"Do you know," he said to his young guest some ten days after their arrival, "that there is to be an important meeting of the Assembly to-morrow?"
"I heard Polemon say something about it to-day. He asked one of the young fellows who were playing at _kottabos_ with him whether he thought of going, and seemed to surprise him very much by the question. Polemon, you see, has not been living in Corinth for much more than a year, and has not quite caught the high-toned Corinthian manner. He actually imagines it possible for a man to have some interest in public affairs. You should have heard the astonishment in his friend's voice when he answered him, 'Going to the Assembly, did you say? Why, my dear fellow, I have never been to the Assembly, and certainly never shall, till they make me Eparch or whatever they call it, when I shall have to, I suppose. And to-morrow of all days in the year! Why, don't you know that Pintocles of Megara is coming over with his champion team of quails, and that I am going to meet them with mine? We have a wager of a hundred gold pieces on the event. If one side kills _all_ the birds on the other side, the loser is to pay double stakes. In any case the winner is to give a dinner to the loser and his friends. Going to the Assembly, indeed!' That is all that I have heard about it."
"Then I had better enlighten you," replied Archias. "You know that the Assembly has been called to hear the envoys from Rome state the terms which the Senate is willing to agree to. You ought to be there. _You_ will find it very interesting, whatever these young gentlemen with their teams of fighting quails may think about it."
"Certainly I should like to go; but how am I to get in? At Athens they were very particular not to admit any one that was not a citizen."
"Don't trouble yourself on that score. Here they are not particular at all. Simply follow the crowd. There will be no one to stop you."
And so it turned out. There were door-keepers at the entrances to the vast amphitheatre in which the meeting of the Assembly was held, but they did not attempt to exclude anyone. Cleanor found himself, when he was seated, in the midst of a crowd almost as variegated and as polyglot as that at which he was accustomed to gaze in the streets. No one could suppose that any large proportion of them were genuine Corinthian citizens. The fourth hour[19] was the time appointed for the commencement of business, and the multitude spent the interval much in the same way that a waiting crowd would do nowadays. They cheered or hissed any well-known citizen as he took his place, yelled out witticisms which seemed to please the more the coarser and more personal they were, sang songs with noisy choruses, and kept up generally an incessant uproar. Men carrying baskets of cakes and sweetmeats, or jars of wine, passed up and down the spaces between the blocks of seats, and did a brisk business in their respective wares.