A long time ago, in an age where mythology was the rule of the day rather than a footnote in time; a bow that would beget legend, myth, and even spawn a holiday was created. Born of silver, gold, and platinum; encrusted with rubies up and down its length, but only eight inches long, it appeared as nothing more than a toy of royalty; rather than the tool of a demi-god. Etched in flame along it's length read the words "όποιος ελέγχει ποτέ το τόξο, ελέγχει την επιθυμία" But like all things associated with that of mythology, it was lost to time. Or so it was thought.
Marcus was toiling away at university. Nothing real serious, that part was behind him. But as part of his post graduate studies and applications, he was cataloguing various items that had been in storage and not identified, catalogued, and assigned a place amongst all the many artifacts of varying ages and types. In its own way, it was both fascinating and boring what he was doing.
Each box opened was in its way, like opening up a birthday present, you didn't know what it was till it was opened. It could be like getting that awesome item you had been wanting for months; or it could be like finding a package of socks. Necessary, but not very exciting or fulfilling.
The other thing about this job was, he was pretty much by himself. Not many aimed for post graduate studies in Greek archeology/mythology. As such, he tended to work away in the basement area of the university. There would be an odd other post grad student here or there occasionally, or even a professor or two. But typically, he was by himself.
He was not a jock, so he wasn't overly popular around campus. He wasn't ugly, or awkwardly. He was just about an average kind of guy. Didn't really stick out in a good or bad way. So he didn't have many friends to come around either. Brown hair, brown eyes, he'd grown a mustache and a slight fuzz of a beard. He stood about 5' 7" and was about 170lbs. He wasn't muscular, but he wasn't fat just toned.
Marcus looked at his watch, a little after 2pm, the day was almost gone. He could probably catalogue one or two more items before Ms. Havitz came down to tell him it was time to leave. Ms. Havitz was in charge of the basement as well as being the professor of archeology for the university. She was usually nice enough. And they seemed to get along well enough with one another when they were together for an extended time. She was pretty in a mature way, not striking or super sexy, but pretty. She usually always dressed nicely, as she would say, "I wore enough shorts, jeans, and boots in the field as a younger woman, now I'd like to look and feel like a woman."
Sadly though, she was a widow, having just lost her husband two years before, so it wasn't uncommon to find her rummaging around down in the basement areas at later hours, she didn't really have much to go home to.
Walking across the room to the shelves holding the vast array of boxes of hidden surprises, Marcus eyed them all with a sort of tiredness. This was his third day doing this, and while he had found some interesting items, most of it was broken pottery of one sort or another. His eyes landed on a smallish box, only about a foot long and half that high. Rules out pottery for sure. Grabbing the box, Marcus went back to his work table.
"Abra cadabra, open sesame says me," Marcus chuckled as he spoke his "magic" words to open boxes he thought might be curious. Cutting through the tape that held the lid down, Marcus lifted the lid and laid it off to the side. Nothing to see at first, as the packing material thoroughly covered whatever was inside. Lifting out the packing material bit by bit, so as to ensure he didn't toss the artifact or a piece of it unintentionally. Then Marcus saw the twinkle and gleam reflected from the lights. Definitely not pottery, he thought to himself.
Reaching into the box, Marcus wrapped his fingers around the object and brought it into the open and into the light.
"Whoa, this is friggin gorgeous!" He exclaimed.
Before his eyes, in his hands weighing about maybe 2 lbs of solid metals, expensive metals at that; silver, gold, and platinum, with six rubies up and down its length.
"This piece is worth millions i bet, actually, as well done as this is, its nearly priceless." He whispered to himself, in awe of what he held in his hands. The craftmanship was exquisite and detailed. It appeared to be a small replica of a bow of some sort. Perhaps for some princeling in a royal family back in the days.
As he was looking the bow over, side to side and up and down, he saw the etching. "Hey now, what's this."
Upon the bow, Marcus saw words engraved along the spine of the bow. όποιος ελέγχει ποτέ το τόξο, ελέγχει την επιθυμία. He immediately recognized the Greek words, but though he was a decent student, he still struggled with the language.
Wanting to be sure of himself, Marcus placed the bow back in the box and ran back to the locker rooms that were located in the basement for those who didn't want to lug everything around with them all the time. He got there grabbed his notebooks and ran back to his work station.
Checking the words he saw against what he was translating, he finally came up with it. "Who ever controls the bow, controls the desire."
"Who ever controls the bow, controls the desire. That's a strange thing to etch upon a child's toy, princeling or not." Marcus whispered to himself.
"I wonder if there are any indications out there of what this may be?"
Spinning in his chair, Marcus flipped open his laptop and fired it up; the easy Google searches first, then comes the digging in the books.
"Greek bows", Marcus entered into the almighty Google box, and up popped some images not too dissimilar from what he held in his hand, and surprisingly, actually not all that much bigger relatively speaking, Greek bows appeared to only be about 2 feet in total, pretty small as bows go, even "short bows".
So, this was definitely a scale reproduction, and obviously, much finer at that with the valuable metals.
Marcus took a moment and looked into the box, perhaps there was the string and maybe an arrow or two with it. But after rummaging around, he found no other items in the box with the bow.
Going back to Google, Marcus decided to alter the search slightly. He thought he had an idea, but he felt silly for it. Forging ahead he typed in his new search, "Greek bow desire."
And up popped "Cupid" or Eros as the Greek Demi-god was known.
Marcus groaned to himself, it was a child's toy. Expensive, maybe a little out of taste one could suppose for a child, but the Greeks then had very different views of things than what modern man did.
But, toy or no, something this nice, this valuable, had to belong to royalty, And if it belonged to royalty, there should be something somewhere about it, even if it was now no more than legend itself.
Marcus was brought out of his revery and searching by the click-clack of heels coming towards him. Looking up, he saw Ms. Havitz coming towards him.
"Good afternoon Marcus. Have we found any precious goodies that we can write up to the world, or are we just adding to our pottery collection today?" She smiled as she said it.
Ms. Havitz, Brenda actually, really liked Marcus. He was well mannered and he was diligent in his studies and his work. He was a handsome young man, not an Adonis of course, but she couldn't stand those types anyway, always so smug and conceited with themselves.
Coming up next to him, Brenda looked at what he had in his hands.
"What is that Marcus?" She asked, Her eyes started going wide at the beauty of the object before her.
"It looks like a child's replica, but as you can tell, if it's a child's replica, it belongs to royalty. I've just started trying to search for some clues. I've never heard you or any other professor speak of a bow like this."
