Menedemos didn't get the chance to say what Sarpedon had told Glaukos, for Xanthos burst out, "By Zeus of the aegis, the Argives didn't kill enough Lykians during the Trojan War. We've still got too many of the stinking pirates no more than a stone's throw from Rhodes."
"Not even Herakles could throw a stone from here to Lykia," the literal-minded Sostratos said, but heads all around the andron dipped in agreement with Xanthos. Lykia lay less than eight hundred stadia to the east, and every Lykian headland was liable to have a pirate crew's swift pentekonter or even swifter hemiolia lurking behind it, waiting to swoop down on an honest merchantman.
Instead of going on, Menedemos dipped his head to his father, who also chose Homer: the passage in the Odyssey where Odysseus, with his comrades, blinded Polyphemos the Cyclops after first cleverly giving his name as Nobody. When the other Cyclopes asked him what was wrong, he blamed Nobody - Outis, not Odysseus. The symposiasts smiled at the wordplay.
"Another round," Menedemos told the slave tending the krater. "Deeper cups this time, and then bring on the flutegirls and the acrobat." He raised his voice: "Drink, my friends! We've plenty of wine still ahead of us."
The deeper cups were businesslike mugs. They weren't nearly so pretty as the shallow, high-footed cups with which the symposion had begun, but they held more than twice as much. Menedemos poured the wine down his throat. Since he was the symposiarch, the rest of the men had to follow his lead.
In danced Eunoa and Artemeis, both playing a drinking song from Athens on their double flutes. The flutegirls wore silk chitons filmy enough to show they'd singed away the hair from between their legs with a lampflame. The symposiasts whooped and cheered. A moment later, those cheers redoubled, for Phylainis the acrobat followed the flutegirls into the andron walking on her hands. She was naked; her oiled skin gleamed in the lamplight.
Philodemos nudged Menedemos as the symposiasts' cheers got louder yet. "The girls are pretty enough," the older man said. "I can't very well deny that."
"I'm glad you're pleased," Menedemos answered. His father was a hard man, but fair. "I hope the racket won't bother your wife, up in the women's quarters." Menedemos' mother was dead; his father had married a young bride a couple of years before, and was hoping for more children.
"We've had symposia here before," Philodemos said with a shrug. "She can put wax in her ears if the noise gets too bad, as Odysseus' men did sailing past the Sirens." He cocked his head to one side, listening to the music. "They don't play the flute badly, either."
"One of them can play my flute in a while," Menedemos said. "They're good at that, too." His father chuckled. Then they both laughed out loud. After a series of cartwheels across the andron, Phylainis had ended up in Sostratos' lap. Instead of feeling her up or starting the lovemaking then and there, Menedemos' cousin dumped her off as if she were on fire.
"She doesn't bite, Sostratos," Menedemos said. "Not unless you want her to." He threw back his head and laughed; he could feel the wine, all right.
Sostratos shrugged. "She picked me because I'm young, and she hoped I'd fall head over heels for her." He shrugged again. "I'm afraid not."
