"I never muchthought about it," Menedemos confessed. "But most towns are prettybad, aren't they? You can't get from the harbor to an inn a bowshot awaywithout asking directions three different times, on account of the streets gowherever they please, not where you need 'em to." "Of course,"Sostratos said musingly, "Peiraieus and Rhodes are new cities; they couldbe planned. It's what, two years shy of a century since Rhodes was founded? Atown that's been there since before the fall of Troy, the streets probablyfollow the way the cows used to wander." "Homer doesn't sayanything about whether Troy was laid out in a grid," Menedemos said. Hepaused to eye a slave woman carrying a jar of water back to her house."Hello, sweetheart!" he called. The slave kept walking, but shesmiled back at Menedemos. Sostratos sighed. Ifhe'd done that, the slave woman might have ignored him -  if he was lucky. Ifhe wasn't lucky, she'd have showered him with curses. That had happened to himonce, up in Athens. Like a puppy that once stuck its nose into the fire, hehadn't taken the chance of its happening again. Potters and jewelers andshoemakers and smiths and millers and tavernkeepers and all the other artisanswhose work helped keep Rhodes prosperous had their shops in the front part ofthe buildings in which they and their households also lived. Some of themsteadily kept whatever they did for a living. Others made periodic forays outinto the street in search of customers. "Here -  look at myfine terracottas!" cried a potter -  or would he think of himself as asculptor? Sostratos didn't know. He didn't much care, either. He hoped thefellow made better pots than burnt-clay images. If he didn't, his wife andchildren would starve.