He soon recognized his customer as a brothel keeper. “If the girls smell good, they'll get more trade, and they'll be able to charge more, too,” the fellow said. “Of course, if you try and charge me too much for your rosewater here, I'll never make back the price, so you can't squeeze me too hard.”
Sostratos felt like squeezing the local by the neck, for distracting him from the deal in which he was more interested. He ended up selling the perfume for less than he might have, both because he was distracted and because the brothel keeper quibbled over oboloi with the dogged persistence of a man who struck a dozen bargains every afternoon. Sostratos didn't lose money on the deal, but he didn't make any to speak of, either.
At last, after what seemed like forever, Menedemos ambled back from the Kaunian merchant's stall. “Aristeidas, Teleutas, come on back to the ship with me. We need to get some silver, and then we need to pick up some things.” He led the two sailors off toward the Aphrodite without telling Sostratos which things they would pick up and without giving him the chance to ask.
He did that on purpose, Sostratos thought with no small annoyance. He didn't mind Menedemos' always taking the lead, though he himself was older than his cousin. He didn't enjoy standing in front of men and shouting and gesturing to urge them on to pay higher prices, while Menedemos relished nothing more—except, perhaps, seducing their wives. But when he gives orders deliberately intended to drive me mad. . .
Kaunos wasn't a big city. Menedemos didn't need long to return to the agora, coins clinking in a leather sack he carried in his left hand. His right hand rested on the hilt of a sword he'd belted on. Aristeidas was similarly armed; Teleutas carried a belaying pin with the air of a man who knew what to do with it. It would have taken a large band of determined robbers to separate Menedemos from his money.
Along with the sailors, he strode over to the stall of the merchant with the hides—and the gryphon's skull. Sostratos watched anxiously and tried to listen, but got distracted again when a local came up and wanted to talk about the best way to make crimson dye fast to Koan silk. Normally, Sostratos would have been delighted to talk shop with the fellow. As things were, he'd never had a customer he wanted less. Even when the man bought a jar of dye, he had to make himself remember to take the money.
Here came Menedemos, carrying the striped tiger skin rolled up and tied with rope. At another time, thai hide by itself would have been plenty to rouse Sostratos' always lively curiosity. Here came Aristeidas, with a rolled-up lion skin under each arm. And . .. here came Teleutas, lugging the gryphon's skull and looking put upon, as anyone who got stuck with the heaviest piece of the work would have.
Sostratos hurried over to Menedemos and kissed him on the cheek.
“Thank you, O best one!” he exclaimed. Then, pragmatism returning, he asked, “What did you pay for it?”
“Thirty drakhmai,” Menedemos answered. “Polluted whoreson wouldn't go any lower, not even when I asked him if he felt like waiting twelve years or so till another mad philosopher wandered into the agora here.”
“He probably gave twenty-five to the Hellene he bought it from, and didn't want to part with it at a loss,” Sostratos said.
“Exactly what I was thinking.” His cousin grinned at him. “I notice you don't deny being a mad philosopher.”
“I do love wisdom, or the chance to gain some,” Sostratos said seriously. “As for mad . . .” He shrugged. “I'd rather call myself, mm, inquisitive,”
Thoukydides had had some sharp things to say about men who called a thing by one name when it manifestly deserved another. But Sostratos honestly didn't think he was mad for knowledge the way, say, Sokrates had been. Of course, what madman ever believes be is one?
Teleutas said, “I've sailed up past Byzantion onto the Pontos Euxeinos, and I've seen gryphons painted on plates along that coast, and done up in jewelry. Up there, they make 'em out to be pretty. But any beast with a skull like this'd have to be the ugliest thing that ever hatched out of an egg.”
“Now there's a question, my wisdom-loving cousin,” Menedemos said. “Do gryphons hatch from eggs, or are they born alive?”
“It's a question with a simple answer, as far as I'm concerned,” Sostratos replied. “I don't know.”
“An honest answer, anyway,” Menedemos said. “Come on, boys, back to the akatos again. We'll stow these prizes—and the skull— and then see what else we can get.”
“Prizes—and the skull?” Sostratos echoed unhappily, “Why did you buy it if you didn't think we'd make anything from it?”
“Because, my dear, you'd have fussed and fumed this whole sailing season if I'd left it sitting there on the ground. Thirty drakhmai isn't too high a price to pay for a summer's worth of peace and quiet,” Menedemos answered, Sostratos' ears got hot. There were times when his cousin knew him much too well.
“ Oh, that thing,” Kissidas said when Menedemos and Sostratos went back to the Rhodian proxenos' house for supper that evening. “I've seen it in the agora. Everybody in Kaunos has seen it in the market square by now, I daresay. Why in the name of the gods did you want it?”
“Well . . .” Menedemos, usually so glib, found himself at a loss for words. “You see . . . That is .. .” I bought it to keep Sostratos happy didn't seem reason enough, not when he sat in the olive merchant's andron instead of bargaining in the market square.
Sostratos was glib enough here: “I want the philosophers in Athens to see it. It answers many questions about gryphons, starting with whether they're real or mythical beasts. I'd always thought they were the stuff of story myself, but I see I was wrong.”
“Hard to have a real skull for a mythical beast,” Kissidas said with a dry chuckle.
“Exactly so, best one,” Sostratos agreed. He would have made a better merchant if everyday affairs roused the same passion in him as this oddity did. Of course he needs oddities to interest him—he's odd himself, Menedemos thought. His cousin went on, “At the same time, though, having a veritable gryphon's skull raises as many questions as it answers.”
Those questions were for the moment forgotten when Kissidas' cook brought in a dogfish smothered with melted cheese and leeks to accompany his fresh-baked bread. Menedemos made sure he ate enough bread so as not to seem a shameless opsophagos, but the portion of dogfish set before him vanished with marvelous haste. To his relief, his host and his cousin ate their fish just as fast.
But, after Kissidas licked his fingers clean, he asked, “What sort of questions does the gryphon's skull raise? It just looks like ugly old bones to me.”
To me, too, Menedemos thought. But Sostratos answered, “Well, for one thing, why would gryphons make good guards for the gold of the Skythians? They have—or this one has, at any rate—teeth that would be better for grazing than for ripping and tearing, as a lion might do.”
Kissidas blinked. “I never would have thought to look at its teeth. Who would?”
“Sostratos is like that,” Menedemos murmured.
He didn't think the olive merchant heard him. To his relief, he didn't think his cousin did, either. Sostratos went on, “And you're right to say it looks like old bones, but it doesn't feel like old bones. It feels like stone, and it has bits of stone stuck to it here and there. Why should gryphons have skulls made of stone when all other beasts have theirs made of bone?”