The Gryphon's Skull

“That we will,” the keleustes agreed. “Blistered hands, too, same as we do when we start out in the spring.”

“If they'll rub oil on their hands as soon as they start getting raw, they won't blister so much,” Sostratos said.

“Not a bad notion,” Diokles agreed, smiting his bronze square to give the rowers their stroke. “I'd do that myself every now and again when I pulled an oar, and I did enough rowing to make my palms hard as horn.”

Menedemos kept the merchant galley close to the coast of Kos. Across the channel, Ptolemaios' ships and soldiers still laid siege to Halikarnassos. Stopping up a harbor tight as a wine jar wasn't easy, though. Every so often, one or two of Antigonos' war galleys would slip out and sink or capture any ships they could catch, Menedemos didn't want to make things easy for them.

He glanced over to his cousin. “Oë, Sostratos, there's history going on, just a few stadia away.”

“Well, so there is,” Sostratos said. “But it's not going on very fast, is it? I don't think I'll miss much if I look northwest instead of northeast.”

Look towards Athens, he meant. Menedemos said. “We're not there yet, and we're not going there yet, either. Why don't you look due north instead? That's where Miletos lies, near enough. We need the money we'll make there, too.”

“I know,” Sostratos said, “Every word you say is true. I understand that. But I have a hard time caring.”

“You'd better not,” Menedemos warned him. “When we trade there, we'll have to haggle extra hard, squeeze all the silver we can out of the merchants. If you're mooning over that miserable gryphon's skull, you won't do us any good.”

“I know,” Sostratos said again. But his gaze went back to the rower's bench under which the skull was stowed. A lover's gaze might have gone to his beloved in the same way. A lover's gaze would have been no more tender, either.

“Me, I'll be glad when we get to Athens, just so we're rid of the miserable, ugly thing,” Menedemos said.

“Anything you can learn from is beautiful,” his cousin said stiffly.

“When I want beauty, I'll find it in a girl's flesh, not a gryphon's bone,” Menedemos said.

“There's beauty of the flesh, and then there's beauty of the mind,” Sostratos said. “The gryphon's skull has none of the one, but thinking about it may lead those who love wisdom to the other.”

After a few heartbeats, Menedemos tossed his head. “I'm afraid that's beyond me, my dear. Nothing you say can make that bone seem anything but ugly to me.”

“Let it go, then,” Sostratos said, somewhat to Menedemos' sur­prise: when his cousin felt philosophical, he was often inclined to lecture. A moment later, Sostratos explained himself: “I've got Platon and Sokrates on my mind, that's all.”

“Why?” Menedemos asked. Before Sostratos could, he answered his own question: “Oh. Hemlock, of course.”

“That's right,” Sostratos said. “There's a good deal of talk about the relationship between physical beauty and real love in the Symposion.”

“Is there? Well, that's more interesting than philosophy usually gets.”

“Scoffer.”

“Scoffer?” Menedemos assumed a hurt expression. “Now you've gone and got me interested, and you complain I'm scoffing. What does Sokrates have to say about it? Or should I ask, what does Platon have to say?”

“That's a good question,” Sostratos said thoughtfully. “There's probably no one left alive who can say how much of what Platon put in Sokrates' mouth really belongs there, and how much comes from the younger man.”

“Don't get sidetracked,” Menedemos told him. “What does beauty have to do with real love? That's a lot more interesting than who wrote what.”

“You were the one who brought it up, but never mind,” Sostratos said. “If you follow the argument in the Symposion,

not a great deal. Physical beauty leads you on toward beauty of the mind, and that's where real love lies.”

“Sounds like an old man's argument to me,” Menedemos said. “If your prick won't stand, you talk about the beauty of the mind so you don't have to fret yourself about it.”

“You are a scoffer,” Sostratos said, and then, “I just had a nasty thought.”

“What's that?”

“Do we dare put in at Miletos? We spent all that time stuck in Kos when we hadn't planned to. By now, news that we brought Polemaios there will have spread all over the place. Antigonos' men may want to roast us over a slow fire.”

“I know you. You're still looking for an excuse to head straight for Athens,” Menedemos said. “That one won't do, though. Remember, Demetrios of Phaleron is Kassandros' puppet, and Kassandros won't be happy to find out Polemaios got loose, either.” He suddenly grinned. “Besides, it's not a worry anymore.”

“Why not?” Sostratos asked.

“I'll tell you why not. Suppose they blame us for letting Polemaios get loose so he can plague his uncle. What do we say? We say, 'Well, O marvelous one, you don't need to lose any sleep about that, be­cause we watched Polemaios die.' They won't be angry at us for that news—they'll be glad to hear it.”