I took a polite sip of wine then set my cup down. It was smooth, but mixed strong, as I had suspected it might be. I took a piece of bread and dipped it in the oil. “Widening education seems like a truly good idea, and a fine place to start,” I said. The bread was chewy, and made of stone-ground wheat. Who had ground it?

“Everyone needs to learn Greek, read Homer, the poets, philosophy, especially in the newly conquered lands,” Phila said. She loaded her bread with pickles and preserves, and Hermes did the same. I didn’t recognize some of the dishes.

“Excellent mushrooms,” Hermes said. Then the slaves came back laden with yet more food, cold slices of some kind of pale meat, little birds on skewers, many kinds of fruit, several kinds of fish, and more dishes of different kinds of sauce for dipping. There were also plates of pastries and little cakes of different kinds. I had never seen as many kinds of food on one table at the same time. Even for a festival this would have seemed excessive. There was enough food here to feed two sleeping houses at least. The bread I had taken seemed to swell and fill my mouth. She had read Plato, how could she want to eat this way?

“What else should people learn, when I establish schools?” Phila asked me.

I swallowed, with difficulty. “Gymnastics, music and mathematics. It’s all in Plato. Logic, when they’re older, and philosophy when they’re ready for it.”

“And you think there should be schools for girls too, and that they should be open to everyone?” She dipped a plum in honey and popped it into her mouth.

“Yes,” I said. “And you should remember that everyone has equal significance, even though we are all different. You may really need slaves, you’re right that I don’t understand the conditions here properly, but if you must have them, you should be aware that they are people, like you. It hurts you too if you don’t, it diminishes your soul to treat them that way.”

“My soul?” Phila asked, sounding astonished, as if she had never realized she had a soul until I mentioned it.

Hermes crunched up one of the little birds, and took up a pastry. “We should not tell you too much,” he said.

Phila dipped a slice of meat into one of the sauces and bit into it. “Perhaps not, perhaps it is bad for us to know these things. You gave me a safe journey.”

Hermes smiled and took a bite out of his pastry, which oozed honey. The slave boy came up to refill our cups. I shook my head, as mine was still almost full.

“Now we are friends, it would be pleasant to count on such safe travel in future,” Phila said, carefully, her head a little on one side as she looked assessingly at Hermes.