Everybody smiled at the allusion to the Iliad. Xanthos promptly put up his hand. Everyone pretended not to see him; he was even less interesting drunk than sober. Sostratos also raised his hand. That was what made Menedemos decide to put up his. He liked his cousin, but he felt like getting properly drunk tonight, and he knew Sostratos would order the wine well-watered and drunk from shallow cups all night long.
"Let it be Menedemos," Telephos said. "We've all seen he knows how to have a good time." Amid laughter and clapping, he was elected.
Sostratos leaned toward him and said, "My father and I are close enough to get home clinging to the wall like that gecko we saw this morning, but the gods help our friends who live farther away."
Before Menedemos could answer that, his father tapped him on the shoulder. "There are better reputations to have than that of a roisterer," Philodemos said.
"Everything in its place," Menedemos replied, as philosophically as if he were Sostratos. "When it's time for business, business. When it's time for a symposion, wine." He waved to a slave. "Are the flutegirls and the acrobat here?"
"Yes, sir," the man answered. "They got here a little while ago."
"All right, good. We can bring them on after we've had a couple of rounds." Menedemos felt like a general arraying his army as he reckoned best. He clapped his hands together. All the feasters - the symposiasts, now - and the slaves looked his way. "Let the wine be mixed." Everybody leaned forward. As symposiarch, he set the strength. "Let it be . . . three parts water and two of wine."
"I thought you were going to say even measures, and have us as drunk as Macedonians in nothing flat," his father said. "Even three to two is a strong mix."
Menedemos grinned. "The symposiarch has spoken." No one but Philodemos was complaining. Even Sostratos just leaned on his elbow, watching a slave mix wine and water in the big krater in the center of the andron. Maybe he'd expected Menedemos to order equal measures, too.
I should have called for neat wine, Menedemos thought. But he tossed his head, rejecting the idea. That would make everyone fall asleep too soon. He wanted to feel the wine, yes, but he wanted to enjoy himself other ways while he was doing it, too.
When the wine was mixed, the slave filled the oinokhoe from the krater and used it to fill the symposiasts' cups. He started at the couch farthest from Menedemos and his father and worked his way toward them.
When Menedemos' cup was full, he lifted it by the handles. Even watered, the wine was sweet and strong. Everyone drank along with him. Where he led, they would follow. When he'd emptied the cup, he pointed to the slave, who filled the oinokhoe from the krater and then refilled the cups.
Before drinking this time, Menedemos said, "Let's have a bit of a song or a speech from everyone." The speeches ran in the same direction the wine had. As soon as Xanthos began to declaim, Menedemos knew he'd made a mistake: the merchant delivered, word for word - and there were a great many words - the speech he'd presented to the Assembly not long before.
"I've heard it today twice now," Lysistratos said, draining his own cup faster than was required of him.
"I'm sorry, Uncle," Menedemos said. "I didn't expect - that."
Sostratos gave Brasidas' speech at Amphipolis, explaining, "Great things happened there before Kassandros' day."
Lykon said, "That's an Athenian writer putting words in a Spartan's mouth, or I'm an Egyptian. Spartans aren't used to speaking in the Assembly, and they grunt and stammer instead of coming out with everything just so."
"It could be." Sostratos courteously dipped his head to the older man. "No one but Thoukydides ever knew how much of what was really said went into his speeches, and how much of what he thought men should have said."
"And what will you say, Uncle?" Menedemos asked Lysistratos.
Sostratos' father took a lyre down from the wall and accompanied himself as he sang a poem of Arkilokhos', in which he promised the girl he was seducing that he would spend himself on her belly and pubic patch, not inside her. The symposiasts loudly clapped their hands. "Sure, you always tell 'em that beforehand," somebody called, and everyone laughed.
Lysistratos waved to Menedemos. "Your turn now."
"So it is." Menedemos got to his feet. "I'll give you the Iliad, the section where Patroklos kills Sarpedon." The Greek he recited was even older, and more old-fashioned, than that which Arkilokhos used:
