The ship or the wishes (13)

All the same I looked at everything and then asked one of the sailors what

income the ship brought in to its owner in an average year. “A minimum of twelve Attic talents,” he replied. Then I went back on shore and mused on what a happy life I should have had if of a sudden some god had made the ship mine: I would have helped my friends, and sailed in her myself some-times, and sometimes sent my servants. Then with some of the twelve talents I had already built myself a house in a good spot just above the Painted Arcade, [*] giving up the family house by the Ilissus; and I was buying servants and clothes and carriages and horses. Just now I was at sea, the envy of the passengers and the terror of the crew; they thought me almost a king. I was still settling her affairs and gazing at the harbour in the distance when you turned up, Lycinus. You sank my wealth and capsized my bark just when she was sailing well before the fair wind of my wish.