2–4
LYCINUS
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.
TIMOLAUS
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.
SAMIPPUS
Good, Timolaus; you remind me of Thucydides, where he writes in the introduction to his work about our ancient luxury among the Ionians, when the people of that time went away to found colonies together. Thucydides I, vi.
LYCINUS
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.
SAMIPPUS
Good! Then what must we do now? Wait for him here? Or would you like me to go back again to the ship?
