Sostratos shrugged. "The birds are yours, O best one. Do with them as you please. You asked me a question, and I answered it as best I could."
Maybe a couple of the Samnites had experience herding geese, for they managed to chivvy the peacock and peahen out the door and onto the street without too much trouble. Sostratos closed the door after them. When he came back into the courtyard, Menedemos said, "There's two of the miserable birds gone, anyhow."
"Many good-byes to them, too," Sostratos said. "May we get rid of the rest soon." The two cousins both dipped their heads.
Gylippos was a fat fellow who'd made a fortune in dried fish. His andron was large and, by Tarentine standards, splendidly decorated, though to Menedemos the wall paintings, the couches, and even the wine cups in the men's chamber were gaudy and busy. Gylippos himself was gaudy, too, with heavy gold rings on several fingers.
He wagged one of those fingers at Menedemos, who reclined on the couch next to his. "You were a naughty fellow, selling that barbarian the one peacock you had," he said.
Menedemos answered, "He paid me well. His silver's as good as anyone else's." Better than yours would have been, he thought, because you'd have been careful to give me the exact weight of metal we agreed on, and not an obolos more. Had all cities coined to the same standard, life would have been simpler. As things were, the fellow who took pains in his dealings with money had the edge on the man who didn't.
Gylippos wagged that finger again. His slaves had already cleared away the supper plates - he'd served squid and octopus and oysters and eels with the sitos: no dried fish for his guests - but the symposion that would follow hadn't started yet. He said, "And the scene he made in the streets getting the peacock to the house where he's staying! My dear fellow, you couldn't have done more to build demand for the birds if you'd tried for a year. Everybody saw the peacock, and everybody wants it."
Sostratos shared the couch with Menedemos. As usual, Menedemos had taken the head, though his cousin was older. Sostratos hadn't complained; he never did. He did speak up now, though: "That parade was the Samnite's idea, not ours. I offered to sell him two peafowl cages. I even suggested that he use ropes to keep the birds from running every which way. He wouldn't listen."
"And so," Menedemos added with a grin, "he had half the people in Taras chasing his precious peacock - and the peahen, too. You're right, best one" - he inclined his head to Gylippos - "we couldn't have made more folk notice the birds with anything we did on purpose."
"You certain couldn't." The purveyor of dried fish looked past Menedemos to Sostratos. "As for trying to tell an Italian anything, well . . ." He tossed his head. "I don't think it can be done. Samnites are stubborn as mules, and the Romans to the north of them are just as bad. It's no wonder they're bumping heads again."
"Again?" Sostratos looked interested. Menedemos recognized the eagerness in his cousin's voice - he hoped he'd find out about some obscure bit of history he hadn't known before. Sure enough, Sostratos went on, "They've fought before?" It was, Menedemos supposed, a harmless vice.
"Yes, a generation ago," Gylippos answered. "The Romans won that fight, and the Samnites went to war with them again ten or twelve years ago. They won a big battle early on, but the Romans were too stubborn to quit, so they've just been hammering away at each other ever since."
Another guest of Gylippos', a Tarentine with a face like one of the host's dried fish, said, "The Samnites who overran some of our poleis in Campania are almost civilized these days."
"Well, so they are, Makrobios - some of them." But Gylippos didn't seem much impressed. "And some of the Hellenes who have to live under their rule are almost civilized, too, if you know what I mean. Greek with an Oscan accent is ugly whether it comes out of a Samnite's mouth or out of a Hellene's."
"It sounds better than Greek with a Latin accent," Makrobios said.
"What's Latin?" Menedemos and Sostratos asked the question at the same time.
"The language the Romans speak," the fish-faced Makrobios answered. He held up his hand with the fingers spread. "We say pente. When the Samnites mean five, they say pumpe - not much different, eh? So you can understand a Samnite when he talks Greek."
"That Herennius Egnatius didn't speak badly," Menedemos agreed.
"But when the Romans mean five, they say quinque" Makrobios pronounced the barbarians' word with obvious distaste. "I ask you, how can anyone who makes noises like that learn good Greek?"
"Some of those Campanian cities are doing pretty well for themselves, though, even if they've got Samnites ruling them," Menedemos said. "I was thinking of taking the Aphrodite up that way after I've done all the business here I can."
Makrobios shrugged. "Whatever you like, of course. Perhaps I'll see you again afterwards. On the other hand, perhaps I won't, too." His clear implication was that perhaps nobody would see Menedemos again afterwards.
With some irritation, Menedemos asked, "Do you think I'd be wiser to go to Syracuse? I don't, by the gods."
"Well, neither do I," the Tarentine admitted. "Unless Agathokles does something extraordinary, I don't see how he can keep Carthage from taking his city. And he's been ruling Syracuse for seven years now, so I don't know what he can do that he hasn't already done."
"You see my problem, then," Menedemos said. "I'm not going to turn around and go straight back to Hellas when I leave Taras, so what else can I do?"
"Believe me, I'm glad it's not my worry." Makrobios leaned forward. "Tell me, what price are you asking for peafowl eggs?"
"Thirty drakhmai," Menedemos answered at once; he and Sostratos had been over that ground, and had sold a couple of eggs at that price. "From their size, I'd also say you'd do better to have a duck or a goose brood them than a hen."
"And suppose I spend thirty drakhmai and the egg doesn't hatch? What then?" Makrobios demanded.
It was Menedemos' turn to shrug. "I'm afraid that's the chance you take. I'm not a god, to look inside an egg and tell whether it's good or bad."
"We'll soon have chicks for sale - for a good deal more," Sostratos added. "You can save some money if you want to gamble a little."
"You'll ask something outrageous, I'm sure," Makrobios muttered.
Menedemos smiled his suavest smile. "You have some fellow citizens who don't think so. You even have a barbarian neighbor who didn't think so. If you want to be among the first, O best one, you have to pay the price. If we had the second shipload of peafowl into Taras, we couldn't charge nearly so much - because the first ship would have."
Makrobios looked so unhappy, he might have been a hooked fish. But he said, "The house you're renting is north of the market, isn't it? Maybe I'll see you tomorrow." Before Menedemos could answer, Makrobios pointed to the doorway. "Ah, here come Gylippos' slaves with the wine."
Menedemos pointed in surprise. "Those are jars of our Ariousian."
"I sold them to his majordomo this afternoon," Sostratos said, a little smugly. "You were dickering with somebody over a peahen."
"Krates the potter," Menedemos answered in a low voice: the man in question reclined a few couches away. "He wouldn't meet our price."
"Well, Gylippos' majordomo did. He talks so strangely, he may be one of these Romans." Sostratos leaned forward to whisper in Menedemos' ear: "And now we get to drink some of the wine we just sold. I quite like that."
"So do I." Menedemos chuckled.
Gylippos' slave poured some of the Ariousian into the metaniptron from which they drank the first, neat, toast of the symposion and poured the libation to Dionysos. The guests murmured appreciatively. Menedemos wondered if they would be appreciative enough to elect him symposiarch, but they chose Krates instead. Menedemos wasn't surprised or offended; the potter was one of their circle, while he was a guest.