No one pitied him. Who knew much about a poor comedian? In whatever character he appeared the spectators saw only a close linen mask, which covered the whole head, and a costume that suited the mask. An Agonistēs might appear in three or four parts, year after year on the great holidays, might grow old on the stage, but win admiration and affection—impossible! It was the lifelike disguise, the mask and robe which the populace applauded. Who was concealed beneath no one knew and no one cared to know.
As Sthenelus’ lameness had rendered him useless as an actor, he was obliged to fight his way through the world as he best could. The scanty alms bestowed by the state upon all cripples was far from being sufficient for his needs. He first sold his stage paraphernalia, his masks, daggers, etc., and then wandered through the small towns in the neighborhood of Athens, making merriment for the inhabitants. He went, as he himself said, from tragedy to comedy. Jesting became his means of livelihood, and to keep up his courage he drank whenever opportunity offered, and in those days opportunities were not rare.
“Why! why!” he said as he entered, “you are as solemn as the Areopagites themselves. By Heracles, it was far livelier where I’ve been! I come from Halipedon; the good folks there were amusing themselves by jumping on leather bottles. Finally a fat sausage-dealer set his flat feet on one so that it burst with a loud report—and over he went slap on his back in the midst of the mire. There wasn’t a dry thread on him. Ha! ha! ha!”
The other new-comer, Lysiteles, a small, wizened, hump-backed man, plucked Sthenelus’ robe to warn him to be less noisy. Then he greeted the assembled group, but in an awkward, humble way, as though he knew no one would notice the salutation, after which he shrank into himself still more, so that nothing was seen of his face except a big pale forehead covered with a network of wrinkles.
This man was one of the utterly ruined idlers, of whom there were so many in Athens. As a youth he had been attractive, gay, haughty, and extravagant, but all that was left of the “magnificent” Lysiteles was a decrepit old man of sixty who, with age, had red, rheumy eyes. The jester Meidias asserted that Hermes had changed his eyes to two fountains, which wept for his lost fortune day and night. On the whole Lysiteles was accustomed to be made the butt of jests. Some dissolute young fellows had once dragged him in to a dinner at the house of Ægidion, a well-known hetaera from Corinth. After the banquet the question was asked.
“Can any one tell why Lysiteles is more crooked and bent than any other Athenian?”
Ægidion who, clad in a robe of semi-transparent stuff from Amorgos, was reclining on a couch, stretched out her smooth arm adorned with a gold bracelet and beckoned to Lysiteles. Fixing her dark eyes on him, she gave him a light tap on his lean stomach and said: “It’s hard for an empty sack to stand upright.”
IX.
Thuphrastos invited the last arrivals to be seated.
Lysiteles took the couch farthest in the rear, while Sthenelus stretched himself at full length on one of the front ones, close beside the master of the house.