The agora itself was filling rapidly. Skythian constables, shouting in bad Greek, fought to keep the crowd from packing the Street of the Panathenaia and blocking the procession. Everyone struggled to get as close as he could. Sostratos was an uncommonly large man. Menedemos wasn’t, but he was an uncommonly good wrestler. They got closer than most.
Sostratos pointed northwest, toward the Dipylon Gate and the Academy beyond the wall. “The god’s boat will come from that direction,” he said.
Menedemos dug a finger in his ear. “The god’s what? The noise is dreadful, isn’t it? I thought you said ‘boat.’ “
“I did. You’ll see,” Sostratos said. Someone trod on his toe. “Oimoi!” he exclaimed. Like any sailor, he always went barefoot. That had disadvantages in a crowd.
“Sorry, pal,” said the fellow who’d stepped on him.
“You’re lucky he’s not like some of those harlots,” Menedemos said. “You know the kind I mean: the ones who have FOLLOW ME or something like that written backwards on the bottom of their sandals in metal, so they leave the words in the dust of the street as they walk along. No fun at all if that comes down on your foot.”
“No, it wouldn’t be,” Sostratos agreed. Thoughtfully, he went on, “I imagine the trade they’d bring in would vary from polis to polis, depending on how many men in each place can read. They’d do better here or in Rhodes than up in Macedonia-I’m sure of that.”
“Only you-” Menedemos said, and then had to stop, for he was laughing too hard to go on. He needed some little while before he could continue. “Only you, my dear, could think of a whore and think of how much money she might make and why, and not of how she makes her money.”
“I know how they make their money,” Sostratos said. “The other is something I hadn’t thought about before.” He started to say that made it more interesting, but checked himself. It did, to him, but Menedemos had already showrn he would make him sorry if he said anything like that.
Flutes and drums and other instruments resounded, out beyond the northern edge of the agora. Heads swung in that direction. An Athenian stepped out into the Street of the Panathenaia to get a better look. One of the Skythian slave constables shoved him back into the crowd, shouting, “What you t’ink you does? How selfis’ is you?” Like a lot of barbarians, he couldn’t pronounce some of the sounds of Greek. Having tried to learn how to say the gutturals of Aramaic, Sostratos had more sympathy for him than he would have before.
Unlike the Athenian, Sostratos was not only close to the Street of the Panathenaia but also tall enough to see over the crowd. Beside him, Menedemos twisted to look past the few people in front of him and now and then jumped in the air to get briefly above them. Once he too came down on Sostratos’ toes. “Papai!” Sostratos said in pain and annoyance. “Have you got FOLLOW ME on the bottoms of your polluted feet?”
“Sorry.” His cousin didn’t sound sorry at all. He jumped up again. This time, he missed Sostratos when he landed.
“Here they come!” The words raced through the crowd.
Some of the dancers at the head of the procession were dressed as satyrs, with tight-fitting goatskin costumes, horsetails, erect phalloi as long as a man’s forearm, and snub-nosed masks that put Sostratos in mind of the way Sokrates was said to have looked. They shouted lewd suggestions at the pretty women they saw, sometimes aiming their phalloi at them like spears. Some of the women shouted lewd suggestions of their own; the Dionysia, even in the toned-down version of it celebrated at Athens, was a time when restraint went out the window.
Behind the satyrs came maenads in torn, ragged tunics that suggested they’d been running wild on the mountainsides. Some of them carried thyrsoi, the ivy-tipped wands of Dionysos. Others bore smoky, crackling torches. Still others had tambourines. To the accompaniment of that jingling music, they called, “Euoiii! Euoiii!”-the cry of the god’s followers.
Menedemos nudged Sostratos. “By the god of wine, what’s that?”
“I told you,” Sostratos answered. “That’s the boat of Dionysos.”
The ancient wooden image of the god, slightly above life size, was indeed pulled down the Street of the Panathenaia in a boat by a team of captering satyrs. The planking almost concealed the four large wheels on which the landboat rolled. Except for those wheels, it seemed perfect in every respect, from painted eyes and ram at the bow to goose-headed sternpost. Two more satyrs, these playing flutes, shared the boat with the image of Dionysos. A wreath of leaves crowned the god’s head, as if he were enjoying a symposion. His right hand held more greenery, symbolic of fertility and renewal.
“That’s… very strange to see,” Menedemos said as the boat drew near. “What’s the point to this parade, anyway?”
“You mean, besides just celebrating the god?” Sostratos asked, and his cousin dipped his head. Sostratos said, “Back about two hundred fifty years ago, the little town of Eleutherai, up on the border with Boiotia, became part of Attica. To symbolize the joining, they paraded this very statue from Eleutherai to the temple at the foot of the Athenian akropolis-it has to be more than two hundred stadia from Eleutherai down to here. Now they just take the image out of the temple and up to the Academy, a little outside the walls, the day before the Dionysia and then have this procession bringing it back on the day the festival starts.”
Rattling and creaking, the boat went by. The image of Dionysos smiled its secret smile. Sostratos had seen that expression on old statues of youths here in Athens and elsewhere around the Inner Sea. The smile seemed particularly fitting for a god whose rituals were so wrapped in mystery.
Behind the boat came a chorus of boys singing Dionysos’ praises. Their leader walked backwards in front of them, directing the hymns. He’d come all the way from the Academy like that. Sostratos wouldn’t have wanted to try it; he feared he would have fallen on his fundament, probably right about here, where the most people could see him do it and laugh. That thought had hardly crossed his mind before one of the boys, a very handsome one, coughed loudly from the dust the boat of Dionysos kicked up. He went scarlet to the roots of his hair. The leader of the chorus pulled a horrible face, which could only have made the boy feel worse. People would remember a public mistake like that for years.
“Poor fellow,” Menedemos murmured. “I wouldn’t mind consoling him.”
“I’ll bet you wouldn’t, and I know just how,” Sostratos said.
Menedemos laughed. “The festival of Dionysos is for things like that.” He looked around. “I’d rather do it with a woman, though.”
“I expect you’ll have your chance,” Sostratos said. “You’ll have your chance to gorge on meat today, too. Here come the sacrificial animals.”
Guided along by herdsmen, cattle and sheep shambled down the Street of the Panathenaia. Sheep bleated. Cattle lowed and swung their heads from side to side, uneasy in the presence of so many people. Once Dionysos’ image returned to its temple, the god would get the beasts’ fat-wrapped thighbones while the spectators shared the rest of the meat.
More big phalloi ended the procession. As the men who carried them went by, the Skythian constables stopped holding back the crowd. Men and women streamed down the Street of the Panathenaia after the parade. Some of them waved jars of wine and passed them back and forth. Others sang snatches of Dionysiac hymns.
“Come on,” Sostratos said. “Let’s head for the temple. We can get our share of beef or mutton, and take it back to Protomakhos’ house.”