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.

This is a sign of high birth in Egypt, Lycinus. All the free-born boys plait it until they come of age; it’s just the opposite to our ancestors, who thought it comely for old men to fasten up their hair in a knot, with a golden cicada-brooch to hold it.

Oh, now I remember where Adimantus left us, Samippus: when we stood a long time by the mast, looking up and counting the layers of hide, and marvelling at the sailor going up among the shrouds and then running quite safely along the yardarm up there holding on to the ropes.

Good! Then what must we do now? Wait for him here? Or would you like me to go back again to the ship?

Oh, no, let us go on. He has probably already passed us, rushing off to the city, when he couldn’t find us again. In any case Adimantus knows the road, and there is no danger of his going astray if we desert him.

Isn’t it rather churlish to go off and leave a friend? But let us walk on all the same, if Samippus agrees.

Certainly; we may find the gymnasium still open. Incidentally, what a huge ship!

A hundred and twenty cubits long, the ship-wright said, and well over a quarter as wide, and from deck to bottom, where it is deepest, in the bilge, twenty-nine. Then, what a tall mast, what a yard to carry! What a fore-stay to hold it up! How gently the poop curves up, with a little golden goose below! And correspondingly at the opposite end, the prow juts right out in front, with figures of the goddess, Isis, after whom the ship is named, on either side. And the other decorations, the paintings and the topsail blazing like fire, anchors in front of them, and capstans, and windlasses, and the cabins on the poop—all very wonderful to me.

You could put the number of sailors at an army of soldiers. She was said to carry corn enough to feed all Attica for a year. And all this a little old man, a wee fellow, has kept from harm by turning the huge rudders with a tiny tiller. He was pointed out to me—a man with receding curly hair. Heron was his name, I believe.

He was wonderful at his job, those aboard said: wiser than Proteus at things to do with the sea.

Did you hear how he brought the ship here, what happened to those on board, and how they were saved by a star?

No, Timolaus, but I’d very much like to.

I myself have sailed by the Chelidonenses, and I know the size of the waves there, especially in a sou’westerly gale with a touch of south; this, you see, happens to be where the Pamphylian and Lycian seas divide. The swell is driven by numerous currents and is split on the headland—the rocks are knife-edged, razor-sharp at the sea’s edge. So the breakers are terrifying and make a great din, and the wave is often as high as the cliff itself.

This is what the captain said they found when it was still night and pitch dark. But the gods were moved by their lamentations, and showed fire from Lycia, so that they knew the place. One of the Dioscuri Castor and Pollux, guides to mariners. put a bright star St. Elmo’s Fire. on the masthead, and guided the ship in a turn to port into the open sea, just as it was driving on to the cliff. Then, having now lost their course, they sailed across the Aegean beating up with the trade winds against them, and yesterday, seventy days after leaving Egypt, they anchored in Piraeus, after being driven so far downwind. They should have kept Crete to starboard, and sailed beyond Malea so as to be in Italy by now.

Upon my word, that’s an amazing pilot you speak of, this Heron, as old as Nereus, The old man of the sea. who went so far astray.

But what’s this? Is that not Adimantus?

So it is; Adimantus himself. Let’s give him a shout, Adimantus! You! Of Myrrinous! Strombichus’s son!

Well, either he’s annoyed with us or he’s gone deaf. It’s certainly Adimantus and no other. I see him now quite plainly—his cloak, his walk, his close-crop. Let’s put on speed, anyhow, and catch him up.

We shall have to pull you back by your cloak, Adimantus; you take no notice when we shout. You seem thoughtful, as though you’re turning over something serious and important in your mind.

Nothing bothersome, Lycinus; an empty notion came into my head as I was walking along and made me deaf to your shouting, I was so wrapped up in my thoughts.

His friends should enjoy their part of Adimantus’s luxury.

I was separated from you as soon as we were on board, Lycinus, after bringing you there safely. I was measuring the width of the anchors when you went off somewhere.

All the same I looked at everything and then asked one of the sailors what income the ship brought in to its owner in an average year. “A minimum of twelve Attic talents,” he replied. Then I went back on shore and mused on what a happy life I should have had if of a sudden some god had made the ship mine: I would have helped my friends, and sailed in her myself some-times, and sometimes sent my servants. Then with some of the twelve talents I had already built myself a house in a good spot just above the Painted Arcade, In Athens. giving up the family house by the Ilissus; and I was buying servants and clothes and carriages and horses. Just now I was at sea, the envy of the passengers and the terror of the crew; they thought me almost a king. I was still settling her affairs and gazing at the harbour in the distance when you turned up, Lycinus. You sank my wealth and capsized my bark just when she was sailing well before the fair wind of my wish.

Well, my noble sir, arrest me and take me off to the general as a pirate or a rogue who tipped you overboard and made such a wreck of her—and that on shore on the road from Piraeus to town. But look, I’ll make amends for my mistake: take here and now, if you will, five ships better and bigger than the Egyptian and, best of all, unsinkable. Let them bring perhaps five times the cargo of corn from Egypt every year, even if, most glorious of shipowners, you then become unbearable to us, as you clearly will. When you still owned this one ship you couldn’t hear our shouts, and if you get five more, all three-masters and indestructible too, you’ll obviously not even see your friends. A good voyage to you, good friend! We shall sit in Piraeus and ask new arrivals from Egypt or Italy if anyone has seen Adimantus’s big ship the “Isis” anywhere.

You see? That’s why I hesitated to tell you what I was thinking. I knew that you would laugh and make fun of my wish. So I’ll stay with you a little until you go on, and then sail away again on my ship. It’s much better to talk to sailors than be laughed at by you.

Don’t do that. We’ll stay too and go on board with you.

Then I shall go on board first and pull up the gangway.

Well, we shall swim to you. Surely you don’t imagine that it’s easy for you to get ships of that size without buying or building them, while we will not ask the gods to grant us the power to swim many miles without getting tired? Besides, two days ago we sailed over to Aegina to the rites of Our Lady of the Crossroads, Enodia, Hecate. you know, in a little boat, all friends together at four obols each. You didn’t object at all to our sailing with you. But now do you resent our going on board with you, and are you embarking first and taking the gangplank away? You’re too full of beans, Adimantus, and you don’t spit in your bosom, Against bad luck. and you don’t remember who you are, you shipowner. You’re so elated with your house, well situated as regards the city, and your crowd of retainers. But, my good friend, in the name of Isis remember to bring us those delicate pickled Nile fish from Egypt, perfume from Canopus, or an ibis from Memphis, and one of the Pyramids—if the ship can carry it.

That’s enough joking, Lycinus. Look how you’ve made Adimantus blush and overwhelmed his ship in a flood of laughter so that she’s waterlogged and can’t keep the sea out any more. Now we’ve still some way to go to the city, so let us divide the journey into four, and each of us in his allotted furlongs ask the gods for whatever he wants. In this way we shan’t notice the journey and at the same time we shall enjoy ourselves with a pleasant dream of our own choosing to bless us as long as we desire. Each one may decide the measure of his wish, and the gods may be supposed to grant it all, even if it is in essence improbable. Best of all it will show who would use his wealth and wish best, for it will show what sort of a man he would have been if he had been rich.

Good, Timolaus. I agree. When the time comes I shall wish for what I want. I don’t think we need even ask Adimantus if he is willing—he has one foot in the ship as it is. But Lycinus must agree.

Well, if it’s better so let us be rich. I’m not going to be envious amid your universal good-fortune.

Well, who’ll be first?

You, Adimantus; then, after you, Samippus here; then Timolaus. I’ll take about the last half-furlong before the Dipylon for my wish, even though I run through it as quickly as I can.

Well, I shan’t desert my ship even now. Indeed I’ll add to my prayer since I’m allowed. May Hermes Lord of Profit give his consent to all! May the ship and all in her be mine—cargo, merchants, women, sailors, and every sweetest treasure in the world!

You’ve forgotten something that you have on board.

You mean the boy, Samippus, the one with long hair. May he be mine too! And let her cargo of wheat be changed entirely to minted gold, all darics.

What’s this, Adimantus? Your ship will sink. The weight of wheat and an equivalent volume of gold is not the same.

Don’t grudge it, Lycinus. When you come to your wish, make Parnes there, if you want, all of gold and have it so. I shan’t say a word.

I was thinking of your own safety, to avoid the loss of all hands with the gold. Indeed your prayer is moderate, but your pretty boy, poor wretch, will drown, not knowing how to swim.

Cheer up, Lycinus. The dolphins will swim up under him and carry him to shore. A lyre-player Arion. was saved by them and received the reward of his song, and the body of another boy Melicertes. was taken in the same way to the Isthmus on a dolphin’s back, so do you think Adimantus’s newly-bought servant will be in want of a loving dolphin?

You’re copying Lycinus, Timolaus. You’re piling up the quips. It was your idea, you know.

Better make it more credible and find some treasure under your bed. Then you won’t have trouble in transferring the gold from the ship to Athens.

You’re quite right. Let treasure be dug up under the stone Hermes that’s in my court, a thousand bushels of minted gold. Then immediately a house, as Hesiod says, Works and Days, 405. first, that I may be housed most splendidly. I have already bought up all the land round the Acropolis, except for the thyme and stones, and the sea-front at Eleusis, and a few acres round the Isthmus for the games, in case I want to see them there, and the plain of Sicyon. In short every thickly-shaded, well-watered, or fruitful spot in Greece will soon belong to Adimantus. Let us have gold plate to eat from, and goblets—not light-weight pieces like those of Echecrates, but two talents each in weight.