Someone was selling garlic in the place where Menedemos had been selling perfume. That made him laugh again. Unlike Sostratos, who was given to prolonged sulks, Menedemos had trouble staying gloomy for long. He found another spot, one not far from the statues of Harmodios and Aristogeiton in the middle of the agora. Most Athenians believed the two young men had liberated them from tyranny a couple of centuries before. From what Sostratos said, that wasn’t how things had really happened. Even nitpicking Sostratos, though, couldn’t deny that what people believed often helped shape what would happen next.

“Fine rose perfume from the island of roses!” Menedemos called.

For this, as opposed to politics, his Doric drawl was an asset. He held up a perfume jar in the palm of his hand. “Who wants sweet-smelling Rhodian perfume?”

As usual, all sorts of people came up to him and asked how much the perfume cost. Also as usual, most of them retreated in dismay when he told them. And some of them got angry when they found out. A woman who’d brought a basket of eggs into the city from a farm or a village out beyond the walls exclaimed, “How dare- you sell anything that expensive? How do you think it makes people who have to worry about every obolos feel?” That she was there and unveiled and sun-browned and wearing a tunic full of patches and mends said she was one of those people.

Shrugging, Menedemos answered, “In the fish market, some people buy eels and tunny and mullet. Others buy sprats or salt-fish. Some people wear golden bracelets. Others have to make do with bronze.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished he hadn’t chosen that example. The woman with the basket of eggs wore a bronze necklace. The day was warm, and the cheap piece of jewelry had left a green mark on her sweaty skin. But her reply took a different tack: “But there’s something for poor people there, anyhow. Where can I find perfume somebody like me could buy? Nowhere. All I can do is envy the fancy whores who get it.’’

He shrugged again. What could he say to that? She wasn’t wrong. Before he found any words, she turned her back and strode away in magnificent contempt. He bit his lip. He couldn’t remember the last time a mere woman-especially one he wasn’t bedding-had made him feel ashamed.

“I’m allowed to make a living, too,” he muttered. But, because the Aphrodite carried only luxury goods-the most profitable sort-he dealt for the most part with rich men and the occasional rich woman. He and Sostratos were rich themselves, or rich enough. He too often took for granted the life he led. He never had to worry about where his next meal was coming from, or to agonize over whether to spend an obolos on food or rent. Neither did anyone he knew. Even the family slaves had… enough.

But life wasn’t so simple, wasn’t so pleasant, for most Hellenes. If it had been, they wouldn’t have had to buy sprats for opson when they could afford anything better than olives or a little cheese. They wouldn’t have worn clothes as sorry as that egg-seller’s. They wouldn’t have exposed so many infants, and they wouldn’t have been so thin.

She rubbed my nose in what’s real, the Rhodian thought ruefully, and it doesn’t smell anywhere near so sweet as my perfume.

But if he didn’t sell that perfume, he would find out what being poor was like-find out from the inside. And so he went back to calling out its virtues. And, before too long, a man whose double chin and bulging belly said he didn’t have to worry about hunger bought three jars. “Two for my hetaira,” he said, winking, “and one for my wife, to keep her sweet.”

‘‘You’re a fellow who knows how to handle women, O best one,” Menedemos replied: partly a merchant’s flattery, partly one man talking to another. The plump Athenian, who had a slave following him like a dog, didn’t haggle very hard over the price. He didn’t have to worry about every obolos, either. Drakhmai rang sweetly in Menedemos’ hands as the other fellow paid him.

The Athenian strutted off. His slave, who hadn’t said a word all through the dicker, carried the perfume. The rich man would have lost dignity if he’d been seen carrying it himself. The woman with the basket of eggs hadn’t been shy about carrying it herself. But then, she didn’t have so much dignity to lose.

Menedemos made another sale not long before he would have gone back to Protomakhos’ house. The day turned out to be quite nicely profitable. And yet, as the sun sank down toward the Pnyx and he did head back to the proxenos’ home, he found himself less happy than he would have liked.

Sostratos ran his tongue over his lips, savoring the sweetness of what he’d just eaten. “That may be the best honey cake I’ve ever had, most noble one,” he told Protomakhos. “My compliments to your cook.”

“Very fine indeed,” Menedemos agreed.

“Myrsos is a fine cook. I’d be the last to say otherwise,” Protomakhos replied. “Still, I don’t think this cake would have turned out so well anywhere but Athens. The clover honey from Mount Hymettos is the best in the world.”

“You’ve mentioned it before. I certainly won’t quarrel with you, not after tasting it,” Menedemos said. “Delicious.”

“Yes.” Sostratos snapped his fingers. “Do you know, my dear, we could get a good price for it back in Rhodes.”

His cousin dipped his head. “You’re right. We could. Not only that, we should.”

“Do you recall who sold you this honey?” Sostratos asked Protomakhos.

Looking faintly embarrassed, the proxenos tossed his head. “I’m afraid I don’t. You’d do better to ask Myrsos. He buys the food along with cooking it. As long as he doesn’t bankrupt me, I give him free rein,”

“A sensible attitude,” Menedemos said. “If you have the silver, why not eat well?” That sounded very much like him, though Sostratos wondered whether his father’s second wife would agree. By what Menedemos had said, she’d locked horns with the cook at his house more than once. But then his cousin surprised him by adding, “The ones I feel sorry for are the people who can’t afford fine opson or good wine or honey like this-and there are so many of them,” Sostratos sometimes worried about the plight of the poor, too, but he hadn’t imagined they’d ever entered Menedemos’ mind.

Protomakhos said, “That is too bad for them, but I don’t know what anyone can do about it.”

“Neither do I,” Menedemos said. “No one seems to want to do much of anything. They’re only the poor, after all.” Sostratos scratched his head. Such pungent sarcasm wasn’t his cousin’s usual style at all. What had happened to turn his thoughts into such channels? Sostratos didn’t want to ask in front of Protomakhos, but his bump of curiosity itched.

Since he was also curious about Hymettos honey, he went into the kitchen to talk to Myrsos. The Lyclian cook was munching on a piece of honey cake himself. He looked not the least bit abashed. Other slaves might have their rations carefully measured out-though Protomakhos, like Sostratos’ father, wasn’t that strict-but cooks always ate at least as well as the men they served.

Myrsos proved less informative than Sostratos would have liked. “I bought it from a woman in the agora,” he said. “She had a big pot of it, and the scent told me it was good. I’m sorry, but I don’t know her name.”

Sostratos didn’t want to wander the agora sniffing one pot of honey after another. He deplored inefficiency. His nose might also prove less sensitive, less educated, than Myrsos¹. The cook evidently knew just what he wanted in honey. Sostratos didn’t. He took a couple of oboloi out from between his teeth and the inside of his cheek. Like anyone else, he’d mastered the art of eating without swallowing his small change-though he’d heard of a miser who’d poked at his turds with a stick to get back an obolos that accidentally went down his throat. “Anything else you can recall about the woman?” the Rhodian asked, holding out the spit-shiny coins.