The Gryphon's Skull

Menedemos stared. “And you told him no? You must have told him no.” Sostratos dipped his head. Still astonished, Menedemos asked, “But why? You can't think we'll get more than that in Athens.

“I don't,” his cousin admitted. “But I took the skull to show it to him, not to sell. I don't want it gathering dust in a rich man's andron, or on display at drinking parties like Kleiteles' jackdaw with the little bronze shield. I want men who truly love wisdom to study it.”

“You must,” Menedemos said, and then, “I'm glad no mosquito bite ever gave me the itch for philosophy.” He gathered himself. “But even if we got ten minai for the gryphon's skull, that'd only be a quarter part of forty. We can pick up Polemaios, bring him back to Kos, and then we can head for Athens. Am I right or am I wrong?”

With a longing sigh, Sostratos said, “Oh, you're right, I suppose. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.” Scuffing his feet on the planking, he descended from the poop deck into the waist of the merchant galley.

“Did I hear right, skipper?” Diokles asked in a low voice. “Six minai of silver for that silly skull, and he turned it down? Who's crazier, that other fellow for saying he'd pay it, or your cousin for telling him no?”

“To the crows with me if I know,” Menedemos answered, also quietly, and the oarmaster laughed. But Menedemos went on, “He really does chase philosophy the way I chase girls, doesn't he?” In an odd sort of way, the way he would have admired a boy who declined an expensive gift from a suitor he didn't fancy, he found himself admiring Sostratos for rejecting Damonax's enormous offer.

“You have more fun,” Diokles said.

That made Menedemos chuckle. “Well, I think so, too,” he said. “But if Sostratos doesn't, who am I to tell him he's wrong?”

Diokles grunted. ''I can think of a good many hetairai who'd be happy if a fellow gave 'em half a dozen minai. Fact is, I can't think of any so grand that they wouldn't be.” Menedemos only shrugged. Maybe Thai's, who'd talked Alexander the Great into burning Persepolis. But maybe not, too.

The Aphrodite neared Lebinthos as the sun neared the Aegean Sea to the west. Menedemos steered the akatos toward a nice little harbor on the southern coast of the island. Both steering oars felt alike in his hands again; with seasoned timber at their disposal, Ptolemaios' carpenters hadn't needed long to replace the makeshift Euxenides of Phaselis had made. But even they'd praised it as they took it off the pivot.

“Aristeidas, go forward,” Menedemos called. “If a pirate's lurking in that bay, you'd be the first to spot him.”

“Not likely, skipper,” Diokles said as Aristeidas went. “No water to speak of on Lebintnos. If it's got more than a family of fisherman living on it, I'd be amazed.”

“So would I,” Menedemos answered. “But I don't want any nasty surprises.” The keleustes could hardly argue with that, and didn't.

But the small, sheltered bay was empty save for shore birds, which flew up in white-winged clouds as the Aphrodite beached herself. The beach seemed so deserted, Menedemos wondered if sea turtles laid their eggs here, too. I'll send out some men to probe the sand with sticks, he thought.

Sostratos came over to him. “Lebinthos,” he said, pronouncing the name of the island like a man prodding his teeth with his tongue, feeling for a bit of food that might have got stuck there. And then, being the sort of fellow he was, he found what he was looking for: “Didn't Ikaros fly past this place on his way north from Crete?”

Menedemos looked up to the sky. Stars would be coming out very soon now. “I don't know,” he answered. “If he did fly by, he probably took one look at it and pissed on it from up high,”

“Scoffer.” Sostratos laughed. He seemed to have forgotten he was supposed to be angry at Menedemos, and Menedemos didn't remind him.

“It's true,” Menedemos said. “Well, it could be true, anyhow. Maybe that's why this is such a blighted little place.”

His cousin laughed again, but then turned serious. “If a few people did live on Lebinthos, they'd probably turn that into a myth to explain why more people couldn't.”

That made a certain amount of sense. But being sensible didn't make Menedemos comfortable with it. “You called me a scoffer,” he said. “I was just making a silly joke. You sound like you mean it.”

“Don't you think that's how a lot of myths got started?” Sostratos asked. “As explanations for the way things are, I mean?”

“Maybe. I never worried about it much, though,” Menedemos answered. The idea of asking why about a myth, as one might to a story of how a cart broke a wheel, made him nervous. “Myths are just myths, that's all.”