“Himilkon wouldn’t care to hear you say such things,” Sostratos remarked.

“So what?” Menedemos said. “Are you telling me I’m wrong?”

Sostratos tossed his head. “No. From what I’ve seen, I’d say you’re right. But that doesn’t mean Himilkon would.”

Menedemos laughed. “Anyone hearing you would guess you’ve studied under the philosophers. No one who hasn’t could split hairs so fine.”

“Thank you so much, my dear,” Sostratos said, and Menedemos laughed again. His cousin went on, “When do you plan on sailing?”

“If it were up to me-and if we had all our cargo aboard-we could leave tomorrow,” Menedemos answered. “I don’t think my father will let me take the Aphrodite out quite so early, though.” He sniffed, “He went out right at the start of the sailing season when he was a captain-I’ve heard him talk about it. But he doesn’t think I can do the same.”

“Our grandfather probably complained that he was a reckless brat,” Sostratos said.

“I suppose so.” Menedemos grinned; he liked the idea of his father as a young man having to take orders instead of arrogantly snapping them out.

“I suppose it’s been like that since the beginning of time,” Sostratos said. “We’ll be proper tyrants ourselves, too, when our beards go gray.”

“I won’t have a gray beard.” Menedemos rubbed his shaven chin.

“And you accused me of splitting hairs-you do it literally,” Sostratos said. Menedemos groaned. Sostratos continued more seriously: “I wonder how you’d find out about something like that.”

“What? If old men were always the same?” Menedemos said. “I can tell you how-look at Nestor in the Iliad.” He paused for a moment, then recited from the epic:

“ ‘He, thinking well of them, spoke and addressed them:

“Come now-great mourning has reached Akhaian land.

Priamos and the sons of Priamos and the other Trojans