Didn’t I say that it was easier for vultures to miss a stinking corpse in the open than for Timolaus to miss an odd sight, even if he had to run off to Corinth for it without a pause for breath? You are so fond of shows, and so determined in such matters.

What should I have done, then, Lycinus, having nothing to do, and hearing that such a huge boat, exceptionally large, had put into Piraeus, one of the Egyptian grain ships on its way to Italy? I fancy that you two, you and Samippus here, have come from Athens for exactly the same reason, to see the ship.

That is so, and Adimantus of Myrrinous A deme in Attica. came along with us, but I don’t know where he is now; he has wandered off in the crowd of spectators. Until we reached the ship and went aboard, you, I think, Samippus, were in front, and then came Adimantus, and next I myself, holding on to him with both hands; he led me by the hand all the way up the gangway—I had shoes on, he was barefoot—but then I didn’t see him again either on board or when we came back to the shore.

Do you know at what point he left us, Lycinus? I think it was when that pretty lad came out of the hold, the one in pure white linen, with his hair tied back over both sides of his forehead. If I know Adimantus, I think that when he saw that dainty sight he bade a long farewell to the Egyptian shipwright who was showing us round the ship, and just stood there, weeping as usual. He’s quick at tears when Cupid’s about.

Well, Samippus, the young lad didn’t seem to me very pretty, not enough to excite Adimantus at any rate. He has a crowd of beauties following him in Athens, all of them free-born, full of chatter, and breathing wrestling-schools; it wouldn’t be ignoble even to weep in their presence. This fellow is not only dark-skinned, but thick-lipped and too thin in the leg. He spoke in a slovenly manner, one long, continuous prattle; he spoke Greek, but his accent and intonation pointed to his native-land. His hair coiled in a plait behind shows he is not freeborn.