Acmon: the elder of the thieving Kerkopes

Acmon was one of the Kerkopes, a pair of thieving, monkey-like brothers who dwelt in the Laconian Woods and who later crossed paths with the young Kratos and his brother Deimos. Of blue fur and the disposition of a long-suffering intellectual, Acmon was reckoned the brains of the partnership, though that owed as much to the company he kept as to any great wit of his own. Together with his brother Passalus he served as much to lighten the brothers' grim quest as to hinder it.

The thieves of the Laconian Woods#

Of the infamously thieving brothers known as the Kerkopes, Acmon was the one with blue fur and the air of a long-suffering intellectual. If he was the brains of the partnership, it was as much a measure of his brother as of any virtue of his own. He and his brother Passalus stole the tools of the sculptor Konstantinos, but in doing so they left fur scattered through his workshop, so that Konstantinos easily guessed the Kerkopes were to blame. He sent Kratos and Deimos to track them down and recover what was taken.

The brothers found the Kerkopes' hideout in the Laconian Woods and spotted a chisel bearing Konstantinos' mark, but before they could take it Acmon and Passalus appeared, insisting the tools were their own and only happened to resemble the sculptor's. Acmon argued that Spartans were happy enough to steal, and Kratos answered that it was only acceptable if one was not caught. Confronted with the fur they had left behind, Acmon gave up the pretence, and with a show of looking elsewhere for something he had supposedly lost, he turned his back and let the brothers reclaim the tools. Kratos let the Kerkopes go unpunished.

A self-serving guide#

Across the rest of the journey Acmon and Passalus crossed the brothers' path again and again. They trailed Kratos and Deimos from the Oenus Vineyard only to leap out and admit they had merely wanted to frighten them, then pointed the way toward a young boy they claimed to have seen. When asked how they had come to be monkeys, Acmon feigned ignorance, insisting they had been born that way. After Kratos and Deimos slew the Fylaki, the Kerkopes warned them that escaping spectral energy would raise the dead, advising the brothers to deal with it and act surprised if they did not wish to be blamed. At Mount Taygetos the pair confessed they had sent the brothers there not because they had truly seen the missing Vasilis but because they had been driven off by a stymphalian bird and a band called the Katergaris who had taken something of theirs. Still, Acmon and Passalus lowered a rope to help Kratos and Deimos climb higher, steering them toward the Katergaris in a bargain they cheerfully admitted served themselves as much as anyone.