AMBASSADOR. Come, Pseudartabas, give forth the message for the Athenians with which you were charged by the Great King. PSEUDARTABAS. Jartaman exarx 'anapissonnai satra.[167] AMBASSADOR. Do you understand what he says? DICAEOPOLIS. By Apollo, not I! AMBASSADOR. He says, that the Great King will send you gold. Come, utter the word 'gold' louder and more distinctly. DICAEOPOLIS. Thou shalt not have gold, thou gaping-arsed Ionian.[168] DICAEOPOLIS. Ah! may the gods forgive me, but that is clear enough. AMBASSADOR. What does he say? DICAEOPOLIS. That the Ionians are debauchees and idiots, if they expect to receive gold from the barbarians. AMBASSADOR. Not so, he speaks of medimni[169] of gold. DICAEOPOLIS. What medimni? Thou art but a great braggart; but get your way, I will find out the truth by myself. Come now, answer me clearly, if you do not wish me to dye your skin red. Will the Great King send us gold? (_Pseudartabas makes a negative sign._) Then our ambassadors are seeking to deceive us? (_Pseudartabas signs affirmatively._) These fellows make signs like any Greek; I am sure that they are nothing but Athenians. Oh, ho! I recognize one of these eunuchs; it is Clisthenes, the son of Sibyrtius.[170] Behold the effrontery of this shaven rump! How! great baboon, with such a beard do you seek to play the eunuch to us? And this other one? Is it not Straton? HERALD. Silence! Let all be seated. The Senate invites the King's Eye to the Prytaneum.[171] DICAEOPOLIS. Is this not sufficient to drive one to hang oneself? Here I stand chilled to the bone, whilst the doors of the Prytaneum fly wide open to lodge such rascals. But I will do something great and bold. Where is Amphitheus? Come and speak with me. AMPHITHEUS. Here I am. DICAEOPOLIS. Take these eight drachmae and go and conclude a truce with the Lacedaemonians for me, my wife and my children; I leave you free, my dear citizens, to send out embassies and to stand gaping in the air. HERALD. Bring in Theorus, who has returned from the Court of Sitalces.[172] THEORUS. I am here. DICAEOPOLIS. Another humbug! THEORUS. We should not have remained long in Thrace.... DICAEOPOLIS. Forsooth, no, if you had not been well paid. THEORUS. ... If the country had not been covered with snow; the rivers were ice-bound at the time that Theognis[173] brought out his tragedy here; during the whole of that time I was holding my own with Sitalces, cup in hand; and, in truth, he adored you to such a degree, that he wrote on the walls, "How beautiful are the Athenians!" His son, to whom we gave the freedom of the city, burned with desire to come here and eat chitterlings at the feast of the Apaturia;[174] he prayed his father to come to the aid of his new country and Sitalces swore on his goblet that he would succour us with such a host that the Athenians would exclaim, "What a cloud of grasshoppers!"