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.