The Gryphon's Skull

They'd come into the western part of the city, most of the way from Sostratos' house to the gymnasion. But Sostratos didn't intend to strip off his clothes and run or wrestle. He exercised as little as he could get away with, not least because Menedemos easily outdid him when they went to the gymnasion together. Sostratos was larger than his cousin, but Menedemos was far quicker and more graceful.

“I... think this is the house,” Sostratos said. He had trouble being sure; one blank housefront looked very much like another. If I'm wrong, he thought as he knocked on the door, whoever answers can probably set me right.

Somewhere inside the house, a dog started barking. Arlissos set down the gryphon's skull so he could stretch and show how put-upon he was. He'd just picked up the skull again when somebody said, “Yes? What is it?” through the door.

“Is this the house of Damonax son of Polydoros?” Sostratos asked.

“Yes. Who wants to know?” The door still didn't open.

Sostratos gave his own name, adding, “I've brought something your master may be interested in seeing.”

“Wait,” said the man on the other side of the door. Sostratos duly waited. So did Arlissos, who exuded silent reproach. After a bit, the door did swing open on the lengths of doweling that turned in holes in the floor and the lintel. “He'll see you,” Damonax's slave reported. By his guttural accent and narrow, swarthy face, he was probably a Phoenician. “He's in the courtyard. Come with me.”

“Hail, Sostratos,' Damonax said when the doorman brought the newcomers into the courtyard. He was a handsome man about ten years older than Sostratos, his hairline beginning to recede at the temples. Pointing to the sailcloth-shrouded bundle Arlissos bore, he asked, “What have you got there?” Like Sostratos', his Doric Greek—the dialect spoken in Rhodes—had an Attic overlay; he'd studied at the Lykeion for several years, returning to his home polis the year after Sostratos arrived.

Like a conjurer performing at a symposion, Sostratos whipped away the square of sailcloth. “Behold!” he said. “A gryphon's skull!”

“Really? You're joking.” Damonax got up off the bench where he'd been sitting and came over for a closer look. He tapped the skull with his fingernail. “No, by the dog of Egypt, I see you're not. Where on earth did you find it?”

“Kaunos,” Sostratos answered, and explained how he and Menedemos had come by the skull. “I brought it here because you also studied under Theophrastos. What do you make of it?”

“I wish you could have brought that tiger skin you mentioned, too,” Damonax said wistfully. “If going out to trade can lead to such marvels as this, the Hellenes who look down their noses at it may have to think again.”

Most upper-class Hellenes looked down their noses at merchants. The life of a gentleman farmer was the ideal, with an overseer and slaves to do the actual work, giving the gentleman farmer himself the money and leisure he needed to live as he would, beholden to no one. Damonax wore two heavy gold rings; the clasps of his sandals were likewise golden, Roses scented the olive oil he rubbed into his skin. He lived the ideal.

Acknowledging that, envying it, Sostratos said, “Thank you, O best one.”

“Thank you for letting me see this.” Damonax pointed to the bench on which he'd been sitting, then spoke to Arlissos: “Why don't you put the skull down there, so your master and I can examine it as we please?”

“I'll gladly do that, sir.” The Karian sighed with relief as he set down the skull.

To his own slave, Damonax said, “Bring us some wine, Phelles, and some olives, or whatever else you find in the kitchen.” Nodding his head as barbarians often did to show agreement, the Phoenician hurried away. Damonax leaned close to the gryphon's skull and tapped it again. “It feels more like stone than bone,” he remarked.

“\ noticed the same thing,” Sostratos answered. “I don't know what it means, except that the skull is old and was buried for a long time.”

“Not just old,” Arlissos muttered. “Heavy.”

“Who was the philosopher,” Damonax asked, “who found petrified seashells on the mountainside and realized the ocean must have covered it long ago?”

“I should know that.” Sostratos thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “A pestilence! I do know that.” He snapped his fingers, then suddenly grinned. “Xenophanes of Kolophon, that's who it was.”

“Euge!” Damonax exclaimed. “Very well done indeed, in fact. I couldn't have come up with the name if you'd given me to Antigonos' nastiest torturer.”

Phelles came back with a wooden tray on which he carried a bowl of olives and two cups of wine. He set them down on the bench by the gryphon's skull. Seeing no wine for himself, Arlissos took the tray from Phelles' startled hands. “Here, my friend,” Sostratos' slave said, “let me carry this to the kitchen for you.” Sostratos popped an olive into his mouth to hide a smile. If Arlissos didn't end up with a snack, he would be surprised.