In Cos the popular or pro-Athenian party was in the ascendant, and their opponents were weak. The fact was that the Spartans were not in good repute there. Six years before their admiral Astyochus had plundered the island laying hands impartially on the property of friends and of foes. Still there was a party which remained faithful to Sparta, and Hippocles preferred to speak as their representative. His wide-spread connections as a merchant—and Cos had a large trade with its famous vintages and equally famous woven stuffs—gave him a knowledge of details and persons that would have deceived a far more acute and suspicious person than Callicratidas.
The merchant began the conversation by offering the admiral a present of wine, and one of those almost transparent robes of silk that were a specialty of the island.
“I will not be so churlish as to refuse what you have the good will to offer me,” said Callicratidas, “but you must understand that I do not accept these things for myself. I accept no personal gifts; it is a dangerous practice, and has given rise to much scandal. I shall send them to Sparta, and the magistrates will dispose of them as they think fit. What is this?” he went on, taking up the robe and holding it between his eyes and the lamp. “What do you use it for? for straining the wine?”
Hippocles explained that it was a material for garments.
“Garments!” exclaimed the Spartan, “why, we might as well wear a spider’s web. It is not clothing at all. It neither warms nor covers. Is it possible that there are people so foolish as to spend their money on it? It is costly, I suppose?”
“As you ask me,” replied Hippocles, “I may say that it costs about two minas a yard.”
“Two minas a yard!” cried Callicratidas, whose Spartan frugality was scandalized at such a price. “Why,” he added after a short calculation, “it is very nearly a seaman’s pay for a year,[18] are there many who buy such costly stuff?”
“A dress of this material is the top of the fashion for ladies in Athens and Corinth.”
“What?” said the Spartan, “do women wear such things? It is incredible. I have always thought that things had changed for the worse at home, but we have not got as far as that. And now for your business.”
Hippocles explained that there was a dissatisfied party in Cos which was very anxious to get rid of Athenian rule. “We are not strong enough,” he went on, “to do it of ourselves, but send on a force and we will open the gates to you. Cos is a strong place now, since the Athenians fortified it, and, I should think, quite worth having.”