The Rhodian proxenos broke in again: “These things do happen. That happened with a cousin of mine, as a matter of fact, and Menandros and the other comedians didn’t dream of half the mess it caused between his family and the girl’s.”

“Oh, yes. Certainly,” Sostratos said. “If it didn’t happen, you couldn’t write plays about it and expect anyone to take you seriously. But doing the same thing over and over again shows a lack of imagination. That’s what I think, anyhow.”

“What I think is, you still haven’t said whether you’re coming out with me,” Menedemos said.

“Not right now, anyhow,” Sostratos answered. “Maybe I’ll go out into the streets later on. Maybe I’ll go to bed, too. You snoozed this afternoon. I didn’t.”

“I intend to go to bed,” Protomakhos said. “I’ve got too many years on me to head out after wild revels.”

Menedemos’ raised eyebrow said Sostratos was a young man behaving like an old one. Sostratos’ raised eyebrow said he didn’t care what his cousin thought. He waited to see whether Menedemos would mock him out loud and start a quarrel. Menedemos didn’t. He only shrugged and started out of the andron.

“Shall I have a slave get you up in time to go to the theater tomorrow?” Protomakhos called after him.

After a long pause in the doorway for thought, Menedemos reluctantly dipped his head. “Yes, most noble one, please do,” he said, and then left.

Protomakhos did go off to bed a little later. Sostratos sat by himself in the andron, now and then sipping wine and listening to Athens enjoy itself around him. Off in the distance, several women called out, “Euoiii! Euoiii!” and then burst into drunken laughter-playing at being maenads. Much closer, a man and a woman moaned and then gasped. By the soft thumps accompanying those sounds, they were probably making love up against a wall.

I wish I could go out and have a good time like Menedemos, without second thoughts, instead of staying off to one side and observing. Sostratos picked up his cup once more, only to find it empty. Sometimes I can-every once in a while. Why not now? He shrugged. The only answer he could find was, he didn’t feel like it. If I don’t feel like doing it, I wouldn’t be having a good time if I did.

A woman giggled, right outside the house. “Come on, sweetheart,” a man said. “We can lie here on my himation.”

She giggled again. “Why not?”

Why not? Sostratos could almost always find reasons why not. Finding reasons why came harder for him. He couldn’t find one now, and so he stayed where he was, listening to songs and laughter and revelry- and the dogs next door howling-as Athens celebrated the Dionysia. At last, with a shrug, he went back to the little room Protomakhos had given him. With the door closed, not much of the noise outside came in.

Drifting toward slumber, Sostratos thought, No wonder I want to write a history one day. What else am I but a dispassionate observer, watching from the edge of the action? Herodotos had been like that, with a passion only for indulging his curiosity. Thoukydides and Xenophon, on the other hand, had made history as well as writing it. Maybe I will, too, one of these days. With that hope filling his mind, he fell asleep.

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.”