that seemed very strange,

As twilight thickened outside, a slave lit more torches and lamps in the andron, holding darkness at bay. Another slave carried in a tray piled high with some of the finest, whitest loaves of wheat bread Menedemos had ever seen. They were still warm from the oven, and so light and airy the Rhodian marveled that they didn’t float off the tray and hang in the air like dandelion fluff. The olive oil in which the diners dipped their sitos was some of the truffle-flavored stuff Menedemos and Sostratos had sold to Demetrios of Phaleron.

“Mighty fine,” Euxenides of Phaselis said, ripping another loaf to pieces so he could soak up more of the precious oil.

“It is, isn’t it?” Demetrios son of Antigonos agreed complacently. “The other Demetrios bought it, but I’m the one who gets to enjoy it.” The glow in his eyes showed how much he enjoyed it. He seemed to enjoy everything that came his way-food, wine, women, acclaim. And yet he was also a solid soldier-more than a solid soldier-and had displaced his cousin, Polemaios, at Antigonos’ right hand. He probably enjoyed soldiering, too.

Menedemos knew he was jealous. He also knew how foolish such jealousy was. A monkey could be jealous of Aphrodite s beauty, and it would do the animal no more good. Not only did Demetrios have his multifarious gifts, he also had the chance to make the most of them. Like almost all men, Menedemos needed to devote the larger part of his energy just to getting by from day to clay. What he might have done got lost in what he had to do.