PAMPHILUS AND EUPOMPUS · Summer 2026 · Torch: U.S.
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17
“Do you mind?”
“No—well—did you say I might lodge in your house tonight?”
“Were my words unclear, young man?”
“Not at all, master.”
So Eupompus beckoned the dizzy lad to his dinner table, where his family sat eating soup, lentils, and bread. Pamphilus wished the lamps were brighter so he could see the murals covering the walls, but he didn’t dare to ask for more light. He sat at the edge of the table and shoveled soup into his mouth with handfuls of bread, trying to drink in the enlightened conversation of Eupompus—but he was so tired and deliriously happy that the words seemed like honey-sweet torrents of nonsense lulling him to sleep. He had no recollection of being put in bed.
“Pamphilus, have you slept enough?”
Pamphilus opened his eyes. He could see nothing except the white light streaming through the window, but he recognized the voice and realized where he was. He bolted upright.
“Master Eupompus! Of course I am ready to enact your wishes.”
“There is nothing I wish of you, Pamphilus, except permission to unwrap your painting.”
“Sir? You needn’t have asked, it is my honor to have you view my humble work.”
He said this, but his mind filled with terror. What if he doesn’t like it? What if he laughs? What if he tells everyone? Pamphilus did not have time to finish these thoughts before he heard the master’s voice from the front room, crying, “Gods in heaven! What have I seen? These figures seem to reach out and breathe onto my face—the space seems so deep I might climb into it! Is this not the work of a sorcerer?”
Pamphilus grew frantic. Eupompus thought him a sorcerer? Now his reputation was surely ruined. He rushed into the front room, barefoot and in his nightshirt, and threw himself upon his knees.
“Sir, I swear before Athena herself—or any deity you might name—I am only a painter who creates his art by the weak principles of his studies. Surely my work lacks such merit as to be suspected that dark arts are complicit in its production?”
Eupompus guffawed. “Young man, do you have no literary breeding? I did not mean to say that I truly suspected any weird sublunary powers to have assisted you—I would never make, unsubstantiated, such an affront to a brother of the brush.”
Pamphilus stood starstruck. Eupompus—the great Eupompus—was impressed. He must be dreaming. Pamphilus began to smack his arms.
“Are you delirious, lad? Why do you strike yourself so?!”
“I strike myself, master, because I wish to escape my delirium!”
“Hoho! But I am not a delusion—it is you who is imagining yourself to have reason to hurt yourself so.”
Over breakfast, as Pamphilus admired the vivid frescos that covered the walls, Eupompus cast him a resolute glance. The young man shivered.
“Pamphilus,” the master began, “do you not think it would be wise if you submitted that panel as your application to paint the Dionysian temple mural? I expect the adjudicators would be rather impressed.”
Pamphilus nearly dropped his cup. A mural—a temple—the most public wall in Sicyon. He protested (as any poor young man must, when offered a miracle): he had never painted on a wall, not even his own; he could make small illusions on a panel, but to paint a mural would be to curse himself to failure.
“You can never fail under my guidance,” Eupompus said simply, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
And so Pamphilus submitted his Artemis.
The attendants, bless their senseless hearts, did what attendants sometimes do: they became intoxicated on beauty and certainty. Before Menaster himself had even deigned to look, the rumor had spread through servants and market-stalls alike that a young painter had won—had already won—the commission for the Dionysian temple.
Menaster, meanwhile, was having a good day.
He sauntered down the road, shoulders thrown back, brows scowling at the sunrise. “Today I will put those drunken little attendants in their place! Apparently they haven’t learned that true worship of Dionysus lies in reserving all the wine for the gods, as we mortals are unfit to partake in any of it.” Such thoughts ran through Menaster’s squarish head while he