It was still dark when a slave pounded on the door the next morning. The racket made Sostratos spring out of bed, his heart thuttering, afraid he’d been caught in the middle of an earthquake. Still naked, he’d taken two steps toward the door before reason routed blind panic. “I’m awake,” he called, and the pounding stopped. He went back to the bed to put on his chiton. The pounding started again, this time one door over. Sostratos smiled. His cousin would like it no better-indeed, would probably like it less-than he had.
He opened the door and walked to the andron, where Protomakhos was breakfasting on bread and oil and watered wine. “Good day,” the proxenos said. “Have something to eat, and then we’ll go over to the theater. We’ll get there before sunup, which ought to mean choice seats.”
“That seems good to me,” Sostratos said. A slave moving with the slow, quiet care of a man with a hangover brought him bread and oil and wine, too.
Menedemos came into the andron a couple of minutes later. He moved much as the slave had. “Good day,” he said softly, as if the sound of his own voice might pain him.
“Good day,” Sostratos and Protomakhos said together. Sostratos asked, “And how was your night of roistering?”
“Enjoyable-then. I’m paying for it now,” Menedemos answered. When the slave brought him breakfast, he picked at the bread but gulped down the wine. After a little while, he dipped his head. “That’s better, by the dog of Egypt. Takes the edge off the headache.”
Protomakhos rose from his stool. “Good. Let’s head for the theater, then.” Sostratos followed eagerly. Menedemos followed, too, but with a small groan.
They picked their way through the morning twilight. The entrance lay only a few blocks north and east of Protomakhos’ house. People streamed towards it from all over the city, even this early. Accents far from Attic said more than a few of them had come a long way to see the day’s plays.
When they got to the theater, Protomakhos handed the attendant a drakhma, saying, “This is for the three of us.”
“Certainly, best one,” the man said, and stood aside to let them by.
“You didn’t need to do that,” Sostratos protested. “We wanted to buy your seat, to show in a small way how grateful we are for your kindness.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Protomakhos replied. “What is a proxenos for but to show his guests the sights of his own polis?”
“Thank you very much,” Sostratos said. Menedemos dipped his head as if afraid it would fall off if he weren’t careful. He hadn’t said more than two or three words since leaving the proxenos’ house. He did look better than he had when he first came into the andron. Along with the wine, the cool, crisp air of early morning was helping revive him.
The two Rhodians and Protomakhos made their way down toward the orkhestra, the outthrust, semicircular area where the chorus danced and sang. The narrow stone aisle had transverse grooves cut in it to help keep feet from slipping. The slope was one in eight, steep enough to make falls a danger.
“This should do pretty well,” Protomakhos said, and stepped off the aisle to sit down on a stone bench. Sostratos and Menedemos followed. The benches were all the same, with a raised portion for spectators’ backsides and a lower part behind it where the people in the next row back could rest their feet.
Women had their own section in the theater, off to the left by the Odeion. That area had been added on after the Odeion was built, for it fit around the corner of Perikles’ great structure. Looking toward the women seemed to make Menedemos recover better than wine or fresh air had done, even though many of them wore veils against the prying eyes of men.
Protomakhos looked that way, too. “In my great-grandfather’s day, this was a place for men only,” he remarked.
“I like it better this way.” Yes, Menedemos was coming back to life.
Sostratos asked, “Do you know, best one, just when they did begin to admit women to the theater? “
The proxenos tossed his head. “They’ve been coming as long as I can remember. That’s all I can say for certain.”
“Someone ought to know something like that.” Sostratos clicked his tongue between his teeth. “I wonder who.”
Pointing to a stone chair in the center of the very first row, Protomakhos said, “That’s where the priest of Dionysos Eleutherios sits. If anyone could tell you when the custom changed, he’s probably the man.”
Sostratos started to get up and go down to him then and there, but Menedemos took hold of his arm, saying, “He has other things to worry about right now, my dear.”
“I suppose so,” Sostratos admitted. “But I’m liable to forget if I don’t ask when something first occurs to me.”
“You?” Menedemos laughed. “You don’t forget anything. If you ever found out the name of Perikles’ dog, you’d remember it till the end of time.”
He was right. But when Sostratos said, “That’s different,” he knew he too was right, though he would have been hard pressed to explain the difference between the two kinds of memory.
But Menedemos was also right in saying the priest had other things on his mind. The gray-bearded gentleman kept bouncing out of his chair to talk with one or another of the magistrates sitting in the first row, and with the high-ranking Macedonian officers who also got some of those prime seats-a sure sign of how much, or rather how little, Athenian freedom and autonomy were worth these days.
Protomakhos said, “If you’re interested, there’s Demetrios of Phaleron.” He pointed to one of the dignitaries in the front row. The Athenian who served as Kassandros’ governor was younger than Sostratos had thought him on his previous stay in Athens-about forty-five. He was also strikingly handsome; that Sostratos had recalled accurately.
With a chuckle, Menedemos said, “Even if we’re not interested, he’s still Demetrios of Phaleron.” Protomakhos blinked. Sostratos groaned. Yes, his cousin was starting to feel better, and he half wished Menedemos weren’t.
In came the chorus of boys, singing the same hymns they had during the procession the day before. Following them, this time on a small cart instead of the wheeled boat in which it had ridden down the Street of the Panathenaia, was the ancient wooden statue of Dionysos.
As he did every year, the god would watch the plays put on in his honor.
A couple of dozen youths coming of age this year marched out into the orkhestra behind the chorus. A magistrate presented each of them with a suit of hoplite’s armor. They were the sons of Athenians who’d died in battle for their polis. That custom went back a long way. The youths got loud applause as they took their seats at the front of the theater. Most of their fathers would have fallen fighting the Macedonians who dominated the polis now. Cheering them was one way to show what people felt about the occupiers.
“Look!” This time, Protomakhos pointed up at the great buildings of the akropolis behind them. “The sun has risen. Won’t be long before its rays get down here, too.”
“One more argument the world is round,” Sostratos said to Menedemos. “If it were flat, the sun would rise at the same time everywhere. But naturally a high spot on the sphere catches the light coming around the edge of the curve before a lower one can.”
“I’m sorry, best one, but that’s much too much like thought for so early in the morning,” Menedemos replied. Sostratos sniffed.
Menedemos waved to a wineseller. The fellow waited in the aisle till Menedemos drained the little earthenware cup, then refilled it from the jar he carried at his side like a sword. Other hucksters went up and down the aisles with raisins and dried figs and little honey cakes and sausages and onions and chunks of cheese. Sostratos said, “The worse the play is, the better the business the men with the food will do.”
“Seems only fair.” Menedemos peered down toward the raised skene behind the orkhestra. “We’re close enough to the stage to hit the actors with onions if they’re very bad.” Then he looked over his shoulder at all the thousands of people sitting behind him. “And we’re close enough to the skene for all of them back there to hit us with onions if the actors are very bad.”