“Or even piggy,” Menedemos said, and Sostratos made a face at him for the vulgarity.
One constable after another stood aside. The whole packed agora tried to funnel itself into the Street of the Panathenaia. The result, of course, was that nobody moved very fast. Sostratos said, “Well, Menedemos, we won’t get to the temple in a hurry… Menedemos?” He looked around. That might have been his cousin kissing a woman ten or twelve cubits behind him. On the other hand, it might not. Quite a few couples were embracing in the crowd, and those ten or twelve cubits were so packed with humanity that he got only a very partial glimpse of that one. He shrugged and took a few steps south and east, toward Dionysos’ temple. Sooner or later, he’d get there. As for Menedemos-he could celebrate the Dionysia any way he chose.
A fairly pretty woman breathed wine fumes up into Sostratos’ face as she tilted her head back to get a good look at him. “Are you really as tall as that?” she asked, and hiccuped.
“Of course not,” he answered gravely. “I’m standing on stilts. I always do.”
She looked down at his feet to see if he was joking. How much wine has she had? he wondered. A couple of beats slower than she should have, she laughed. “You’re a funny fellow,” she said. “And you’re tall.” She might have noticed it for the first time. Sending him a look intended for alluring but in fact more bleary, she added, “I like tall.”
If he wanted his own Dionysiac adventure, he suspected he could find it. He didn’t, or not with her. He said, “Look at that big, handsome Macedonian over there. He’s got his eye on you.” When the woman turned her head, Sostratos pushed his way through the crowd, as far from her as he could go. By the time she looked back, he wasn’t there anymore. He feared she would come after him. If she did, though, she never caught up.
A step here, three there, half a dozen there, he made his way back into the built-up part of Athens. A young man who’d already poured down too much wine leaned over a low wall puking it up again. A man and a woman-no, they weren’t Menedemos and anyone, Sostratos noted with relief-ducked into a house, or perhaps an inn. A woman whirled through the crowd, dancing and clicking castanets. She stood on tiptoe to kiss Sostratos on the cheek, then spun away before he could put his arms around her.
Even before he got to the temple, Sostratos heard the frightened lowing and bleats from the animals as they smelled the blood of those already sacrificed. Soon he could smell it himself: a heavy, rusty odor that penetrated all the other stinks of the city.
More slave constables kept things orderly in the temple precinct as people queued up to get their gobbets of meat. The butchery was crude. The only requirement was for all the pieces to be of about the same size, so that one person in line didn’t take away more than another. Some people got a fine chunk, some a piece full of gristle and fat. That was just luck, luck and where one happened to stand in line.
Flies buzzed all around, more of them every minute as the stream of sacrifices yielded ever more offal and blood. If they’d lit only on refuse, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But, of course, they came to rest wherever they pleased. One landed on the soft flesh between Sostratos’ left eyebrow and eyelid. He tossed his head like a spooked horse. The fly hummed away. He swatted at it with the palm of his hand, but missed. A moment later, another bit him on the back of the calf. He slapped his leg. The fly squashed under his fingers. He wiped his hand on his chiton and took a step toward the temple, feeling a little better for having killed one bug.
Ancient, gnarled olive trees gave shade from the warm spring sun as the queue snaked forward. The trees were surely at least as old as the temple itself-and it was in such bad repair, a new building would have been needed to do Dionysos justice. A northerly breeze rustled through the gray-green leaves overhead. Peeping birds hopped and fluttered from branch to branch. Sostratos hoped they were eating some of the flies.
“In the name of the god, here is meat from the sacrifice,” a priest said, and handed a piece to the woman in front of Sostratos.
“In the name of the god, I thank you for it,” she replied, and carried it away.
Sostratos took her place. The priest gave him a piece of about the same size. “In the name of the god, here is meat from the sacrifice.” He sounded bored. How many times had he said the same thing today?
“In the name of the god, I thank you for it,” Sostratos said. How many times had the priest heard that? As many as he’d spoken his own ritual phrase, surely.
As Sostratos took his chunk of meat away, the priest turned to the next man. “In the name of the god…” Sostratos did a little surreptitious poking and prodding at the meat. It seemed a pretty good piece. He took it back to Protomakhos’ house. On the way, he heard a scuffle, an angry shout, and then the rapidly fading sound of running feet. Someone probably wouldn’t get to eat the sacrificial portion for which he’d stood in line so long.
The proxenos’ cook was a Lydian named Myrsos. He too poked at the meat, more assuredly than Sostratos had done. “This is a good piece, most noble one,” he said in almost unaccented Greek. “It is better, I think, than the one my master brought home. Will your-cousin, is it?-also bring me a chunk?”
“My cousin, yes. I don’t know. We got separated in the crowd,” Sostratos answered. If Menedemos had found a woman who pleased him, he might not come back for some little while. To put that thought out of his mind, Sostratos asked, “What will you do with the meat you have?” That he seldom ate meat made him more curious.
“I shall make a kandaulos, a Lydian dish,” Myrsos told him. “The ingredients are boiled meat, bread crumbs, Phrygian cheese, anise, and a fatty broth in which to simmer them all. It is a famous delicacy among my people, and you Hellenes have come to relish it, too.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Sostratos said. “Doesn’t Menandros mention it in The Cook’? How does it go?
‘Rich fool of an Ionian, making his thick soups-
Kandaulos, food that rouses lust.’ “
“It is a thick soup, yes, sir,” Myrsos answered. “I hadn’t heard those verses before, and I don’t think it rouses lust.”
“If Menedemos thought it did, he’d bring you back a whole cow,” Sostratos said.
The Lydian smiled. “He’s a young gentleman-and so are you.” His own hair held more than a little gray. He went on, “Whether it rouses lust or not, it is tasty. And, after I serve the master and you Rhodians,
I’ll be going out into town myself tonight, to see if I can find a friendly lady. I’d do the same thing even if I weren’t eating kandaulos, too.”
“Yes, anything can happen on the first night of the Dionysia, can’t it?” Even if the festival wasn’t so wild here as elsewhere, Sostratos had some warm memories of his own earlier stay in Athens. He said not a word about Myrsos’ supper plans. Cooks always ate as well as the people for whom they worked.
Menedemos came back to Protomakhos’ house late that afternoon. He did contribute a piece of meat to the kandaulos. He smelled of wine and looked pleased with the world. “Protomakhos can say what he wants. It’s a Dionysia, all right,” he declared, splashing water from the fountain in the courtyard on his face and over his head. “If you can’t find a woman today, you’re not trying very hard. I wonder how many babies born this winter won’t look like their mothers’ husbands.”
“Sometimes it’s better not to ask a question,” Sostratos observed.
“You say that? You?” Menedemos gave him an owlish, half-sozzled stare. “The fellow who never once leaves off asking things?”
“I say it, yes. Some questions should be left quiet. If you don’t believe me, think about Oidipous, lord of Thebes. His flaw was following the truth too far. It’s possible. It’s not common, but it’s possible.”
“All right, my dear. I’m not going to argue with you now, that’s for sure. I’m in no shape for it. You’d tear me limb from limb.” Menedemos belched softly.