Reader

SIMYLUS So, you’ve come to join us at last, Polystratus, after living to be, I think, almost a hundred? POLYSTRATUS Ninety-eight, Simylus. SIMYLUS Whatever sort of life did you have for these thirty years after my death? I died when you were about seventy. POLYSTRATUS An exceedingly pleasant life, even if you will think it strange. SIMYLUS Strange indeed, if you were not only old and weak but also childless, and yet could enjoy life.

POLYSTRATUS At first, I could do anything. I still could enjoy plenty of pretty boys, and the nicest women, unguents and fragrant wine, and a table to outdo any in Sicily. SIMYLUS That’s something new. I knew you to be very sparing. POLYSTRATUS Ah, but the good things came pouring in from others, my good fellow; at crack of dawn crowds of folk would start flocking to my doors, and later in the day all kinds of choice gifts from every corner of the earth would arrive. SIMYLUS Did you become tyrant, Polystratus, after my time? POLYSTRATUS No, but I had thousands of lovers. SIMYLUS You make me laugh. Lovers? At your age? With only four teeth in your head? POLYSTRATUS Yes indeed, the noblest lovers in the city. Though I was old and bald, as you see, yes, and blear-eyed and snivelling too, they were delighted to court me, and anyone of them I favoured with a mere glance thought himself in heaven. SIMYLUS You weren’t another to have a divine passenger, as did Phaon, Phaon was said to have been an ugly old ferryman of Mytilene, who was made young and handsome by Aphrodite as a reward for ferrying her, and then to have won the love of Sappho. when he ferried Aphrodite over from Chios, and have your prayers answered, becoming young, handsome and attractive all over again? POLYSTRATUS No, I was the desire of all, though just as you see me now. SIMYLUS You’re talking in riddles.

POLYSTRATUS Yet this great love for rich, childless old men is there for all to see. SIMYLUS Now I understand your beauty, you old wonder; it came from the golden Aphrodite. POLYSTRATUS And no small enjoyment, Simylus, my lovers have brought me; I was almost worshipped by them. Often I would be coy, and occasionally bar my door to some of them, but they would vie with each other in their zeal for my affection. SIMYLUS But what decision did you make about your property in the end? POLYSTRATUS I would keep saying in public that I had left each of them as my heir, and each would believe me, and show himself more assiduous than ever in his flattery; but all the time my real will was different and I left them—instructions to go to the devil one and all.

SIMYLUS And who was the heir under your final will? One of your family, no doubt? POLYSTRATUS Good heavens no; it was a pretty boy from Phrygia I’d just bought. SIMYLUS What sort of age was he? POLYSTRATUS Roughly about twenty. SIMYLUS Now I understand how he won your favour. POLYSTRATUS Oh well, he deserved to be my heir much more than they did, even if he was a barbarian and a pest. He’s already being courted by the noblest of them all. So he became my heir, and is now numbered among the aristocrats, and, despite his smooth chin and foreign accent, is credited with bluer blood than Codrus, greater beauty than NIreus, and more intelligence than Odysseus. SIMYLUS That doesn’t worry me. Let him even be Generalissimo of Greece, if he wishes to, so long as those fellows don’t inherit.