In the tradition of Steven Pressfield and Mary Renault, a seafaring novel of the ancient GreeksThe vast tapestry of the Hellenic world unfolds in this stirring tale of two traders from the island of Rhodes, who range across the wind-blown face of the beautiful and treacherous Mediterranean in search of adventure and profits.In Over the Wine-dark Sea, H. N. Turteltaub transported his readers to the year 310 B.C. and the lives of Menedemos and Sostratos, two sea traders of Rhodes. From the smell of papyrus and ink to the thrumming of sail in the wind and the grunt of the oarsmen, the details of life in a now-vanished world come alive again in his new novel, The Gryphon's Skull, an epic of grand adventure and finely realized characters. Sostratos, long and rangy, intellectual and curious, chases knowledge as ardently as his cousin chases women; Menedemos, nearly as perfect a physical specimen as Alexander himself, is the headstrong man of the sea, his eyes unable to resist the veiled beauties around him... including his young stepmother, Baukis, whose voice and form he struggles to ignore.Having profitably returned on the Aphrodite to Rhodes, the two cousins find that war threatens their once free-trading world. Alexander the Great's successors are warring for control of the eastern Mediterranean. The ruthless one-eyed general Antigonos, who draws on the strength of all Anatolia, and his rival Ptolemaios, who controls the endless wealth of Egypt, are each ruthlessly maneuvering for advantage... and the neutrality of Rhodes, so essential to commerce, may be coming to an end.Yet though war and rumors of war surround them, Sostratos and Menedemos need to turn a profit. It seems the height of folly to try one's luck so strenuously, but Sostratos has come into possession of what he is convinced is the skull of the mythical gryphon, the fabled beast with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. They sail to Athens, intending to sell it to a school of philosophy. And the Egyptian emeralds they've obtained on the cheap promise to make them an even tidier profit.But between the Aphrodite and Athens lie two war fleets, innumerable pirates, and enough danger and intrigue to satisfy even Homer. Unfortunately, it may be more than Sostratos and Menedemos can hope to survive.
The Gryphon’s Skull is dedicated to Jack Horner, whose Dinosaur Lives gave me the idea for it. I owe him special thanks for the pleasure of his conversation, and for his patience with my questions about Protoceratops skulls. Any errors, of course, are purely my own.
I have, as best I could, used in this novel the weights, measures, and coinages my characters would have used and encountered in their journey. Here are some approximate equivalents (precise values would have varied from city to city, further complicating things):
1 digit = 3/4 inch
4 digits = 1 palm
6 palms = 1 cubit
1 cubit = 1 1/2 feet
1 plethron = 100 feet
1 stadion = 600 feet
12 khalkoi = 1 obolos
6 oboloi = 1 drakhma
100 drakhmai = 1 mina
(about 1 pound of silver)
60 minai = 1 talent
As noted, these are all approximate. As a measure of how widely they could vary, the talent in Athens was about 57 pounds, while that of Aigina, less than thirty miles away, was about 83 pounds.
Map by Mark Stein Studios
Spring. Never in all his twenty-six years had Menedemos been so glad to see the sailing season come round again. Not that winter in Rhodes was harsh. Menedemos had never seen snow fall here, nor had his father. Even so ...
His fingers caressed the steering-oar tillers of the merchant galley
From the quay at which the
“I will, Father,” Menedemos said dutifully. One of the reasons he was so glad to escape Rhodes was that that meant escaping Philo-demos. Living in the same house with him through the winter had been harder this year than in any other Menedemos could remember. His father had long been convinced he couldn't do anything right.
As if to prove as much, Philodemos called, “Listen to your cousin. Sostratos has the beginnings of good sense.”
Menedemos clipped his head, as Hellenes did to show assent. He shot Sostratos a hooded glance. Sostratos had the decency to look embarrassed at such praise from the older generation.
Sostratos' father, Lysistratos, stood alongside Philodemos. He was a good deal more easygoing than his older brother. But he too said, “You're going to have to watch yourselves every single place you go.”
“We
But Lysistratos persisted: “Not just pirates these days, you know. Since Ptolemaios and Antigonos started fighting again last year, there'll be more war galleys on the sea than a dog has fleas. Some of those whoresons are just pirates in bigger, faster, stronger ships.”
“Yes, Uncle Lysistratos,” Menedemos said patiently. “But if we don't go out and trade, the family goes hungry.”
“Well, that's true,” Lysistratos admitted.
“Watch out for the silk merchants on Kos,” Philodemos warned. “They'll gouge you if you give them half a chance—-even a quarter of a chance. They think they've got the world by the short hairs because you can't buy silk anywhere else.”
His father gave more advice. In a low voice, Sostratos said, “If we keep listening to them, we'll never sail.”
“Isn't that the truth?” Menedemos whispered back. He raised his voice to call out to the crew: “Rowers to the benches! Diokles, come up to the stern, if you please.”
“Right you are, skipper,” Diokles answered. The keleustes was in his early forties, his skin tanned and leathery from endless summers at sea. He mounted from the undecked waist of the akatos to the poop. His bare feet were sure and quiet as he came up the steps to the raised platform at the stern. Seamen didn't wear shoes aboard ship—and few of them bothered with shoes ashore, either.
