Soon, under the pleasures of his committed life-partnership with Nivek, Neoptolomus gives up his search for the "phallos". Because of his success both in business and in life — and because they know how much energy in the past Neoptolomus has put into searching for the "phallos" — many of the couple's friends, however, including a poet, a Christian priest, and a horse-loving adventurer, assume the two, now successful merchants on their own, have secretly found it. Their friends cleave to them in the hopes that they will learn more of the "phallos" and can perhaps share in its power.