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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sónnica, by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sónnica
+
+Author: Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
+
+Translator: Frances Douglas
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2010 [EBook #31821]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SÓNNICA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SÓNNICA
+
+BY
+
+VICENTE BLASCO IBÁÑEZ
+
+Translated from the Spanish by
+FRANCES DOUGLAS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+NEW YORK
+DUFFIELD & COMPANY
+1919
+
+COPYRIGHT 1912
+By DUFFIELD & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                 PAGE
+
+   I. AT APHRODITE'S TEMPLE                3
+
+  II. SAGUNTUM                            45
+
+ III. DANCING GIRLS FROM GADES            95
+
+  IV. GREEK AND CELTIBERIAN              143
+
+   V. INVASION                           174
+
+  VI. ASBYTE AND HANNIBAL                200
+
+ VII. THE WALLS OF SAGUNTUM              234
+
+VIII. THE ROME OF FABIUS THE DELAYER     258
+
+   IX. THE HUNGRY CITY                   285
+
+    X. THE LAST NIGHT                    311
+
+
+
+
+
+SÓNNICA
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+AT APHRODITE'S TEMPLE.
+
+
+When the ship of Polyanthus, the Saguntine pilot, arrived off the port
+of his native land, the mariners and fishermen, their vision sharpened
+by ever watching the distant horizon, had already recognized his
+saffron-dyed sail and the image of Victory, which, with extended wings,
+and holding a crown in her right hand, stretched along the prow until it
+dipped its feet in the waves.
+
+"It is Polyanthus' ship! It is the Victoriata returning from Gades and
+New Carthage!"
+
+To obtain a better view they rushed out upon the stone breakwater
+surrounding the three basins of the port of Saguntum, which were
+connected with the sea by a long canal.
+
+The low marshy land, overgrown with reeds and tangled aquatic plants,
+extended as far as the Gulf of Sucro, which bounded the horizon by its
+curving blue belt, and over which the fishermen's smacks skimmed like
+dragon flies. The trireme slowly advanced. The colored sail fluttered in
+the breeze without filling, but the triple banks of oars, with rhythmic
+movement along its flanks caused the vessel to spring over the white
+foam lashing the entrance of the canal.
+
+Night was falling. On the hill near the port the temple of Venus
+Aphrodite reflected from the polished surface of its pediment the fire
+of the setting sun. A golden atmosphere wrapped the columns and the blue
+marble walls, as if the father of day, before sinking to rest, were
+greeting the goddess of the waters with a kiss of light. The chain of
+dark mountains, covered with pines and shrubbery, swung around the sea
+in a gigantic semicircle, embracing the fertile valley in which lay the
+Saguntine gardens, the white villas, the rustic towers and the hamlets
+rising among the clustering green trees of the fields. At the other
+extreme of this mountain barrier, dimmed by the distance and the haze of
+the landscape, could be seen the city, the ancient Zacynthus, with its
+dwellings compressed within walls and citadels upon the fold of the
+hill. Far above was the Acropolis, with cyclopean ramparts above which
+rose the high-roofed temples and public buildings.
+
+The port was enlivened by the stir of labor. Two ships from Massilia
+were loading with wine in the big basin. One from Liburnia was taking on
+a cargo consisting of Saguntine pottery and dried figs, to be sold in
+Rome, while a galley from Carthage contained in its hold great bars of
+silver brought from the mines of Celtiberia. Other ships, with sails
+furled and their banks of oars fallen against their sides, swung at
+anchor near the wharf, like great sleeping birds gently nodding their
+prows with figureheads of crocodiles or of horses, used by the navy of
+Alexandria, or displaying on the stern a hideous red dwarf resembling
+that which decorated the vessel of the Phœnician Cadmus in his
+astounding voyages over many seas.
+
+The slaves bending under the weight of amphoræ and silver ingots,
+wearing no other clothing than a loin-cloth and a white hood, their
+fretted and sweating bodies bare, passed like an endless rosary along
+the boards leading from the mole to the ships, as they carried the
+merchandise from where it lay piled on the wharf into the concave holds
+of the vessels.
+
+In the centre of the great middle basin rose a tower guarding the
+entrance to the port; a solid structure with its stone foundations laid
+in the deepest water. Moored to the rings which adorned its walls lay a
+ship of war, a Liburnian galley, high of stern, the prow a sheep's head,
+the great square sail furled, an armored fore-castle near the mast, and
+on the gunwales, forming a double row, the shields of the _classiarii_,
+soldiers destined for marine combats. It was a Roman vessel which at
+daybreak next morning was to set sail, bearing the ambassadors sent by
+the great Republic to settle the political disorders which agitated
+Saguntum.
+
+In the second basin, a tranquil square of water where boats were
+constructed and repaired, sounded the hammers of the calkers striking
+against the wood. The dismasted galleys lay on the bank like sick
+monsters, showing through their lacerated flanks their strong frames and
+their pitch-blackened interiors. In the third and smallest, a lake of
+filthy waters, the fishermen's barks were anchored. Flocks of gulls
+whirled around them, darting down upon the spoils which floated on the
+water, while along the bank crowded women, old men, and boys, awaiting
+the arrival of the barks with fish from the Sucronian Gulf, which were
+sold in the interior to the more advanced tribes of Celtiberia.
+
+The arrival of the Saguntine ship had drawn all the people of the port
+away from their tasks. The slaves worked lazily while their overseers
+were preoccupied by the entrance of the trireme, and even phlegmatic
+citizens seated on the mole, rod in hand, trying to capture corpulent
+eels which abounded in the basin, forgot their fishing while they
+watched the advance of the Victoriata. She had by this time come into
+the canal. Her hull could not be seen. The mast, with its motionless
+sail, rose above the tall reeds which bordered the entrance to the port.
+
+The afternoon silence was interrupted by the hoarse cry of innumerable
+frogs croaking in the marshes and the chattering of birds which
+fluttered in the olive trees near the fane of Aphrodite. The
+hammer-blows of the arsenal rung more and more slowly; the people of the
+port were silent, watching the progress of the ship of Polyanthus. As
+the Victoriata rounded the sharp bend of the canal the gilded image of
+the prow hove into sight, and then the first oars quickly followed, like
+enormous red talons, clutching the glossy surface of the water with a
+force which flung aloft the white spray.
+
+The crowd, amid which chafed the eagerly watching families of the
+mariners, burst into acclamations as the ship swung into the port.
+
+"Greeting, Polyanthus! Welcome, son of Aphrodite! May Sónnica, your
+mistress, overwhelm you with riches!"
+
+Naked, brown-skinned boys dived head-first into the basin, swimming
+around the ship like a swarm of young Tritons.
+
+The people of the port praised their compatriot Polyanthus,
+exaggerating his skill. According to them his ship lacked nothing; well
+might the rich Sónnica be satisfied with her freedman. Forward on the
+vessel stood the _proreta_, motionless as a statue, watching with swift
+glances to discover the presence of obstacles; the crew, naked, their
+sweaty backs glistening in the sun, bent over the oars, and on the poop
+the _gubernator_, Polyanthus himself, insensible to weariness, wrapped
+in his ample red mantle, the tiller firmly held in his right hand, and
+in his left a white staff which he waved rhythmically, marking the swing
+of the rowers. Near the mast stood men in strange costumes, and
+motionless women wrapped in flowing mantles.
+
+The ship glided into the port like an enormous crustacean, parting the
+dead and silent waters with her prow, which but recently had been
+fretting the waters of the gulf.
+
+As she cast anchor near the mole and threw out her gang-plank, the
+rowers were forced to club back the multitude which crowded forward
+eager to board the ship.
+
+The pilot gave orders from the poop; his red robe moved from place to
+place like a flame kindled by the setting sun.
+
+"Eh! Polyanthus! Welcome, navigator! What cargo do you bring?"
+
+The pilot saw two young horsemen on the bank. The one who addressed him
+was wrapped in a white mantle; one of its corners covered his head,
+leaving exposed his beard done into curls and lustrous with pomatum. The
+other clung to the back of his steed with his strong bare legs; he wore
+the sagum of the Celtiberians, a short wool tunic over which the
+broadsword hung from his shoulder, and his hair, as thick and
+dishevelled as his beard, outlined a brown and manly countenance.
+
+"Greeting, Lachares! Greeting, Alorcus!" replied the pilot with an
+expression of respect. "Shall you see Sónnica, my mistress?"
+
+"This very night," answered Lachares. "We sup at her country-seat. What
+bring you?"
+
+"Tell her that I have argentiferous lead from New Carthage, and wool
+from Bætica. Excellent voyage!"
+
+The two youths tugged at their horses' reins.
+
+"Ah! Wait a moment," added Polyanthus. "Tell her that I have not
+forgotten her instructions. I am bringing what you so greatly desire,
+the dancing girls from Gades."
+
+"We are all grateful to you," said Lachares, laughing. "Hail,
+Polyanthus; may Neptune favor you!"
+
+The two riders set off at a gallop, becoming lost to view among the
+hovels grouped around the base of the temple of Aphrodite.
+
+Meanwhile one of the ship's passengers landed, making his way through
+the crowd. He was a Greek. All knew his origin by the _pilos_ which
+covered his head, a conical leather helmet, after the fashion of that
+worn by Ulysses in Greek paintings. He was clad in a short, dark tunic,
+adjusted around his waist by a leather belt, from which hung a pouch.
+His chlamys, which did not reach his knees, was fastened at the right
+shoulder by a copper brooch; worn and dusty laced shoes covered his
+stockingless feet, and his sinewy arms, carefully freed from hair,
+rested on a great dart which was almost a lance. His hair, short and
+arranged in thick curls, hung beneath the _pilos_, forming a hollow
+crown around his head. It was black, but silvery threads shone in it and
+also in his broad short beard. His upper lip was carefully shaved in the
+Athenian style.
+
+He was a strong and agile man, in the prime of life, healthy and
+vigorous. His eyes had an ironic glance, and in them sparkled something
+of that fire which reveals men born for warfare and for contact with the
+world. He walked at ease about the unfamiliar port, like a traveler
+accustomed to all manner of contrasts and surprises.
+
+The sun began to sink, and work at the port had ceased. The crowd which
+had swarmed on the wharf was gradually scattering. Bands of slaves
+stretching their aching limbs and wiping off the sweat, passed near the
+stranger. Controlled by the clubs of their guards, they were about to be
+locked up until the next morning in caves in the nearby hill, or in the
+oil mills situated beyond the mariners' taverns, the inns, and the
+brothels, with their mud walls and broad roofs, which as a complement to
+the port were grouped at the foot of the hill of Aphrodite.
+
+The merchants also left in search of their horses and chariots to ride
+to the city. They passed in groups, looking over the records on their
+tablets, and discussing the operations of the day. Their diverse types,
+dress, and bearing, showed a great mixture of races in Zacynthus, a
+commercial city to which in ancient times flocked the vessels of the
+Mediterranean, and whose traffic was in rivalry with that of Emporion
+and Massilia. The Asiatic or African merchants who imported ivory,
+ostrich feathers, spices, and perfumes for the rich of the city, were
+distinguished by their majestic step, their tunics with flowers and
+birds embroidered in gold, their green buskins, their tall embroidered
+tiaras, and their beards falling over their breasts, curled so as to lie
+in horizontal waves. The Greeks laughed and talked incessantly, jesting
+over their business affairs, and overwhelming with volubility the grave,
+bearded, diffident Iberian exporters dressed in coarse wool, who, with
+their silence seemed to protest against the stream of useless words.
+
+The wharves were deserted one after another, the life of the place
+flowing along the road toward the city. Horses galloped, raising clouds
+of dust, chariots rolled along, and little African donkeys passed with a
+short trot, bearing on their backs some corpulent citizen or other,
+seated like a woman.
+
+The Greek walked slowly along the mole behind two men clad in short
+tunics, wearing buskins and little conical hats with drooping brims,
+like those of the Hellenic shepherds. They were two artisans from the
+city. They had spent the day fishing, and were returning to their
+houses, gazing with ill dissimulated pride at their baskets in which
+writhed and wriggled barbels and eels. They were talking in Iberian,
+frequently mixing Greek and Latin words in their conversation. It was a
+not unusual dialect in that ancient colony, which was in continual
+contact through commerce with the principal peoples of the earth. The
+Greek, as he followed them down the wharf listened to their conversation
+with the curiosity of a stranger.
+
+"You will come in my cart," said one of them. "My donkey awaits me at
+Abiliana's inn. The beast as you know is the envy of all my neighbors.
+We shall yet reach the city before the gates are closed."
+
+"I thank you, neighbor. It is not prudent to travel alone when the
+country is swarming with adventurers whom we take as hirelings for the
+wars with the Turdetani, and all the people who fled from the city after
+the last revolt. Day before yesterday, as you know, the dead body of
+Acteio, the barber of the Forum, was found in the road. He was
+assassinated and robbed as he was returning from his little
+country-house at night-fall."
+
+"They say that we shall live more tranquilly now since the Roman
+intervention. The legates from Rome have ordered a few heads cut off;
+and they affirm that after this we shall have peace."
+
+The two men stopped a moment and turned their heads to look at the Roman
+liburna, which could barely be distinguished near the tower in the port,
+wrapped in the shadows of evening. Then they walked slowly onward, as if
+in deep thought.
+
+"You know," continued one of them, "that I am only a shoemaker who has
+his shop near the Forum and has been able to save a sack of silver
+victoriati in order to live at ease in his old age, and to spend the
+afternoons at the port, rod in hand. I do not know as much as those
+rhetoricians who stroll up and down outside the city wall disputing and
+shouting like Furies, nor do I worry my brain as do the philosophers who
+gather on the porticos of the Forum to quarrel amid the jests of the
+merchants as to whether this or that one of the men who occupy
+themselves there in Athens with such matters is in the right. But, with
+all my ignorance, I ask myself, neighbor, why this strife between us
+men who live in the same city who should deal with one another like good
+brothers? Why?"
+
+The shoemaker's comrade replied with vigorous nods of assent.
+
+"I understand," continued the artisan, "that from time to time we shall
+be at war with our neighbors the Turdetani. Sometimes on account of a
+question of irrigation, again on account of pasture-grounds, but mainly
+because of boundary lines, and to keep them from enjoying this beautiful
+port, I understand that the citizens take up arms and seek battle, going
+out to destroy their fields and burn their huts. But those people are
+not of our race, and that is how a great city makes itself respected.
+Besides, war yields slaves, which often are scarce, and what would we
+men, we citizens, do without slaves?"
+
+"I am poorer than you, neighbor," said the other fisherman. "I do not
+earn as much making saddles as you do making shoes; but in spite of my
+poverty I can afford to have a Turdetan slave, who helps me very much,
+and I desire war, because it brings in considerably more work."
+
+"War with our neighbors--that is welcome. The young men are restless,
+and seek ways of distinguishing themselves, the Republic acquires
+importance in consequence, and, after tramping through valleys and
+mountains, all will buy shoes and have their saddles mended. Very well;
+that enlivens business. But why have we been at work for over a year
+converting the Forum into a battlefield and turning every street into a
+fortress? At best you are in your shop extolling to a citizeness the
+elegance of a pair of papyrus sandals of Asiatic fashion, or of Greek
+buskins of great majesty, when you hear in the nearest plaza the clash
+of arms, shouts, death cries, and you rush to shut the door so that a
+stray missile will not nail you to your seat! And why? What reason is
+there for living like cats and dogs in the bosom of this Zacynthus,
+which used to be so tranquil and so industrious?"
+
+"The pride and riches of the Greeks"----began his companion.
+
+"Yes, I know that reason. The hatred between Iberians and Greeks; the
+belief that the latter, by their riches and wisdom, dominate and exploit
+the former--as if in the city there actually existed Iberians and
+Greeks! Iberians are those who are behind those mountains which mark off
+our horizon; a Greek is he whom we have seen disembark, and who is
+following our footsteps; but we are only sons of Zacynthus or of
+Saguntum, as they wish to call our city. We are the product of a
+thousand encounters by land and by sea, and Jupiter himself would be
+driven into a corner to tell who our grandparents were. Who can
+enumerate the people that have come here and have remained, in spite of
+others having come afterward to wrest from them the dominion of these
+lands and mines, since Zacynthus was bitten by the serpent in these
+fields, and our father Hercules raised the great walls of the Acropolis?
+Hither came the peoples of Tyre with their red sailed ships for the
+silver from the interior; the mariners from Zante fleeing with their
+families from the tyrants of their country; the Rutulian race from
+Ardea, people from Italy, who were powerful in the times when Rome did
+not as yet exist; Carthaginians of the epoch in which they thought more
+of commerce than of arms--and how do I know how many other peoples? You
+should hear the pedagogues when they explain our history on the portico
+of the temple of Diana! And I, do I know, perchance whether I am Greek
+or Iberian? My grandfather was a freedman from Sicily who came to take
+charge of a pottery and married a Celtiberian from the interior. My
+mother was a Lusitanian who came here on an expedition to sell gold dust
+to merchants from Alexandria. I call myself a Saguntine like all the
+rest. Those who consider themselves Iberians in Saguntum believe in the
+gods of the Greeks; the Greeks unconsciously adopt many Iberian customs;
+they think themselves different because they have divided the city in
+half and live separate; but their feasts are the same, and in the next
+Panathenæa you will see, together with the daughters of the Hellenic
+merchants, those of the citizens who cultivate the earth and who dress
+in coarse cloth and let their beards grow to more closely resemble the
+tribes of the interior."
+
+"Yes, but the Greeks dominate everywhere, they are masters of
+everything, they have taken possession of the life of the city."
+
+"They are the wisest, the bravest; they have something almost divine
+about them," said the shoemaker sententiously. "See if that is not true
+of the one who is following us. He is poorly dressed; perhaps he has not
+an obolus in his pocket for supper; perhaps he will sleep beneath the
+open sky, and yet, it seems as if Zeus had come down from the heavens in
+disguise to visit us."
+
+The two artisans turned their gaze instinctively to look at the Greek,
+and continued on their way. They had arrived near the huts which formed
+an animated town around the port.
+
+"There is another reason," said the leather-worker, "for the war which
+divides us. It is not only the hatred between Greeks and Iberians, it is
+because some want us to be friends of Rome and others of Carthage."
+
+"We should not affiliate with either," said the shoemaker tersely.
+"Tranquilly carrying on our commerce as in other times is the way in
+which we should prosper best. I reproach the Greeks of Saguntum for
+having allied us with Rome."
+
+"Rome is the conqueror."
+
+"Yes, but Rome is very far away, and the Carthaginians are almost at our
+doors. Troops from New Carthage can come here by a few days' journey."
+
+"Rome is our ally and she will protect us. Her legates, who leave
+to-morrow, have put an end to our strifes, beheading the citizens who
+disturbed the peace of the city."
+
+"Yes, but those citizens were friends of Carthage and old-time protégés
+of Hamilcar. Hannibal will not easily forget his father's friends."
+
+"Bah! Carthage wants peace and wide commerce to enrich herself. Since
+her defeat in Sicily she fears Rome."
+
+"The senators may be afraid, but Hamilcar's son is very young, and, for
+my part, I am afraid of these boys converted into chiefs, who forget
+wine and love to dream only of glory."
+
+The Greek could hear no more. The two artisans had disappeared among
+the huts, and the echo of their argument was lost in the distance.
+
+The stranger was alone in the unfamiliar port. The wharves were
+deserted; lights began to glisten on the poops of the ships, and in the
+distance, over the waters of the bay, rose the moon like an enormous
+honey-colored disk. Only in the small fishermen's ports lingered
+animation. The women, naked from above the waist, tucking between their
+legs the rags which served them as a tunic, walked into the water up to
+their knees to wash the fish, and then putting them into broad baskets
+on their heads they took up their journey, dragging their big-bellied,
+naked youngsters after them. From the silent and motionless ships came
+groups of men who traveled toward the wretched settlement spread around
+the foot of the temple. They were sailors going in search of taverns and
+brothels.
+
+The Greek knew those customs well; it was a port like many others he had
+seen--the temple on the hill to guide the navigator, and below, wine in
+abundance, easy love, and the sanguinary fight as a termination of the
+feast. He thought for a moment of starting on the journey to the city,
+but the way was long, he did not know the road, and he preferred to
+remain, sleeping where he could until sunrise.
+
+He had entered one of the winding lanes formed by the hovels thrown
+together at hazard, as if they had fallen in confusion from the sky,
+with their walls of earth and roofs of reeds and straw, with narrow
+slits for light, and with only a few rags sewn together or a bit of
+threadbare tapestry, for a door. In some, with less wretched exteriors,
+dwelt the modest traders of the port, ship chandlers, dealers in grain,
+and those who, with the assistance of slaves, brought casks of water
+from the springs in the valley to the vessels; but the majority of the
+hovels were taverns and lupanars.
+
+Some of the houses had alongside the doors signs in Greek, Iberian, or
+Latin, painted with red ochre.
+
+The Greek heard some one calling him. It was a little, bald, fat man
+beckoning from the door of his dwelling.
+
+"Greeting, son of Athens!" he said, to flatter him with the name of the
+most famous city of Greece. "Come in! Here you will be among your own,
+for my forefathers also came from Athens. See the sign on my tavern, 'To
+Pallas Athene'. Here you will find wine from Laurona, as excellent as
+that from Attica; if you wish to try the Celtiberian beer, I have it
+also, and if you desire, I can serve you with a certain flask of wine
+from Samos, as authentic as the goddess of Athens which adorns my
+counter."
+
+The Greek answered with a smile and a shake of his head, while the
+loquacious tavern-keeper went into his hut, lifting the tapestry to
+allow a group of mariners to enter.
+
+After a few steps he stopped, attracted by a faint whistle which seemed
+to be calling him from the interior of a cabin. An old woman, wrapped in
+a black mantle, stood in her doorway making signs to him. Within, by the
+light of an earthen lamp hanging by a slender chain, he could see
+several women squatting on mats in the attitude of placid beasts, with
+no other sign of life than a fixed smile which displayed their shining
+teeth.
+
+"I am in haste, good mother," said the stranger, smiling.
+
+"Stay awhile, son of Zeus!" urged the old woman in the Hellenic idiom,
+disfigured by the harshness of her accent and by the hiss of breathing
+between toothless gums. "The moment I saw you I knew you for a Greek.
+All who come from your country are gay and beautiful; you look like
+Apollo seeking his celestial sisters. Enter! Here you will find
+them----"
+
+Approaching the stranger, and catching him by the border of his chlamys,
+she enumerated the charms of her Iberian, Balearic, or African wards;
+some majestic and grand like Juno, others small and graceful like the
+hetæræ of Alexandria and Greece; and seeing that the customer released
+his garment from her clutch and continued on his way, she raised her
+voice, believing that she had not divined his taste, and she spoke of
+white youths with long hair, beautiful as the Syrian boys who were
+contended for by the gallants of Athens.
+
+The Greek had passed out of the winding lane, but he could still hear
+the voice of the old woman, who seemed to become shamelessly intoxicated
+crying her infamous wares. He was now in the country, at the beginning
+of the high road to the city. On his right rose the hill of the temple,
+and at its base, opposite the flight of stone steps, he saw a house
+larger than the others, an inn with doors and windows illuminated by
+lamps of red earthenware.
+
+Seated on stone benches were sailors from all countries, demanding food
+in their several languages--Roman soldiers wearing corselets of bronze
+scales, short swords hanging from their shoulders; at their feet
+helmets topped by a crest of red horsehair in the form of a brush;
+rowers from Massilia, almost naked, their knives half hidden among the
+folds of the rag knotted around their waists; Phœnician and
+Carthaginian mariners with wide trousers, wearing tall caps in the form
+of mitres with heavy silver pendants; negroes from Alexandria, athletic
+and slow of movement, displaying their sharp teeth as they smiled,
+making one think of frightful cannibalistic scenes; Celtiberians and
+Iberians with gloomy dress and tangled hair, looking suspiciously in all
+directions, and instinctively raising their hands to their broad knives;
+some redmen from Gaul, with long mustaches and coarse red hair tied
+behind and falling down their necks; people, in fine, who had come, or
+had been flung by the hazards of war and the sea, from one point of the
+known world to another, one day victorious warriors, and slaves the
+next, now sailors and anon pirates, acknowledging no law nor
+nationality; with no other respect than the fear of the master of the
+vessel who was quick to order them to the whip or the cross; with no
+other religion than that of the sword and the strong arm; testifying by
+the wounds which covered their bodies, in the long cicatrices which
+furrowed their muscles, by cuts on their ears covered by matted hair, to
+a past mysterious with horrors.
+
+Some ate standing by the counter, behind which were ranged the amphoræ
+corked with fresh leaves; others seated on the stone benches along the
+walls held earthenware plates on their knees. Most had thrown themselves
+down on the floor upon their bellies, like wild beasts devouring their
+prey, reaching into their plates with their hairy claws, crunching the
+food in their jaws as they talked. They had not yet upset their wine
+nor asked for the women. They ate and drank with the appetite of ogres
+tormented by the deprivations of the long voyages, and morally starved
+by the brutal discipline on shipboard.
+
+Finding themselves huddled together in a small space, filled with smoke
+from the lamps and with vapors from the food, they felt the necessity of
+communicating with each other, and between mouthfuls, each spoke to his
+neighbor, paying no heed to difference of idiom, making themselves
+understood finally by a language composed more of gestures than of
+words. A Carthaginian was telling a Greek about his last voyage to the
+islands of the Great Sea, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, through a gray
+body of water covered with fog, until they arrived at an abrupt coast
+known only to the pilots of his country, where tin was found. Farther
+down the bench a negro, with grotesque mimicry, was describing to a
+couple of Celtiberians an excursion down the Red Sea, until they reached
+mysterious shores, deserted by day, but covered by night with moving
+fires and inhabited by hairy men as agile as monkeys, the skins of some
+of whom they stuffed with straw and carried to the temples of Egypt to
+offer to the gods. The older Roman soldiers, paying no attention, in
+their insolence as conquerors, to the humiliated Carthaginians who were
+listening, told of their great victory on the Ægates islands which drove
+the Carthaginians out of Sicily, ending the first Punic War. The Iberian
+shepherds mixed in among the navigators wished to off-set the effect of
+these maritime adventures, and they bragged of the horses belonging to
+their tribe, and of their marvelous swiftness, while a little Greek,
+lively and keen, in order to overwhelm the barbarians and to demonstrate
+the superiority of his race, began to declaim fragments of some ode
+learned in the port of Piræus, or he intoned a lyric poem, slow and
+sweet, which was lost amid the noise of conversation, of crunching jaws,
+and of clattering plates.
+
+They called for more light. The smoky atmosphere of the inn was
+constantly growing denser, and the frames of the lamps were scarcely
+more distinctly visible than drops of blood on the soot-blackened walls.
+From the kitchen floated an odor of piquant sauces and smoky wood which
+made many of the customers cough and weep. Some were drunk soon after
+beginning dinner, and they asked the slaves for crowns of flowers to
+adorn themselves as in the banquets of the rich. Others growled applause
+as they saw the den illuminated by the lurid flame of the candlewood
+which the proprietor lighted. The slaves passed behind the stone counter
+overturning great amphoræ, and ran into the kitchen only to rush back
+again immediately, red with suffocation, bearing great platters. Wine
+ran across the floor as a crater was overturned. When there appeared at
+the window the painted faces of some of the prostitutes--she-wolves of
+the port--who were awaiting the moment for making an irruption into the
+inn, the mariners greeted them with hoarse laughter, imitating the howl
+of the beast after whom they were nicknamed, and throwing them a portion
+of their food, over which the women fought, scratching and shrieking.
+
+The food was all thirst-giving, so that each mouthful should be
+accompanied by a sip. The Greeks ate snails floating in a sauce of
+saffron; fresh sardines from the gulf appeared arranged in circles
+around the dishes, festooned with laurel leaves; birds' heads were
+served covered with green sauce; the Iberian shepherds were satisfied
+with dried fish and hard cheese; the Romans and Gauls devoured great
+chunks of lamb dripping blood, and eels from the basins of the port
+decorated with hard-boiled eggs. All these dishes and many others were
+loaded with salt, pepper, and herbs of acrid odor, to which the
+strangest qualities were attributed. Everybody was eager to spend his
+money, to satisfy his hunger and thirst, and to roll on the floor drunk,
+consoling himself thus for the hard life of privation which awaited him
+on shipboard. The Romans who were to sail the next day had collected
+their back pay and were determined to leave their sestertii in the port
+of Saguntum; the Carthaginians boasted of their Republic, the richest in
+the world, and other mariners praised their masters, ever generous when
+they touched that port where business was excellent. The innkeeper was
+continually throwing into an empty amphora coins of all kinds, those
+from Zacynthus, bearing the prow of a ship, with Victory flying above
+it; those from Carthage with the legendary horse and the frightful
+Cabiric deities; and Alexandrian coins with their elegant Ptolemaic
+profile.
+
+The meanest of the rowers felt the caprices of a potentate, the itch to
+imitate the opulent for a night that they might console themselves with
+its memory in future days of hunger; and they asked for oysters from
+Lucrinus, which an occasional ship brought packed in amphoræ with sea
+water as a delicacy for the great merchants of Saguntum, or the
+_oxygarum_, salted fishmilt, prepared with vinegar and spices as an
+appetizer for which the patricians of Rome paid a great price. Black
+wine from Laurona and the pink wine from the Saguntine vineyards were
+scorned by those who had money. The wine from Massilia they despised
+also, sneering at the rosin and gypsum employed in its preparation, and
+they called for wines from the Campagna, Falerno, Monte Massico, or
+Cæcubum, which, in spite of the price, they drank in capacious
+cymbas--boat-shaped drinking vessels of Saguntine clay. Hungry for the
+fresh products of the field after their long sojourn on the sea, these
+men devoured immense quantities of vegetables and fruits, in addition to
+the hot dishes and a great variety of drinks ranging from Celtiberian
+beers to foreign wines. They fell greedily upon the plates of mushrooms;
+they ate handfuls of radishes dressed with vinegar; leeks, beets,
+garlic, and heaps of fresh lettuce from the gardens of the Saguntine
+domain disappeared down their throats, while they littered the floor
+with green, muddy leaves.
+
+The Greek stood in the doorway with a few of the mariners who could not
+find room within, and contemplated the spectacle. As he gazed on the
+rude banquet the stranger remembered that he had not eaten since
+morning, when the master of the rowers on Polyanthus' ship had given him
+a piece of bread. The novelty of disembarking in an unknown land had
+quieted his stomach, accustomed as it was to privations; but now in
+sight of so many different foods he felt the pangs of hunger, and
+instinctively set one foot within the tavern, drawing it back
+immediately. What was the use of going in? The pouch hanging from his
+shoulder held papyri testifying to his past achievements; tablets for
+memoranda; even pincers for extracting his beard; a comb; all the small
+objects of which a good Greek, addicted to the scrupulous care of his
+person, would not deprive himself, but search in it as he might he could
+find not a single obolus. The pilot, who respected the Greeks of Attica,
+had given him free passage on the ship when he met him wandering along
+the wharves at New Carthage. He was hungry and alone in a strange land,
+and if he should enter the hostelry to eat without offering money, he
+would be treated like a slave, and be driven out with a club.
+
+Mocked by the odor of the viands and sauces, he turned to flee, tearing
+himself away from this torture of Tantalus, but as he drew back he
+bumped against a tall man clad only in a dark sagum and sandals with
+straps crossed to the knees. He resembled a Celtiberian shepherd; but
+the Greek, as he collided with him, received the impression in a hasty
+exchange of glances that this was not the first time he had looked into
+those imperious eyes which recalled to his mind the eyes of the eagle
+perched at the feet of Zeus.
+
+The Greek shrugged his shoulders with indifference. What he desired was
+to satiate his hunger and to sleep if possible until sunrise. Turning
+his back on the wretched suburb, illuminated and noisy, he sought a
+place where he might rest, and he took the road toward the fane of
+Aphrodite. The temple, situated on the crest of the hill, was approached
+by a broad stairway of blue marble, its first step rising from the quay.
+
+The Greek seated himself on the polished stone, proposing to await there
+the coming of the day. The moon illuminated the whole upper part of the
+temple; the sounds from the houses near the port, the murmur of the sea,
+the whisper of the olive trees, and the monotonous croaking of the frogs
+hidden in the marshes, floated to him muffled, as if lulled by the great
+calm of night.
+
+Again and again the Greek heard a strident, dismal cry, like the howl of
+a wolf. Suddenly it whined behind him, he felt a warm breath on his
+back, and as he turned he saw a woman bending toward him, her hands on
+her knees, her mouth rent by a stupid smile which displayed gums, in
+places lacking teeth.
+
+"Greeting, handsome stranger! I saw you flee from the tumult. You must
+be sad here all alone. I have come to make you happy.----What! Can it
+not be?"
+
+The Greek recognized her immediately--a "she-wolf" from the port, a
+wretched woman such as he had seen swarming around the wharves in many
+countries; miserable, cosmopolitan strumpets, flames for a single night
+of men of all colors and races, with no other ambition than to earn a
+few oboli, slinking near a stone or in the shadow of a boat, old hetæræ
+sunk in brutality, fugitive slaves seeking liberty in obscenity and
+drunkenness; females who represented all that cruel men of the sea knew
+of love; poor beasts, weakened in their youth by excessive caresses, and
+destined to be treated with blows in their old age.
+
+The stranger looked at the woman, who was still young, and detected some
+traces of beauty. But she was wasted, her eyes lachrymose, her mouth
+disfigured by broken teeth. She was wrapped in an ample mantle which
+must have been of beautiful weave but was now dirty and threadbare; her
+feet were naked, and her tangled hair, in which the unhappy creature
+had thrust a branch of wild flowers, was held by a copper comb.
+
+"You are wasting your time here," said the Greek with a kindly smile. "I
+have not so much as an obolus in my pouch."
+
+The man's gentle accent seemed to intimidate the poor unfortunate. She
+was accustomed to blows; man to her represented brutal assault,
+gratification revealed with bites, and in the presence of the Greek's
+tender manner she seemed disconcerted and shy, as if she suspected
+danger.
+
+"Have you no money?" she said with humility, after a long silence. "It
+matters not; here I am. You please me; I am your slave. Among all those
+people rioting at the hostelry my eyes have turned to you."
+
+She bent over the Greek, caressing his curly hair with her calloused
+hands, while he regarded her with compassionate eyes, seeing her
+shrunken breast and hollow form. Hungry and alone in an unknown land he
+felt attracted by the kindness of the unhappy creature; there was the
+fraternity of misery between them.
+
+"If you desire company, stay near me," he said; "talk as much as you
+wish, but do not caress me. I am hungry; I have eaten nothing since
+dawn, and at this moment I would exchange all the joys of Cytherea for
+the pittance of any mariner."
+
+The harlot stood up straight, so great was her surprise.
+
+"You hungry? You faint with hunger, when I thought you nourished on the
+ambrosia of Zeus?"
+
+Her eyes displayed astonishment such as she would have felt had she seen
+Aphrodite, the nude, white, goddess who was guarded up there in her
+temple, descend from her marble pedestal and offer herself with open
+arms to the rowers of the port for an obolus.
+
+"Wait, wait!" she cried with resolution, after a moment's reflection.
+
+The Greek saw her running toward the huts, and when at last weariness
+and weakness began to close his eyes, he felt her near him again,
+touching his shoulder.
+
+"Take this, my master! It has cost me dear to obtain it. The cruel Lais,
+an old woman as horrible as the Pareæ, who helps us to live through days
+of privation, has agreed to give me her supper, after making me take
+oath that by the time the sun rises I will hand her two sestertii. Eat,
+my love; eat and drink!"
+
+She placed upon the steps a loaf of brown bread, made in the form of a
+disk, some dried fish, half a Saguntine cheese, tender and oozing whey,
+and a jar of Celtiberian beer.
+
+The Greek fell upon the food, and began to devour it, followed by the
+gaze of the _lupa_, which sweetened at times, and acquired an almost
+maternal expression.
+
+"I should like to be as rich as Sónnica, a woman who they say began like
+any one of us, and is now mistress of many of these ships, and has
+gardens as wonderful as Olympus, troops of slaves, potteries, and half
+the domain of the commonwealth as her own property. I should like to be
+rich if only for to-night, to regale you on the best there is in the
+city; to give you a banquet like one of Sónnica's, which last till dawn,
+and where, crowned with roses, you should drink the Samian wine from a
+golden cup."
+
+The Greek, touched by the simplicity and ingenuousness with which she
+spoke, gazed at her tenderly.
+
+"Do not thank me," she continued. "It is I who should be grateful for
+the joy of feeding you. What is this? I know not. Never has a man
+approached me before without giving me something; some give me copper
+coins, others a piece of cloth or a patera of wine; most of them blows
+and bites; all have given me something, and I have accepted, though I
+detested them. But you, who come poor and hungry, who do not seek me but
+reject me, who give me nothing, just your being near me has made a new
+pleasure surge through my body. As I give you food I feel intoxicated,
+as if I were fresh from a banquet. Tell me, Greek, are you really a man,
+or are you the father of the gods, descending to earth to honor me?"
+
+Exalted by her own words, she arose, standing half way up the marble
+steps, and extending her rigid arms toward the temple, bathed in
+moonlight, exclaimed:
+
+"Aphrodite! My goddess! If some day I manage to get together the price
+of two white doves, I will present them on thy altar, adorned with
+flowers and fire-colored ribbons, in memory of this night."
+
+The Greek drank the bitter liquid from the jar and offered it to the
+woman, whose lips sought the same spot on the rim which had been touched
+by his.
+
+She did not taste the supper which the Greek held out to her; she
+continued drinking, and the wine made her more talkative.
+
+"If you only knew what it has cost me to get all this! The lanes are
+full of drunken men, who wallow in the mire and drag themselves along on
+their hands, tearing one's clothing and biting one's legs. Wine runs
+out of the doorways of the inns. They were fighting on the wharf a
+little while ago. Some Africans were holding one of their companions
+head down in the water to cure his broken skull; a Celtiberian had
+opened a great gash in it with his clenched fist. Others amused
+themselves by catching Tuga, an Iberian girl, by the feet, and thrusting
+her head in the biggest vat in the tavern as long as they dared. She was
+half drowned when they pulled her out. It is their usual diversion. I
+saw poor Albura, a friend of mine, seated on the ground covered with
+blood, holding in the palm of her hand one of her eyes which a drunken
+Egyptian had knocked out with a fisticuff. This kind of thing happens
+every night! And yet, all at once, I have become afraid. I have only
+just met you, and still it seems to me as if I were living in a new
+world, and that for the first time I give heed to my surroundings."
+
+She told him the story of her life. They called her Bacchis, and she was
+uncertain what was her native land. No doubt she was born in some other
+port, for she vaguely remembered in her childhood a long voyage in a
+ship. Her mother must have been a _lupa_ also, and she herself the
+result of a meeting with a mariner. The name of Bacchis, which had been
+given her when she was little, had been borne by many famous courtesans
+of Greece. No doubt she had been sold to some old woman by the pilot who
+had brought her to Saguntum, and, while still a child, long before
+coming to maturity, was visited in the old woman's hut by aged merchants
+of the port or libertines of the city.
+
+When her owner died she became a _lupa_, and passed into submission to
+mariners, fishermen, shepherds from the mountains, and to all the brutal
+horde which swarmed around the port. She was not yet twenty, but she was
+aged, disfigured, wasted by excesses and by blows. She had always seen
+the city from a distance. She had only entered it twice. The _lupas_
+were not tolerated there. They were allowed to remain near the fane of
+Aphrodite, as a guarantee of the security of Saguntum, that thus the
+rabble which came to the port from all lands might be held at a
+distance, but in the city the Iberians of cleanly habits became
+indignant at the mere sight of the wantons, and the corrupt Greeks were
+too refined in their tastes to feel pity for those sellers of the body
+who fell like beasts beside the roadway for a bunch of grapes or a
+handful of nuts.
+
+There in the shadow of the temple of Aphrodite she had spent her life,
+ever awaiting new ships and new men, hairy and obscene, brutal as
+satyrs, made ferocious by the abstinence of the sea, to be at last
+assassinated in some mariners' fight, or found the victim of hunger,
+dead beside some abandoned boat.
+
+"And you--who are you?" Bacchis asked at last. "What is your name?"
+
+"My name is Actæon; my native land is Athens. I have traveled over the
+world; in some parts I have been a soldier, in others a navigator; I
+have fought, I have trafficked, and I have even written verses, and
+discussed with philosophers things which you do not understand. I have
+been rich many times, and now you give me food. That is all my story."
+
+Bacchis looked at him with eyes full of admiration, divining through his
+concise words a past crammed with adventures, with terrible dangers and
+prodigious changes of fortune. She thought of the deeds of Achilles, and
+of the adventurous life of Ulysses, so often heard in the verses
+declaimed by Greek mariners when they were drunk.
+
+The courtesan, reclining on the Greek's breast, fondled his hair. The
+Greek, grateful, smiled fraternally on Bacchis, with indifference, as if
+she were a child.
+
+Two mariners came out from among the huts, and began to stagger along
+the wharf. A penetrating howl, which seemed to cleave the air, sounded
+close to Actæon's ears. His companion, impelled by habit, with the
+instinct of the vendor who sees a customer in the distance, had arisen
+to her feet.
+
+"I will return, my master. I had almost forgotten the terrible Lais. I
+must give her her money before the sun rises. She will beat me as she
+has done before if I do not fulfill my promise. Wait for me here."
+
+Repeating her wild howl, she went in search of the sailors, who had
+stopped, hailing the "she-wolf's" cries with loud laughter and obscene
+words.
+
+When the Greek found himself alone, his hunger placated, he felt a
+certain disgust in thinking of his recent adventure. Actæon the
+Athenian, he for whom the richest hetæræ of the beautiful city used to
+dispute in the Cerameicus, protected and adored by a strumpet of the
+port! To avoid meeting her again he hurriedly left the temple steps,
+losing himself in the streets by the harbor.
+
+Again he stopped before the hostelry in the doorway of which he had
+experienced the torment of hunger. The sailors were in the midst of an
+orgy. The tavern keeper could barely command respect behind the
+counter. The slaves, terrified by blows, had taken refuge in the
+kitchen. Some amphoræ lay broken on the floor letting the wine escape
+like streams of blood, and the drunken men wallowed in the gurgling
+liquid as it soaked into the earthen floor, calling for drinks of which
+they had vaguely heard on distant voyages, or for fantastic dishes
+conceived by the little tyrants of Asia. One Herculean Egyptian was
+running on all fours imitating the growl of the jackal, and biting the
+women who had entered the tavern. Some negroes were disporting with
+feminine movements, as if hypnotized by the whirling of the umbilical
+dance. In the corners, on the stone benches, men and women embraced in
+the crude light of the torches; the smell of bare and sweaty flesh
+mingled with the aroma of wine; in the atmosphere of viands and of
+wild-beast odor, seamen, forgetting shame, committed crimes peculiar to
+the aberration of the epoch.
+
+In the midst of this disorder a few men stood motionless near the
+counter, arguing with apparent calmness. They were two Roman soldiers,
+an old Carthaginian mariner, and a Celtiberian. The torpid slowness of
+their words, which in their anger acquired flute-like tones, their
+inflamed and blood-shot eyes, and their hawk-like noses, seeming to grow
+sharper as they talked, revealed that terrible drunkenness, stubborn and
+quarrelsome, which culminates in murder.
+
+The Roman was telling of his presence in the combat on the Ægates
+islands, fourteen years before.
+
+"I know you," he said insolently to the Carthaginian. "You are a
+republic of merchants born for lying and bad faith. If someone who knows
+how to sell at top prices and cheat the buyer is wanted, I agree that
+you stand first; but talking of soldiers, of men, we are the best, we
+sons of Rome, who grasp the plow in one hand and the lance in the
+other."
+
+He proudly raised his round head with its close-cropped hair and shaven
+cheeks, on which the chin-straps of his helmet had worn hard calloused
+lines.
+
+Actæon looked through the window at the Celtiberian, the only one of the
+group who remained silent, but who had his glittering eyes fastened upon
+the bare neck showing above the Roman legionary's bronze corselet, as if
+attracted by the coarse veins outlined beneath the skin. Surely the
+Greek had seen those eyes before; they were like an old acquaintance
+whose name one cannot recall. There was something artificial about his
+person, which the Greek divined with his keen perception.
+
+"I would swear by Mercury that that man is not what he pretends to be.
+He looks something more than a shepherd, and the bronze color of his
+face is not that of the Celtiberians, no matter how sunburned they may
+be. Perhaps that long hair which falls around his shoulders is
+false----"
+
+He was unable to observe him longer because of the dispute between the
+legionary and the old Carthaginian, who gradually approached each other
+to hear better in the midst of the clamor which reigned in the tavern.
+
+"I also was on that sad expedition to the Ægates," said the
+Carthaginian; "there is where I received this wound that crosses my
+face. It is true that you conquered us; but what does that show? Many
+times did I see your ships flee before ours, and more than once I
+counted Roman corpses by the hundred on the fields of Sicily. Ah, if
+Hanno had not arrived too late that day of the combat at the islands! If
+Hamilcar had only had reinforcements!"
+
+"Hamilcar!" disdainfully exclaimed the Roman. "A great chief who had to
+sue for peace! A merchant turned warrior!"
+
+And he laughed with the insolence of the strong, not fearing the anger
+of the old Carthaginian, who began to stammer an answer.
+
+The Celtiberian, who had remained silent, laid his hand upon the old
+man.
+
+"Silence, Carthaginian! The Roman is right. You are peddlers incapable
+of measuring up with them in war. You love money too much to dominate by
+the sword. But Carthage is not made of those of your breed; there are
+others born there who will know how to stand up before those peasants of
+Italy!"
+
+The Roman, seeing the rustic intervene in the dispute, became still more
+arrogant and insolent.
+
+"And who can that be?" he shouted scornfully. "The son of Hamilcar? That
+youngster who they say had a slave for a mother?"
+
+"Those who founded your city, Roman, were sons of a prostitute, and the
+day is not far distant when the horse of Carthage shall trample under
+foot the wolf of Romulus!"
+
+The legionary arose trembling with fury, feeling for his sword, but he
+suddenly gave a savage growl and fell, pressing his hands against his
+throat.
+
+Actæon had seen the Celtiberian introduce his right hand into the sleeve
+of his sagum, and, drawing a knife, stab the legionary in the thick neck
+he had been staring at with the fixity of a wild beast while the fallen
+man mocked at Carthage.
+
+The tavern shook with the strain of the combat. The other Roman seeing
+his companion down, hurled himself at the Celtiberian with raised sword,
+but quick as a flash he received a thrust in the face and was blinded by
+a stream of blood.
+
+The agility of the man was astounding. His movements had the elasticity
+of the panther; blows seemed to rebound from his body without doing him
+harm. Around him fell a shower of jars, of broken amphoræ, of swords
+hurled through the air; but with extended arm, and knife held before
+him, he made a spring toward the door and disappeared.
+
+"After him! After him!" clamored the Romans, starting in pursuit.
+
+Attracted by the brutal joy of a man hunt, all who were sober enough to
+retain mastery of their legs followed him out of the hostelry. The horde
+of men, fired by the sight of blood, sprang over the bodies of the dying
+Roman and the drunken sailors who lay snoring near him. The Greek saw
+them break up into groups, running in all directions after the
+Celtiberian, who had disappeared a few steps distant from the hostelry
+as if dissolved into the shadow of the night.
+
+The port thrilled with the ardor of the chase. Lights flashed along the
+wharves and through the village streets; the lupanars and taverns were
+subjected to a brutal overhauling by the Romans who were mad with fury;
+a fresh fight started at the door of every hut; blood was about to flow
+anew, when the Greek, fearing to become involved in a riot, fled to the
+temple. Bacchis had not returned, and the Greek climbed up the steps
+and stretched out on the portico, a broad terrace paved with blue
+marble, over which the fluted columns supporting the pediment flung
+oblique bars of shadow.
+
+When Actæon awoke he felt the warmth of the sun on his face. Birds were
+singing in the olive trees, and he heard voices near. As he arose he was
+surprised to see that day had dawned, for it seemed but a few minutes
+had passed since he fell asleep.
+
+A woman, a patrician, stood not far away, smiling upon him. She was
+robed in a flowing white linen mantle which fell to her feet in graceful
+folds like the drapery of statues. A few curls of blonde hair fell over
+her forehead. Her lips were painted red, and her black eyes, velvety,
+and with a silky caress in their gaze, were surrounded by blue circles
+suggesting a night of fatigue. Moving her arms beneath her mantle,
+hidden ornaments jingled with silvery tones, and the toe of her sandal,
+peeping from beneath the border of her garment, shone like a jewelled
+star.
+
+She was followed by two slender Celtiberian slaves, their brown,
+swelling breasts almost bare, their limbs wrapped in multicolored cloth.
+One carried a pair of white doves, the other bore on her head a basket
+of roses.
+
+Actæon recognized Polyanthus, the Saguntine pilot, and also the perfumed
+young gallant who had been on the wharf with another horseman when the
+ship came in, standing near the handsome patrician.
+
+The Greek arose, amazed at the beautiful apparition smiling upon him.
+
+"Athenian," she said in Greek of the purest accent, "I am Sónnica, the
+mistress of the ship which brought you hither. Polyanthus is my
+freedman and he has done well in giving you passage, for he is aware of
+my interest in your people. Who are you?"
+
+"I am Actæon, and I ask the gods to shower blessings upon you for your
+kindness. May Venus guard your beauty while you live."
+
+"Are you a navigator? Are you engaged in commerce? Are you traveling
+about the world giving lessons in rhetoric and poetry?"
+
+"I am a soldier, as were all my ancestors. My grandfather died in Italy
+covering with his body the great Pyrrhus who wept for him as for a
+brother. My father was a captain of mercenaries in the service of
+Carthage, and was cruelly assassinated in the war called 'inexorable.'"
+
+He was silent a moment as if overcome by this recollection. His voice
+choked, but presently he added: "I fought until recently under the
+orders of Cleomenes, the last Lacedæmonian. I was one of his companions,
+and when the hero suffered defeat I accompanied him to Alexandria,
+afterward traveling over the world because I could not endure the
+inactivity of exile. I have also been a merchant in Rhodes, a fisherman
+on the Bosphorus, a farmer in Egypt, and a satirical poet in Athens."
+
+The handsome Sónnica approached him smiling. He was an Athenian
+possessed of all the qualities so loved by her; one of those adventurers
+accustomed to rapid changes of fortune, rounders of the world, who
+frequently chronicle their achievements when they have reached old age.
+
+"And why have you come hither?"
+
+"I have come by chance. Your pilot offered to bring me to Zacynthus, and
+I came. I felt stifled in New Carthage. I might have enlisted in
+Hannibal's army; it would have been sufficient perhaps to have revealed
+my origin to meet with welcome. The Greeks are paid great prices in
+every army. But a war is in progress here also, and I prefer to go
+against the Turdetani, to serve a city which I do not know, but which
+has never done me any harm."
+
+"And did you sleep here last night? Could you not find a bed in any of
+the inns?"
+
+"What I could not find was an obolus in my pouch. If I appeased my
+hunger, it was due to the charity of a forlorn harlot who shared her
+meagre supper with me. I am poor, and I was faint for food. Do not pity
+me, Sónnica. Do not look upon me with eyes of compassion. I have given
+banquets which lasted from sunset until dawn. In Rhodes, at the hour of
+the songs, we used to throw the metal plates out of the windows to the
+slaves. The life of a man should be thus, like Homer's heroes, a king in
+one place and a beggar in another."
+
+Polyanthus looked upon the adventurer with interest, and the elegant
+Lachares, who had at first opposed Sónnica when she wished to awaken so
+ill-dressed a Greek, approached him, recognizing Athenian refinement
+beneath his humble exterior, thinking to make a friend of him in the
+hope of receiving lessons to his advantage.
+
+"Come to my villa at sunset to-day," said Sónnica. "You shall dine with
+us. Anyone can guide you to my house. One of my ships has brought you to
+this land, and I wish you to find hospitality beneath my roof.
+Farewell, Athenian. I also am from Athens, and seeing you I imagine that
+the golden lance of Pallas on the height by the Parthenon still shines
+before my eyes."
+
+Bidding the Athenian farewell with a smile, Sónnica turned toward the
+temple, followed by the slaves.
+
+Actæon overhead the conversation of Lachares and Polyanthus outside the
+temple. They had spent the night before at Sónnica's house. They had
+left the table at dawn. Lachares still wore his banquet crown, but the
+roses were withered and falling to pieces. When Sónnica heard of the
+arrival of the dancing girls from Gades, whom she had so impatiently
+awaited to present at her suppers, she took a fancy to see Polyanthus
+and his ship, and she wished to make a sacrifice to Aphrodite in
+passing, as she did whenever she went to the port. She had come in her
+great litter, accompanied by Lachares and the two slaves, proposing to
+sleep on the way back, for she generally stayed in bed until well past
+the hour of noon.
+
+The pilot withdrew and went toward his ship to disembark the troop of
+dancers, and Actæon walked with Lachares to the entrance of the open
+temple.
+
+The interior was simple and beautiful. A great square space remained
+roofless to allow the light to enter, and the sun's rays descending
+through this opening gave the changing bluish green of sea-water to the
+azure columns with their capitals representing shells, dolphins, and
+cupids grasping the oar. At the lower end in a soft penumbra, laden with
+the perfumes of the sacrifices, stood the goddess, white, arrogant, and
+proud in her nudity as when she first emerged from the waves before the
+astonished eyes of men.
+
+The altar was near the door. Before it stood the priest in a full linen
+mantle, held to his head by a crown of flowers, receiving the offerings
+to the goddess from the hands of Sónnica herself.
+
+Coming out upon the peristyle she swept with a loving glance the expanse
+of whitecapped sea, the port glistening like a triple mirror, the
+immense green valley, and the distant city, gilded by the first rays of
+the morning sun.
+
+"How beautiful! Look at our city, Actæon! Greece is not more exquisite."
+
+At the foot of the great stone steps was her palanquin, which was a
+veritable house closed by purple curtains, decorated at their four
+corners with plumes of ostrich feathers. It was borne by eight athletic
+slaves with swelling muscles.
+
+Sónnica ordered her women to enter this ambulatory dwelling; she pushed
+in Lachares, whom she treated as an inferior, and whose familiarity was
+tolerated as one of her caprices; and, turning toward the Greek, who
+stood on an upper step of the temple, she smiled once more, bidding him
+farewell with a wave of a hand covered to the fingernails with rings,
+which at every movement traced streams of light through the air.
+
+The litter swiftly disappeared along the city road, when suddenly Actæon
+became aware of hands caressing his neck.
+
+It was Bacchis, looking still more wasted and ragged in the light of
+day. She had one eye blackened, and bruised spots on her arms.
+
+"I could not come before," said the slave humbly. "They only let me
+loose a little while ago. What people! They barely gave me enough to
+pay Lais. I have been thinking of you all night, god of mine, while they
+were tormenting me, blowing in my face like tired satyrs."
+
+Actæon turned away, shrinking from her caresses. He perceived the odor
+of wine on the wretched woman, drunk and exhausted after the adventures
+of the night.
+
+"You run away from me? Yes, I understand! I saw you talking with Sónnica
+the rich, she whom her friends call the most beautiful woman in
+Zacynthus. Are you going to be her lover? Oh, I know that she will adore
+you. But she is only another like myself. Tell me, Actæon, why do you
+not take me with you? Why do you not make me your slave? My price will
+be only one night with you."
+
+The Greek pushed aside the thin arms which tried to embrace him, in
+order to see the road where trumpets were blaring, and helmets and
+lances were gleaming, in the midst of a great cloud of dust.
+
+"Those are the legates from Rome who are leaving to-day," said the
+woman.
+
+Attracted by the charm which men of war exercised upon her childish
+mind, she ran down the steps to obtain a closer view of the ambassadors
+and their retinue.
+
+In advance marched the trumpeters of the Roman ship, blowing their long
+metal tubas, their cheeks bound by broad woolen bands. An escort of
+citizens of Saguntum surrounded the ambassadors, making their shaggy
+Celtiberian horses caracole, waving their lances, their heads covered
+with triple-crested helmets which still bore the dents from blows
+received in their latest skirmishes with the Turdetani. Some old men of
+the Saguntine senate rode sedately on heavy horses, their long beards
+covering their breasts. Their dark mantles, held upon their heads by
+embroidered tiaras, swept to their stirrups in heavy folds. The Roman
+ensign, over-topped by the wolf, was carried by a strong _classiarius_,
+and behind it rode the legates, their round, shaven heads uncovered. One
+was obese, and had a fat, triple chin; the other was spare, nervous,
+with a sharp aquiline nose; both wore embossed bronze cuirasses; their
+legs were covered with metal greaves, and over their protuberant thighs
+hung skirts the color of wine-lees, trimmed with loose strips of gold
+which quivered at the slightest movement of their steeds.
+
+As the procession reached the wharf, where swarmed groups of sailors,
+fishermen, and slaves, they met a band of women wrapped in their
+mantles, who were walking along guided by an old man with insolent eyes
+and sunken mouth, wearing that repulsive aspect acquired by eunuchs who
+live perpetually in the company of enslaved women. They were the dancing
+girls from Gades, who, as they left Polyanthus' ship, passed unnoticed
+in the hubbub of the leave-taking.
+
+Some women, issuing from the fish-wharves, offered the legates crowns of
+flowers gathered from the neighboring hills, and lilies from the
+lagoons. Acclamations arose throughout the entire length of the quay,
+witnessed by groups of indifferent sailors from all countries.
+
+"Hail to Rome! May Neptune protect you! The gods accompany you!"
+
+Actæon heard a mocking laugh behind him, and as he turned he saw the
+Celtiberian shepherd who had killed the legionary in the tavern the
+night before.
+
+"You here?" the Greek exclaimed with surprise. "Are you alone, and do
+you not hide from the Romans who seek you?"
+
+The imperious eyes of the shepherd, those strange eyes which aroused in
+the Greek confused and inexplicable memories, looked at him with
+arrogance.
+
+"The Romans! I hate and despise them! I would go without fear even to
+the deck of their ship! Mind your own affairs, Actæon, and don't meddle
+in mine."
+
+"How do you know my name?" exclaimed the Athenian with growing
+amazement, wondering also at the perfection with which the rude shepherd
+used the Greek tongue.
+
+"I know your name and your life. You are the son of Lysias, a captain in
+the service of Carthage, and, like all of your race, you wheel around
+the world, without finding contentment in any part."
+
+The Greek, so strong and sure of himself on most occasions, felt
+intimidated in the presence of this enigmatic man.
+
+Absorbed in the contemplation of the cortége which had come to bid
+farewell to the legates, he had turned his back on Actæon. His eyes
+expressed hatred and scorn as he saw the bronze wolf of the Roman
+standard flash in the sunlight, hailed with enthusiasm by the
+Saguntines.
+
+"They think themselves strong; they think themselves safe, because Rome
+protects them. They imagine Carthage dead, because her Senate of
+shopkeepers is afraid to provoke an issue with an ally of Rome. They
+have beheaded the Saguntine friends of the Carthaginian, those who of
+old were friends of the Barcas, and used to go out to greet Hamilcar
+when he passed near the city on his expeditions. They do not know that
+there is one who will not sleep as long as peace exists. The world is
+not wide enough for these two peoples; either the one or the other!"
+
+As if the acclamations of the multitude shouting farewells toward the
+small boat in which the legates were being borne to the liburna and the
+trumpet blasts which burst forth from the poop of the vessel, were
+whiplashes to the shepherd, with clenched teeth and eyes red with fury,
+he shook his sinewy arms at the ship and muttered in menacing tones:
+
+"Rome!----Rome!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SAGUNTUM
+
+
+The sun was high in the heavens when Actæon walked toward the city along
+the thoroughfare called the Road of the Serpent.
+
+On his way he overtook wagons laden with leather bottles of oil and
+amphoræ of wine. The files of slaves bending under the weight of heavy
+burdens, their feet covered with dust, drew to one side of the road to
+give him passage, displaying that submission and shrinking which a
+freeman always inspired. The Greek paused a moment before the oil mills,
+watching the enormous stones revolved by chained slaves; then he
+continued on his way skirting the bases of the hills, on the crests of
+which rose the _speculæ_, little red watchtowers, which, with their
+fires, announced to the Acropolis of Saguntum the arrival of ships, or
+any activity observed on the opposite slope where began the territory of
+the hostile Turdetani.
+
+The fertile fields of the immense domain were flooded by a golden shower
+of morning sunshine. From the villages, from the country-houses, from
+the innumerable dwellings scattered throughout the extensive valley,
+streamed people to the Road of the Serpent, traveling toward the city.
+
+The majority of the Saguntine people lived in the country, cultivating
+the soil. The city was relatively small. In it dwelt only the rich
+agriculturists, the magistrates, and foreigners. When some danger
+threatened, when the Turdetani attempted an incursion into the Saguntine
+territory, all the people streamed to the city, seeking the shelter of
+its walls, and the rustics, driving their flocks before them, mingled
+with the artisans of Saguntum, and took refuge within these precincts
+which they only visited when they came to town to sell their wares.
+
+Actæon guessed, by the great number of people met along the way, that
+this must be market day in the Forum. The country folk strode along in
+single file, carrying on their heads baskets covered with leaves, clad
+only in a dark tunic which hung far down their bodies, outlining their
+forms at every step. The peasants, sun-browned, sinewy, their single
+garment a skirt of skins or of coarse cloth, guided oxen drawing carts,
+or asses laden with bundles, and up and down the road sounded the
+incessant jingling of bells from flocks of goats, and the gentle lowing
+of cattle, as they trotted along in clouds of red dust raised by their
+sharp hoofs.
+
+Some families were already returning from market, displaying with pride
+the articles for which they had bartered their fruits at the booths in
+the Forum, and their friends stopped them to admire the new fabrics, the
+red terra cotta cups, fresh and brilliant, the rudely wrought feminine
+ornaments of solid silver, and their inspection was followed by a
+"salve!" of congratulation, which made their possessors flush with
+childish pride.
+
+Brown girls with firm, spare limbs and high foreheads, their hair
+hanging loose in Celtiberian fashion, marched in pairs carrying from
+their shoulders long poles on which hung branches of flowers for the
+ladies of the city. Others carried enormous bunches of red cherries,
+wrapped in leaves to preserve them from the dust, and at intervals they
+sprang and shouted between outbursts of noisy laughter, mimicking the
+voices and gestures of the rich youths of Saguntum, who, to the great
+scandal of the city, gathered in Sónnica's garden to imitate before the
+statue of Dionysus the picturesque follies of Greece.
+
+Actæon admired the beauty of the landscape; the groves of fig trees,
+which lent fame to Saguntum, just beginning to put forth new leaves,
+forming upon their ancient branches canopies of verdure which swept the
+ground; the vines, like waves of emerald, spreading over the plain and
+climbing the far off hills to the forests of pine and holly; and the
+olive orchards planted symmetrically in the red soil, forming colonnades
+of twisted branches with capitals of silvery leafage. The sight of this
+splendid landscape moved him, recalling to mind memories of his
+childhood. The valley was as beautiful as that of Mother Greece; here he
+would remain if the gods did not urge him forward again on his restless
+pilgrimage about the world.
+
+He walked almost an hour, keeping ever before him the red mountain with
+the city at its base, and on its summit the innumerable constructions of
+the Acropolis. At a turn of the road he saw the people stop before a
+shrine--a long altar of stone, upon which an enormous serpent of blue
+marble extended its scaly rings. The rustics deposited flowers and
+earthen cups of milk before the motionless reptile, which with head
+lifted and venomous jaws open seemed to threaten them. In this place
+the unfortunate Zacynthus had been bitten by the serpent as he was
+returning to Greece with the red cattle stolen from Geryon. His body was
+burned on the Acropolis, and the city grew around the spot. The simple
+people worshipped the reptile as one of the founders of their _patria_,
+and with affectionate words they surrounded it with offerings, which
+mysteriously disappeared, causing many to believe that it came to life
+in the dark, and they imagined that they heard its frightful hissing for
+great distances on stormy nights.
+
+As Actæon drew nearer to Saguntum he saw the tombs which rose on both
+sides of the road, attracting the attention of the traveler by their
+inscriptions. Behind these extended gardens enclosed by thick hedges
+over which peeped the branches of fruit trees belonging to the
+country-houses of the rich. Some slave women were watching nude children
+of pronounced Grecian type who played and wrestled. A corpulent old man,
+wrapped in a purple chlamys, stood in a garden gateway observing the
+passing of the flood of wretched people with the cold arrogance of a
+merchant newly risen to affluence. On the terrace of a villa Actæon
+fancied that he saw a gold-dyed coiffure in Athenian style interlaced
+with red ribbons, and near it a waving fan of multicolored feathers of
+Asiatic birds. These were the villas of the rich patricians of Saguntum
+who had retired from business.
+
+Upon nearing the river, the Bætis-Perkes, which divided the city from
+the champaign, the Greek noticed that he was walking beside a girl,
+almost a child, driving a flock of goats before her. Slender,
+well-formed, with spare limbs, her skin a brown and velvety color, she
+would have looked like a boy had it not been that her short tunic, open
+on the left side, afforded glimpses of her slightly rounded breast, with
+a gentle cup-like curve, as it were a bud beginning to expand with the
+vigor of youth. Her black eyes, moist and large, seemed to fill her
+whole face, bathing it with a mysterious effulgence, and through her
+lips, dry and cracked by the wind, shone her white teeth, strong and
+regular. Her hair knotted behind her neck she had adorned with a garland
+of poppies plucked in the wheat. She carried over her shoulder with
+masculine ease a heavy net filled with white cheeses as round as loaves
+of bread, fresh, and still oozing whey. With her disengaged hand she was
+caressing the white fleece of a straight-horned goat, her favorite,
+which rubbed against her limbs, ringing a little copper bell worn on its
+neck.
+
+Actæon was charmed contemplating her girlish figure, so sturdy for
+labor, in which the freshness of youth triumphed over fatigue. Her
+slenderness, with lines erect and harmonious, reminded him of the
+elegance of the Tanagra figurines on the tables of the hetæræ of Athens;
+of the imperious virility of the canephoræ painted in black around Greek
+vases.
+
+The girl cast furtive glances at him, and then smiled, showing her teeth
+with juvenile confidence on feeling herself admired.
+
+"You are a Greek, are you not?"
+
+She spoke like the people of the port, in that strange idiom of a
+maritime city open to all peoples, a mixture of Celtiberian, Greek, and
+Latin.
+
+"I am from Athens. And you--who are you?"
+
+"I am called Rhanto, and my mistress is Sónnica the rich. Have you not
+heard of her? Her ships are in every port, she has slaves by the
+hundred, and she drinks from cups of gold. Do you see above those olive
+trees, on the side toward the sea, that small rose-colored tower? It is
+the villa where she lives as soon as the passing of winter allows her to
+leave the city. I belong at the villa, and I am in her service during
+the open season. My father has charge of her flocks, and she often comes
+down to our stables to play with the goats."
+
+Actæon was surprised at the frequency with which he had heard of Sónnica
+since setting foot on Saguntine soil. The name of that opulent woman,
+whom some called "the rich," and others "the courtesan," was in every
+mouth. The shepherdess, who evinced a certain attraction toward the
+stranger, continued:
+
+"She is good. Sometimes she seems sad; she says she languishes with
+tedium in the midst of her riches; she is indifferent to everything, and
+in that mood she is capable of letting all her slaves be crucified
+without interfering. But when she is happy she is as kind as a mother,
+and she will not allow us to be punished. Her overseer in charge of the
+slaves is a cruel man, an Iberian freedman, who watches us, and at every
+instant threatens us with the lash and the cross. He has whipped my
+father several times on account of a lost ewe, or a goat which had
+broken its leg, or because a little milk was spilled in the
+cheese-making season. I would have received his blows myself had it not
+been for the respect he feels for me on account of having seen me
+caressed sometimes by Sónnica."
+
+Rhanto spoke of the terrible situation of the slaves with the
+naturalness of a creature accustomed from birth to witnessing such
+severities.
+
+"In winter," she continued, "I go to the mountain with my father, and I
+await with impatience the coming of the season when my mistress will
+return to the villa, and I can come down to the plain where there are
+flowers. Then I can spend the whole day in the shade of a tree
+surrounded by my goats."
+
+"And how have you learned something of Greek?"
+
+"Sónnica speaks it with rich people of the city, who are her friends,
+and with the slaves who serve her. Besides----"
+
+She hesitated, and her pale cheeks flushed.
+
+"Besides," she persisted, with animation, "my friend Erotion, the son of
+Mopsus, the archer who came from Rhodes, speaks it. He is a friend who
+helps me watch the goats when he is not working in the pottery, which
+also belongs to Sónnica."
+
+She pointed to the great works near the river, the famous Saguntine
+potteries, which revealed, between clay walls, the cupolas of its ovens
+like enormous red bee-hives.
+
+From one side of the road among the trees, sounded mellow notes, wild
+and joyous flute-tones, and Actæon saw a boy spring into the highway. He
+was about the same age as Rhanto, tall, slender, barefooted, clad only
+in a soft goat-skin which hung over his left shoulder, leaving his right
+exposed, and was tied together at the waist. His eyes were like live
+coals, his black hair had bluish tones and, forming short ringlets,
+shook like a heavy mane with the nervous movements of his head. His
+arms, thin but strong, with the skin stretched by the tension of veins
+and tendons, were stained to the elbow by the red potter's clay.
+
+Actæon, as he contemplated the short, correct profile of the handsome
+youth, and the nervous vivacity of his body, was reminded of the
+apprentices to the sculptors at Athens, artistic youths who in the broad
+glare of day, before returning to the studios, scandalized the
+well-behaved citizens by their frolics in the promenade of the
+Cerameicus.
+
+"This is Erotion," said Rhanto, who smiled sweetly as she saw her
+friend. "Although born in Saguntum, he is a Greek like yourself,
+stranger."
+
+The youth did not glance at the girl; he stood looking at the stranger
+respectfully.
+
+"Are you from Athens, really?" he said with admiration. "You cannot deny
+it. You look like Ulysses when he was wandering about the world, passing
+through the adventures related by Father Homer. I have seen just such as
+you on vases and in reliefs, resembling in figure and dress the husband
+of Penelope. Greeting, son of Pallas!"
+
+"And you--are you also one of Sónnica's slaves?"
+
+"No," the boy hastily answered with pride. "Rhanto is a slave, but
+perhaps some day she will not be. I am free; my father is Mopsus, a
+Greek from Rhodes, and the chief archer of Saguntum. He came from there
+with no other fortune than his bow and arrows, and now he is rich, since
+his recent expedition against the Turdetani, and he figures as the first
+in the militia of the city. I work in the pottery for Sónnica, who is
+very fond of me. She it was who gave me the name of Erotion, because
+when I was little I looked like a cupid. I am not one of those who
+mould clay, nor turn the wheel to shape the vases. They call me the
+artist; I make decorations of foliage, I model animals, I can make the
+head of Diana from memory, and no one can engrave in clay the great seal
+of Saguntum as I can. Do you know what it is like? A ship without sails,
+with three banks of oars; above it flies Victory in long draperies,
+depositing a crown on the prow. I could, if you wish, model your
+figure----"
+
+But he stopped, as if ashamed at these last words, and added sadly:
+
+"How you must be laughing at me, stranger! You come from _there_, from
+that marvelous country of which my father so often talks. You must have
+seen the Parthenon and Athene Promachos which navigators distinguish far
+out at sea long before they can descry Athens; the wonderful procession
+of horses in the metopes; the prodigious works of Phidias. How I long to
+see all that! When a ship comes into port from Greece I run away from
+the pottery and spend whole days in the taverns with the mariners. I
+drink with them, I give them presents of figurines in lewd attitudes,
+which make them laugh, just for the sake of getting them to tell me what
+they have seen--the temples, the statues, the paintings; and their
+stories, instead of calming me, excite my longing.... Ah, if Sónnica
+would allow it!... If only she would let me go in one of her ships when
+they set sail for Greece!"
+
+Afterward, he added earnestly:
+
+"This girl you see here, my sweet Rhanto, is all that sustains me. If
+she did not exist I should long ago have sought the _gubernator_ of a
+ship, should have sold myself to him as a slave, if necessary, to
+travel over the world, to see Greece, and to become an artist like those
+to whom you render there the same honors as to the gods."
+
+The three walked on in silence for some time behind the cloud of dust
+raised by the goats. The boy gradually recovered his serenity at the
+side of Rhanto, who had taken one of his hands in hers.
+
+"And you--why do you come here?" he asked Actæon.
+
+"I came as did your father. I am a Greek without fortune, and I wish to
+offer my arms to the Saguntine Republic in its wars with the Turdetani."
+
+"Speak to Mopsus. You will find him in the Forum, or above on the
+Acropolis near the temple of Hercules, where the magistrates gather. He
+will be glad to see you; he adores those of your race, and he will stand
+sponsor for you before the city."
+
+Again silence fell. The Greek noticed the loving glances exchanged
+between the two young people, the fervid pressure of their clasped
+hands, the tender inclination of their healthy young bodies, which
+seeking each other, clung together. Erotion, as if obeying an unspoken
+request from his beloved, drew from his bosom a flute made of a hollow
+reed, and began to blow upon it softly, producing tender, pastoral
+music, to which the goats responded with bleating.
+
+The Greek realized that his presence was becoming undesirable to the
+happy lovers, for they gradually slackened their pace.
+
+"Farewell, children! Travel without haste; youth is on time whenever it
+arrives. We shall meet again in the city."
+
+"May the gods protect you, stranger," replied Rhanto. "If you need
+anything you will find me in the Forum where I have to sell these
+cheeses and some others which were brought in the farmer's cart at
+dawn."
+
+"Farewell, Athenian! Speak to my father, but do not tell him with whom
+you saw me."
+
+Actæon crossed the river, picking his way between the carts which were
+immersed in the water up to their axles, and stood before the ramparts
+of the city, admiring their strength, the bases of undressed stone,
+fitted closely without mortar, supporting wall and towers of strong
+masonry.
+
+At the gate of the Road of the Serpent, which was the main entrance, he
+was detained by a jam of men, wagons, and horses in the narrow tunnel.
+Inside the city, and almost against the wall, was the temple of Diana, a
+shrine known throughout the world for its antiquity, and which gave not
+a little fame to the Saguntines. Actæon paused to admire the roof of
+juniper planks of venerable age, but, eager to see the city, he
+continued on his way.
+
+There was to be seen down at the end of a straight street, where the
+buildings widened out, forming an enormous right-angled space, a great
+square plaza with beautiful structures sustained by arches, beneath
+which the people were swarming. It was the Forum. Above the roofs at the
+lower end could be seen houses and more houses with white walls climbing
+up the mountain slope; and in the background the walls of the Acropolis,
+the colonnades of the temples sustaining the friezes consisting of
+enormous carved stones.
+
+Actæon, following the road leading to the Forum, was reminded of the
+maritime suburb of the Piræus. This was the merchants' district,
+inhabited mainly by Greeks. The stir of traffic could be seen through
+the windows of the lower stories; slaves were piling up bales; young men
+with curly hair and aquiline noses were tracing on their wax tablets
+their complicated business accounts, and samples of their wares were
+exposed on small tables before the doors of the houses; there were piles
+of wheat or wool and heavy rough pieces of marble from the quarries. The
+merchants, standing in their doorways and leaning against the jambs,
+talked with their customers, gesticulating and with smooth accent
+calling upon the gods as witnesses that they were being ruined in their
+business.
+
+In some shops, the proprietors, in vestments embroidered with golden
+flowers, wearing tall mitres and purple sandals, with light, sphinx-like
+eyes, and stroking the curls of their perfumed beards, listened in
+silence to their customers. They were traders from Africa and Asia,
+Carthaginians, Egyptians, Phœnicians, who dealt in costly
+merchandise--trinkets of gold, tusks of ivory, ostrich feathers, and
+pieces of amber. Before their doors paused rich women clad in white
+mantles, followed by slaves, and as they talked they peeped their rosy
+faces into the shop, fascinated by the exotic aroma of stimulating
+spices from Asia and mysterious perfumes from the Orient. Rare birds
+brought from the East strode majestically among the bales with strident
+calls, trailing their multicolored plumage like a royal mantle.
+
+Actæon, after hastily examining these shops, entered the Forum. It was
+market day, and the life of the city streamed to the great square.
+Farmers spread out their garden stuff near the porticos; shepherds from
+the public domain piled their cheeses in pyramids in front of little
+pitchers of milk, and women of the port, brown and almost naked, called
+attention to their fresh fish, arranged upon beds of leaves in flat rush
+baskets. At one end shepherds from the mountain, dressed in esparto,
+ferocious of aspect, and armed with lances, watched over cattle and
+horses offered for sale. These were Celtiberians, of whom it was told
+with horror that they sometimes ate human flesh, and they seemed to feel
+imprisoned inside the plaza, contemplating with hostile eyes that
+bee-like activity, so different from the independent solitude they
+enjoyed in their wandering life. The riches excited their appetites for
+robbing and horse-stealing, and, grasping their lances, they stared with
+ferocious eyes at the group of armed mercenaries in the service of the
+city, who at the lower end of the Forum, on the steps of the temple,
+guarded the senator charged with dispensing justice on market days.
+
+In the centre of the square swarmed the multitude, buying and dickering,
+dressed in a thousand colors, and speaking diverse tongues. The virtuous
+women of the city, simply dressed in white, passed along, followed by
+slaves who deposited in netted sacks the provision for the week; the
+Greeks, in long, saffron-colored chlamydes investigated everything,
+haggling tediously before making an insignificant purchase; the
+Saguntine citizens, Iberians who had lost their primitive rudeness
+through infinite intermarriages, imitated the manner and bearing of the
+Romans who were at the moment the people in highest esteem. Mingled with
+these were natives from the interior, bearded, begrimed, with long
+dishevelled hair, attracted by the market in spite of their dislike for
+the city, and particularly for the Greeks on account of their refinement
+and riches.
+
+Some Celtiberians, chiefs of the tribes nearest to Saguntum, remained on
+horseback in the centre of the Forum, without putting aside their
+lances, and still clinging to their shields of woven bull-sinews. They
+wore triple-crested helmets and leather cuirasses, as if they were on
+hostile soil and feared treachery. Meanwhile their women, agile, brown,
+and masculine, moved from place to place, their ample vestments,
+embroidered in gayly colored flowers, fluttering as they walked, and
+anon they stopped with childish admiration before the table of some
+Greek selling crystal beads and coarsely engraved necklaces and trinkets
+of bronze.
+
+Mantles of finest linen and costly purple brushed against the naked
+limbs of slaves or against the Celtiberian sagum of black wool buckled
+at the shoulder. Coiffures in Grecian style with red ribbons plaited in,
+the tuft of curls at the back of the head resembling the flame of a
+torch, the forehead small as a sign of supreme beauty, mingled with
+coiffures of the Celtiberian women, who wore their foreheads shaven and
+shiny to make them larger, their hair curled around a little stick
+placed on their heads, forming a sharp horn from which hung a black
+veil. Other Celtiberian women wore strong steel collars with little
+wires which were brought together above the coiffure, and from this
+cage, which enclosed the head, hung the veil, proudly displaying their
+enormous foreheads, brilliant and luminous as the moon in her first
+quarter.
+
+Actæon lingered wondering at the costumes of these women, and at their
+masculine and warlike aspect. His quick Grecian perceptions divined
+danger as he contemplated the barbarians motionless on their steeds in
+the centre of the Forum, from that height dominating with looks of
+hatred this nation of merchants and farmers. They were like birds of
+prey that were compelled to come down to the plain as thieves in order
+to find food for existence in their arid mountains. Saguntum surrounded
+by such peoples would some day have to struggle for supremacy against
+them.
+
+The Greek pondering this, entered the colonnades where the idle of the
+city were gathered before the shops of barbers, money changers, and
+vendors of wines and refreshments. Actæon could imagine himself still in
+the Agora of Athens. Although smaller, this was the same world as his
+native city. Sedate citizens had themselves carried by a slave in a
+wicker chair to take seats before the door of some shop to learn the
+news. Newsmongers circulated from group to group spreading the most
+stupendous lies; parasites seeking an invitation to dine flattered the
+rich whom they chanced to meet, and spoke ill of everything that
+happened; unemployed pedagogues disputed in loud tones over a point in
+Greek grammar, and youthful citizens grumbled against the old senators,
+declaring that the Republic needed newer blood.
+
+The recent expedition against the Turdetani, and the great victory
+gained over them, was much discussed. They would no longer dare to raise
+their heads; their king Artabanes, a fugitive in the most remote of
+their territories, must be punished for the late defeat. And the young
+Saguntines looked proudly at the trophies of lances, shields, and
+helmets, hanging from the pilasters of the porticos. They were the arms
+of some hundreds of Turdetani killed or taken prisoner on the last
+expedition. Furniture and ornaments stolen in the villages of the enemy
+by the warriors of Saguntum were offered for sale at low prices in the
+barber-shops. Nobody wanted them. The city was filled with such spoils.
+The Saguntine soldiers had returned, dragging in their wake a veritable
+army of loaded wagons and an interminable horde of men and beasts. As
+they thought of the triumph they smiled with the grim ferocity of
+ancient warfare, incapable of forgiving, and in which the greatest of
+mercies for the conquered was slavery.
+
+The slave-market was situated near the temple where justice was
+administered. The slaves squatted on the ground in a circle, covered
+with rags, their hands clasped around their feet, their chins resting
+between their knees. Those born into slavery awaited the new master with
+the passivity of beasts, their limbs emaciated by hunger, their heads
+shaved and covered by a white cap. Others, more closely watched by the
+slave dealer, were bearded, and over their filthy hair wore crowns of
+branches to indicate their condition as slaves taken in war. They were
+Turdetani who had not given ransom. Astonishment and fury at finding
+themselves reduced to slavery still showed in their glowering eyes. Many
+of them wore chains, and on their bodies the cicatrices of the recent
+war were still fresh. They glared at the hostile people, contracting
+their mouths as if with desire to bite and some of them restlessly moved
+their right arms which terminated in mere formless stumps. Their hands
+had been cut off in wars with tribes of the interior, whose custom it
+was to thus render their prisoners useless.
+
+The Saguntines looked indifferently upon these enemies converted into
+chattels, into beasts, by the cruel law of conquest, and forgetting the
+presence of the Turdetani they discussed the city's quarrels, the
+rivalry of factions, which seemed to have been stifled by the
+intervention of the Roman legates. On the steps of a temple close at
+hand the bloodstains of those beheaded because of their friendship for
+Carthage could still be seen, and the adherents of Rome, who were in the
+majority, discoursed bravely and praised the energetic counsel of the
+envoys of the great Republic. The city would now live in peace and
+security under the protection of Rome.
+
+Actæon, while listening to the conversation of these various groups,
+glanced toward the temple and thought that he saw in the crowd streaming
+up and down the steps the Celtiberian shepherd who had killed the Roman
+legionary the night before. It was a swift vision; his dark sagum
+vanished in the multitude, and the Greek was uncertain if it were really
+he.
+
+The morning advanced. Actæon had spent a long time in the market, and he
+thought that now the hour had come for occupying himself with other
+matters. He must see Mopsus the archer, up on the Acropolis, and he
+began the ascent following winding streets paved with cobbles, and lined
+with white houses, where in the doorways sat women spinning and weaving
+wool.
+
+As the Greek approached the Acropolis, he admired the cyclopean walls of
+great stones laid with rare art, solidly fitted without mortar-joints.
+Here was the cradle of the city, relic of the companions of Zacynthus
+as they established themselves among the rude indigenes.
+
+He passed through a long archway, and found himself on the extensive
+esplanade upon the eminence, surrounded by ramparts which could shelter
+a population as great as Saguntum. On this immense plain, scattered at
+random, rose the public buildings, recalling the epoch when the city
+stood on the summit and had not yet descended, spreading toward the sea.
+From its walls one could take in the immensity of the fertile domain,
+the territories belonging to the Republic, reaching out of sight to the
+south along the shore toward the boundary of the lands occupied by the
+Olcades; the innumerable villages and estates, grouped on the banks of
+the Bætis-Perkes, and the city opening like a great white fan down the
+slope of the mount, enclosed by walls over which the close-packed houses
+seemed to spring and scatter through the orchards.
+
+Actæon, turning his gaze toward the enclosed quarter of the Acropolis,
+noticed the temple of Hercules; near it the portico on which the Senate
+gathered; the mint where money was coined; the temple where the treasure
+of the Republic was stored; the arsenal where the citizens were armed;
+the barracks of the mercenaries; and, dominating all these buildings,
+the tower of Hercules, an enormous cyclopean structure which at night
+answered with its lights to the _speculæ_ on the shore and on the hills
+around the port, spreading alarm or giving tranquility throughout the
+whole of the Saguntine territory. In another quarter a band of slaves,
+directed by a Grecian artist, was putting the final touches on a small
+temple which Sónnica the rich was having raised on the Acropolis in
+honor of Minerva.
+
+The Saguntines who were climbing up to the citadel for a quiet stroll,
+proudly viewing their city and taking a look at the mercenaries who were
+burnishing their swords and their bronze cuirasses at the doors of their
+barracks, glanced curiously at the Greek.
+
+A prosperous looking Saguntine, wrapped in a red toga in Roman fashion,
+and leaning on a long staff, approached to speak to him. He was a middle
+aged man, strong, with gray hair and beard, and a kindly expression in
+his eyes and in his smile.
+
+"Tell me, Greek," he asked sweetly, "why have you come hither? Are you a
+merchant? Are you a navigator? Do you seek for your country the silver
+which the Celtiberians bring us?"
+
+"No, I am a poor man wandering about the world, and I have come to offer
+myself to the Republic as a soldier."
+
+The Saguntine made a gesture of distress.
+
+"I should have guessed it by the arm which serves you as a staff....
+Soldiers! Always soldiers! In other times not a sword nor a dart could
+be seen in the city. Foreigners used to come in ships loaded with
+merchandise; they took what we had, and in return they gave us what they
+brought, and we lived in that peace of which the poets sing. But now,
+those who come, whether Greek or Roman, African or Asiatic, present
+themselves armed; ferocious dogs who come to offer themselves as guards
+for the flock which used to frolic in peace without fear of enemies. As
+I behold all this warlike preparation, as I contemplate the youths of
+Saguntum rejoicing and boasting over their recent expedition against
+the Turdetani, I tremble for the city and the fate in store for my
+people. To-day we are the strongest, but will not someone come stronger
+than we, and clap upon our necks the chains of slavery?"
+
+Over the top of the walls he looked down at the city with tender
+solicitude.
+
+"Stranger," he continued, "my name is Alcon, and my friends call me 'the
+Prudent.' The old men of the Senate give heed to my counsels; but the
+young men will not listen to them. I have been a merchant, I have run
+over the world, I have a wife and children maintained in comfortable
+circumstances, and I am convinced that peace means felicity for the
+people and should be maintained at any cost."
+
+"I am Actæon, a son of Athens. I used to be a navigator, but my ships
+were wrecked. I was a trader, but I lost my fortune. Mercury and Neptune
+have ever treated me like harsh and merciless fathers. I have enjoyed
+much, I have suffered still more, and to-day, almost a beggar, I come
+here to sell my blood and brawn."
+
+"You do wrong, Athenian. You are a man, and you seek to turn yourself
+into a wolf. Do you know what I most admire in your race?... that you
+jest at Hercules and at his deeds; that you worship Pallas Athene! You
+scorn force, and you worship intelligence and the arts of peace."
+
+"The strong arm is as valuable as the head in which Zeus kindled the
+divine spark."
+
+"Yes, but that arm impels the head to death."
+
+Actæon was impatient at Alcon's words.
+
+"Do you know Mopsus the archer?"
+
+"There he is, near the temple of Hercules. You may recognize him by his
+weapons, which he never lays aside. He is another of those who drew
+hither the evil spirit of war."
+
+"Farewell, Alcon."
+
+"May the gods protect you, Athenian!"
+
+Actæon recognized the valorous Greek by his bow and by the quiver
+hanging from his shoulders. He was a robust, long-bearded man, who wore
+bound around his gray locks a bull's tendon to renew the one which
+served to string his bow. His strong muscular arms revealed in the
+elasticity of their sinews the high tension to which they were subjected
+in bending the strong bow and in shooting the arrows.
+
+He welcomed Actæon with the sympathetic respect which the Athenians
+inspired in the island-Greeks.
+
+"I will speak to the Senate," he said, on learning Actæon's aspirations.
+"My word will be sufficient to have you received among the mercenaries
+with all merited distinction. Tell me more about your military
+exploits."
+
+"I have made war in Lacedæmon, under the orders of Cleomenes."
+
+"A famous captain! The renown of the deeds of the Spartan king has even
+reached these shores. What news of him?"
+
+"I left him when, conquered but not mastered, he took refuge in
+Alexandria. There he dwelt as an exile under the protection of Ptolemy;
+but, according to what I heard not long ago in New Carthage, he got into
+trouble through a palace intrigue. The Egyptian monarch ordered his
+execution, and Cleomenes, with his twelve companions, died fighting.
+When he fell, a pile of corpses lay before him."
+
+"Worthy end for a hero! Where did you learn the military art?"
+
+"I began in Sicily and Carthage, in the camps of the mercenaries, and I
+finished my education in the Prytaneum of Athens. My father was Lysias,
+captain in the service of Hamilcar, put to death afterwards by the
+Carthaginians in their war with the mercenaries, which is called the
+'Inexpiable War.'"
+
+"Famous schools, and an excellent father! His name also came to my ears
+in the epoch when I was running over the world, before taking service in
+Saguntum. You are welcome, Actæon! If you wish to enlist in the
+hoplites, you shall figure in the first rank of the phalanx with the
+heavy armor and the long spear. But, no, you Athenians prefer to fight
+light-armed. You are more to be feared in the onset than on account of
+the force of your blows. You shall be a peltast, with javelin and light
+shield; you shall fight unhampered, and surely great deeds will be
+related of you."
+
+Some old men whom the archer greeted respectfully passed near.
+
+"Those are senators," Mopsus said, "assembling because it is market day.
+Many of them come from their villas on the public domain, and ride up to
+the Acropolis in their litters. They meet on that portico."
+
+Actæon saw them taking their seats on wooden chairs with curved
+claw-legs supporting the head of the Nemean lion. Their countenances and
+dress denoted the great diversity of races existing in the city. The men
+of Iberian origin came from their country-houses, bearded, grimy, with
+linen cuirass lined with heavy wool, a two-edged short sword hanging
+from the shoulder, and a hat of hardened leather equivalent to a helmet.
+The Grecian merchants presented themselves with faces shaven, wrapped in
+white chlamys, from which the right arm emerged bare; a fillet was bound
+around the hair in fashion of a crown, and they were leaning on long
+staves tipped by the design of a pine cone. They resembled the kings of
+the Iliad gathered before Troy.
+
+Actæon noted among them a giant with black beard and short curling hair
+which lay around his head like a mitre of wool. His enormous limbs, with
+protuberant muscles and elastic sinews which seemed bursting with
+strength, peeped from below the openings of the red mantle in which he
+was wrapped.
+
+"That is Theron," said the bowman, "the great priest of Hercules; a
+prodigious man, who could conquer a crown in the Olympic games. He kills
+a bull with a single blow on its neck."
+
+Again the Greek thought he recognized among the people gathered near the
+Senate portico, the Celtiberian shepherd, studying intently the gigantic
+priest of Hercules; but the archer addressed Actæon, compelling him to
+turn his gaze away.
+
+"The council is about to sit, and I must be at the foot of the steps
+awaiting orders. Go, Actæon, and tarry for me in the Forum. There you
+will find my boy. Did you not say that you met him on the road? No doubt
+he was with that slave girl who herds Sónnica's goats. Don't hesitate,
+Actæon; don't tell a falsehood. I guess it. Ah, that boy! That vagabond,
+who, instead of working, races through the fields like a fugitive
+slave!"
+
+In spite of the grievousness with which the archer complained, a thrill
+of tenderness was observable in his accent, the note of preference over
+his other sons for that wandering and capricious artist who often
+abandoned the paternal roof to roam about the port and through the
+mountains for weeks at a time.
+
+The two Greeks bade each other adieu, and Actæon returned to the Forum,
+not without thinking that he saw again, strolling about the Acropolis,
+the mysterious Celtiberian shepherd. As he entered the porticos he heard
+hisses and shouting; the crowds were agitated, laughing and jeering;
+people rushed from the barber-shops and perfumeries. The Greek saw a
+group of luxuriously dressed young men passing with scornful smiles
+regardless of the tempest of hisses and sarcasm raised by their
+presence.
+
+They were the gallants of Saguntum; the rich youths who imitated the
+fashions of the Athenian aristocracy, exaggerated by distance and by
+their lack of taste. Actæon also smiled, with the cynical smile of an
+Athenian, as he observed the crudeness with which these young fops
+copied their distant models.
+
+At their head strode Lachares, the gallant who had accompanied Sónnica
+on her morning visit to the temple of Venus. They were dressed in
+transparent cloth of screaming colors and subtle weave, disclosing the
+body, like the tunics worn by the hetæræ at banquets. Their cheeks,
+carefully plucked free of hair, were tinted with soft vermilion and the
+eyes were enlarged with black lines. The hair, curled, and perfumed with
+fragrant ointments, was confined by a fillet. Some wore large hoops of
+gold in their ears, and hidden bracelets jingled as they walked. Others
+were indolently leaning on the shoulders of small slave boys with white
+backs, and with hair hanging in heavy curls, resembling girls in the
+plumpness of their forms. As if deaf to the insults and sarcasms of the
+people, they talked with affected serenity of some Greek verses which
+one of them had composed; they discussed their merit, the manner of
+accompanying them with the lyre, and only stopped to caress the cheeks
+of their small slaves or to greet acquaintances, well pleased at heart
+over the scandal their presence caused in the Forum.
+
+"Do not tell me that they imitate the Greeks," shouted an old man with
+malicious face, clad in the patched and filthy mantle of an unemployed
+pedagogue. "The fire of the gods shall be hurled upon the city. It is
+true that in a moment of emotion our father Zeus carried off the
+beautiful Ganymede; but how about Leda and all the innumerable beauties
+touched by the fire of the Lord of Olympus? A fine place the world would
+be if men were to imitate the gods and were to behave as do these fools,
+dressing themselves like women! Do you wish to see a Greek? Well, there
+is one for you. That is a true son of Hellas."
+
+He pointed to Actæon, who found himself the target for curious glances
+from the assembled people.
+
+"How you must laugh, stranger, at seeing those miserable creatures who
+stupidly believe they are copying your country," the beggarly phrenetic
+continued shouting. "I am a philosopher; do you know that? The only
+philosopher in Saguntum, and by the same token you will guess that these
+ungrateful people are quite willing to let me starve to death. As a
+young man I lived in Athens; I attended the schools; I gave up the life
+of a mariner, and ceased running over the world, to seek truth within
+myself. I have invented nothing, but I know all that man has said about
+the soul and the world, and if you wish I will recite from memory entire
+paragraphs from Socrates and Plato, and all the answers of the great
+Diogenes. I know your country, and I am ashamed of my city when I see
+such fools as those. Do you know who is to blame for these follies that
+dishonor us? Sónnica, that Sónnica whom they call 'the rich,' an
+old-time courtesan who will succeed in making Saguntum a reproach,
+destroying the traditions of the city, and the simple, healthful customs
+of other times."
+
+On hearing the name of Sónnica a murmur of protest arose from the group.
+
+"Do you see?" shouted the philosopher, becoming more abusive. "They are
+adulatory slaves who tremble at the truth. The name of Sónnica produces
+in them the same effect as that of a goddess. Do you see that one
+running away? Well, not long ago Sónnica lent his father a great sum
+without interest, that he might buy wheat in Sicily, and so he thinks he
+must run away from any place where things are said against her. See that
+one turning his back? The courtesan freed his father, who was a slave,
+and he does not wish to hear anything said that might annoy Sónnica. And
+these others, who are more valiant, and remain staring as if they would
+devour me, have all received favors from her, and would like to beat me
+for my words as they have done before. They are slaves who defend her as
+if she were a beneficent divinity. There are many others like them in
+Saguntum, and that is why the magistrates dare not punish that Grecian
+woman, who with her mad extravagances scandalizes the city. Come, beat
+me, shopkeepers! Beat the only one in Saguntum who does not lie!"
+
+The crowd slunk away, leaving the philosopher shaking his fist and
+hurling epithets of indignation.
+
+"What you ought to do," said one of the latter scornfully as he retired,
+"is to show more gratitude. If you ever get anything to eat, it is at
+Sónnica's table."
+
+"I shall eat to-night, then!" shouted the philosopher insolently. "And
+what do you prove by that? I will tell her to her face the same that I
+say here! And she will laugh as usual, while you will be eating swill in
+your houses and thinking of her banquet!"
+
+"Ingrate! Parasite!" exclaimed the man, turning his back contemptuously.
+
+"Gratitude is the condition of the dog. Man shows his superiority by
+speaking ill of those who favor him. If you do not wish Euphobias the
+philosopher to be a parasite, maintain him in exchange for his wisdom."
+
+By this time Euphobias was talking to empty space. They had all left,
+and had mingled with the moving crowd on the street. Only Actæon
+remained, examining him with interest, as if marveling at finding in a
+far-away city a man so like those who in Athens swarmed about the
+Academy, forming a class of hungry and obscure philosophic plebs.
+
+The parasite, seeing himself with no other audience than the Greek,
+caught him by the arm.
+
+"You alone deserve to hear me. One can easily perceive that you are from
+_there_, and that you know how to distinguish merit."
+
+"Who is that Sónnica whose customs so anger you? Do you know the story
+of her life?" asked the Athenian, desirous of hearing the history of a
+woman who seemed to fill the whole city with her name.
+
+"Do I know it? A thousand times she has told me in her hours of
+melancholy and weariness, which out-number all the rest. When I cannot
+manage to make her laugh with my wit, when she feels the need of
+un-burdening her mind, then she tells of her past with as much abandon
+as though she were talking to a dog; but it is a long story."
+
+The philosopher paused and winked one eye, pointing to a door near at
+hand, within which was a perforated counter holding a row of amphoræ.
+
+"We shall be more comfortable in Fulvius' house. He is a most honorable
+Roman who swears that he has quarreled with water. Day before yesterday
+he received a famous wine from Laurona. I smell its perfume even here."
+
+"I have not a single obolus in my pouch."
+
+The philosopher sniffed as if inhaling the vapor of the new wine, and
+made a gesture of disappointment. Then he looked at the Greek
+affectionately.
+
+"You are worthy to hear me; poor, like myself, surrounded by these
+merchants who stock their vaults with silver! Since there is to be no
+wine for us, let us take a walk. That clears the brain. I will treat you
+as Aristotle treated his favorite pupils."
+
+Strolling along the portico Euphobias began to relate what he knew of
+Sónnica's life.
+
+She was believed to have been born in Cyprus, the isle beloved of
+mariners. On those shores where the poets made the triumphant beauty of
+Aphrodite spring from the foam, the women of the island run by night in
+search of mariners to offer themselves in memory of the goddess. Sónnica
+was the fruit of one such alligation with a rower. She vaguely
+recollected the early years of her childhood, running about the deck of
+a ship, springing from one bank of rowers to another, fed and scorned
+like the cats on shipboard, visiting many ports populated by people
+diverse in dress, customs, and language, but seeing it all from afar,
+and vaguely, like images in a dream, never setting foot on terra firma.
+
+Before she became a woman she was the mistress of the owner of the ship,
+a pilot from Samos, who, grown tired of her, or tempted by money, sold
+her one night to a Bœotian who maintained a _dicterion_ in the
+Piræus. She was not yet twelve years of age, and little Sónnica
+attracted special attention among the _dicteriadai_ who swarmed by night
+in the Piræus, the chief centre of Athenian prostitution.
+
+The floating population of the city, composed of foreigners, gamblers,
+and young men thrown out of their homes by severe fathers, congregated
+in that suburb of Athens which surrounded the ports of the Piræus and
+Phalerum and formed the deme of Estiron. No sooner had night closed in
+than the whole noisy and corrupt world gathered in the great square in
+the Piræus, between the citadel and the port, and prostitutes began to
+circulate, who with the coming of the shadows, were privileged to leave
+the _dicteria_ in which they had been confined. On the porticos around
+the square the gamblers shook dice, wandering philosophers argued,
+vagabonds slept, mariners told of their voyages, and through this
+confusion of diverse peoples passed the _dicteriadai_, with painted
+faces, almost nude, or wearing striped mantles of vivid colors which
+revealed an African or Asiatic origin. There the young daughter of
+Cyprus grew up and became acquainted with the world, seeking each night
+some wheat merchant from Bithynia, or some exporter of hides from Magna
+Graecia, rude and merry people, who, before returning to their native
+lands wished to spend some of their earnings on the courtesans of
+Athens. By day she was a prisoner in the _dicterion_, a house of sordid
+aspect, without other ornamentation on the façade than an enormous
+phallus which served the establishment as a sign, the door standing open
+at all hours without the chained dog customary at other dwellings, and
+displaying, immediately the heavy curtain was raised, an open courtyard,
+in which, near the entrance to the rooms, squatting or lying on the
+pavement, were all the wares of the house, women worn and consumed by
+the fires of concupiscence and girls barely arrived at puberty. All were
+nude, the dark and velvety skin of the Egyptians contrasting with the
+pale countenance of the Greeks and the white and silky flesh of the
+Asiatics.
+
+Sónnica, who was at that time called Myrrhina, wearied of the life of
+the _dicterion_. All the women there were slaves whom the Bœotian
+beat when they allowed a customer to leave discontented. It disgusted
+her to take the two oboli stipulated by the laws of Solon from those
+calloused hands which wounded as they caressed, and she was nauseated by
+the dirty, brutal people from all the countries in the world who came in
+search of pleasure, and went away surfeited, being immediately replaced
+by another and another, like an incessant surging of desires excited by
+the solitude of the sea, repeating similar caprices and identical
+demands.
+
+One night she visited for the last time the temple of Venus Pandemos
+raised by Solon in the great square of the Piræus, and deposited an
+obolus as her final offering before the statues of Venus and her
+companion Peitho, the two divinities of the courtesans, before whom she
+went many times with her lemans of the moment, before giving herself
+up to them on the seashore or near the long wall constructed by
+Themistocles to unite the port with Athens. Then she fled toward the
+city, eager for liberty and joy, wishing to become one of those Athenian
+hetæræ whose luxury and beauty she had admired from afar.
+
+She lived like the free, poor courtesans whom the Athenian youths called
+"she-wolves" on account of their howling. At first she spent whole days
+without eating, but she considered herself more happy than her former
+companions of the port of Phalerum, or in the district of Estiron,
+slaves of the masters of the _dicteria_. Her market now was the
+Cerameicus, a large district of Athens, along the wall between the gates
+of the Cerameicus and the Dipylon, in which were the garden of the
+Academy and the tombs of the illustrious citizens who had died for the
+Republic. By day the great _hetæræ_ went or sent their slaves to see if
+their names were written in charcoal on the wall of the Cerameicus. The
+Athenian who desired a courtesan would write her name, with the sum
+offered, and if this were to the liking of the hetæra she tarried near
+the inscription until the coming of the favored proponent. In broad
+daylight the great courtesans appeared there, almost nude, wearing
+purple sandals, wrapped in flowered mantles, wearing crowns of fresh
+roses on their hair, powdered with gold. The poets, the rhetoricians,
+the artists, the distinguished citizens strolled through the green
+groves of the Cerameicus or along the porticos adorned with statues,
+chatting with the courtesans, having to rack their brains to keep even
+with their repartee.
+
+When night came on an irruption of wretched, ragged women filled the
+promenade, dispersing among the tombs of the renowned dead. It consisted
+of the dregs of Athenian gayety which lived in liberty under cover of
+the darkness--old courtesans who, trusting in the night, came out to
+conquer bread in the same place where in other times they had reigned
+with the power of beauty; fugitive _dicteriadai_, slave women who had
+run away from their owners for a few hours, and women of the plebs
+seeking alleviation of their poverty. Hiding behind the tombs, among the
+clumps of laurels, they remained as motionless as sphinxes, and scarcely
+did the steps of a man disturb the silence of the Cerameicus, than from
+all sides arose faint howls calling to the new arrival. Frequently they
+fled in mad race on recognizing the official whose duty it was to
+collect the _pornikontelos_, a tax imposed by Solon upon the courtesans
+and one which constituted the largest revenue of Athens. At midnight the
+passer-by crossing the Cerameicus on his return from a banquet, would
+hear around him the rustle and whispering of an invisible world which
+seemed to sweep over the turf and the gleaming sand. The poets jestingly
+averred that the ghosts of the great departed were groaning in their
+capacious tombs.
+
+Thus Myrrhina lived until she was fifteen, spending the night in the
+Cerameicus and the day in the hut of an old woman of Thessaly who, in
+common with all her countrywomen enjoyed great fame as a witch, and
+assisted at births as well as sold love-philters, and retouched the
+faces of those who were fading.
+
+Innumerable things the little _lupa_ learned at the side of the old
+woman, bony and ugly as a Parca! She helped her grind the white lead
+which, mixed with isinglass, filled the wrinkles of the face; she
+prepared the bean flour to anoint the breasts and abdomen, to make the
+skin tight and elastic; she filled little flasks with antimony to give
+brilliancy to the eyes; she made a liquid preparation of carmine for
+coloring with light touches the paste-filled wrinkles, and she listened
+with profound attention to the wise counsels with which the old woman
+instructed her pupils, so that they might show off their particular
+charms to the best advantage and hide their defects. The old Thessalian
+advised the girls with plump bodies to use cork soles inside their
+shoes, and the tall ones to wear light sandals, and to shrink their
+heads down between their shoulders; she made pads for the thin,
+whalebone corsets for the stout, she stained the gray hair with soot,
+and those who had good teeth she obliged to carry a stalk of myrtle
+between their lips, counseling them to smile at the slightest word.
+
+The young girl possessed the old witch's confidence to such an extent
+that she assisted her in the most dangerous part of her science, the
+confection of love-philters and the making of charms, which had more
+than once caused her to be prosecuted by the officials of the Areopagus.
+The richest hetæræ consulted her about their desires and revenges, and
+she gave them the benefit of her knowledge. To accomplish the impotence
+of a man or the sterility of a woman, it was only necessary to give them
+a glass of wine in which a barbel had been stewed; to attract a
+forgetful lover a cake of unleavened dough was burned in a fire made of
+branches of thyme and laurel; and to convert love into hatred it was
+only necessary to follow the man, stepping in his tracks the opposite
+way, placing the right foot where he had put his left, and murmuring at
+the same time: "I am upon you, I step on you." If one wished to cause a
+satiated lover to return, the old woman rolled a bronze ball which she
+carried in her bosom, asking Venus to cause the lover to roll in over
+the threshold of the door in the same manner, and if the conjury
+produced no effect, the wax image of the person beloved was thrown into
+the brazier while asking the gods to melt the frozen heart with love
+even as the figure melted. With these enchantments, accompanied by
+mysterious invocations, went philters composed of aphrodisiacs and
+exciting herbs, which frequently led to death.
+
+One moonlight spring night Myrrhina had an adventure in the Cerameicus,
+which resulted in her abandoning the den of the Thessalian. Seated
+behind a tomb, her howl soft as a lament attracted a man wrapped in a
+white mantle. By the brilliancy of his eyes and the insecurity of his
+step he seemed to be intoxicated. He wore on his head a crown of
+withered roses.
+
+Myrrhina divined that he was a distinguished citizen coming from a
+banquet. It was the poet Simalion, a young aristocrat who had won a
+crown in the Olympian games, and in whom Athens saw revived the
+inspiration of Anacreon. The richest hetæræ sang his verses at banquets
+to the music of the lyre, and virtuous dames murmured them in the
+solitude of the gynæceum, flushing with emotion. The most famous
+beauties of Athens contended for the poet, and he, already an invalid in
+his young manhood, and unable to resist the strain of worldly adoration,
+took refuge in the temple of Æsculapius when the cough compelled him to
+spit blood; he went on a pilgrimage to the healing springs throughout
+Greece and the islands; and no sooner did he begin to feel stronger,
+with new blood surging through his veins, than, scorning the doctors, he
+began once more the round of banqueting with business men and artists of
+Attica, in company with famous hetæræ and genteel Cyprians, rolling from
+the arms of one to another; paying for the caresses with verses which
+the city afterward repeated; ever ardent, and consuming his life like
+the torch which at the nocturnal feasts of Dionysus was passed by the
+chain of bacchantes from hand to hand until lost in the infinite.
+
+Coming from one of these orgies he met Myrrhina, and contemplating in
+the moonlight her youthful beauty, undimmed and almost childlike there
+in a place frequented by the filthy _lupas_, he raised his hand to his
+eyes as if he feared he were being deceived by the aberrations of
+intoxication. This must be Psyche with those firm, harmoniously curving
+breasts, round as cups; with those correct and gentle outlines which
+would have been the despair of sculptors at the Academy. The poet
+experienced the same satisfaction as when, after hours of solitary
+plodding along the wall of Themistocles from Athens to the port, he hit
+upon the culminating verse of an ode.
+
+She started to drag him to the old Thessalian's hut, but Simalion,
+dazzled by the marble flesh which seemed to shine through the rags, took
+her to his beautiful residence on the Street of Tripods, and there
+Myrrhina remained like a lady, with slaves and luxurious garments.
+
+This caprice of the poet astounded all Athens. In the Agora and in the
+Cerameicus they talked of nothing but Simalion's new love. They marveled
+at the rescue of a precious stone, forgotten and lost in the sands,
+which suddenly shone forth on the forehead of a grandee.
+
+The great hetæræ, who had never succeeded in making complete conquest of
+the fickle poet, were amazed at seeing him devotedly attached to a young
+girl from a _dicterion_, who was remembered by many adventurers in the
+Piræus. He took her out in his chariot, driving three horses with
+close-cropped manes, and to all the great feasts in the temples of
+Attica; in the morning he composed verses in her honor, and he awoke her
+by reciting them, while he flung a shower of rose petals upon her couch.
+He gave banquets to his artist friends that he might revel in their envy
+and admiration, when, at their conclusion, he had her exhibit herself
+nude upon the table, in all the magnificence of that perfect beauty
+which aroused a religious emotion in the Greeks.
+
+Faithful to Simalion from gratitude at first, and finally enamored of
+the poet and of his works, Myrrhina adored him as teacher as well as
+lover. In a short time she learned to play the lyre, to recite verses in
+all the known styles, she read in her lover's library so diligently that
+she was able to hold her own among the guests at the banquets of
+artists, and was invited out among the most brilliant hetæræ of Athens.
+
+Simalion, constantly growing more enthusiastic over his beloved,
+dissipated his fortune and his life. He ordered for her from Asia
+transparent mantles embroidered with fantastic flowers, through which
+shone her pearly flesh; gold dust to sprinkle upon her hair, making her
+like the goddesses, which the poets and artists of Greece always painted
+blonde; he charged the navigators to buy roses in Egypt of marvelous
+freshness. He was steadily growing more emaciated, his skin more pallid,
+and his gaze glowing with fever, coughing and lying in the arms of his
+mistress, his strength slipping away.
+
+Thus two years passed, until one autumn afternoon, stretched on the lawn
+in his garden, his head resting on the knees of his beautiful inamorata,
+he heard his verses sung for the last time by the clear voice of
+Myrrhina, accompanied by the fluttering of her white fingers over the
+chords of the lyre. The setting sun caused Minerva's lance aloft by the
+Parthenon, dominating the city, to glow like a coal of fire; his boyish
+hand could scarce sustain the golden cup of honey and wine. He made an
+effort to kiss his mistress; the roses which crowned him fell apart,
+covering Myrrhina's breast with a shower of petals, and, uttering a
+plaint like that of a woman, he closed his eyes, falling upon that
+breast where he had lavished the last strength of his life.
+
+The young girl wept for him with the desperation of a widow. She cut her
+splendid hair to lay it as an offering upon his tomb. She put aside her
+dazzling costumes, she dressed in dark wool like the Athenian women of
+virtuous homes, and remained in retirement in her house, which she kept
+closed and silent as a gynæceum.
+
+The necessity of living, of maintaining the luxury to which she had
+become accustomed, of keeping a chariot and slaves and grooms, forced
+her, however, to consider her beauty, and the most celebrated hetæræ
+became alarmed at the new rival. Covered with a dark red wig to hide the
+tonsure of mourning, wrapped in fine veils from which her throat emerged
+adorned with pearls, her fresh and alabastrine arms loaded to the
+shoulders with bracelets, she showed herself at an upper window of her
+house with the grave majesty of a goddess awaiting veneration. The
+richest men of Athens paused by night in the Street of Tripods to gaze
+at the poet's widow, as the women in the Ceramaeicus sarcastically called
+her. Some, more daring, or tremulous with desire, raised the index
+finger in mute question; but vainly they awaited her affirmative
+reply--the customary sigil of the hetæræ, touching thumb to index finger
+as it were an annulus.
+
+Few managed to gain entrance to the famous courtesan's house. They
+grumbled that some nights, in moments of tedium, she had opened her door
+to young students who were modeling their first statues in the gardens
+of the Academy, or reciting their unrenowned verses to the idle in the
+Agora--youths who could only afford to spend on pleasures a few oboli,
+or at most a drachma. On the other hand the rich, who offered golden
+stateres or several minæ to enter the house, were considered too poor to
+win favor. The old courtesans whispered into one another's ears, with a
+degree of respect, that a petty Asiatic king, on passing through Athens,
+had given Myrrhina two talents for one visit--as much as any republic in
+Greece would spend in a year--and that the beautiful hetæra, unmoved by
+such a fortune, had suffered his presence only while her clepsydra
+emptied itself once, for, tired of men, she measured prurience by her
+water-clock.
+
+Fabulously rich merchants, on arriving at the Piræus, sought access to
+Myrrhina's house through the good offices of friends. They heaped
+presents upon the vagabond artists who were the courtesan's familiars,
+that they might be admitted to her suppers; and more than one, arriving
+at the port with a fleet loaded with rich merchandise, hastened to sell
+everything without waiting to discharge his cargo, so that he might stay
+in the poet's house; and he returned to his country with the help of
+charity, content with his poverty when he saw the envy and respect which
+he inspired among his companions.
+
+Thus she met Bomaro, a young Iberian merchant from Zacynthus, who had
+come to Athens with three ships laden with hides. The courtesan was
+attracted by his sweetness, which contrasted with the rudeness of the
+other merchants brutalized by their contact with the great ports. He
+spoke little and blushed, as if the silence of his long stays at sea had
+given him the timidity of a virgin. If she forced him to relate his
+adventures as a navigator he did so with simplicity, without mentioning
+the dangers he encountered. He displayed particularly a childish
+admiration for Grecian culture.
+
+Myrrhina, during the supper at which she saw him for the first time,
+surprised his eyes fixed on her with the expression of tenderness and
+respect of one gazing at a goddess impossible of possession. The
+navigator, reared among barbarians, in a remote colony scarcely
+retaining traces of its mother Greece, began to interest the courtesan
+more than the young Athenians and opulent merchants who surrounded her.
+Tremulous and hesitant he craved the grace of a single night, and spent
+it near her with more admiration than enjoyment, adoring her regal
+beauty, thrilled by her voice, put to sleep by it like a warm maternal
+lullaby, accompanied by the lyre.
+
+When he awoke he begged to turn over to her the entire product of his
+cargo; but Myrrhina, hardly knowing why, refused to accept it, in spite
+of his urging. He was rich; he had no parents; far away in that land of
+barbarians he possessed immense flocks, hundreds of slaves who
+cultivated his fields or worked in his mines; great potteries, and many
+ships like the three which awaited him in the Piræus; and seeing that
+the courtesan, with kindly smile, treated him like a generous boy,
+declining to accept his money, he bought in the Street of the Goldsmiths
+a prodigious collar of pearls, the despair of the hetæræ, and sent it to
+Myrrhina before he left the city.
+
+Afterwards he came back many times. He could not decide to return to his
+country. He set sail with his flotilla, but in the next port he took on
+a cargo for Athens, paying no regard to the price, and scarcely came to
+anchor in the Piræus before he rushed to the courtesan's house, nor
+could resolve to leave until he suspected Myrrhina's weariness of his
+presence.
+
+The courtesan finally became accustomed to this submissive lover, ever
+at her feet, who was ready to die for her, showing his adoration with
+the fervor of a foreigner, so different from the cynical and mocking
+courtesy of the Athenians. She called him "little brother," and this
+word, which the hetæræ used with young lovers, gradually took on her
+lips a warmth of sincere affection. When he was delayed in returning
+from the islands she longed for his presence, and when she saw him at
+the door she ran to him with outstretched arms, in a transport of joy
+such as her other friends never witnessed.
+
+She did not love him as she had loved the poet, but the earnest humility
+of Bomaro, his respectful and docile love, so different from the ardor
+she inspired in others, moved Myrrhina to a sentiment of gratitude.
+
+One night, the Iberian, who seemed preoccupied, ventured after much
+vacillation to express his inner thought.
+
+He could not live without her; he would never return alone to Zacynthus;
+he was resolved to abandon his fortune rather than never to see her
+more. He would sooner be a stevedore on the wharf at Phalerum; and
+finally, like one who makes a dash to more quickly overcome an obstacle,
+he abruptly proposed to make her his wife, turning his fortune over to
+her, and to take her to smiling Zacynthus with its flowery fields and
+its rose-colored mountains, so like those of Attica.
+
+Myrrhina smiled while listening to him and her heart was touched by the
+affectionate self-abnegation of the Iberian who, to unite with her
+forever, was willing to overlook a shameful past in the _dicterion_ and
+in the Cerameicus. She rejected his proposals with an ironical smile;
+but Bomaro was persistent. Was she not tired of her mode of life, of
+seeing herself flattered as a thing of great price, but often scorned by
+coarse creatures who thought they made themselves her masters by merely
+offering their gold? Would she not like to be a sovereign on the coasts
+of Iberia, surrounded by people who would admire her Athenian
+attainments?
+
+Bomaro conquered her by his loving determination, and one day Athens
+beheld with surprise that the house on the Street of Tripods was sold,
+and that Myrrhina's slaves were carrying to the port the riches gathered
+during three years of mad fortune, loading them in the ships of the
+Iberian who had unfurled from the masts his purple sails for a triumphal
+voyage.
+
+Myrrhina, in her desire to propitiate him who gave himself up to her so
+completely, wished to leave her whole past behind. She proposed to be a
+new woman, to put away her sinister cognomen, and begging Bomaro to
+repeat the most beautiful names of the Iberian women, she chose that of
+Sónnica as the most pleasing to her ears.
+
+Arrived at Zacynthus, the navigator and the Greek woman were married in
+the temple of Diana before all the Senate, of which the young man was
+himself a member.
+
+The city felt the effects of the charm which seemed to emanate from the
+person of Sónnica. She was like a breath from distant Athens, which
+fascinated the Greek merchants in Saguntum, grown slack by their long
+stay among uncultured foreigners.
+
+At the banquets, at the hour of sweet wines, when she sang the hymns of
+the great masters, the Saguntine youths from the ward of the Greeks were
+impelled to fall at her feet and adore her as a goddess. After being
+married a year Bomaro realized in the growth of his fortune the
+assistance of the woman, who, in changing her environment, began to
+interest herself in material things through her desire to prove her
+worth before the noble dames who gossipped about her.
+
+She watched the work in the fields, took note of the great flocks, and
+the potteries; she went to the port to greet the arrival of the ships;
+and Bomaro's enormous fortune increased. Excellent results followed the
+business ventures which she counseled, as she lay in the shade of a
+clump of laurel in her garden, speaking in a slow harmonious voice,
+caressed by a feather fan in the hands of a slave.
+
+Bomaro, the days of more ardent love-making ended, sailed along the
+coasts of Iberia, his mind free from business cares, and desirous of
+adding to the fortune which Sónnica administered so well. She had
+surrounded herself by a court of youths who treated her as a
+preceptress. The young Greeks born in Saguntum flocked about her to
+learn the manners and customs of Athens, which was their perpetual
+dream. The evil tongues in the city called her Sónnica the Cyprian, but
+the plebs who were the recipients of her charity, and the small
+merchants who never appealed to her without result, entitled her Sónnica
+the rich, and they were ready to fight those who spoke ill of her.
+
+One winter, four years after their marriage, Bomaro perished by
+shipwreck near the Pillars of Hercules, and Sónnica found herself in
+absolute possession of an immense fortune, and mistress of a whole city,
+over which she reigned by virtue of her riches and of her kindness of
+heart. She freed slaves in memory of the unfortunate navigator, she sent
+costly offerings to all the temples in Saguntum, she raised on the
+Acropolis a cenotaph in memory of Bomaro, summoning marble-workers from
+Athens for this purpose. By her charities she won consideration,
+bringing this city of sturdy and austere customs to tolerate her bright,
+mirth-loving existence, which was a perpetuation of Athenian manners in
+the midst of Iberic sobriety.
+
+Having passed the period of mourning, she gave suppers in her
+country-house which lasted until dawn. She brought famous auletai from
+Attica who set the Saguntine youths wild with their flutes. She sent
+ships on voyages with no other commercial object than to bring rare
+perfumes from Asia, fabrics from Egypt, and unique adornments from
+Carthage; and her fame extended so far into the interior that kinglets
+from Celtiberia were drawn to Saguntum to behold that wonderful woman,
+as wise as a priestess, and as beautiful as a divinity. The Greeks
+admired her, observing that she strengthened the prestige of their race
+among the primitive Saguntines, who were lavish with eulogy of her
+disinterestedness. Thus she lived! No women entered her house, none but
+flute-players, dancers, and slaves; she was surrounded by men who
+yearned for her, but she held herself aloof, and treated them all with a
+masculine but distant intimacy. She was ever thinking of Athens the
+luminous, the city which held so many memories, and many of whose
+customs she sought to revive.
+
+Euphobias the philosopher, as he reached this point in his story,
+stoutly declared that Sónnica's life in Saguntum was above reproach, in
+spite of what the Greek women of the district of the merchants said. He
+himself, who possessed the bitterest tongue in the city, affirmed it.
+Several times she had been attracted toward some guest at her dinners.
+Alorcus, the scion of a petty king of Celtiberia, who lived in Saguntum
+and frequented her house, had made an impression upon her with his wild,
+virile beauty, as a son of the mountains; but Sónnica held him back,
+plainly fearing to take the step and unite herself with one of a
+barbarous race. The memory of Attica wholly occupied her imagination. If
+some young Athenian had landed on those shores, some youth as beautiful
+as Alcibiades, singing verses, modeling statues, and displaying skill
+and dexterity as in the Olympian games, perhaps she might have fallen
+into his arms, but her emotions were unstirred among the arrogant
+Celtiberians who came to her feasts smelling of horses and with their
+swords girded at their sides, and among the effeminate sons of
+merchants, becurled, and shedding perfumes, caressing their small slave
+boys, who accompanied them even in the bath.
+
+"Athenian," continued the philosopher, "you should present yourself to
+Sónnica. She will receive you kindly. You are not an ephebus," he added,
+with a mocking smile; "your beard is turning gray, but you have in your
+figure the arrogance of a king in the Iliad; upon your forehead
+something of the majesty of Socrates; and who knows but that you may
+fall heir to Bomaro's riches! If that should come to pass, do not forget
+the poor philosopher. I will be content with a skin of wine from
+Laurona, since to-day you condemn me to thirst."
+
+Euphobias laughed, slapping Actæon on the shoulder.
+
+"I am invited to Sónnica's banquet to-night," said the Greek.
+
+"You, also? Then we shall meet there. I am not invited, but I go with
+the same right as a dog belonging to the house."
+
+The philosopher saw Alcon, the peaceful citizen, who had just come down
+from the Acropolis, pass through the centre of the Forum.
+
+"There is one of the few good men of this city. He extols virtue to me,
+he counsels me to go to work, and to forget philosophy, and on top of
+all that he never fails to give me something to drink; so farewell until
+to-night, stranger."
+
+He hurried toward Alcon who, leaning on his staff, greeted him with a
+kindly smile.
+
+Actæon, finding himself once more alone wandered through the centre of
+the market. Suddenly he heard a youthful voice calling him. It was
+Rhanto, sitting on the ground among the pitchers which were now empty of
+milk, selling her last cheeses. Near her squatted the young potter. They
+were eating a hard cake with fresh, juicy onions, playfully disputing
+the mouthfuls amid merry laughter. The shepherdess offered Actæon a
+round cake, and the Greek accepted gratefully. He seemed destined to
+receive his food in Saguntum from feminine hands. Twice since he landed
+he had been succored by women.
+
+Seated between the young people he saw the market gradually become
+deserted. The shepherds drove their flocks toward the Gate of the Sea;
+the Celtiberian chiefs, bearing their women behind them on their horses,
+rode off at a gallop, eager to reach their villages in the mountains;
+and the empty carts rumbled slowly toward the hamlets and towers in the
+Saguntine domain.
+
+Again Actæon saw the Celtiberian shepherd in the colonnades, moving from
+one group of rustics to another, listening to their conversation. As he
+passed near the Greek he gazed at him with those enigmatic eyes which
+awoke within him shadowy recollections.
+
+All at once the young potter arose and started to run, hiding behind the
+columns around the Forum.
+
+"He has seen his father," said Rhanto quietly. "There is Mopsus coming
+down from the Acropolis."
+
+Actæon advanced to meet the archer.
+
+"My word has been sufficient to have you received by the Senate. The
+city will soon need good soldiers like yourself. The elders seemed
+somewhat alarmed this morning. They fear Hannibal, that young cub of
+Hamilcar, who now leads the Carthaginians, and who will not calmly brook
+our friendship with the Romans and the execution of his sympathizers in
+Saguntum. Here, take this; it is the advance pay which the Republic
+allows you."
+
+He tendered Actæon a handful of coins, which the Greek put into his
+pouch. Mopsus then invited him to his house to meet his sons and to
+dine; but the Athenian was obliged to plead his previous invitation to
+Sónnica's banquet.
+
+When the archer had left, Actæon felt the torment of thirst, and,
+remembering the philosopher's recommendations, he entered the
+establishment of the Roman whose Lauronian wine inspired so much
+enthusiasm in Euphobias. At the counter he changed a victoriatus, and
+was given a boat-shaped terra cotta patera full of black wine crowned
+with iridescent bubbles. Two soldiers were drinking in a corner of the
+tavern--two rough mercenaries with the faces of bandits. One was an
+Iberian, the other with bronzed skin and athletic frame looked like a
+Libyan, and his cheeks, calloused by the helmet and his neck and arms
+furrowed with cicatrices, denoted the professional paid warrior who had
+fought with indifference since childhood, now in the service of one
+nation and now in that of its adversary.
+
+"I am in the service of Saguntum," said the Libyan. "These merchants pay
+better than those of Carthage. But, believe me, although content to live
+in this town, I realize that they have done an unlucky thing in
+displeasing Hannibal. Rome is strong, but Rome is far away, and that
+lion's whelp prowls only a few days journey from here. You ought to have
+known him, to have seen him from boyhood as I have done when I was
+fighting under the orders of his father Hamilcar! He runs like a mare;
+he fights as well on foot as on horseback, he eats what there is to be
+had, or he eats nothing at all; he goes about dressed like a slave; arms
+are his only luxury; he sleeps on the ground, and often, at daybreak,
+his father would find him lying among the sentinels of the camp. He is
+not content to be told about things, he must see everything with his own
+eyes, and mix with the enemy to study their weak points close at hand.
+Often Hasdrubal, his sister's husband, was surprised by seeing an old
+beggar come into his shop, and he would shout with laughter when
+Hannibal pulled off his wig and his rags, under cover of which he had
+been spending hours among the enemy."
+
+Actæon left the tavern hastily on seeing that Rhanto, after handing her
+pitchers to a slave who loaded them into a cart, was starting on her
+walk toward Sónnica's villa.
+
+"I will go with you, little one. You shall be my guide to your mistress'
+house."
+
+The sun had begun to set. The afternoon light gilded the foliage of the
+domain, giving a transparency of amber to the leaves and vines. Along
+the highway through the champaign sounded the bells of the flock, the
+creaking of carts, and the sonorous songs of the rustics returning from
+the city.
+
+They arrived at Sónnica's villa, which had the aspect of a town. They
+first passed the dwellings of the slaves, where buzzed around the
+doorways a swarm of nude children with prominent abdomens, and with the
+umbilicus protruding like buttons; then the stables, from which floated
+a warm vapor vibrant with lowing and whinnying; the granaries and
+farmhouses; the dwelling of the overseer; the calabooses for rebellious
+slaves, with their breathing-holes on a level with the ground; the
+pigeon-house, a high tower of red brick around which fluttered a cloud
+of white wings amid incessant cooing; the big straw huts which served to
+shelter the hundreds of chickens; and, behind this row of buildings, the
+country-seat, Sónnica's villa, which was discussed with admiration even
+among the most remote tribes of Celtiberia. It was surrounded by
+cypresses and laurels, encircled by walls covered with gnarled grape
+vines, while rising above the great mass of foliage were its
+rose-colored walls with columns and friezes of blue marble and the
+terrace crowned by polychrome statues with enameled eyes shining in the
+sun like precious stones.
+
+Actæon was silent and preoccupied. Rhanto had been talking to him for
+full half an hour without receiving a reply.
+
+"Look, stranger! All those fields which your eye can see belong to
+Sónnica. See, Greek, how many chickens! Nearly all the eggs used in the
+city come from here."
+
+Actæon continued oblivious to the objects pointed out by the
+shepherdess; but just as she rang the bell on the garden gate, and was
+answered from within by the barking of dogs and the sharp cries of
+hidden birds, he smote himself nervously on the forehead as if he had
+made a discovery.
+
+"Now I know who he is!" he exclaimed, as if awaking from a dream.
+
+"Who?" asked the young girl in surprise.
+
+"Nobody," he replied with the frigidity of him who fears that he has
+said too much.
+
+In his own mind, however, he was satisfied with the identification.
+Recalling the words of the Libyan mercenary, overheard in the tavern,
+had brought back to his memory that enigmatic figure of the Celtiberian
+shepherd. Suddenly a light was kindled in his thought.
+
+Now he knew who it was! For a good reason had he been impressed from the
+first moment by the glance of that unknown man, by the eyes which never
+change in a countenance despite the passing of years. Often had he seen
+those eyes in his childhood when his father made war in Sicily with
+Hamilcar, and he himself was being educated in Carthage.
+
+That shepherd was Hannibal!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DANCING GIRLS FROM GADES
+
+
+Sónnica awoke two hours after midday. The oblique rays of the sun
+filtered through the gilded bars of her window over which crept the
+foliage of grapevines. Its light heightened the color of the stucco
+frames around scenes from the Olympian games painted on the wall, and of
+the columns of rose-colored marble which flanked the doorway.
+
+The beautiful Greek threw to the floor the covers of white Sætabis
+linen, and her first glance swept her figure, taking in the outlines of
+her body with affectionate eyes, from her swelling bosom curving in
+harmonious lines, to the tips of her rosy feet.
+
+Her heavy hair perfumed and falling in silky curls, hung down over her
+body, enveloping her as in a regal mantle, caressing her from throat to
+knees with a gentle kiss. The old-time courtesan, as she awoke, admired
+her body with the adoration inspired in her by the eulogies of the
+artists of Athens.
+
+She was still young and beautiful; she could still thrill men with
+emotion when, at the end of a banquet, she displayed herself upon the
+table nude as Phryne. Her hands eager for the thrilling touch of her
+beauty, caressed her firm round throat, the pearly globes terminating in
+a soft rose petal, testing their firm elasticity, and the winding
+network of slender blue veins delicately outlined beneath the satiny
+skin, flowing down, down--in line with the strongly incurved waist; the
+rotund hips, the slightly rounded abdomen, like that of a crater, and the
+limbs the harmonious proportions of which had been compared in other
+times to the elephant's trunk by the Asiatic merchants who visited her
+in Athens.
+
+Passion had swept its fiery tongue over her without consuming her; she
+had lived in the midst of its ardor, cold, emotionless, and white, like
+a marble statue in the warmth of the sun. Seeing herself young, still
+beautiful, and with a virginal freshness, she smiled, pleased with
+herself, content with life.
+
+"Odacis! Odacis!"
+
+At the echo of her voice there entered a Celtiberian slave, tall, spare,
+strong, whom the Greek valued highly for the gentleness with which she
+combed her hair.
+
+Supporting herself on the shoulders of the slave, she raised up and
+sprang from the couch to enter the bath.
+
+Her nude form was invested by her hair like a transparent, golden veil.
+As her bare feet pressed the mosaic, which depicted the Judgment of
+Paris, the chill of the tiles with its agreeable shock brought a smile
+to her lips; her laugh deepened the dimples in her cheeks, and the
+reaction caused the curves of her body to quiver with gentle
+undulations.
+
+She descended three steps and threw herself into the jasper piscina
+swinging her arms and splashing the water into tiny pearls. In the green
+pool her body assumed an ideal transparency, the glow of a fantastic
+apparition, and she moved from one side of the tank to the other like a
+siren with pearly back and floating hair.
+
+"Who has come, Odacis?" she asked, lying deep in the bath.
+
+"The women from Gades, who danced last night, have arrived. Polyanthus
+has given them lodgings near the kitchens."
+
+"And who else?"
+
+"A moment ago the stranger from Athens, whom you met this morning at the
+temple of Aphrodite. I have had him go into the library, and I have
+forgotten none of the duties of hospitality. He has just come from the
+bath."
+
+Sónnica smiled, recalling the meeting that morning. She had slept badly.
+She attributed it to the wakeful night spent with friends on the terrace
+of the villa, and to the capricious journey to the port before sunrise;
+but she thought with some confusion of the impression made in her mind
+by the Athenian's figure, which had reappeared several times in her
+dreams. Without knowing why she associated Actæon's appearance with that
+of Zeus when he came to earth in mortal form in search of human love.
+
+In her moments of tedium in Athens, when she used to submit with
+repugnance to caresses for piles of gold, she experienced the vague
+desire of being loved by a god. She thought of Leda, of Psyche, even of
+the effeminate Ganymede beloved of the guests on Olympus, and she was in
+despair at the impossibility of finding a god who should transport her
+captive through a mysterious forest, or along some roadway leading to
+the unknown. She longed to contemplate her image in the depths of eyes
+animated by the splendor of the infinite; to kiss a mouth which served
+as a portal to supreme wisdom; to feel herself imprisoned in arms
+possessed of the immense strength of omnipotence. She had experienced a
+suggestion of this joy in loving her poet, who was sometimes as majestic
+and sublime as a divine being; but the simplicity of youth prevented her
+appreciation of that joy, and now, in her maturity, she only met men
+like those she had known in Athens, some rude and brutal, others
+effeminate and captious, lacking the severe and sovereign beauty she
+admired in statues.
+
+She left her bath breathing with happy, childlike thrills, while her
+hair scattered a light shower at every step.
+
+Odacis called, and three slaves entered; they were those who assisted at
+their mistress' toilet, the _tractatrices_ in charge of the massage of
+the body.
+
+Sónnica allowed herself to be manipulated by the three women who rubbed
+her vigorously, stretching her limbs to keep them supple and agile. Then
+she seated herself in a marble chair, resting her pink elbows on the
+dolphins which formed the arms of the seat, and in this position, erect
+and motionless, she waited for the slaves to proceed with the toilet.
+
+One who was almost a child, wrapped in a mantle of broad stripes, knelt
+on the floor holding a great engraved bronze mirror in which Sónnica
+gazed at herself down to her thighs. Another arranged the toilet
+articles on the tables, and Odacis began to smooth her mistress'
+splendid hair with ivory combs. Meanwhile, the other slave approached
+with a bronze patera filled with a gray ointment. It was the bean-flour
+used by the Athenians of refinement to preserve the skin firm and
+elastic. She anointed Sónnica's cheeks with this, and then the
+prominent breasts, the abdomen, the thighs, and knees, leaving nearly
+the whole body covered by a lustrous, unctuous coating. Where hair had a
+tendency to grow, she applied dropax, a depilatory paste, composed of
+vinegar and earth from Cyprus.
+
+Sónnica passively assisted these toilet preparations, which made her
+momentarily ugly in order that she might reappear each day more
+beautiful.
+
+Odacis continued combing her hair. She lifted the splendid tresses,
+burying both hands in the brilliant cascade; she gently wound it over
+her arms like an enormous golden serpent; then she shook it out,
+dividing it into small locks to dry it, and then she smoothed it
+lovingly with the ivory combs piled on the table near at hand, veritable
+prodigies of art, with the finest of teeth, their upper parts engraved
+with scenes representing forests, arrogant nymphs in pursuit of stags,
+and malodorous satyrs giving chase to nude beauties. After drying the
+hair the coiffeur proceeded to dye it. With a small, long-necked amphora
+she moistened it with a solution of saffron and gum arabic, and opening
+a little chest of gold dust she sprinkled it over the ample, silky
+skein, which assumed the brilliancy of the sun's rays. Then twisting the
+locks above her forehead around an iron heated over a small brazier, she
+formed tight curls which covered the Greek woman's brow almost to her
+eyes; she gathered the mass of hair at the neck, tying it with a red
+ribbon firmly interbraided, and she curled the crown of the coiffure,
+imitating the spiral flames of a torch.
+
+Sónnica arose. Two of the slaves approached with a heavy earthen
+amphora of milk, and dipping a sponge into it, they washed their
+mistress' body as she stood near the piscina, to remove the bean-paste.
+The glossy whiteness of her skin reappeared more fresh and moist.
+
+Odacis, with silver tweezers in her hand, carefully inspected her
+mistress' body, with the attentive and frowning brow of the artist
+preparing a great work. She had charge of the depilation; her skillful
+hand won praise for its gentleness as it obstinately sought out the
+lightest down, implacably destroying it with her tweezers, in deference
+to the Greek custom of imitating the polished smoothness of the statues.
+
+Sónnica being again seated in her ivory chair, the touching up of the
+face began. On the table near at hand was a formidable array of bottles,
+alabaster vases, pots of bronze and of silver, little caskets of ivory
+and gold, all engraved, brilliant, covered with delicate figures,
+ornamented with precious stones, containing Egyptian and Hebraic
+essences, balsams from Arabia, perfumes and intoxicating cosmetics
+brought by caravans from the heart of Asia to Phœnician ports, and
+thence to Greece or Carthage, bought for Sónnica by the pilots of her
+vessels in their venturesome trading voyages.
+
+Odacis painted her face white, and then, moistening a small wooden style
+with attar of roses, she thrust it into a bronze pot decorated with
+garlands of lotus and filled with a dark powder. It was the kohol, sold
+by Egyptian merchants at a fabulous price. The slave applied the point
+of the style to the Greek's eyelids, dyeing them an intense black, and
+tracing a fine line about the corners, which made them appear larger and
+softer.
+
+The toilet was almost complete. The slaves were opening the innumerable
+bottles and vases arranged in rows upon the marble table, and the
+atmosphere of the room was laden with costly perfumes--spikenard from
+Sicily, incense and myrrh from Judea, aloes from India, and cumin from
+Greece. Odacis took a small glass amphora inlaid with gold, with a
+conical stopper, terminating in a fine point which served to deposit
+antimony above the eyes to brighten them, and, after finishing this
+operation, she presented to her mistress the three ointments for
+imparting color to the skin in different shades--vermilion, carmine, and
+the Egyptian red extracted from the body of the crocodile.
+
+The slave began delicately coloring her mistress' body with a fine
+brush. She produced a pink flush on her cheeks and dainty ears; she
+marked rose petals on her bosom, and she colored her elbows and the
+harmoniously curving relievo of her dimpled sides. Then, with Egyptian
+red, she colored one by one the nails of her fingers and toes, while
+another slave put on her white sandals with papyrus soles and buckles of
+gold. Perfumes were showered upon her, each on a different part of the
+body, so that it might resemble a bouquet of flowers in which various
+aromas were mingled. Odacis presented the jewel-casket, within which
+precious stones lay shimmering like restless and glistening fish. The
+Greek woman's pointed fingers lifted with indifference the heap of
+collars, rings, and pendants, which, like all Grecian jewelry, were more
+valuable on account of the workmanship of the artists than for the
+richness of the material. Scenes from the great poems were reproduced
+almost microscopically in carnelian cameos, onyx, and agate, and the
+emeralds, topazes, and amethysts were decorated with profiles of
+goddesses and heroes.
+
+The slave clasped a necklace of stones of complicated design upon
+Sónnica's uncovered breast; she loaded her fingers to the tips with
+rings, and the whiteness of her arms seemed more diaphanous girdled here
+and there by wide bracelets of gold. To add more expression to the
+countenance, Odacis decorated her mistress with small patches, and then
+she proceeded to bind around her body the fascia, or corset of the
+epoch, a broad woolen band to support the breast. Sónnica, gazing into
+the burnished bronze, smiled at her statue-like reflection, as beautiful
+as Venus in repose.
+
+"Which costume, my mistress?" asked Odacis. "Do you wish the tunic with
+the golden flowers brought from Crete, or the _kalásiris_ veils,
+transparent as air, which you ordered bought in Alexandria?"
+
+Sónnica could not decide. She would choose in the vestiary; and in the
+majesty of her unveiled beauty, her papyrus sandals rustling, she walked
+from her dormitory followed by her slaves.
+
+Meanwhile Actæon was waiting in the library. He had visited great
+palaces in his travels about the world, he had seen--two years before
+the earthquake which ruined it--the celebrated Colossus of Rhodes; he
+was familiar with the Serapeum and the tomb of the great conqueror in
+Alexandria; he was accustomed to elegance and splendor; yet he could not
+conceal surprise at this Grecian house in a barbarian land, more
+luxurious and artistic than those of opulent citizens of Athens.
+
+Guided by a slave, and leaving the garden with its whispering foliage
+and its cries of exotic birds, he had passed along the colonnade which
+gave entrance to the villa. First the vestibule with its plinth of
+mosaic, on which were painted ferocious black dogs with fiery eyes,
+their fierce and foaming mouths agape, their fangs erect.
+
+Above the door, fastened to a lamp, hung a branch of laurel in honor of
+the tutelary gods of the house. Next to the somewhat gloomy vestibule,
+beneath the open sky, like a lung of the house, was the atrium with its
+four rows of columns supporting the roof and forming an equal number of
+cloisters, upon which opened the doors of the rooms, their three panels
+decorated with large-headed nails.
+
+In the centre of the atrium was the impluvium, a rectangular marble tank
+to catch and hold the waters from the roof. Great terra cotta urns
+covered with flowers stood upon pedestals between the columns; four
+marble tables sustained by winged lions surrounded the impluvium, and
+near it rose a statuette of Love which on festive days threw a spray of
+water.
+
+Actæon admired the graceful strength of the columns wrought in blue
+marble to match the socles of the galleries, which imparted to the light
+of the atrium a diffused radiance, as if the dwelling were submerged in
+the sea.
+
+Afterward the attendant turned him over to Odacis, the favorite slave,
+and she ushered him into the peristyle, an inner courtyard much larger
+than the atrium, which astonished the Greek with its polychrome
+decoration. The columns were painted red at their bases, and the color
+changed above into blue and gold on the fluting and capitals, and was
+dispersed over the trellis-work covering the porticos. In the unroofed
+part of the peristyle was a deep piscina of transparent water in which
+fish darted like flashes of golden lightning. Around it were marble
+benches supported by Hermæ; tables held by dolphins with knotted tails;
+clumps of roses, between the foliage of which peeped white or terra
+cotta statuettes in voluptuous positions, and covering the walls of the
+peristyle, between the doors of the rooms, were great paintings by
+Grecian artists--Orpheus with his heavy lyre, nude and wearing his
+Phrygian cap, surrounded by lions and panthers who listened to his songs
+with humbled heads, stifling their growls; Venus springing from the
+waves; Adonis allowing himself to be cured of his wounds by the Mother
+of Love; and other scenes eulogizing the influence of art and beauty.
+
+Actæon was conducted to the bath by two young slaves, and as he emerged
+from this he again met Odacis, who bade him enter the library beyond the
+peristyle.
+
+It was a great room paved with mosaic representing the triumph of
+Bacchus. The young god, beautiful as a woman, nude, and crowned with
+vines and roses, was riding on a panther, waving his thyrsus. The
+pictures on the walls illustrated famous passages from the Iliad. The
+more voluminous books were ranged on shelves, and the smaller ones
+formed bundles placed in narrow willow baskets lined with wool.
+
+Actæon admired the richness of the library, where he counted more than a
+hundred volumes. They represented a veritable fortune. The navigators
+received from Sónnica commissions to bring her whatever notable works
+they found on their voyages, and the booksellers in Athens remitted to
+her famous books of entertainment which enjoyed vogue in their city.
+They were all of papyrus, consisting of strips rolled upon cylinders of
+wood or bone, each end wrought into an artistically carved _umbilicus_.
+The sheets, written only on one side, were impregnated on the other with
+cedar oil to protect them from moths, and the title of the book, the
+name of the author, and the index, gleamed in letters of minium and gold
+on the purple outer wrapping. The copying of these books represented the
+life work of many men, productions to be acquired only at the cost of
+great sums of money, and the Greek, with the respect characteristic of
+his race for art and wisdom, recognized that he was surrounded in the
+silence of the library by the august shades of many great men, and with
+veneration he turned from the Homer in its old, time-worn papyrus, and
+the works of Thales and Pythagoras, to the contemporary poets,
+Theocritus and Callimachus, whose volumes were unrolled, denoting recent
+reading.
+
+Actæon's ear caught a faint rustling of sandals in the peristyle, and
+the square of pale gold thrown on the floor by the light entering the
+doorway from the courtyard was darkened by a form. It was Sónnica
+arrayed in a gauzy white tunic. The light behind her marked the artistic
+lines of her body in the diaphanous cloud of her garment.
+
+"Welcome, Athenian!" she said, in a studied but harmonious voice. "Those
+who come from over _there_ are ever masters in my house. The banquet
+to-night shall be in your honor, for no one can be king of the feast and
+direct conversation like a son of Athens."
+
+Actæon, somewhat stirred by the presence of a beautiful woman enveloped
+by intoxicating perfumes, began to speak of her house, of his
+astonishment at its magnificence in that barbarian land, and of the
+admiration which its owner enjoyed in the city. Everyone he met had
+spoken to him of Sónnica the rich!
+
+"Yes, they like me; yet sometimes they censure me; but let us speak of
+you, Actæon; tell me who you are. Your life must be as interesting as
+that of old Ulysses. Tell me first what new thing there is in Athens."
+
+For a long time the two Greeks maintained an incessant chattering. She
+was eager to know what courtesans triumphed in the Cerameicus and set
+the fashions; merry, unconsciously harking back to the life of old,
+forgetful of her princely opulence in Saguntum, as if she were still in
+the house in the Street of Tripods, and Actæon one of the poor artists
+who visited her of an afternoon to discuss affairs of the city, in the
+intimacy of comrades. She laughed at the latest witticisms of the idlers
+in the Agora, at the song in vogue the year before, when Actæon left
+Athens; and with frowning brow and the gravity of a goddess, she
+listened to a detailed relation of the recent changes of fashion and of
+the style of coiffure used by the most celebrated hetæræ.
+
+The curiosity of the exiled Athenian being satisfied, she longed to
+penetrate the adventurous life of her guest, and Actæon told his story
+simply. Born in Athens, he had been taken to Carthage at twelve years of
+age. His father, in the service of the African republic, fought with
+Hamilcar in Sicily. In a village in the interior the selfsame slave
+attended the son of the Greek mercenary and a lion-cub of Hamilcar, who
+was at that time only four years of age. It was Hannibal. The Athenian
+recalled the blows he had often dealt the savage youngster in exchange
+for bites with which the African surprised him in the midst of their
+games. The revolt of the mercenaries broke out with those horrors which
+gave it the name of "the truceless war," and his father, who had
+remained faithful to Carthage and would not take up arms with his
+companions, was despite his loyalty crucified by the Carthaginian
+populace, who, forgetting his wounds received in the service of the
+Republic, saw in him only a foreigner, a friend of Hamilcar who was
+hated by the partisans of Hanno. The son miraculously escaped these
+red-handed reprisals; and Hamilcar's faithful slave smuggled him aboard
+ship for Athens.
+
+There, under the protection of relatives, he received the education of
+all young Greeks. He won prizes in the Gymnasium, in wrestling, in
+running, and in throwing the discus; he learned to ride unbridled horses
+bareback, balancing himself merely by resting his toe in a groove of the
+lance; to temper the rudeness of this education he was taught to play
+the lyre and to sing verses in diverse styles, and being strong of body
+and mind, he was sent, as were all Athenian youths, to pass his military
+apprenticeship in the garrisons on the frontier.
+
+The monotony of this existence bored him; it was dull, and he loved
+pleasure; the blood of his forefathers, soldiers of fortune all, surged
+through his body; and he ran away from Attica to take charge of a
+fishing fleet in the Euxine Sea. Then he became a navigator, trading on
+land and sea; his caravans threaded Asia, through warlike tribes, and
+among peoples who dwelt in the lethargy of a remote and decadent
+civilization. He was a powerful personage in the court of some tyrants
+who admired him on seeing him drink at a gulp an amphora of perfumed
+wine, and overcome the giants of the guard in a boxing match with the
+agile dexterity of a true Athenian; and, loaded with riches, he built a
+palace in Rhodes near the sea, and he gave banquets which lasted three
+days and nights. The earthquake which flung down the Colossus, also
+destroyed his fortune; his ships were sunk, his warehouses full of
+merchandise disappeared beneath the waves, and he began again his
+pilgrimage roundabout the world; in some places he was a singing master,
+in others a military instructor of the young men, until, attracted by
+the Spartan war, he enlisted in the army of Cleomenes, the last Greek
+hero, accompanying him at the moment in which, vanquished, he embarked
+for Alexandria. Poor, disappointed, convinced that riches would never
+return to him, saddened at seeing the whole world filled with the names
+of Carthage and Rome, while that of Greece was sinking into oblivion, he
+had come to take final refuge in Saguntum, the small and almost unknown
+Republic, in search of bread and of peace. Perhaps, in this retired
+spot, if war did not disturb its calm, he would write the history of his
+adventures.
+
+Sónnica followed his narrative with interest, fixing upon Actæon a
+glance of sympathy.
+
+"And you, who have been a hero and a potentate, have come to serve this
+city as a simple mercenary?"
+
+"Mopsus the archer has promised to give me a post of distinction among
+his troops."
+
+"That is not enough, Actæon. You would have to live like the other
+soldiers, spending your life in the Forum taverns, and sleeping on the
+steps of the Temple of Hercules. No! here is your home! Sónnica will
+protect you!"
+
+In her sparkling eyes, enlarged by the dark circle traced about them,
+shone an almost maternal love and sympathy.
+
+The Athenian gazed at her with admiration as she sat erect in her chair
+like a white cloud in the dimly illuminated library, which, like all
+Grecian rooms, received no other light than that entering through the
+doorway.
+
+"Let us go into the garden, Actæon. The afternoon is delicious, and we
+can imagine ourselves for a moment in the groves of the Academy."
+
+They went out of the house and strolled along a winding avenue bordered
+by tall laurels, above which peeped the tops of banana trees, irrigated
+with wine to accelerate their growth. On the terrace two peacocks hailed
+them with strident calls, strutting along the balustrade and spreading
+their majestic tails.
+
+Actæon, on beholding his beautiful protectress in the light of the sun,
+felt a thrill of desire rush through his body. She wore as her only
+covering a Grecian chiton, an open tunic, fastened with metal clasps
+over the shoulders, and secured around the waist by a golden girdle. The
+arms emerged bare from the white wrapping, and the left side of the
+tunic, closed from the armpit to the knee by small brooches, half opened
+at each step, revealing her pearly nudity. The material was so delicate
+that its transparency displayed the outlines of her rosy body, which
+seemed to float in a veil of woven foam.
+
+"Does my dress astonish you, Actæon?"
+
+"No; I admire you. You seem to me Aphrodite surging from the waves. It
+is a long time since I have seen the women of Athens disclosing their
+divine beauty. I am corrupted by my travels, through the rude customs of
+the barbarians."
+
+"It may happen so. As Herodotus says, nearly all who are not Greeks
+consider it opprobrious to appear nude.--If you only knew how
+scandalized the people of this city were in the beginning at my Athenian
+customs!--as if there existed anything more beautiful in the world than
+the human form!--as if the nude were not the supreme beauty! I adore
+Phryne, astonishing with her nude body the old men of the Areopagus;
+making the thousands of pilgrims gathered on the Eleusinian strand shout
+with enthusiasm when they saw her white form surge from among the veils,
+like the moon from behind the clouds. I believe in the promise of her
+bosom more than in the power of the gods."
+
+"Do you doubt the gods?" asked Actæon, with his fine Athenian smile.
+
+"The same as do you and all those from _there_. The gods now serve only
+as themes for artists, and if they are tolerated in old Homer, it is
+because he was skilled in celebrating their quarrels in graceful verse.
+No; I do not believe in them; they are as simple and credulous as
+children, but I love them because they are sane and beautiful."
+
+"In what do you believe, then, Sónnica?"
+
+"I do not know--in something mysterious that surrounds us and animates
+life; I believe in beauty and love."
+
+She was silent a moment, standing in a pensive attitude; then she
+continued:
+
+"I hate the barbarians, not because they have no treasures of art, but
+for the odium they cast on love, which they enchain with all manner of
+laws and restrictions. They are hypocritical and deformed; they make
+reproduction a crime, and they hate the nude, hiding the body with all
+kinds of rags, as if it were an abominable spectacle--when carnal love,
+the meeting of two bodies, is the sublime love through which we are
+born, and without which the fount of existence would dry
+up--extinguishing the world."
+
+"That is why we are great," said Actæon with gravity. "On this account
+our arts fill the earth, and all bow before the moral grandeur of
+Greece. We are the people that has known how to honor life making a cult
+of its origin; we satisfy the impulses of love without hypocrisy, and
+because of this we understand better than others the needs of the
+spirit. Intelligence wings more truly when it does not feel the weight
+of the body tormented by pudicity. We love and study; our gods go naked,
+with no other adornment than the ray of immortal light upon the
+forehead. They do not demand blood, like those barbarian divinities
+enwrapped in clothing which only leaves uncovered their frowning
+assassin faces; they are as beautiful as human beings, they laugh like
+them, and their peals of merriment wafted around Olympus gladden the
+earth."
+
+"Love is the most virtuous sentiment; from it emanates all greatness.
+Only the barbarians calumniate it, hiding it as a dishonest thing."
+
+"I know a people," said Actæon, "among whom love, the divine fusion of
+bodies, is looked upon as an impurity. Israel is an amalgamation of
+miserable tribes, occupying an arid region surrounding a temple of
+barbaric construction, copied from all peoples. They are hypocrites,
+rapacious and cruel; on this account they abominate love. If such a
+people were to attain universal influence like Greece, if it should
+dominate the world, imposing its beliefs, the eternal light which shines
+on the Parthenon would go out; humanity would grope in darkness, with
+the heart dry and the thought dead; the world would be a necropolis, all
+would be moving corpses, and centuries and more centuries would pass
+before man would again find the road, coming back to our smiling gods,
+to the cult of beauty that gladdens life."
+
+Sónnica, listening to the Greek, approached the tall rose bushes and
+began to pluck the flowers, smelling them with delight. She imagined
+herself in Athens, in the garden on the Street of Tripods, listening to
+her poet who had initiated her into the sweet mysteries of art and love.
+And she gazed sweetly at Actæon, with frank and sincere passion, with
+the submission of a slave, saying "I love you" with her eyes, as if only
+awaiting a word to fall into his arms.
+
+The breeze lightly stirred the whole garden. Bits of purple sky inflamed
+by the setting sun could be seen through the foliage. A mysterious
+penumbra began to form beneath the trees. The sounds from the fields,
+the stirring of the people outside the villa in the houses of the
+slaves, and even the cries of the exotic birds on the terrace seemed to
+come from a distant world.
+
+Between two clumps of rose bushes stood an image of Priapos carved from
+the trunk of a tree. The rustic god was smiling with a lewd expression,
+arching his hairy breast and thrusting his abdomen forward.
+
+Sónnica smiled on seeing the Athenian looking at him.
+
+"You know that it is an ancient custom to place the gardens under the
+protection of Priapos," said Sónnica. "They say that he frightens away
+thieves. My slaves believe it firmly, and I keep the god as a symbol of
+life in the midst of these roses, which are as beautiful as those of
+Pæstum. The allurements of Priapos complete the sweet charm of abounding
+Nature."
+
+The two Greeks walked on in silence, with slow step, along an avenue of
+slender cypresses at the end of which opened a grotto, its rocky walls
+draped with ivy, allowing a greenish, diffused light to filter through
+its openings. A white cupid spilled from a shell a stream of water like
+tender falling tear-drops, caught in an alabaster basin. There the
+luxurious Sónnica spent the warmer part of the day.
+
+Actæon was conscious of a soft, warm touch upon his shoulder.
+
+"Sónnica!"
+
+Caressing her around her gold-encircled waist, her white and satiny arms
+knotted themselves responsive about his neck like ivory serpents; her
+head fell upon the shoulder of the Greek, who, looking down, saw fixed
+upon him a pair of violet eyes moist with ecstatic emotion.
+
+"You are Athens come back to me!" She murmured sweetly, with bated
+breath. "When I met you this morning on the steps of Aphrodite's temple
+I thought you must be Apollo descended to earth. I felt the Olympian
+fire, impossible to resist. Long have I scorned love, but at last the
+little god is avenged, and--and--I love you!"
+
+Like a soft glow the beauty of the Greek shone in the twilight of the
+grotto.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nine guests were bidden to Sónnica's banquet, and as night closed in
+they came, some in chariots, others mounted on gaily caparisoned horses,
+passing between rows of slaves holding lighted torches.
+
+When Sónnica and Actæon entered the festal hall, the guests stood in
+groups near the purple couches arranged about the curving table, the
+marble top of which some slaves were washing with sponges and perfumed
+water. Four enormous bronze lampadaries occupied the corners of the
+triclinium. From their brackets were suspended numberless little jars of
+perfumed oil, in which floated wicks, shedding a rich light. Garlands of
+roses and foliage hung from lamp to lamp, constituting a fragrant border
+for the banquet hall. Near a door leading to the peristyle stood carved
+wooden tables piled with gold and silver dishes and the keen-edged
+carving knives for the use of the slaves.
+
+Alorcus the Celtiberian stood talking with Lachares and three of those
+young Greeks who so scandalized the Saguntines in the Forum by their
+effeminate ways. The arrogant barbarian, according to the custom of his
+race, wore his sword belted to his waist until the banquet began, when
+he hung it upon the ivory _anaclintron_ of the couch that he might have
+it ever within reach of his hand.
+
+At the other extreme of the table two citizens of advanced age, and
+Alcon the pacific Saguntine, with whom Actæon had spoken that morning on
+the esplanade of the Acropolis, were carrying on a quiet conversation.
+
+The two old men were long-time friends of the house, Greek merchants
+whom Sónnica had taken as partners in business, and whom she invited to
+her nocturnal feasts, appreciating the dignified air which they added to
+these occasions.
+
+As the devoted pair entered the banquet chamber the guests divined their
+felicity in Sónnica's tender, shining eyes, and in the abandon with
+which she inclined toward Actæon her blonde head, crowned with roses and
+violets.
+
+"At last we have a master," murmured Lachares with a tone of jealousy.
+
+"He has been more fortunate than we," replied the Celtiberian
+resignedly. "But he is an Athenian, and I can understand that Sónnica,
+the cold hearted, should have surrendered to one of her own people."
+
+Actæon, being presented to the guests, moved about the hall with the
+self-possession of a potentate enjoying his riches, like a man
+accustomed to princely splendors--he whom a stroke of fortune had
+suddenly lifted out of poverty to his old-time condition.
+
+At a signal from Sónnica the guests reclined upon the purple couches
+which surrounded the table, and four young girls entered the hall
+bearing on their heads, with the slender grace of canephoræ, little
+willow baskets filled with rose-crowns. They walked with airy ease, as
+if gliding over the mosaic to the sound of invisible flutes, and with
+their delicate girlish hands they crowned the guests with flowers.
+
+Suddenly the steward appeared with an irritated countenance.
+
+"Mistress, Euphobias the parasite is trying to enter."
+
+The guests burst into cries and protests on hearing this.
+
+"Throw him out, Sónnica! He will make us miserable!" shouted the young
+men, recalling with anger his jeers in the Forum at their dress and
+manners.
+
+"It is a shame for the city to tolerate that insolent beggar," said the
+grave citizens.
+
+Sónnica smiled, then suddenly recalling a cruel epigram which the
+parasite had dedicated to her, and had recited in the Forum a few days
+before, she said frigidly to the steward:
+
+"Drive him away with a club."
+
+The guests bathed their hands at a lavabo of perfumed water which a
+slave passed from couch to couch, and Sónnica had given the order to
+commence the banquet when the steward returned with a rough-knobbed club
+clutched in his hand.
+
+"I have beaten him, mistress, but he will not go. He suffers the blows,
+but after each one he works his way a little farther into the house."
+
+"And what does he say?"
+
+"He says that one of Sónnica's feasts is impossible without the presence
+of Euphobias, and that the blows are a sign of appreciation."
+
+The woman displayed compassion; the guests laughed; and Sónnica gave the
+order to admit the philosopher, but before the steward had left the
+room to comply with her command Euphobias had already entered the hall,
+cringing, humble, but looking at the assembled company with insolent
+eyes.
+
+"The gods be with you! May joy ever attend you, beautiful Sónnica!"
+
+Turning to the steward he said loftily:
+
+"Brother, now that you see that I get in anyhow, try to wield a less
+heavy hand in future."
+
+Accompanied by the laughter of the guests he rubbed his forehead on
+which a lump had begun to rise, and with a corner of his time-worn
+mantle he wiped off a few drops of blood close to one ear.
+
+"Greeting, lousy one!" the gallant Lachares called to him.
+
+"Away from us!" shouted the other youths.
+
+But Euphobias paid no attention. He smiled at Actæon, seeing him
+reclining near Sónnica, and his eyes shone with a malicious expression.
+
+"You have arrived where I thought you would. You will master these
+effeminate creatures who surround Sónnica and who heap insults upon me."
+
+Paying no heed to the mocking retorts of the young gallants he added
+with a servile smile:
+
+"I trust you will not forget your old friend Euphobias. Now you can set
+him up to all the wine he wishes in the taverns of the Forum."
+
+The philosopher took the couch at the farther end of the table, and he
+refused the crown offered him by the slave.
+
+"I have not come for flowers; I have come to eat. I can find plenty of
+roses merely by taking a stroll in the country; but what I do not find
+in Saguntum is a crust of bread for a philosopher."
+
+"Are you hungry?" asked Sónnica.
+
+"I am more thirsty than hungry. I have spent the whole day talking in
+the Forum; they all listened to me, but it never occurred to any one to
+refresh my throat."
+
+According to the Grecian custom an _arbiter bibendi_ must be chosen, a
+guest of honor who should propose the toasts, announce the moment for
+drinking, and direct the conversation.
+
+"Let us choose Euphobias," said Alorcus, with the grave humor of a
+Celtiberian.
+
+"No!" protested Sónnica. "One night we put him in charge of the banquet
+for a joke, and we were all drunk before the third course. He proposed a
+potation at every mouthful."
+
+"Why choose a king?" said the philosopher. "We already have one at
+Sónnica's side. Let it be the Athenian!"
+
+"Yes, let it be he," said the elegant Lachares, "and may he not allow
+you to speak during the whole night, insolent parasite!"
+
+In the centre of the table stood a broad bronze crater, over the edges
+of which peeped a group of nymphs looking at themselves in the oval lake
+of wine. Each guest had a slave at his back to serve him, and they
+dipped wine from the crater to fill the glasses of the guests for the
+first libation. They were murrhine cups, brought from Asia at a great
+price, of mysterious fabrication, into which entered the dust of certain
+shells, and myrrh, hardened and tinted. They were white and opaque, like
+ivory, holding pieces of colored glass embedded, and their mysterious
+composition gave a voluptuous fragrance to the wine.
+
+Actæon raised himself in his couch to propose the first toast in honor
+of the chosen divinity.
+
+"Drink to Diana, Athenian," spoke the grave voice of Alcon; "drink to
+the Saguntine goddess!"
+
+But in the hand which remained free the Athenian felt another, delicate
+and beringed, clasping it with a warm caress, so he dedicated his
+libation to Aphrodite, and the young men greeted it with shouts of
+enthusiasm. Aphrodite was to be the goddess for that night! While the
+young men thought of the dancers from Gades, the great attraction of the
+banquet, Sónnica and Actæon, their elbows resting on the cushions,
+caressed each other with their eyes, while they leaned shoulder to
+shoulder, close to the edge of the table.
+
+Strong slaves, perspiring from standing over the fires in the kitchens,
+set upon the table the food for the first course, served in great plates
+of red Saguntine terra cotta. There were shellfish raw and broiled, all
+highly spiced. Fresh oysters, mussels, enchinoderms dressed with parsley
+and mint, asparagus, peppers, lettuce, peacock eggs, tripe seasoned with
+cumin and vinegar, and fried birds swimming in a sauce of grated cheese,
+oil, vinegar, and silphium. There was also served _oxygarum_ made in the
+fisheries of New Carthage--a paste of tunny milt, loaded with salt and
+vinegar, which excited the palate, stimulating one to drink wine.
+
+The aroma from these dishes floated through the festal hall.
+
+"Talk not to me about the nest of the phœnix!" said Euphobias with
+his mouth full. "According to the poets, the phœnix bestrews its
+nest with incense, bay, and cinnamon, but I swear by the gods that I
+would rather be in Sónnica's triclinium than in that nest!"
+
+"Which does not prevent your dedicating insulting verses to me, you
+rascal," said the Greek woman, smiling.
+
+"Because I am fond of you, and I protest against your follies. By day I
+am a philosopher; but at night my stomach compels me to come to you, so
+that your menials may beat me, and that you may give me something to
+eat."
+
+The slaves removed the plates of the first course, and brought on the
+second which consisted of fish and meat. A small roasted wild boar
+occupied the centre of the table; great pheasants with their plumage
+laid as a covering upon their cooked flesh, were displayed on plates
+surrounded by hard-boiled eggs and fragrant herbs; thrushes spitted upon
+reeds were arranged in form of crowns; hares, on being carved, displayed
+a stuffing of rosemary and thyme; and wild doves were brought on with
+quails and thrushes. There were innumerable dishes of fish, reminding
+the Greeks of the viands of their native land, and between mouthfuls
+they discussed the glauci from Megara, the eels from Scione, and breams
+and xiphiae from the coasts of Phalerum and from the Hellespont.
+
+Each guest chose his favorite food from among the different dishes, and
+regaled his friends with it, presents being carried by slaves from one
+end of the table to the other. More wines, in sealed and dusty amphoræ,
+were brought up from the cellars, and overflowed the festal goblets.
+Wine from Chios, rare and costly, mingled with those from Cæcubum, from
+Falerno, and from Massico, in Italy, and those from Laurona and from the
+Saguntine domain. To the bouquet of these liquids was added the aroma of
+the sauces, into which entered, following the complicated recipes of the
+Grecian cuisine, silphium, parsley, sesame, fennel, cumin, and garlic.
+
+Sónnica barely touched her food; she neglected the successive plates,
+heaped with presents from her guests, to smile at Actæon.
+
+"I love you," she whispered. "I feel as if a Thessalian magus had cast a
+spell over me. My whole being responds to the throb of love. Do you see
+these fishes? I am afraid to eat them; I feel that I would be committing
+a sacrilege, because roses and fishes are dedicated to Venus, the mother
+of our joy. I only wish to drink--to drink profoundly. I feel within me
+a fire which caresses, yet consumes me."
+
+The guests gormandized, rendering tribute to Sónnica's cook, an Asiatic,
+purchased in Athens by one of her navigators. He had cost her almost the
+price of a villa; but they considered the money well spent, and they
+admired the art with which his meditations in a corner of the kitchen
+produced these astonishing combinations, afterward executed by the other
+slaves--above all that happy invention of a mild sauce of dates and
+honey for the roasts. With such a slave it were possible to enjoy one's
+food throughout the whole of life and to ward off death for many years.
+
+The second course had ended. The guests were lying surfeited on their
+couches, loosening their garments. The slaves served them with wine in
+horn-shaped flagons of alabaster, which permitted a slender stream to
+gurgle from its spout, so that they need not lift themselves to drink.
+The purple drapery of the couches was stained with wine. The great
+lampadaries in the corners, with their tapers of perfumed oil, seemed to
+glow more faintly in the dense atmosphere charged with vapor from the
+steaming viands. The garlands of roses hanging in festoons from the
+lamps wilted in the heavy atmosphere. Through the open door the guests
+caught glimpses of the columns of the peristyle, and of a strip of dark
+blue sky in which twinkled many stars.
+
+The pacific Alcon rising up in his couch, smiled with the amiability of
+mild intoxication, gazing at the splendor of the firmament.
+
+"I drink to the beauty of our city!" he said, raising the horn filled
+with wine.
+
+"To the Grecian Zacynthus!" shouted Lachares.
+
+"Yes, let Saguntum be Greek!" answered his friends.
+
+The conversation turned upon the great festival which, at Sónnica's
+initiative, the Greeks of Saguntum would celebrate in honor of Minerva
+on gathering the harvest. The Panathenaic festivals should end with a
+procession like that which took place in Athens, and which Phidias had
+immortalized in marble in his famous friezes. The young men spoke with
+enthusiasm of the horses they would ride, and of the contests for which
+they were training by persistent exercise. Sónnica patronized the
+festivals with her immense wealth, and she wished to make these as
+famous as that one which Athens celebrated on the dedication of the
+Parthenon.
+
+The Saguntine youths would race outside the walls in the morning to
+demonstrate that they were as clever as the Celtiberian horsemen; the
+more pacific would contest in the Forum, lyre in hand, to win the crown
+offered to the one who should hymn the poems of Homer most creditably;
+afterward the procession would reveal all its magnificence through the
+streets of the city, climbing up to the Acropolis; and in the afternoon
+the race of the flaming torch would take place to divert the people, who
+would hiss at him who let his torch go out, and would whip up him who
+traveled slowly to protect the flame.
+
+"But do you really believe in Minerva?" Euphobias asked of Sónnica.
+
+"I believe in what I see," she replied. "I believe in spring, in the
+resurrection of the verdant fields, in the grain which springs from the
+ground to nourish man from its golden bearded heads; the flowers, which
+are the incense-bearers of the earth; and, above all the goddesses, I
+love Athene for the wisdom with which she endows man and makes him
+divine, and I love Minerva for her bounty which maintains them."
+
+The slaves laid the third course on the table, and the guests,
+half-inebriated, raised themselves in their couches to look at the
+little baskets of fruit, the plates covered with pastry toasted over the
+fire in the Cappadocian style; buns made of sesame flour, filled with
+honey, and browned in the oven; and cakes of cheese stuffed with stewed
+fruits.
+
+Small amphoræ containing the choicest wines, brought from the uttermost
+ends of the world by Sónnica's ships, were uncorked. Wine from Byblus in
+Phœnicia saturated the atmosphere with a fragrance as penetrating as
+bottles of perfume; that from Lesbos which on being poured gave forth a
+ravishing odor of roses, and, in addition to these, cups were filled
+with cordials from Erythrea and Heraclea, strong and spiritous, and
+those from Rhodes and Chios, prudently mixed with sea-water to aid the
+digestion.
+
+Some slaves, to excite again the appetite of the guests, and to make
+them drink, offered plates of locusts cured in brine; radishes with
+vinegar and mustard, toasted garbanzos, and olives, prized for their
+size and flavor, swimming in a piquant sauce.
+
+Actæon could eat nothing, diverted by Sónnica, who, leaving her
+_epiclintron_, pressed against him, rubbing her cheek upon the
+Athenian's with mingling breath. Thus they remained in silence, each
+watching the image reflected from the pupils of the other.
+
+"Let me kiss you on the eyes," murmured Sónnica, "they are the windows
+of the soul, and I imagine that through them my caress will penetrate to
+the depths of your being."
+
+The arrogant Alorcus, grave as all Celtiberians when intoxicated, spoke
+of the coming festival as he gazed into his empty cup. He had five
+horses in the city, the finest his tribe could furnish, and if the
+magistrates would allow him to take part in the rejoicings, despite his
+being a foreigner, the Saguntines would have a chance to admire the
+strength and swiftness of his beautiful coursers. The crown should fall
+to him, unless some unexpected event summoned him from the city.
+
+Lachares and his elegant friends proposed to contest for the prize in
+singing, and their effeminate hands, slender and beringed, moved
+nervously over the table as if already thrumming the lyre, while their
+painted lips sang Homeric verses in subdued tones. Euphobias, lying on
+his back on his couch, gazed aloft with dreamy eyes, with no other
+earthly desire than to reach forth his glass and call for wine; but
+Alcon and the Greek merchants became impatient at the slowness of the
+banquet.
+
+"The dancers! Let the daughters from Gades come!" they called with
+tremulous voices, the fiery spark of intoxication glowing in their eyes.
+
+"Yes; let the dancing girls come!" cried Euphobias rousing from his
+stupor. "I want to see how this honorable people disturbs its digestion,
+which is the best gift to man, by the lewd steps of the daughters of
+Hercules."
+
+Sónnica made a sign to her steward, and in a moment the joyous sound of
+flutes was heard in the peristyle.
+
+"The auletai!" shouted the guests.
+
+Four slender girls, violet-crowned, marched into the triclinium, wearing
+a chiton open from waist to ankle, displaying the left leg at every
+step, holding to their mouths the double aulos, their agile fingers
+playing over the holes of the instrument.
+
+Standing in the space enclosed by the curve of the table, they began a
+sweet melopœia, which caused the guests to sit up in their couches
+and to smile placidly. Most of them recognized the flute players as old
+acquaintances, and swinging their heads in time with the music, they
+watched with avid eyes the outlines of their bodies which swayed
+rhythmically from the movement of their dancing feet.
+
+Several times the flutists changed the tune and measure, but at the end
+of an hour the guests became bored.
+
+"We are used to all this," protested Lachares; "they are the same
+flutists who always play at your banquets, Sónnica. Since you have
+fallen in love you forget your friends. Give us something else! Let us
+see the dancers!"
+
+"Yes, let the dancing girls come!" chorused the young men.
+
+"Have patience," said the Greek woman, lifting her head for an instant
+from Actæon's breast; "the dancers will appear, but not until the end of
+the banquet when I am overcome with sleep. I know you well, and I can
+guess what the finish of the feast will be. First I wish you to see a
+little slave who has learned from the Grecian mariners tricks like those
+of celebrated Athenian performers."
+
+Before the slave entered, the guests turned in alarm toward the farther
+end of the table. A beast-like growling arose from beneath it. Euphobias
+had fallen from his couch, and with his head on the mosaic was
+disgorging his dinner, accompanied by a stream of wine.
+
+"Give him laurel leaves!" called the prudent Alcon. "There is nothing
+better to dissipate drunkenness."
+
+The slaves compelled him almost by force to chew the leaves, paying no
+attention to the philosopher's protests.
+
+"I am not drunk," shouted Euphobias. "It is the hunger which persecutes
+me. Most of the time I can find no bread, and when I am so fortunate as
+to sit at a table like Sónnica's, the food which I eat escapes me."
+
+"Say rather the wine which you drink escapes you," replied Sónnica,
+resting her head again on Actæon's breast.
+
+The contortionist had reappeared before the table, and had greeted her
+mistress by touching her hands to her face. She was a girl of about
+fourteen, with yellowish skin, wearing a pair of red trunks. Her nervous
+and agile limbs, and her lean, undeveloped chest, made her look like a
+boy. The elder guests smiled, stirred by her fresh and almost masculine
+beauty.
+
+She uttered a shout, and doubling over with elastic vigor stood on her
+hands, and with feet in the air and her head almost touching the floor,
+she began to run swiftly about the triclinium. Then, with a powerful
+spring of her arms, she leaped upon the table, and trotted on her hands
+among the confusion of plates, amphoræ, and cups, without upsetting
+them.
+
+The guests applauded with enthusiasm. The two Greek merchants offered
+her their goblets, pinching her cheeks while she drank, and passing
+their hands caressingly over her back.
+
+"Lachares," said the philosopher to his aristocratic enemy, "why have
+you and your companions not brought your beautiful slave boys who serve
+you as supports in the Forum?"
+
+"Sónnica will not allow it," replied the young gallant, pleased at the
+question, not suspecting the irony in Euphobias' words. "She is a
+superior woman, but this is the only one of the refined customs of
+Athens which she declines to tolerate. She believes in Jupiter and Leda;
+but she spits upon the beautiful Ganymede. She is not a full-fledged
+Athenian."
+
+A double row of broad, sharp swords was placed along the floor by a
+group of slaves, so that the contortionist might show her greatest feat.
+The flutists began to play a slow, solemn melody, and the contortionist,
+again standing head downward, began to walk between the swords without
+disturbing them or touching their sharp edges. The guests, cup in hand,
+followed her course anxiously through the forest of keen steel blades,
+which at her slightest wavering would penetrate her body. She paused
+near a sword, extended one arm, and sustaining herself on a single hand
+she bent the elbow until she kissed the floor; then she stiffened the
+muscles, raising herself back to her first position, and throughout this
+whole maneuvre the cutting edge grazed her breast without even abrading
+the skin.
+
+When the girl finished her act the guests applauded vigorously. The two
+old men flung their tunics around her, while her malicious, boyish face
+peeped forth and sniffed the foods and sweetmeats.
+
+"But, Sónnica," protested Lachares, "when did the beautiful Greek ever
+forget her friends like this? Athenian, you have maddened her with your
+love; now intercede for us, and ask that the daughters of Gades present
+themselves quickly!"
+
+Sónnica appeared to be sleeping upon Actæon's breast, spellbound by his
+close, warm, throbbing heart.
+
+"Bid them enter----let my guests do what they wish----only leave us in
+peace!"
+
+Footsteps, giggling, and whispering were heard in the peristyle, and the
+Gaditanian dancers entered the triclinium, crowding each other like a
+stampeding flock.
+
+They were girls of small stature, with supple, agile limbs; their skin a
+pale amber, their eyes large and luminous; their hair black; their
+bodies floating in vapory veils, alluring and deceptive in their
+semi-transparency. They wore on their breasts and on their arms and
+ankles strands of coins and amulets which rung with merry tinkle at the
+slightest movement, and they stared boldly at the guests like a flock
+accustomed to such feasts, who traveled from banquet to banquet, seeing
+men only in their hours of intoxication.
+
+The ruler of the band, a wrinkled, parchment-faced old man with an
+insolent stare, was dressed like them in feminine veils, his cheeks
+painted, his eyes encircled with black, having great hoops in his ears,
+and a cynical leer on his vermilion lips, ready for trade in the most
+infamous traffic.
+
+Euphobias, indifferent to the charms of the dancing girls, looked at him
+with amazement, wondering to what sex belonged those skeleton arms
+peeping from beneath the veils, painted white, and weighted down with
+jewels.
+
+"Brother, are you a man or a woman?" the philosopher gravely enquired.
+
+"I am the father of all these flowers," replied the eunuch with a
+squeaking voice, showing as he smiled his repulsive, toothless gums.
+
+Three of the women, squatting on the floor, began to fillip their
+castanets with lively clacking, while another beat with her hands on a
+globe-bottomed timbrel tucked under her left arm.
+
+The eunuch rapped on the floor with his staff, and instantly four pairs
+of dancers whisked into the centre of the triclinium, and began to swing
+to the sound of clamorous barbaric music played by their companions.
+They danced with stately step, holding themselves majestically erect,
+spreading their arms as if swimming in space, their brown bodies
+wheeling in slow spirals, seeming to float on the waves of transparent
+foam which enwrapped them. Gradually their movements accelerated; they
+gracefully extended their bodies, elevating their firm chests, outlining
+their contours among the veils--contortions in which the trunk revolved
+on the hips, a whirl of forms enclosed in white and floating drapery,
+which as it flew into a thousand folds with voluptuous undulations,
+fanned up the flames of the lamps.
+
+Suddenly, at a signal from the old crone, the music stopped, and the
+dancing ceased.
+
+"More! More!" shouted the guests, sitting up in their couches with
+excitement.
+
+It was merely a halt to change the time and to evoke applause by taking
+a brief rest. The music assumed a gay and noisy rhythm; the old eunuch
+marked time on the floor with the beating staff; he uttered a prolonged
+lament, sad, yet with a mild sweetness, which did not seem to come from
+his infected mouth; and then followed slow dreamy strophes of love with
+words of double meanings, which acted like aphrodisiacs, and were
+greeted with a roar of enthusiasm.
+
+The dancers sprang into the centre of the triclinium, whirling swiftly,
+as if possessed of a fever. Each song served as a lash further to excite
+their nerves, and their bare feet tripped over the mosaic like
+snow-white birds, or rose in gentle flight, trailing clouds of gauze,
+displaying well modeled limbs with tinkling ornaments which scattered
+silvery tones. Their gently curving abdomens seemed to assume a separate
+existence, moving like restless animals over their bodies which they
+held in sacerdotal rigidity, contracting in circular waves, forming a
+whirlpool of voluptuous undulations, of which the umbilicus was the rosy
+centre. They accompanied the dance with incessant snapping of fingers.
+Gathering the gauzy draperies beneath their arms and adjusting them
+around their hips, they moved their amphoral curves with seductive
+rhythm, sighing langourously, with bowed heads, as if enchanted by the
+contemplation of their own beauty. Suddenly the music grew fainter, as
+if drawing away, and the dancers, their feet together and limbs half
+opened, descended in a slow spiral, with gentle undulations, until they
+touched the floor; the instant their callipygian charms grazed the
+mosaic, they recoiled like suddenly awakened serpents, and the castanets
+clacked and the timbrel beat louder, accompanied by the howls of the
+musicians who animated them with lascivious words and exclamations of
+supreme abandon.
+
+The guests, red with emotion, their eyes sparkling and their mouths dry,
+had rushed into the centre of the triclinium, interrupting the dance,
+mixing with the couples and grasping them. Euphobias lay snoring at the
+foot of his couch. Sónnica had disappeared long before, leaving the
+triclinium, supported by a slave without lifting her head from Actæon's
+shoulder.
+
+The veils of the dancing girls fell to the foot of the table; they
+devoured the sweetmeats and fruits, they drank from the amphoræ, plunged
+their heads into the crater of the nymphs, and laughed on seeing their
+faces bespattered with wine. The eunuch continued singing and pounding
+furiously on the floor to mark the rhythm for his musicians. In vain!
+The girls who tried to dance could not escape from the hands of the
+guests, who at every turn slapped them on their buttocks and tore off
+their veils. The young men rolled at the foot of the lamps, maddened by
+these bacchantes wise in perversion, reared in a port to which
+navigators brought both the refinements and the corruptions of the
+entire world. Alorcus the Celtiberian, brutalized by his enthusiasm,
+walked around the triclinium making a display of his strength by
+sustaining in his sinewy hands two dancing girls, who screamed with
+fright, while outside could be noted in the darkness of the peristyle
+the movement of the slaves, men and women, from the kitchens, creeping
+near to enjoy from without the spectacle of the bacchanal.
+
+It was not yet dawn when Actæon awoke, wondering, no doubt, at the soft
+couch and at the perfumes of the dormitory. Sónnica was lying beside
+him, and by the light of a lamp hanging near the door he could see a
+smile of felicity flitting over her lips.
+
+After the intoxication of the night the Athenian felt a vehement desire
+to breathe the fresh, open air. He was stifling where he was, in
+Sónnica's room, sunk down in the couch that seemed to burn with the fire
+of their recent passion, near the form, which now lay inert and with no
+other sign of life than the gentle sighs which inflated her bosom.
+
+The Greek softly tiptoed out to the peristyle. The lamps were still
+burning in the triclinium, and an insufferable vapor of viands, wines,
+and sweaty bodies floated through the doorway. He saw the guests lying
+on the floor among the snoring women. Euphobias had awakened from his
+drunken sleep, and, occupying the place of honor, Sónnica's couch, was
+forging for himself the illusion of being master of the villa. Wrapped
+in his tattered mantle he was compelling two sleepy dancing girls to
+dance, contemplating their nude flesh with a disdainful stare like a man
+who considers himself above carnal desires.
+
+As Actæon appeared in the triclinium some slaves fled, fearing lest they
+should be punished for their curiosity. Not wishing to be seen by the
+philosopher the Greek went out of the house seeking the cool garden.
+There he noticed the same flight before his steps. Embracing couples
+fled along the avenues; from behind the clumps of foliage arose
+exclamations of surprise as he approached, and in the dissipating
+shadows of the night the garden seemed animated by a mysterious life
+beneath its leafy bowers.
+
+They were slaves who, excited by the feast, continued beneath the open
+sky the scenes of the triclinium.
+
+The Greek smiled, reflecting that the feast was destined to augment his
+mistress' wealth.
+
+"Let them enjoy themselves in peace. To disturb them would damage
+Sónnica's interests."
+
+He passed out of the garden so as not to interfere with the joy of the
+miserable flock which, forgetting every trouble, sought each other
+there in the dim light of dawn.
+
+He crossed Sónnica's immense dominions, through groves of fig trees and
+extensive olive orchards, until suddenly he found himself in the highway
+of the Serpent. It was deserted. In the distance he heard the galloping
+of a horse and saw in the bluish light of dawn a rider who was
+undoubtedly making for the port.
+
+As he drew near Actæon recognized him in spite of his head being covered
+by the hood of a war mantle. It was the Celtiberian shepherd. The Greek
+dashed into the centre of the roadway and grasped the horse by the
+bridle, while the rider, checked in his race, leaned back, tugging at
+the knife which he wore in his belt.
+
+"Be calm!" said Actæon in a low voice. "If I stop you it is to say that
+I have recognized you. You are Hannibal, the son of the great Hamilcar!
+Your disguise may serve you among the Saguntines, but your boyhood
+friend knows you."
+
+The African bent his head forward with its bushy mass of hair, and his
+imperious eyes made out the Greek in the dim light.
+
+"Is it you, Actæon? When I met you so many times yesterday I knew that
+you would finally recognize me. What are you doing here?"
+
+"I am living in the house of Sónnica the rich."
+
+"I have heard of her, a Greek as famous for her beauty and her talent as
+the courtesans of Athens. I was also desirous of knowing her, and I
+think I should have loved her if it were a man's mission to chase after
+women. And are you doing nothing else?"
+
+"I am a soldier in the pay of the city."
+
+"You, the son of Lysias, the confidential captain of Hamilcar! You, a
+man educated in the Prytaneum of Athens, in the service of a city of
+barbarians and merchants!"
+
+Hannibal was silent for a moment as if wondering at the conduct of the
+Greek. At last he added resolutely:
+
+"Mount behind me on my horse! Come with me! In the port a Carthaginian
+ship, loading with silver, is waiting for me. I go to New Carthage to
+place myself at the head of my troops. Days of glory are coming, an
+immense and sublime enterprise, like that of the giants when, heaping
+mountain on mountain, they scaled your Olympus. Come! You are the friend
+of my childhood; I knew you before Hasdrubal and Mago, those sons of
+Hamilcar, whom the glorious captain gave me for brothers, calling all
+three of us 'my lion's brood.' I know you. You are astute and brave like
+your father; at my side you will conquer riches. Who knows but that you
+may reign as king in some fair land when, imitating Alexander, I divide
+my conquests among my captains!"
+
+"No, Carthaginian," said Actæon gravely. "I do not hate you; I remember
+our early years with pleasure; but I will never go with you. Your
+lineage prevents it, the past record of your nation, and the bloody
+shade of my father."
+
+"Nationality is but a fiction; 'the people' a pretext for making war.
+What matters it to you whether you serve Carthage or any other republic,
+since you are a Greek? If my own people should abandon me I would fight
+for any country. We are men of war; we fight for glory, power, and
+riches; the needs of our people only serve to justify our victory and
+our despoiling of the enemy. I hate the merchants of Carthage, pacific
+and stuck to their shops, as much as I hate the proud Romans. Come,
+Actæon, since we have met, follow me! Fortune goes with me."
+
+"No, Hannibal; here shall I remain. Seeing your African soldiers I
+should remember the mob that crucified Lysias."
+
+"That was an unavoidable crime, a mad deed of that truceless war to
+which the mercenaries impelled us. My father lamented it a thousand
+times, remembering his faithful Lysias. With my protection I will make
+amends for that injustice of Carthage."
+
+"I will not follow you, Hannibal. I have bid farewell to war and booty.
+I prefer to grow old here in this sweet and tranquil life, at the side
+of my Sónnica, loving peace like any one of those Saguntines who dwells
+in the merchants' ward."
+
+"Peace? Peace?"
+
+A strident and brutal shout of laughter, like that which Actæon had
+heard on the steps of Aphrodite's temple when the Roman legates were
+embarking, broke the silence of the roadway.
+
+"Listen well, Actæon," said the African, recovering his gravity, "the
+proof that I still remember my boyhood affection for you lies in the
+frankness with which I speak my mind. Only to you, understand it well!
+If, sleeping in my tent, I should learn on awaking that what is in my
+mind had escaped in words, I would stab the sentinel who guarded my
+sleep. You speak of peace! Actæon, awake! If you think of growing old in
+tranquility in any part of the world, flee with that Greek woman whom
+you love, far, far away! Where I am, there shall be no peace until I
+have become the sovereign of the world! War marches ahead of my
+footsteps; he who will not submit to me must die or become my slave!"
+
+The Greek comprehended the significance of the threat.
+
+"Remember, Hannibal, that this city is Rome. The Republic has taken it
+for an ally and protects it."
+
+"Do you imagine that I fear Rome? If I hate Saguntum it is because she
+is proud of her alliance, and that she scorns and forgets me, in spite
+of my being near. She fancies herself secure because that far-away
+Republic protects her, and she laughs at me, though I reign over all the
+Peninsula as far as the Ebro, and am encamped almost at her very gates.
+She antagonizes the Turdetani, who are my allies, as are all the Iberian
+tribes, and within her walls she beheads the citizens who love me, those
+who were friends of the great Hamilcar. Ah, blind and vainglorious city!
+How dear shall it cost thee to live near to Hannibal without knowing
+him!"
+
+Turning about in his saddle he glared with menacing eyes at the
+Acropolis of Saguntum, which stood forth above the fog of the early
+morn.
+
+"You could scarcely lay siege to her ally before Rome would fall upon
+you!"
+
+"Let her come!" replied the African arrogantly. "That is what I want, I
+hate peace! I will not submit to seeing Carthage subdued while there
+exist men like me and my friends. Either Rome or Africa! Let the final
+clash come! The sooner the better, the supreme struggle; and let that
+nation which is left standing be ruler of the world! I hate the rich of
+my country who live content in the shame of defeat because it enables
+them to traffic calmly and to cram their vaults with silver. Those are
+the wretches who, after our defeat in Sicily, dared to dream of
+abandoning Carthage and of moving wholesale to the islands of the Great
+Sea to live in tranquility. They are Carthaginians indeed; true sons of
+Phœnicia, with no other conception of glory than trade, nor other
+aspiration than to find new ports where they can market their wares! We
+Barcas are Libyans; we descend from the gods; like them we have
+greatness of thought; we must be masters, or die! Those merchants do not
+understand that it is not enough to be rich; that one must dominate and
+instill fear; and they formed in Carthage a peace-party, which
+embittered my father's life by defeats, and they leave me with no other
+resources than those that I can procure on the Peninsula. They do not
+know the Barcas, despite the fact that we struggle to make Carthage a
+world power! My father, when he lost Sicily, foresaw the future
+extinction of our nation, and he wished to prevent it. We had lost a
+great part of our ancient commerce. We needed an army to defend us from
+ambitious Rome, and we did not have it. The citizens of Carthage are
+good, at the best, to fight on their own soil. The merchant cannot bear
+the weight of arms nor endure marches for months and years through
+hostile countries. The profit derived from booty conquered with blood,
+he can win more easily standing behind his bales of goods, and as he
+loves money he does not wish to pay it out to foreign soldiers. That is
+why Hamilcar brought us to the Peninsula, and here we have given
+Carthage new ports and markets, and the Barcas have an army gathered
+together by their own efforts. Little does it matter that the
+Carthaginian Senate, lovers of peace, refuse to send us soldiers. The
+Iberian tribes loved my father after putting his bravery to the test,
+and they will rise in arms at the voice of the Barcas against whatever
+enemy we may designate."
+
+Hannibal turned his gaze toward the distant mountains, as if he could
+behold the innumerable barbarian tribes who lived behind them scratching
+the earth, or pasturing their flocks. "Hamilcar fell," he said sadly,
+"just as he was beginning to see his dreams realized in a great army
+with which to enter anew into strife with Rome, with riches of his own
+to carry on the war without need of assistance from the African
+merchants. Hasdrubal, the handsome husband of my sister, frittered away
+eight years on succeeding to his authority. He was a good governor, but
+a timid commander. Perhaps it was Baal, our savage god, who guided the
+arm of his assassin that he might be succeeded by another capable of
+exterminating the eternal enemy of Carthage. That one shall be I! Listen
+well, Greek! You are the only one who shares my thought. The moment for
+fighting the final battle has come. Soon shall Rome know that there
+exists a Hannibal who defies her by taking possession of Saguntum."
+
+"You have scant power for that, African. Saguntum is strong, and I, who
+come from New Carthage, have seen there nothing but the elephants, the
+fragments of the army which your father brought, and the Numidian
+cavalry which your friends have sent from Africa."
+
+"You forget the Iberians and the Celtiberians, the whole Peninsula,
+which will rise bodily and flock to the taking of Saguntum. The country
+is poor, and the city is overstocked with riches. I have noted it well.
+There is enough in it to pay an army for entire years, and even the
+Lusitanian tribes from the coast of the Great Sea will come attracted by
+the hope of loot and urged on by the hatred of rude natives for a city,
+opulent and civilized, where dwell their exploiters. It will be no great
+task for Hannibal to take possession of a republic of farmers and
+merchants."
+
+"And after you become master, what then?"
+
+The African answered nothing, but shrugged his shoulders with an
+enigmatic smile.
+
+"You are silent, Hannibal. But after you are master of Saguntum you will
+have gained nothing. Rome will hurl her thunder at you for violating her
+treaties, and the Carthaginian Senate will curse you; it will set a
+price upon your head; it will order your soldiers to disobey you; and
+you will die crucified, or you will wander about the world like a
+fugitive slave."
+
+"No! Fire of Baal!" shouted the chief arrogantly. "Carthage will attempt
+nothing against me; she will accept war with Rome, even though to-day
+she may not wish it. I have there innumerable partisans of the Barcas;
+the populace which loves war, because it yields cargoes of loot for
+distribution; the people of the out-lying districts, whose enthusiasm I
+keep at white heat by sending them riches sacked on the Peninsula, after
+having paid my troops. Hamilcar and Hasdrubal did the same. They would
+be ready to cut off the heads of the rich if anything were attempted
+against Hannibal. Since following my father for nine years, I have not
+returned to Carthage, but the people adore my name. Even those of the
+peace-party will follow me to war, if to war I drag them."
+
+"And how will you conquer Rome?"
+
+"I know not," said Hannibal with his mysterious smile. "I harbor a world
+of thoughts which would provoke the laughter of my friends if I should
+relate them. I see myself like a Titan scaling immense mountains,
+following the course of the eagle, ploughing through the snow, climbing
+to the very sky to fall upon my enemy with greater force. Ask me no
+more; I know nothing further. My will says, 'I desire,' and that is
+enough--I shall carry it through!"
+
+Hannibal was silent, wrinkling his brows as if fearing he had said too
+much.
+
+It was now daylight. Women with baskets on their heads were passing
+along the road. Two slaves carrying a great amphora hanging from a pole
+swung between their shoulders, stopped near them a moment to rest. The
+African patted his horse's neck as if preparing to leave.
+
+"For the last time, Greek, will you come?"
+
+Actæon shook his head.
+
+"I know you too well to beg you to forget that you have seen Hannibal.
+You are astute. You know that what we have spoken here must be swallowed
+in the silence of the fields, and must be repeated to no one. Be happy
+in your new love, and live in peace, since, though born to soar as an
+eagle, you choose to stay here in a barnyard. If ever you oppose me as
+an enemy and contend against me, I will not crucify you; you shall not
+become my slave. I love you, although you will not follow me. I do not
+forget that you were the first who taught me to hurl a dart. May Baal
+guard you, Actæon! My men await me at the port."
+
+His mantle floating in the breeze, he started on a gallop, raising a
+cloud of dust, scattering the country people and slaves, who scurried to
+the sides of the road to give him passage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+GREEK AND CELTIBERIAN.
+
+
+Actæon told no one of his meeting. Moreover, after a few days he had
+almost forgotten it. Seeing the city tranquil, busy in preparation for
+the great Panathenaic festival, trusting in its protecting alliance with
+Rome, the recollection of the interview with the African assumed the
+vagueness of a dream.
+
+Perhaps Hannibal's words were only the arrogant boasts of youth. Hated
+by the rich of his country, and with no better followers than those he
+himself could procure, he was surely not going to attempt the audacious
+enterprise of attacking a city allied to Rome, thus violating the
+treaties with Carthage.
+
+Besides, the Greek was living in a period of sweet intoxications; ever
+in Sónnica's arms in the shade of the peristyle; listening to the lyres
+of the slaves and the flutes of the flute players, and watching the
+dancers from Gades, while his beloved crowned him with flowers, or
+sprinkled costly perfumes upon him.
+
+Sometimes the restless spirit of the wanderer and man of war, trained to
+action and strife, manifested itself in the midst of this effeminacy.
+Then he would flee to the city. There he conversed with Mopsus, the
+archer, and listened to the grumblers in the Forum, who, not suspecting
+that Hannibal had passed through Saguntum, jested at the possibility of
+the African chief attempting anything against them, and gloated in their
+power, trusting in the strength of their walls, and still more in the
+protection of Rome, which would repeat on the coasts of Iberia their
+triumphs over the Carthaginians in Sicily.
+
+Actæon contracted a great friendship with Alorcus the Celtiberian. He
+admired the fiery pride of the barbarian, his nobility of sentiment, and
+the almost religious respect he displayed for the cultured Grecian
+woman. His father, now old and sick, was a petty king reigning over some
+tribes which pastured great flocks of horses and cattle in the mountains
+of Celtiberia. He was the sole heir, and some day would be obliged to
+rule that rude people with their ferocious customs, who, in perpetual
+brigandage, made war for the sake of stealing horses, and in years of
+famine came down from the mountains to despoil the farmers on the
+plains. His father had brought him to Saguntum when a child, and the
+Grecian customs produced such an effect in him that, when he had grown
+to manhood it became his most earnest desire to return to the city on
+the coast, and there he lived with a few servants of his tribe and his
+magnificent horses, deaf to the affectionate calls of the old chieftain
+drawing near to death, and being esteemed by the Saguntines as almost a
+fellow citizen.
+
+He was eager to figure in the festival of the Panathenæa that the Greeks
+of the city should admire him galloping in the races to conquer the
+crown of olives. He was grateful to Actæon for using his influence with
+Sónnica to secure the consent of the magistrates that the Celtiberian
+might enter among the horsemen in the great procession that would climb
+to the Acropolis carrying the first sheaves of wheat to the temple of
+Minerva.
+
+In those days when the Athenian languished amidst songs and perfumes,
+overwhelmed by the caresses of the Greek woman, who seemed to blaze with
+the fire of the last passion of her life, he sprang from his couch at
+dawn, slung his bow across his back, and followed by two handsome dogs
+tramped through the Saguntine domain, giving chase to the wildcats which
+came down from the surrounding mountains.
+
+On one of these excursions he had an adventure. It was noon; the sun's
+warm light fell upon the land, and the panting dogs halted, barking at a
+grove of ancient fig trees with branches sweeping the ground, forming
+shady canopies of dense foliage. Actæon, quieting the animals,
+approached cautiously with bow ready to draw, and as he parted the
+curtain of leaves he saw in the centre of an open space enclosed by the
+trees his two friends Rhanto and Erotion.
+
+The boy was seated on the ground before a pile of red clay which he was
+carefully modeling, wrinkling his brow, and whistling intently. The
+shepherdess, completely nude, with the assurance of healthy and innocent
+beauty, happy in being admired, was smiling at Erotion, her cheeks
+flushing lightly every time the artist raised his eyes from the clay to
+the model.
+
+Actæon drank in with his eyes the form of her vernal body. He felt the
+enthusiasm of the Greeks in the presence of beauty, intensified by the
+ardor of manhood. He admired her bosom, tender and small as buds, barely
+perceptible; her lightly curving hips; the line from her throat to her
+feet soft and undulating, which served to give more elegance to her
+chaste appearance; the grace of strong and beautiful girlhood, in
+addition to the attraction of sex. With the taste of a Greek of
+refinement he rejoiced in the freshness of her form, comparing it
+mentally with Sónnica's opulent but somewhat over-ripe charms.
+
+Rhanto, as she saw the Greek's head appear between the leaves, uttered a
+piercing scream and scurried behind a fig tree in search of her clothes.
+Bells tinkled among the foliage and the goats thrust forward their
+glossy muzzles, their moist eyes, and curving horns.
+
+"Is it you, Athenian?" said Erotion, arising with a gesture of ill
+humor. "You have frightened Rhanto by your unexpected presence."
+
+Then he added maliciously, "Rhanto is your slave. I am well aware of
+that. And I also know that you are the master of the pottery where I
+work. You have risen much since that morning when we met you on the
+highway of the Serpent. You have dominion over Sónnica the rich. Love
+has made her your slave."
+
+"I am not master of anyone," said the Greek simply. "I am your friend,
+and I do not forget that the first bread I ate in this city I received
+from your hands."
+
+Erotion seemed to gain confidence at these words.
+
+"What are you looking at, Athenian? That clay? How you must laugh at me!
+I am convinced that I am worthless as an artist. Yet there are moments
+when I feel myself capable of a great work; I conceive it; I see it in
+my mind as clearly as if I had it erected before me; but when I put my
+hands to the clay I realize my lack of skill, and I am ready to weep.
+Ah! if only I could have gone to Greece!"
+
+His words sounded like a lament; he stared angrily at the pile of clay
+which had crudely begun to assume the outlines of Rhanto's form.
+
+"If you only knew how I had to urge her before she would consent to show
+the divine nudity of her body. Do not think it strange. She comes of a
+race of barbarians. She fears the club of her grandfather, the chief
+shepherd, that would fall upon her body if he should discover her as you
+did a few minutes ago. I explained to her about our sculptors, before
+whom the most famous hetæræ contended for the honor of disrobing; and
+the certainty that her mistress, Sónnica, had done the same in Athens
+was the only thing that decided her. But how can one copy her divine
+body? How imbue molded clay with the life which throbs beneath her
+skin?"
+
+In his despair he threatened the clay figurine as if he would crush it
+under his feet. Then he took courage, and said resolutely:
+
+"But I will be stronger than my untrained hands. I will work years and
+years if necessary, until I see the divine form of my Rhanto reproduced
+in all its beauty. I will not return to the pottery, although the old
+archer may kill me with blows. I began my statuette hoping that it might
+figure in the Panathenaic procession. Rhanto would carry it on her head,
+and the multitude would crowd around to see it. I only hope for a moment
+of inspiration, a fortunate moment. Who knows if to-morrow the muses may
+not breathe upon me, and that I shall arise with the skill in my hands
+to execute my dream?"
+
+Frankly hurling himself down from the pinnacle of his imagination he
+told the Athenian his ambition.
+
+"If I manage to finish this statue the future will be all my own, and
+some day my name will be engraved in the Forum, and the people of the
+city will read it with admiration. I will free myself from the pottery
+forever. I will present my statue to Sónnica, after it has been admired
+by all Saguntum in the Panathenæa, and your lover, who is so generous,
+will give me passage in one of her ships. I shall see Athens. I will
+admire what you have seen, and then--then! Look, Actæon, through these
+leaves. What do you see on the hill of the Acropolis? Nothing. Walls of
+great stones, columns, roofs of temples, but not a single statue to
+proclaim from afar the glory of the city. They say that upon the
+Acropolis of Athens rises the gigantic figure of Pallas, all of bronze
+and gold, with a lance that seems to burn in the sunlight, and that it
+guides the mariners like a flame from many stadia out at sea. Is that
+true? Many, many nights have I dreamt of something like that, and I see
+Erotion returned from Athens a great artist, and raising a colossal work
+upon our Acropolis. The bulls of Geryon, enormous, gigantic, with gilded
+horns shining like flames, and behind them Hercules, covered with the
+skin of the Nemean lion, like Theron, his priest, in the great festivals
+of Saguntum, and his club, menacing on the height, shall be a signal to
+all the navigators of the Sucronian gulf. Ah! If only some day I realize
+this achievement!"
+
+Rhanto had come out of her hiding-place covered by a tunic, and she
+timidly approached Actæon, looking at him respectfully, and blushing at
+the same time at the recollection of the condition in which he had
+surprised her. Erotion, excited by the telling of his hopes, showed
+eagerness to resume his task. He glanced at his work, and seemed to
+disrobe the shepherdess with his eyes.
+
+The Athenian understood that his presence disturbed the young people.
+
+"Work, Erotion!" he said. "Be a great artist if you can. The sculptors
+of Athens would envy you your model. Now that I know that you hide here
+I will not again annoy you with my presence."
+
+And so it was. He left the grove of fig trees permitting the two to work
+undisturbed in their mysterious retreat, Erotion spurred on by ambition,
+Rhanto submissive from love.
+
+The day of the Panathenæa came at last.
+
+The fame of the solemn festival had spread beyond the confines of
+Saguntum, and the rude Celtiberians assembled by caravans to witness the
+diversions of the rustic people.
+
+The workers from the domain abandoned the labor of the harvest, and,
+dressed in their best, began streaming into the city at sunrise to
+attend the festival of the goddess of the fields. They carried great
+sheaves of wheat, interspersed with flowers, to offer to the goddess,
+and white fleeced lambs adorned with ribbons to sacrifice on her altar.
+
+By sunrise the city was filled with a multicolored crowd which gathered
+in the Forum, or hurried along the river banks to see the horse races.
+
+A great stadium had been formed near the Bætis-Perkes in which the
+principal citizens of Saguntum were to contest for the triumph. The
+senators, on long benches, and guarded by a group of mercenaries,
+presided over the festival. At one end of the race-track the sons of the
+merchants and rich agriculturists, the entire youth of Saguntum, almost
+nude, awaited the signal, leaning on their light lances, and holding the
+bridles of their barebacked horses which snorted and champed the bit,
+scenting the coming contest.
+
+The signal to start was given, and placing their left feet on the
+handles of their lances all sprang simultaneously upon their chargers,
+dashing forward in a compact squadron along the track. The immense crowd
+broke into acclamations at sight of the bizarre riders who leaning
+forward almost lay on their horses' necks, as if forming a single body
+with them, waving their lances, quickening their gallop with shouts, and
+wrapped in a cloud of dust through which the multitude could barely make
+out the straining legs and the bellies of the animals which were nearly
+touching the ground. The wild race lasted long. The less skillful
+riders, and those with poorer mounts, were being out-stripped; the
+squadron was diminishing visibly. He who should remain longest on the
+track, ever in advance of the others, would win the crown, and the
+people made bets on the Celtiberian Alorcus, and on the Athenian Actæon
+who figured from the first instant at the head of the riders.
+
+The citizens who did not wish to wait in the sun for the end of the race
+followed the river bank until they reached the walls, in the shade of
+which the youths were wrestling or engaging in boxing matches in
+competition for the prize for dexterity. Others of more pacific turn
+went to the Forum, where beneath the porticos the young aristocrats were
+competing for the laurel crown offered for the most skilled in music and
+song. Seated on ivory chairs, attended by their handsome slave boys who
+fanned them with branches of myrtle, Lachares and his friends played the
+flute or thrummed the lyre, singing Greek verses with sweet and
+effeminate intonations. In the gathering, some laughed, mimicking the
+softness of their voices, but others, indignant, compelled silence,
+overcome by the charm which art, even in this womanish guise, exercised
+over their uncultured minds.
+
+Late in the morning the clamor from the enthusiastic multitude filled
+the broad space of the Forum like reverberating thunder. It was the
+people returning from the races, acclaiming the victor. The arrogant
+Alorcus, dragged off the back of his horse, was borne on the shoulders
+of the most enthusiastic. The olive crown encircled his tossed and dusty
+hair. Actæon was beside him, celebrating his triumph fraternally,
+without a touch of envy.
+
+The singers, swept away before this wave of enthusiasm, made off with
+their chairs and instruments. The crown of laurel was bound upon
+Lachares in the midst of general indifference, and he received no other
+congratulations than those of his slaves. All the enthusiasm of the city
+was lavished upon the winner in the races; the people were inflamed with
+admiration for strength and skill.
+
+The solemn moment had come; the _pompa_ was about to begin. In the
+merchant's ward slaves hung red and green bunting from roof to roof
+which shaded the streets. The windows and terraces were draped with
+multicolored tapestries of complicated design, and slave women placed
+censers in the doorways for burning perfumes.
+
+The rich Grecian women, followed by their servants who carried sedan
+chairs, went in search of places where they could sit on the steps of
+the temples or in the shops at the Forum, and the people ranged
+themselves along the houses, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the
+procession which was forming outside the walls. Flocks of children
+completely nude ran through the streets waving branches of myrtle,
+shouting acclamations in honor of the goddess.
+
+Suddenly the people stirred, bursting into cries of enthusiasm. The
+pageant in honor of Minerva had entered through the gate of the Road of
+the Serpent and was advancing slowly toward the Forum, through the ward
+of the merchants, who were the organizers of the festival.
+
+In advance marched venerable old men with long beards, dressed in white,
+with voluminous mantles, their snowy hair crowned with green leaves, and
+carrying olive branches in their hands. Then came the more arrogant
+citizens, armed with lance and shield, the visor of the Grecian helmet
+drawn down over their eyes, proudly displaying the strong muscles of
+their arms and limbs. Next followed the most beautiful youths of the
+city, crowned with flowers, singing hymns in praise of the goddess;
+choruses of nude children, dancing with unaffected grace, clasping
+hands, forming a chain of complicated combinations. Now appeared the
+maidens, daughters of the rich, clad only in a tunic of finest linen,
+which displayed their youthful charms. They carried in their hands as
+offerings dainty willow baskets covered by veils which hid the
+instruments for the sacrifice to the goddess, and with these the loaves
+made of new wheat and the handfuls of golden ears which were to be
+deposited on her altar. To clearly mark the dignity of the rich virgins,
+slave women marched behind them bearing their sedan chairs inlaid with
+ivory, and the striped silk sunshades with gay colored tassels at the
+ends of the staves.
+
+A group of slave women chosen for their beauty, with Rhanto in the
+premier rank, carried on their heads great amphoræ filled with honey and
+water for the libations in honor of the goddess. Behind them marched the
+musicians and singers of the city, crowned with roses, clad in flowing
+white vestments. They swept the lyre, and played the flutes, and some
+Greeks from Sónnica's pottery, who had been wandering rhapsodists, sang
+fragments from the epic of the Trojan war before the barbarian throngs,
+who scarcely understood them, but admired the harmonious cadence of
+Homer's verses.
+
+The people pressed forward, craning their necks to get a better view of
+the salii, the dancing devotees of Mars, who advanced nude, armed with
+sword and shield. Slung from the stick laid across their shoulders, two
+slaves were carrying a row of bronze shields, on which another slave was
+beating with a mallet, and keeping time to these harsh sounds the salii
+danced, making feigned attacks, and raining blows with their swords on
+the shield of the pretended adversary, uttering ferocious shouts, and
+also performing pantomimes to recall the main episodes in the life of
+the goddess Minerva.
+
+Behind the clamor, which set the streets in a commotion, causing the
+populace to roar with enthusiasm excited by the warlike display, came a
+group of girls holding a peplus of finest texture on which the principal
+Grecian women of the city had embroidered the combat of Minerva with the
+Titans. It was the offering which was to remain in the new temple of the
+goddess as a perpetual token of the festival.
+
+Closing the procession, the sacred squadron advanced, the richest
+citizens, mounted on fiery horses, which, with their evolutions
+compelled the crowd to fall back against the walls. They presented a
+brave display, making their steeds rear on their hind feet, guided only
+by the bridle, riding bareback, pressing their knees into the horses'
+ribs. The eldest of the horsemen wore huge hats in the Athenian fashion.
+The young men wore the winged helmet of Mercury or went bareheaded,
+their short curls bound by a fire-colored ribbon. Alorcus wore the crown
+he had won, and Actæon, riding beside him on one of the Celtiberian's
+horses, smiled at the crowd, which regarded him with a certain respect
+as if he were Sónnica's husband and in possession of her enormous
+riches. The horsemen gazed with pride at the swords which hung at their
+sides and clanked against the flanks of their horses, and they took in
+with a glance the high Acropolis and the city lying at its feet, as if
+expressing confidence in their strength, and faith in the tranquility in
+which Saguntum might dwell, sure of protection.
+
+The crowd fired with enthusiasm by the brilliant procession, acclaimed
+Sónnica. Surrounded by her slave women, she gazed down from the terrace
+of her great building in the ward of the merchants where she stored her
+merchandise. She was the organizer, the one who bore the cost of the
+peplus of Minerva, she it was who had transplanted to Saguntum the
+beautiful festival of Athens. Fragrant odors from the censers were flung
+upon the air; a shower of roses fell from the windows upon the maidens;
+arms glistened in the sunlight, and in moments when the people were
+silent the sounds of lyres and flutes floated on the breeze,
+accompanying with soft melodies the voices of the Homeric rhapsodists.
+
+The crude Celtiberians, gathered to witness the festival, remained
+silent in astonishment at the procession which dazzled them with its
+glitter of arms and jewels and the multicolored confusion of costumes.
+The natives of Saguntum congratulated their fellow-citizens, the Greeks,
+admiring the splendor of the festival.
+
+The festivity did not cease with the passing of the brilliant
+procession. In the afternoon the diversion of the populace, the festival
+of the poor, would take place. The race of the flaming torch would be
+held along the walls. Mariners, potters, laborers, all the free and poor
+people of the port and the country in wild career, would carry lighted
+torches in memory of Prometheus. He who accomplished the feat of making
+the round of the city, keeping his torch still burning, would be
+declared winner; those who let theirs go out, or who traveled slowly to
+protect the flames, would be greeted with hisses and blows by the crowd.
+Even the rich gave vent to enthusiasm over this popular festival which
+produced so much merriment.
+
+Near the Acropolis, when the procession was wholly within its walls,
+Alorcus discerned among the people a Celtiberian mounted on a horse
+covered with foam and sweat, beckoning him to approach.
+
+Alorcus, turning away from the troop of horsemen, trotted towards him.
+
+"What do you want?" he asked, in the harsh language of his country.
+
+"I am one of your tribe, and your father is my chief. I have just
+reached Saguntum after traveling three days to say to you; 'Alorcus,
+your father is dying, and he calls for you.' The ancients of your tribe
+have ordered me not to return without you."
+
+Actæon had followed his friend, breaking away from the sacred squadron,
+and witnessed the dialogue without understanding a word, although he
+guessed something disagreeable by the Celtiberian's pale face.
+
+"Bad news?" he asked Alorcus.
+
+"My father is dying, and he has sent for me."
+
+"What shall you do?"
+
+"I must go immediately. My people demand my presence."
+
+The two horsemen began the descent to the city, followed by the
+Celtiberian messenger.
+
+Actæon sympathized with his comrade's emotion. At the same time the
+curiosity of the traveler, so often aroused by the Celtiberian's tales,
+was awakened within him.
+
+"Do you wish me to accompany you, Alorcus?"
+
+The young man received the proposition with a look of gratitude. Then
+he declined, saying that he must depart in haste; the Greek might wish
+to bid farewell to Sónnica; perhaps the separation would be a grief to
+her; and he desired to start on the journey at once.
+
+"We will omit the farewell," said the Greek in his light, happy manner.
+"Sónnica will be resigned when I make known to her through a slave that
+I shall be absent for some days. Do you wish to leave immediately? I
+will accompany you. I am curious to see that land with its strange
+customs, and its valiant and sturdy inhabitants, of whose brave deeds
+you have so often told me."
+
+They crossed the city. The streets were deserted. The entire population
+had gone up to the Acropolis. Actæon stopped a moment before Sónnica's
+warehouses to give the news of his journey to her slaves, and then he
+followed his friend, riding forth from the city.
+
+Alorcus lodged in one of the inns in the suburb, an enormous edifice
+with extensive stables and broad courtyards, where continuously rang the
+diverse tongues of the interior of the Peninsula, hoarsened and made
+strident by dickering for merchandise and the bartering of beasts. Five
+men of the tribe accompanied the young Celtiberian during his stay in
+Saguntum, taking care of his horses and serving him as free domestics.
+
+On learning that they were to depart these sons of the mountains shouted
+with joy. They had languished with inactivity in that rich and fruitful
+country amid customs which they detested, and they made preparations for
+the journey in haste.
+
+The sun was setting when they started. Alorcus and Actæon rode in
+advance, their mantles thrown over their heads, padded linen
+breastplates to protect their chests after the Celtiberian fashion, and
+short broadswords, and leather shields hanging at their sides. The five
+servants and the messenger brought up the rear, armed with long lances,
+driving the mules laden with Alorcus' clothing and provisions.
+
+Throughout the afternoon they traveled upon the roads, being still in
+the Saguntine domain, and they passed cultivated and fruitful fields,
+beautiful villas and compact little towns clinging close around the
+tower which served them as defense. When night closed in they camped
+close to a miserable village in the mountains. There the territory of
+Saguntum ended. Beyond lay the tribes which were almost constantly
+warring with the people of the coast.
+
+Next morning the Greek beheld a wholly different landscape. The sea and
+the green plains lay behind him, and he saw only mountains and more
+mountains, some covered with great pine forests, others red, with bluffs
+of bluish stone, overgrown with dense thickets which, brushed by the
+passing caravan, sent forth clouds of frightened birds, while terrified
+rabbits scampered under the very horses' hoofs.
+
+The trails were not the work of man. The beasts laboriously picked their
+way in the tracks left by former travelers; they often twisted around
+masses of rock fallen from the summits, and again they forded streams
+which ran across their path. They skirted mountains; they climbed
+heights into a silent region seldom penetrated by man, where eagles
+screamed, flapping their wings in anger at this invasion. They rode down
+into gorges, deep crevices, in which reigned a sepulchral penumbra and
+where buzzards hopped close by the dead body of some abandoned animal.
+
+In the distance they saw beside a stream in a little valley, a group of
+mud-walled cabins with straw-thatched roofs, with an open hole to let
+light into the dwelling and to give exit to the smoke. The women, bony
+and dressed in skins, surrounded by naked children, came out of their
+hovels to stare at the passing caravan, with wild expressions of alarm
+as if the approach of strangers could only bring misfortune. Others
+younger, barelegged, with ragged aprons hanging from their waists, were
+reaping the stunted wheat, which barely rose like a golden film above
+the sterile, whitish earth. Girls, strong and ugly, with masculine
+limbs, came down from the mountains, bearing great bundles of fagots on
+their backs, while the men sat in the shade of nut and oak trees
+braiding bull-tendons for making their shields, or they practiced
+hurling, darts and handling the lance, their tangled hair falling over
+bronzed and bearded faces.
+
+On the highest points along the way appeared warriors of doubtful
+aspect, a mixture of bandit and shepherd, armed with long lances and
+carrying leather shields, mounted on small horses with long and filthy
+hair. They looked the company over, and after measuring its strength,
+and seeing it would be difficult to conquer, they turned back to their
+sheep pasturing in the deep mountain gorges filled with a tangle of
+shrubbery. The innumerable flocks of lambs and herds of cattle,
+accustomed to the wild solitude, fled terrified as they heard the
+passing of the caravan. Bevies of quail ran in search of food like gray
+ants among the rosemary and thyme growing on the slopes, and flew away
+at the sound of the horses' hoofs, whirring like a hiss over the
+travelers' heads.
+
+Actæon was interested in the rude customs of these people. The cabins
+were made of red adobe, or of stones laid in clay, and roofed with
+branches. The women, uglier and more energetic than the men, performed
+the fatiguing labor. Only boys worked, imitating their mothers. Young
+men early grasped the lance, and under the direction of their elders
+learned to fight on foot or on horseback; they broke the colts,
+springing to the ground, and mounting again while the horse was running,
+and they trained themselves to remain kneeling motionless on the horses'
+backs with their arms free to wield the sword and shield.
+
+In some villages the party was received with traditional hospitality,
+and was welcomed even more affectionately on recognizing Alorcus, the
+heir of Endovellicus, the respected chieftain of the tribes of Baraeco
+which had pastured their flocks for centuries on the banks of the Jalón.
+When night came they gave up to them their best beds of woven thongs
+covered with fluffy dried grasses; they impaled a calf on a spit,
+turning it before an enormous bonfire, for regaling the caravan, and
+during the journey the women detained them at the entrance to their
+huts, offering them in coarse earthen vessels the bitter beer brewed in
+the valleys, and the bread made of acorn flour.
+
+Alorcus explained the customs of his people to the Athenian. They
+gathered acorns, their chief food, exposing them to the sun until well
+dried. They husked and ground them, and stored the supply of flour for
+six months. This bread, with game, and the milk of their animals,
+constituted their principal food. At intervals pestilence robbed them of
+their flocks, the crops failed, and hunger decimated the tribes; then
+the strong devoured the weak. Alorcus remembered hearing this from the
+elders of his tribe as having occurred in remote times when Neton,
+Autubel, Nabi, and other divinities of the land, irritated against their
+people, had sent upon them these fearful punishments.
+
+The young Celtiberian continued telling of the customs. Some of the
+women who worked in the fields with so much vigor had perhaps given
+birth to a child the day before. As soon as born they immersed it in the
+nearest river, so that by this act, which in many cases caused death, it
+would grow vigorous and insensible to cold; and while the mother
+resolutely arose and continued her work, the husband took her place in
+the bed, lying down with the newly born child. The woman, still barely
+convalescent, took care of the two, surrounding the hale and hearty
+husband with comforts, as if in gratitude for the fruit he had given
+her.
+
+Several times the caravan on its march passed men lying rigid and
+groaning on couches of herbs gathered by the wayside. Flies buzzed about
+their heads in clouds; an amphora of water stood within their reach. A
+child squatted near the couch brushing away the insects with a branch.
+They were sick people whom their relatives exposed by the roadside
+according to ancient custom, partly to implore the clemency of the
+divinities by exhibiting their misery, and also in order that passing
+travelers might advise a remedy, thus transmitting prescriptions from
+distant countries.
+
+The strong men bathed in horse urine to harden their muscles. Their only
+luxury consisted in weapons. They admired as priceless jewels the bronze
+swords brought from the north of the Peninsula, and those of steel made
+by the people of Bilbilis and tempered in the sands of their famous
+river. The flexible cuirasses, formed by several thicknesses of
+superposed linen, or those of leather, decorated with nails, were
+defensive arms which the Celtiberian never laid aside, not even when in
+bed. They slept dressed in the sagum, the metal greaves on their legs,
+and their weapons within reach of the hand, ready to fight the instant
+the slightest alarm might disturb their sleep.
+
+After three days of travel the caravan entered the territory belonging
+to the tribes of Alorcus. The mountains separated on both sides of the
+Jalón, forming smiling valleys covered by tall grasses, through which
+ran herds of wild horses with curling manes and waving tails. The women
+came out of the villages to greet Alorcus, and the men, grasping lances,
+mounted their horses and joined the caravan. In the first village where
+they stopped an old man told Alorcus that his father, the powerful
+Endovellicus, was dying, and in the next through which they passed in a
+few hours, he heard that the great chieftain had died at daybreak.
+
+All the warriors of the tribe, herders and farmers, followed them on
+horseback. When they reached the village where the kinglet had lived,
+the escort had grown to a small army.
+
+In the doorway of the paternal house, a low structure of red stones
+roofed with logs, Alorcus saw his sisters in dresses made of flowers and
+wearing around their necks and over their heads cage-like collars from
+the bars of which hung mourning veils.
+
+The sisters of Alorcus, as well as the women who accompanied them, the
+wives of the chief warriors of the tribe, hid their grief at the death
+of the chieftain, and smiled as if it were the eve of a festival. Old
+age was a disgrace among the Celtiberians, who held life in contempt,
+and fought for diversion when not engaged in war. To die in bed was
+deemed dishonorable, and the only thing which somewhat disturbed the
+serenity of the family of Endovellicus was that so famous a warrior, the
+terror of neighboring clans, should have died with white hair, his life
+flickering out like a wasted torch, after having galloped his steed
+through so many combats, hurling his sword like a thunderbolt upon the
+enemy.
+
+Actæon's dress and his countenance attracted the curious gaze of all the
+tribe. Many of the Celtiberians had never seen a Greek, and they looked
+upon this one with hostile eyes, recalling the clever tricks and sharp
+dealings of the Hellenic merchants experienced by their brethren when
+they went down to Saguntum to sell silver from the mines.
+
+Alorcus reassured his people.
+
+"He is my brother," he said, in the language of the country. "We have
+dwelt together in Saguntum. Besides, he is not a native of that city. He
+is from very far away, from a land where the men are almost gods, and he
+has journeyed hither with me to become acquainted with you."
+
+The women gazed at Actæon in astonishment on hearing the almost divine
+origin which Alorcus attributed to him.
+
+The members of the caravan had dismounted, and entered the immense log
+structure which had served the chief for a palace. A vast room blackened
+by smoke, lighted only by narrow apertures like loopholes, served as a
+place of reunion and council for the warriors of the tribe. At one end
+was an enormous stone, upon which was burning a wood fire, while a great
+opening in the roof did service as a chimney. Set in one wall was a
+stone slab, with the figure of the divinity of the tribe strangling two
+lions rudely sculptured upon it. Hung along the walls were lances and
+shields, skins of wild beasts, bleached craniums and twisted horns of
+large game. A stone bench ran along the sides of the room making way
+near the fireplace for a high masonry seat covered by a bear skin. Here
+the chieftain was accustomed to sit.
+
+The warriors took their places on the bench as they entered.
+
+One old man taking Alorcus by the hand, guided him to a place of honor.
+
+"Sit here, son of Endovellicus. You are his only heir and you shall be
+our chief. May his valor and his prudence dwell in you."
+
+The other warriors assented to the elder's words with grave nods of
+approval.
+
+"Where is my father's body?" asked Alorcus, filled with emotion by the
+simple ceremony.
+
+"Since the sun set it has slept in the meadow where you learned to break
+horses and to use arms. The young men of the tribe are keeping guard
+over it. The obsequies worthy of so great a chief will take place at
+sunrise. Then, as our new king, you will give us counsel upon the great
+affairs of the tribe."
+
+Alorcus compelled the Greek to sit beside him. The women filed in with
+torches, since no more than a dim twilight was produced by the pale,
+diffused glow filtering through the narrow slits in the wall. The
+sisters of Alorcus, with lowered eyes, their flowery tunics floating
+about their strong, virginal forms, passed before the warriors, offering
+drinking horns filled with metheglin and beer. The men imbibed
+enormously without losing self-control. They recounted the deeds of
+Endovellicus as if he had died many years before, and they told of the
+great enterprises in which his successor would surely lead them hinting
+again and again, in mysterious words, at a subject with which they must
+deal in the council on the morrow.
+
+Supper was brought. The Celtiberians were not accustomed to eating at
+table like the people of the coast. They remained seated on the stone
+bench. The women placed beside them a wheaten loaf, instead of the acorn
+bread which was commonly eaten, this being an extraordinary feast.
+Others passed a great vessel filled with chunks of roasted meat still
+dripping blood, and each warrior speared a piece with the point of his
+knife. Horns overflowing with liquor circulated from hand to hand, and
+Actæon accepted with graceful mien whatever his neighbors, in hospitable
+phrase which he could not understand, offered him.
+
+Supper being ended, the young men of the tribe came in with trumpets and
+flutes, and began to play a bizarre air which combined the joy of the
+chase with the fury of their charge upon the enemy in battle. The
+guests were aroused, and the youngest among them, springing into the
+centre of the room, began to dance with gymnastic freedom. It was the
+dance with which the Celtiberians terminated their banquets, a violent
+exercise which put their muscles to the test, and caused them to regain
+their spirit even in moments of greatest depression.
+
+Long before midnight the warriors retired, leaving Alorcus and Actæon
+alone in the great smoke-filled room, where sputtered the torches,
+tingeing the barbaric decorations on the walls with a blood-like hue.
+They slept on couches of aromatic herbs, without removing their
+clothing, their weapons near them, as slept all the tribe, ever fearful
+of attack from neighbors tempted by the multitude of their flocks.
+
+At daybreak they went down to the meadow where the body of Endovellicus
+was exposed. The whole tribe was gathered on the plain near the river;
+the young men on horseback with their lances, and in full armor; the old
+men seated in the shade of the oak trees; the women and children near
+the pyre of logs upon which lay the corpse of their chief.
+
+Endovellicus was arrayed in his war costume. His faded hair escaped
+beneath the borders of his triple-crested helmet; his silvery beard
+rested upon a cuirass of bronze scales; his muscular arms were naked,
+and his hands were clasped over the Celtiberian sword, short and
+slender, with broadened point, and his legs were bound by the broad
+straps of his sandals. His shield, engraved with a representation of the
+gods of the tribe struggling with two lions, served as a cushion for his
+head.
+
+When the two young men arrived the same elder who had spoken to Alorcus
+the day before advanced. He was the wisest of the tribe, and had
+counselled Endovellicus many times before undertaking audacious
+expeditions. Under extraordinary circumstances he had laid open with his
+sacred knife the viscera of his prisoners to read the future in the
+quiverings of their entrails. Again he had cut off the hands of the
+conquered to dedicate them to the god of the tribe, nailing them to the
+chieftain's door to placate the divinity. Mystery used him as a
+mouthpiece and all the tribe regarded him with awe and fear, as if he
+were capable of changing the course of the sun and of destroying in a
+night the crops of an enemy.
+
+"Advance, son of Endovellicus!" he said solemnly. "Look upon your people
+who choose you as most valiant and most worthy to succeed your father!"
+
+He questioned the assemblage with a look, and the warriors answered by
+beating on their shields, uttering the same shouts with which they
+infuriated themselves on plunging into battle.
+
+"You have become our king!" continued the elder. "You shall be father
+and guardian of your people! That you may fulfill your mission receive
+the great inheritance of your father! Bring hither the shield."
+
+Two young men climbed to the top of the pyre, and raising Endovellicus'
+head, they brought down the shield engraved with the image of the god,
+and delivered it to Alorcus.
+
+"With this shield," continued the venerable warrior, "you shall protect
+your people from the blows of the enemy. Bring hither the sword!"
+
+The young men brought down the sword, drawing it forth from the stiff
+fingers of Endovellicus.
+
+"Bind it upon you, Alorcus," continued the wizard. "With this you shall
+defend us, and may it fall like a thunderbolt wherever the destiny of
+your people points! Advance, youthful king!"
+
+Guided by the elder, Alorcus stepped forward to the pyre upon which his
+father lay. He turned away his face that he might not behold the body,
+fearing an outburst of grief which would force him to shed tears before
+his tribe.
+
+"Swear by Neton, by Autubel, by Nabi, by Caulece, by all the gods of our
+tribe, and of all the tribes that people this earth and hate the
+foreigners who one day came from across the sea to rob us of our riches.
+Swear to be faithful to your people and ever to obey the counsels of the
+warriors of your tribe! Swear it by the body of your father, which soon
+will be only ashes!"
+
+Alorcus took the oath, and the warriors pounded upon their shields
+again, uttering acclamations of joy.
+
+The old warrior, with extraordinary vigor, climbed upon the logs and
+searched beneath the cuirass of the corpse.
+
+"Take this, Alorcus!" he said, on descending. He handed the new
+chieftain a slender copper chain from which hung a disk-like case of the
+same metal. "This is the greatest inheritance from your father--the
+manumission which accompanied him at all times. There is not a warrior
+in Celtiberia who does not carry upon his person his poison so that he
+may die rather than become the slave of the conqueror. I prepared this
+for your father. I spent a whole moon extracting it from the wild
+apium, and one drop of it will kill like a lightning flash. If some day
+you fall vanquished, drink and die before your people behold their
+chieftain with a hand stricken off and serving the enemy as a slave."
+
+Alorcus slipped the chain over his head, concealing the heirloom in his
+breast. Then he returned to Actæon, beneath the oaks where the ancients
+of the tribe were grouped.
+
+The young men in the meadow, apprentices in the art of warfare, ran
+around the pyre with lighted torches. The flaming candlewood licked the
+resinous logs, and soon the smoke and flames began to enwrap the corpse.
+
+The warriors most famous for valor and strength advanced, making their
+horses caracole round about the fire.
+
+Waving their lances, they proclaimed with hoarse cries the deeds of the
+departed chief, the body of the tribe joining in the acclamation. They
+related the innumerable combats from which he had come forth victor; the
+audacious expeditions on which he had caught the enemy off their guard
+at night, burning their dwellings, and leading off interminable strings
+of captives; the flocks captured, for which there was barely
+pasture-ground in the territories belonging to the tribe; his colossal
+strength; the quickness with which he mastered the wildest colt; and the
+prudence which he demonstrated in all his counsels.
+
+"He covered the doors of our houses with the hands of our enemies,"
+shouted a warrior, galloping like a phantom through the smoke of the
+funeral pyre.
+
+The multitude shouted with an intonation of lament.
+
+"Endovellicus! Endovellicus!"
+
+"All the tribes feared him, and his name was respected like that of a
+god!"
+
+The multitude repeated the name of the chief over and over, as if
+weeping.
+
+"With his hands of stone he would fell the bull in full career, and
+smite off the head of the enemy with a stroke of his sword!"
+
+"Endovellicus! Endovellicus!"
+
+Thus proceeded the last rites to the chieftain. The flames from the bier
+rose straight into the heavens clouding the blue sky with its pall of
+smoke, and the mourners tireless in heralding the deeds of their leader,
+passed and repassed like black demons crowned with sparks, making their
+horses leap over the flaming wood. The funeral pyre fell overwhelming
+the remains of Endovellicus with ashes and charring logs, while around
+the embers of the fire commenced the combat in honor of the dead.
+
+The warriors advanced on horseback with slack rein, the shield held
+before the breast, the sword raised high, and they fought like
+irreconcilable enemies. The closest comrades, brothers at arms, dealt
+each other tremendous blows, with the enthusiasm of a people which turns
+fighting into a diversion. They must shed blood to glorify the memory of
+the deceased with greater pomp. Horses fell at the shock of the
+encounter and the riders continued the struggle on foot, wrestling body
+to body, making the shields resound with the force of the blows. When
+some of the warriors had retired covered with blood, and the combat had
+assumed the character of a general battle, in which, aroused by the
+spectacle, the women and children participated, Alorcus ordered the
+trumpets to sound the retreat, and he hurled himself among the
+combatants to separate the more tenacious.
+
+Thus ended the funeral rites. The slaves of the tribe flung the remnants
+of the bonfire into a ditch, and the crowd, seeing the festival over,
+before retiring to their villages, held aloft once more their horns
+brimming with beer, to drink to the honor of the new-made king.
+
+The principal warriors turned toward the dwelling of the chief to hold
+council.
+
+The Athenian traveled beside Alorcus, manifesting astonishment at the
+barbaric and warlike customs of the Celtiberians. As he could not
+understand their language, the warriors were not alarmed at seeing him
+take a seat in the council hall near their new chieftain.
+
+The wizard discoursed at length to Alorcus, amid the respectful silence
+of the warriors. Actæon understood that he was giving an account of
+extraordinary events which had occurred in the tribe a few days before
+the arrival of the new king. Perhaps some call from friendly tribes,
+some fruitful expedition planned by the more venturesome.
+
+He saw the face of Alorcus darken, as if they were telling him something
+painful, repugnant to his feelings. The assemblage looked at him
+fixedly, betraying in their eyes enthusiasm and agreement with the old
+man's words. Alorcus recovered his composure, listening calmly to the
+wizard, and when the latter ceased talking, after a long pause, he spoke
+a few words and with his head made a gesture of assent.
+
+His rude countrymen received the chieftain's acceptance with ardor, and
+rushed from the house in vehement haste to carry the news to those
+outside.
+
+When the Greek and the Celtiberian were left alone, the latter said
+sadly:
+
+"Actæon, to-morrow I set out with my people. I begin to serve as
+chieftain of the tribe. I must lead it to combat."
+
+"May I accompany you?"
+
+"No. I know not where we are going. My father had a powerful ally whom I
+dare not name to you, and this ally calls me without saying why. The
+whole tribe displays tremendous enthusiasm for this expedition."
+
+After a pause Alorcus added:
+
+"You are welcome to stay here as long as you wish. My sisters will obey
+you as if you were Alorcus himself."
+
+"No; since you will not be here, nothing remains for me to do. I have
+seen enough in one day to know the Celtiberians. I will return to
+Saguntum."
+
+"Happy man, who can return to the Grecian life, to Sónnica's banquets,
+to the sweet peace of those merchants! May it never be disturbed, and
+may I be able to return there as a friend!"
+
+The two preserved a long silence, as if black thoughts were whirling
+through their minds.
+
+"You will return from this expedition loaded down with riches," said the
+Greek, "and you will come back to Saguntum to spend them joyously."
+
+"May it be thus!" murmured Alorcus. "But I feel a presentiment that we
+shall never meet again, Actæon; or, if we meet, it will be to curse the
+gods that we should ever have known each other. I go ignorant of my
+destination, and perhaps I must march against what I most love."
+
+They said no more; they feared to give expression to their thoughts.
+
+Greek and Celtiberian embraced tenderly. Then, after a sorrowful
+farewell, they kissed each other on the eyes in sign of fraternal
+friendship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+INVASION
+
+
+Sónnica feared that she had lost Actæon forever. His sudden departure
+seemed the caprice of a fickle Athenian--of an eternal wanderer, driven
+by the fever of seeing new lands. Only the gods could tell where that
+bird of passage might fly after his visit to Celtiberia! Perhaps he
+would remain with Alorcus; perhaps he would go to war along with those
+barbarians; perhaps, captivated by his knowledge and cleverness, they
+would go so far as to give him a kingdom.
+
+Sónnica doubted that the Athenian would ever return. Her short
+springtime of love had been like the fugitive joy of the women adored by
+the gods when they had come down to earth. She who used to be so
+unfeeling as to mock at affection, now spent the days weeping on her
+couch, or wandering by night like a shade through the gardens, stopping
+in the grotto where the Greek had given her his first caress. The slaves
+wondered at the harsh and capricious temper of their mistress, who one
+moment groaned like a child, and the next, as if fired with sudden
+cruelty, ordered punishments for them all; but, without warning, Actæon
+presented himself before her villa one morning, riding a dusty, sweaty
+horse. He dismissed the ferocious featured barbarians who had served him
+as bodyguard, and ran with outstretched arms toward the tremulous
+Sónnica. The whole of her immense dominions seemed resuscitated; the
+mistress smiled; the garden bloomed more beautifully; on the terrace
+shone the plumage of the rare birds with greater splendor; the
+instruments of the flute players sounded more joyful, and to the slaves,
+freed now from punishment, the air seemed sweeter and the sky more blue.
+
+Sónnica's villa reawoke to its merry life, as if its owner had risen
+from the dead. The nights were devoted to feasting in the great
+triclinium; Sónnica's friends, the young gallants, accepted her
+invitations, and even Euphobias, the philosopher, reached his place at
+the table without having to fight his way through the blows of her
+slaves.
+
+Sónnica was radiant, clinging to Actæon and listening to his words as to
+sweet music. The guests urged him to relate the story of his adventures
+among the Celtiberians, wondering at the customs of the tribes over
+which Alorcus reigned. Euphobias, the parasite, did not conceal his
+satisfaction at possessing so powerful a friend, and he declared that he
+would go to his kingdom to live awhile in comfort, without having to beg
+his bread from the merchants of Saguntum. Love's springtime returned for
+the Athenian. He spent his days at the villa, lying at Sónnica's feet,
+watching her spin the bright colored wool from the distaff or give the
+finishing touches to her toilette, assisted by her slaves. At the close
+of day they strolled through the garden, and night surprised them in the
+grotto, in fond embrace, listening to the song of the water falling into
+the alabaster basin with sweet, monotonous melody.
+
+Now and again Actæon went to the city in the morning to stroll through
+the porticos of the Forum listening to the newsmongers with the
+curiosity of a Greek accustomed to the grumblings in the Agora. He
+noticed extraordinary stir in the great Saguntine market-square. The
+idle talked of war; the more bellicose recounted with exaggeration their
+achievements on the last expedition against the Turdetani, and the
+tranquil merchants left their counters to ask for news, accepting with
+gestures of despair the possibility of a coming struggle. As Actæon came
+into Saguntum he saw on the wall hundreds of slaves repairing the
+merlons worn by time, and filled with cracks which many years of peace
+had opened in them.
+
+Mopsus, the archer, put him in touch with the deliberations of the
+elders. Hannibal had sent an emissary with an ultimatum to return to the
+Turdetani the conquered territories and the booty taken during their
+last expedition. The African threatened with insufferable arrogance, and
+the Saguntine Republic had answered with scorn, refusing to listen to
+his commands. Saguntum would only obey its strong ally Rome, and, secure
+in her protection, she looked with indifference upon the threats of the
+Carthaginian. However, as war seemed inevitable, and as all stood in
+fear of the youth and audacious character of Hannibal, two senators had
+embarked some days before at the port of Saguntum, setting sail for the
+coasts of Italy to relate what had taken place, soliciting the
+protection of the Roman Senate.
+
+This news circulated confusedly through the Forum, and the crowd jested
+at Hannibal as an impetuous youth who needed a lesson. He might come
+against Saguntum whenever he wished. These Carthaginians were the very
+same who had been driven out of Sicily, the same who had been compelled
+to abandon the coasts of Magna Grecia, being expelled by the Romans, who
+had then raised their own city beside the ruin! If they had achieved
+victories afterward in Iberia it was only against barbarian tribes
+ignorant of the art of warfare, who fell victims to their cunning! When
+they attacked Saguntum they would encounter a worthier enemy, and Rome,
+the powerful ally, would fall upon their rear and exterminate them!
+
+These ideas infuriated the city.
+
+News came that Hannibal had set forth upon his campaign and was slowly
+approaching, and with such tidings a gust of war seemed to sweep over
+Saguntum inflaming the minds of the most prudent. The peace-loving
+merchants with the mute choler of pacific-minded men who see their
+possessions endangered, stood in the doorways of their shops cleaning
+the rust from old arms, or they went down to the river bank to practise
+using them, mingling with the young men, who, since sunrise, had been
+making their horses caracole, gaining skill in the management of the
+lance, or improving themselves in archery under the direction of Mopsus.
+
+Actæon now began to spend his days away from the villa, deaf to the
+prayers of Sónnica, who longed to have him ever near her. The Senate had
+given him command of the peltasts, the light infantry, and at the head
+of some hundreds of young men, barefooted and with no other defensive
+arm than a cuirass of wool and a shield of osiers, he ran along the
+river bank, teaching them to hurl darts without stopping in their race,
+to wound an enemy as they passed swiftly by his side, without giving
+him time to respond with another blow.
+
+This exercise over, the perspiring youths dived into the river to
+refresh themselves with a swim, while the Greek slowly returned to the
+villa, lingering in the most smiling spots of the domain.
+
+One afternoon the Athenian met Erotion, the potter, at the foot of an
+enormous cherry tree, gazing into the tallest branches, from which fell
+a shower of red fruit shaken down by an invisible hand. They had not met
+since the day when Actæon surprised him modeling before the nude
+shepherdess.
+
+The youth greeted the Greek with a smile.
+
+"Are you no longer busy?" asked Actæon with paternal kindness. "Have you
+finished your work?"
+
+The boy answered with a gesture of indifference: "My work! Do not laugh
+at me, Greek. I have nothing to do."
+
+"And where is Rhanto?"
+
+"She is in the top of that tree, gathering the finest cherries for me.
+She climbs like a wood-nymph and she will not let me go with her. She is
+afraid I shall hurt myself."
+
+The branches of the cherry tree shook, and the shepherdess descended,
+agile as a squirrel, her limbs bare, her skirt gathered up and filled
+with cherries. She and her lover devoured them amid laughter, their lips
+ruddy with the crimson fruit-juice, and they decorated each other's hair
+or hung yokes of cherries over their ears, forming picturesque
+ruby-colored earrings.
+
+Actæon smiled at the strong, handsome young folks who ever sought each
+other's company and frolicked as if they were in the heart of the
+desert, giving no heed to the danger threatening the city.
+
+"But what about your art?" he asked.
+
+Erotion and Rhanto laughed at the recollection.
+
+"I smashed the figure to pieces," said the boy. "I broke the clay into
+fragments, and I have decided to touch no other than that in the
+pottery--when I make up my mind to return there."
+
+He flung his arms around the shepherdess and rested his head upon her
+shoulder, rubbing his cheek against her neck with an almost feline
+caress.
+
+"Why should I work?" he added. "I spent many days kneeling before that
+accursed clay, struggling to make it take on the form of her body; but
+it is useless. Clay is clay, and it cannot become living substance. When
+the soft flesh of my Rhanto is within reach of my hand, it is folly to
+grow desperate trying to mold earth into a semblance of her life. I wish
+to dream no more, Athenian. I will be content with what I have."
+
+With sublime indifference he caressed his playmate in Actæon's presence.
+
+"One day," continued the boy, "I saw clearly, and I understood the
+truth. Rhanto stood before me. Blinded by ambition I had seen in her
+only the model, but that day I beheld the woman. Why seek glory when I
+had love before me! Even though I should mould a great statue, what
+should I gain? That people should say, after I am dead, 'Erotion the
+Saguntine made this.' I should not hear it--after having spent my life
+working and suffering. No; let us live and love. That day I kicked the
+statue to pieces, and I embraced Rhanto with an enthusiasm of joy.
+Loving each other is better than wasting time over clay puppets. Is not
+that so, Rhanto?"
+
+They kissed each other again, heedless of the presence of the Greek.
+Actæon observed a transformation in the pair, both in the frank devotion
+of the boy, and in the glow in the eyes of the shepherdess. The ardor of
+love seemed to have made him more manly, and to have given her a suave
+and tender grace, a sweet abandon which she had lacked before.
+
+"I have forgotten art, and now we are happy," continued the boy. "It
+would have been madness to have run off to Greece, leaving here a
+treasure which I had not fully appreciated. We spend our time wandering
+through the fields; we know mysterious corners in the groves sheltered
+by curtains of leaves, dark and perfumed hiding places which even
+Sónnica the rich might envy us. When we are hungry we milk Rhanto's
+goats and we rob a beehive; we climb trees in search of fruit; this is
+the glorious season of the year; the whole champaign is full of
+cherries."
+
+He suddenly ceased speaking, fearing lest he had said too much. Perhaps
+Rhanto reproved him with a nudge. Then he added, in a supplicating tone:
+
+"You are good, Athenian. Rhanto and I have looked upon you as an elder
+brother since that day we met you on the Road of the Serpent. Do not say
+anything to my father, nor to Sónnica. Let us be happy in this life of
+ours, which is worthy of the gods."
+
+Actæon envied the felicity of these care-free youths, who loved each
+other frankly, living beneath the trees, strong and beautiful as wild
+creatures who had no thoughts beyond their companionship.
+
+"Saguntum is about to be attacked. War is at our gates. Did you not know
+it?"
+
+"We have not heard of it," said Erotion, with a scornful gesture. "I am
+interested in nothing but Rhanto."
+
+"Are you not interested in the fate of your city?"
+
+"I am more interested in the kisses of my shepherdess. As long as there
+be love, sunshine, and fruits, what does the rest of the world matter to
+me?"
+
+"Have you no thought for your country, you truant?"
+
+"Just now I have no thought for anything but these cherries, and for
+these red lips which are as fresh as they."
+
+They parted, and Actæon long held the memory of the meeting. The
+light-heartedness of the loving couple filled him with envy.
+
+The summer months passed. The vines of the domain ripened their
+clusters, the farmers rejoiced in the prospect of the coming crop hidden
+beneath the leaves, but from time to time, like a gloomy trumpet blast,
+came news of Hannibal, of his victories over the tribes of the interior
+who refused to recognize him, and of his imperious demands upon
+Saguntum.
+
+Actæon scented the nearness of war, and this, which had ever been his
+principal occupation, now caused him only sorrow. He had grown to love
+this beautiful land as dearly as Greece. His soul, saturated with the
+sweet peace of the fertile fields, and of the rich industrious city, was
+saddened at the thought that this life was to be paralyzed. His
+existence had been spent amid struggles and adventures; and now, rich
+and happy, when he longed for peace in a corner where he hoped to end
+his days, war, like a forgotten mistress who presents herself
+inopportunely, returned unbidden, forcing him anew to cruelty and
+destruction.
+
+One afternoon, at the end of summer, he was pondering these things as he
+was riding toward the city. In the oblique rays of the sun the
+industrious bees, searching out the wild flowers, glistened like golden
+buttons. The vintagers were singing in the vineyards, stooping over
+their baskets. Actæon saw one of the slaves whom Sónnica kept in her
+warehouses in Saguntum come running from the direction of the city.
+
+He stopped panting before Actæon. He was almost speechless from fatigue,
+and his broken words revealed his alarm. Hannibal was coming from the
+direction of Sætabis! The people from the country were crowding into the
+city in terror, driving their flocks before them. They had not seen the
+invader but they ran, horrified by the tales of the fugitives who were
+fleeing from the frontiers of the Saguntine territory. The Carthaginians
+had crossed the border; they were people of ferocious aspect, who bore
+strange arms, who looted the villages, and set them on fire. He was
+running to tell his mistress that she might take refuge in the city.
+
+He rushed on toward Sónnica's villa. The Greek hesitated a moment; he
+deliberated whether he should go back in search of his beloved, but he
+ended by setting out on a gallop toward the city, and as he neared it,
+he rode at full speed around the walls. He went for a look at the
+highway from the mountains which gave Saguntum communication with the
+towns by a branch which led to Sætatis and Denia. As he approached he
+began to meet the refugees of whom the slave had told him.
+
+They flooded the road like an inundation. The flocks and herds were
+bleating and lowing under the lash, crowding in between the wagons;
+women were running, carrying great bundles on their heads, and dragging
+along the children clutching at the folds of their tunics; boys were
+driving horses laden with furniture and clothing thrown together
+haphazard in the precipitation of flight, and ewes leaped to the sides
+of the road to escape the wheels which, catching their dragging fleece,
+almost crushed them.
+
+The Greek, riding into the stream of fugitives, opened passage with his
+horse through the seething wave of wagons and animals, rustics and
+slaves, in which people of different towns were confusedly mingled,
+while members of scattered families were calling to one another
+desperately through the clouds of dust.
+
+The fleeing multitude was clearing away. Actæon was beginning to meet
+the stragglers; poor old women traveling with vacillating step, bearing
+on their shoulders some lamb which constituted their entire fortune; old
+men crushed by the weight of pots and clothing; sick people dragging
+themselves along by the aid of a staff; abandoned animals wandering
+among the olive trees near the highway, that suddenly darted forward at
+full speed through the fields as if scenting their masters; children
+seated on a stone weeping, abandoned by their kindred.
+
+Soon the road was empty. The last of the refugees were left behind, and
+Actæon saw before him only the narrow tongue of red earth winding along
+the mountain slopes, without a solitary being to break the monotony of
+the road with his shadow.
+
+The gallop of his horse resounded like distant thunder through the
+profound silence. It seemed as if Nature had expired as she guessed the
+approach of war. Even the ancient trees, the twisted olives which had
+stood for centuries, the great fig trees which rose like green cupolas
+against the mountain slopes, remained motionless, as if terrified at the
+approach of that something which caused the people to abandon their
+homes and to flee into the city.
+
+Actæon rode through a village. Closed doors! Silent streets! From the
+interior of a cabin he thought he heard a faint groan--some sick person
+forsaken by his kindred in their haste to escape. Then he passed a great
+closed villa. Behind the high mud walls a dog was howling in despair.
+
+Then once more solitude, silence, absence of life, a paralysis that
+seemed to creep over the fields. Night began to fall. From afar, as if
+diffused and mellowed by the distance, he heard a muffled booming;
+something like the surging of an invisible sea, the swelling roar of an
+inundation.
+
+The Greek left the road; his horse began to climb a cultivated hill, his
+hoofs sinking into the red soil of the vineyards. From the height he
+could dominate the landscape for a great distance.
+
+The sun's last rays dyed the mountain slopes a brilliant orange. On the
+winding red road shone like a rivulet of sparks the cuirasses of a group
+of horsemen approaching cautiously on a trot, as if exploring the way.
+Actæon recognized them; they were the Numidian cavalry with white and
+floating mantles, while, mingled with them galloped other warriors of
+less imposing stature, waving lances and making their small horses
+caracole. The Greek smiled as he recognized Hannibal's Amazons, the
+famous squadron he had seen in New Carthage, formed of the wives and
+daughters of soldiers, commanded by the valorous Asbyte, daughter of
+Iarbas, the Garamantan of Fezzan.
+
+Behind this group, the road was deserted for some distance. Against the
+background, like a dark monster moving with serpentine undulations,
+loomed the army, an immense girdle upon which glittered the lances like
+a line of fire broken at intervals by square bulks, which advanced like
+moving towers. These were the elephants.
+
+Suddenly a new sun seemed to rise behind the army, illuminating its
+footsteps. A lurid light filled the horizon, and upon this ruddy
+background the serrated outlines of an immense mass were traced. A
+village was in flames. Hannibal's troops, composed of mercenaries from
+all countries, and from barbarian tribes in the interior, intended to
+terrify the hostile city, hence immediately upon entering Saguntine
+territory they laid waste the fields and set fire to the dwellings.
+Actæon feared to become surrounded by the Numidians and the Amazons, and
+riding down from the height he started toward Saguntum at a desperate
+gallop.
+
+It was after dark when he reached the city, and he had to call his
+friend Mopsus and make himself known before the gate would open to him.
+
+"Have you seen them?" asked the archer.
+
+"Before the cock crows they will be before our walls."
+
+The city presented an extraordinary aspect. The streets were
+illuminated with bonfires. Pine torches burned in doorways and windows,
+and the multitude of fugitives huddled in the public squares, filling
+the porticos, and lying on the thresholds. All the Saguntines had
+streamed into the city.
+
+The Forum was a camp. The flocks and herds were crowded between the four
+colonnades without space to move, stamping and bellowing; sheep sprang
+about on the steps of the temples; families of rustics boiled pots on
+the Attic bases of the marble columns, and the glow of so many fires,
+flickering on the façades of the houses, seemed to communicate a thrill
+of alarm to the entire city. The magistrates ordered the fugitives lying
+in the streets obstructing traffic to get up, and lodged them in the
+slaves' quarters of the dwellings of the rich, or had them conducted to
+the Acropolis to camp in its innumerable buildings. The herds also were
+driven thither by the light of torches, between a double row of almost
+naked men who beat the oxen when they tried to escape down the sides of
+the sacred mountain.
+
+Rising above the murmur of the multitude sounded blasts from trumpets
+and conch shells calling the citizens to form ready for defending the
+walls. Merchants, dressed in bronze loricas, their faces covered by the
+Grecian helmet crested with an enormous brush of horsehair, issued from
+their houses, tearing themselves from the arms of wives and children,
+and strode majestically through the crowds of rustics, bow in hand,
+their spears over their shoulders, and their swords clanking against
+their nude thighs, their limbs covered to the knees with the copper
+greaves. The young men dragged to the walls enormous stones to hurl
+down upon the besiegers, and they laughed on being assisted by the
+women who were eager to take part in the combat. Old men with venerable
+beards, rich members of the Senate, opened passage, followed by slaves
+with great bundles of spears and swords, distributing the arms among the
+strongest country people, first making sure if they were freemen.
+
+The city seemed to rejoice. Hannibal was coming! The more enthusiastic
+had actually been anxious lest the African would not dare to present
+himself before their walls; but there he was, and all laughed, thinking
+that Carthage would perish in the fall of Hannibal here at the feet of
+Saguntum, as soon as Rome should rally to the aid of the city.
+
+The Saguntine ambassadors were already in Rome, and her legions would
+soon arrive and crush the besiegers at a blow. Some, in their
+enthusiastic optimism, inclined to the marvelous, believing that, by a
+miracle of the gods, the great deed would happen within a few hours, and
+that as soon as day should dawn, at the very instant when Hannibal's
+army had begun to invest Saguntum, a countless galaxy of sails would
+appear on the blue of the Sucronian gulf--the fleet convoying the
+invincible veterans of Rome.
+
+Nearly the entire city was on the walls. The multitude crowded upon them
+until many had to catch hold of the merlons to keep from falling.
+
+Outside the ramparts darkness reigned absolute. The frogs that inhabited
+the pools along the river were hushed as if terrified; the dogs that
+wandered vagabond through the champaign barked ceaselessly; they sensed
+the presence of hidden beings moving in the shadows surrounding the
+city.
+
+Obscurity augmented the anxious uncertainty of the watchers on the
+walls. Suddenly a point of light pierced the darkness of the plain;
+another and then another flash, in different places at a distance from
+the city. They were torches guiding the steps of the approaching army.
+Before the ruddy spot of light silhouettes of men and horses were seen
+to pass. Far off on the hilltops gleamed bonfires, serving as signals to
+straggling troops.
+
+These lights exasperated the more impatient. Some of the younger men
+could no longer remain inactive, and drawing their bows, began to shoot
+their arrows. Promptly came response from out the darkness. A whistling
+passed over the heads of the crowd, and from the houses near the wall
+some tiles flew off with a crash. Sling-shots from the enemy!
+
+Thus the night passed. When the cocks crowed announcing dawn a great
+part of the multitude had fallen asleep, wearied with straining their
+eyes into the darkness where buzzed the invisible foe.
+
+When the sun rose the Saguntines saw Hannibal's entire army before their
+walls, on the side toward the river. Actæon, as he noted the location of
+the troops, could not repress a smile.
+
+"He well knows the lay of the land. His visit to the city has stood him
+in good stead. Even in the dark he has chosen the only point from which
+Saguntum can be attacked."
+
+The whole side of the mountain was free of besiegers. His army had
+encamped between the river and the lower part of the city, occupying the
+orchards, the gardens of the villas, the beautiful section of which the
+rich of Saguntum were so proud.
+
+Soldiers came and went through the luxurious villas, preparing their
+morning meal; they made kindling of sumptuous furniture to light their
+camp fires; they wrapped themselves in garments they had found, and they
+cut down trees to make room for setting up their tents. Across the
+river, over the immense domain, groups of horsemen scattered out to take
+possession of villages, of villas, of the innumerable buildings which
+rose above the verdure of the plain, abandoned to the mercy of the
+enemy.
+
+The first things to attract the attention of the Saguntines, exciting a
+childish curiosity, were the elephants. They stood in a row on the
+opposite side of the river, enormous, ashen-hued, like tumescences
+uprisen from the earth within the night, their green-painted ears
+drooping like fans, from time to time waving their trunks which seemed
+like gigantic leeches, trying to suck in the blue of the sky. Their
+drivers, assisted by the soldiers, unbound the square towers resting on
+their backs, and rolled up the heavy trappings which covered their
+flanks when engaged in battle. They set them free, as if the fertile
+plain were to them an immense stable, their drivers being convinced that
+the siege would be a lengthy undertaking, and that while it lasted they
+would not need the assistance of the terrible beasts, so appreciated in
+battle.
+
+Near the elephants, along the river bank, stood the engines of war, the
+catapults, the battering-rams, the movable towers, complicated
+structures of wood and bronze, drawn by rosaries of double yokes of
+oxen having enormous backward curving horns.
+
+As if suffering from an eruption the fields were covered with pustules
+of diverse colors, tents of cloth, of straw, or of skins, some conical,
+others square, the majority mound-shaped like ant hills, around which
+swarmed the armed multitude.
+
+The Saguntines, from the top of the walls, examined the besieging army
+that seemed to fill the whole plain, and which was being joined by a
+ceaseless stream of new crowds on foot and on horseback, flowing in from
+every road, and seeming to roll down from the crests of the surrounding
+mountains. It was an agglomeration of diverse races, of different
+peoples; a bizarre collection of costumes, colors, and types, and those
+Saguntines who had been taught by travel recognized the different
+nations, and were pointing them out to their absorbed fellow citizens.
+
+Some horsemen who seemed to fly, lying stretched along the backs of
+their swift barbs, were Numidians, Africans of feminine aspect, covered
+with white veils, wearing women's earrings and slippers, perfumed, with
+eyes painted black, but who were impetuous in combat and fought in full
+career using their lances with great skill. Around the camp fires in the
+gardens stalked athletic negroes from Libya, with kinky hair and
+glistening teeth, smiling in stupid satisfaction as they wrapped their
+naked limbs in garments of rich weave which they had just stolen,
+shivering with cold as soon as they drew away from the fire, as if
+suffering martyrdom in the cool morning air. These dark, shiny-skinned
+men, so seldom seen in Saguntum, excited the curiosity of the citizens
+almost as much as the Amazons who audaciously passed on a gallop close
+to the walls to obtain a better view of the city. They were young women,
+slender, their skins bronzed by exposure. Their hair floated behind
+their helmets like a barbaric decoration, and they wore no other
+clothing than a broad tunic open on the left side, displaying sinewy
+limbs clinging to their horses' ribs. Over the breast some wore
+corselets of bronze-scales, also open on the left side to give greater
+freedom in fighting, displaying the roundness of their small breasts
+made firm and hard by fatiguing exercise. They rode their wild nervous
+horses bareback, guiding them with a delicate bridle, and as they
+galloped in groups the ferocious animals bit and kicked each other, thus
+enlivening the desperate race. The Amazons approached close to the
+walls, laughing and hurling insults which the Saguntines did not
+understand; they waved their lances and shields; and when a cloud of
+arrows and stones was flung after them, they dashed away, with
+wind-swept drapery, turning their heads to repeat their mocking
+gestures.
+
+The besieged distinguished in the dark crowd of soldiers the cuirasses
+of certain horsemen which shone like plates of gold. They were the
+Carthaginian captains, some rich men of Carthage who followed Hannibal,
+sons of opulent merchants who marched with the army more like shepherds
+than like chiefs, covered with metal from head to foot for protection
+against blows, and, with the genius of their race, more devoted to
+administering the conquests and in sharing the booty than in seeking
+glory in combat.
+
+In addition to these people, those on the walls who were familiar with
+them pointed out the other troops of the besieging army. Some with skin
+the color of milk, with faded mustaches, and red horsehair tied to the
+crowns of their heads, who laid aside their military cloaks and tall
+boots of untanned leather to bathe in the river, were Gauls. The others,
+bronzed and so thin that their skeletons were outlined as if they would
+push through the skin, were Africans from the oases of the great desert,
+mysterious people, who with the beating of their small drums caused the
+moon to descend, and by playing the flute forced venomous serpents to
+dance. Mingling with them were the bulky Lusitanians, with limbs as
+strong as columns, and broad rock-like chests; those from Bætica, united
+to their horses day and night by a love which lasted all their lives;
+the hostile Celtiberians, bushy-haired and dirty, wearing their rags
+with arrogance; tribes from the North, who worshipped solitary menhirs
+as gods, and in the moonlight sought mysterious herbs for charms and
+philters; men of ferocious customs, in perpetual battle with hunger;
+barbarian people of whom horrifying tales were told, believed to devour
+the bodies of the conquered after a victory.
+
+The Balearic slingers provoked laughter in spite of their ferocious
+aspect. From the walls the observers commented on the extravagant
+customs which prevailed in their island home, and the multitude burst
+into laughter contemplating the almost naked youths, carrying sticks
+with charred points which served them as lances, and having three
+slings, one wound around the forehead, another about the waist, and the
+third held in the hand. One of these slings was of horsehair, one of
+esparto, and the third of bull tendon, and one or the other was used
+according to the distance they had to throw.
+
+They lived on their islands in caves or in the hollow spaces between
+huge masses of rock, and they were taught to use the sling while mere
+children. Their fathers set their bread some distance from them, and
+would not let them eat it until they had brought it down with a pebble.
+Their passion was drunkenness, and woman their strongest appetite. In
+combat they turned with scorn from prisoners who would bring high ransom
+to capture the women, and they not infrequently would exchange six
+strong slave men for a single slave woman. On the islands they were
+unfamiliar with gold and silver; the elders divining the evils of money,
+had prohibited the importation of coins, and the Balearic slingers in
+the service of Carthage, unable to carry their earnings to their
+country, spent their wages in drink or flung them generously into the
+hands of the loose and wretched women who followed the army. Their
+traditional customs amused the Saguntines. At their weddings, so said
+those who had visited the islands, it was customary for all the guests
+to embrace the bride in advance of the husband, and at funerals the
+corpse was beaten until the bones were crushed and converted into a
+shapeless mass which they forced into a narrow urn and buried under a
+heap of stones. Their slings were terrible. They hurled to great
+distances balls of sun-baked clay, conical at their ends, and bearing
+grotesque inscriptions dedicated to the one who received the blow, and
+in battle they flung stones weighing a pound with such force that the
+highest tempered armor failed to resist them.
+
+In the rear of this warlike crowd ragged women of all colors scattered
+through the champaign; lean, naked children who did not know their
+parents; the parasites of war, who marched at the tail of the army to
+revel in the spoils of victory; females who at night lay down in one
+extreme of the camp and arose on the opposite in the morning, and, aged
+in the prime of their youth by fatigue and blows, died forsaken by the
+roadside; youngsters who looked upon all the soldiers of their race as
+their fathers, bearing on their backs on long marches the firewood or
+the flesh-pot of the warriors, and, in moments of fiercest struggle,
+when the fighting was hand to hand, they slipped between the
+adversaries' legs and bit them like rabid cur-dogs.
+
+Actæon found Sónnica on the wall, gazing at the hostile camp in the
+first streak of dawn. The beautiful Greek had taken refuge in Saguntum
+the night before, followed by slaves and flocks, moving part of her
+riches from the villa to her warehouse. She had left behind rooms filled
+with paintings and mosaics; rich furniture, sumptuous table-service, all
+which would fall into the hands of the victor. And she and her fellow
+Greek saw peeping through the distant foliage the terrace of the villa
+with its statues, the tower of the doves and the roofs of the houses of
+the slaves, over which men, barely discernible, were running like
+insects. The invaders were there; perhaps they would amuse themselves by
+shooting their arrows at the brilliantly plumaged Asiatic birds, and by
+beating the old and sick slaves abandoned in the flight. Between the
+banana trees in the garden rose the smoke of a bonfire. The Greek woman
+and her lover guessed the destruction and rapine that were taking
+place. Sónnica grew sad, not at the loss of a part of her riches, but
+because they were rending her heart through destroying a place which had
+been witness to her first outbursts of love for the Athenian.
+
+Some time after sunrise the Saguntine people cried out with indignation.
+Along the Road of the Serpent appeared groups of drunken and shouting
+women embracing soldiers. They were the _lupas_ of the port, the
+miserable harlots who thronged around the temple of Aphrodite by night,
+and who were denied entrance to the city. When the first Carthaginian
+horsemen passed through the port these creatures had followed them with
+enthusiasm. Accustomed to the coarse blandishments of men of all
+countries, the presence of these soldiers, so different in dress and
+nationality, did not seem strange to them. The 'wolves' of the land were
+the same as those of the sea. They adored strong men, birds of prey
+which could destroy them with their talons, and they followed the
+Carthaginians to their camp, rejoicing in their hearts at the chance to
+approach the city without fear of punishment, and at being able to mock
+the besieged inhabitants with the concentrated odium of long years of
+humiliation.
+
+They sang like mad women, flitting from one pair of greedy and trembling
+hands to the next which disputed for them as if in their eagerness they
+would tear them to pieces. They drank to intoxication from amphoræ of
+rich wines sacked from the villas; around their shoulders they flung
+cloths with threads of gold, stolen but a moment before; the Numidians
+with their moist gazelle-like eyes, looked upon them admiringly,
+bedecking them with crowns of grass, and they in turn bursting into
+bacchanal laughter, petted the kinky hair of the Ethiopians, who giggled
+like children, displaying their sharp cannibal teeth.
+
+They gave themselves up to all manner of ribaldry near the long line of
+horses staked out in front of the tents, displaying their wantonness as
+a shameless insult to the besieged city, and the Saguntines who had
+witnessed undaunted the approach of the long defile of the enemy
+trembled with ire behind their merlons as they witnessed this offense of
+their courtesans.
+
+"The wretches! _Caninæ!_"
+
+The women of the city hissed and reviled them, pale with fury, leaning
+over the walls ready to spring into the camp to lay hold upon the
+strumpets, while they, as if the anger of the city only stimulated them,
+redoubled their laughter, adding insult to insult, and exciting the
+whole army to join with them.
+
+A fresh cause of indignation infuriated anew the minds of the
+Saguntines. Some thought they saw something familiar in the appearance
+of one of the Celtiberian warriors riding at the head of a troop of
+cavalry. His gallant bearing on his horse, the arrogance with which he
+galloped with firm seat in the saddle, recalled to many the sightly
+procession of the Panathenaic festival. When he dismounted and removed
+his helmet, wiping away the sweat, all recognized him, and raised a
+shout of resentment. Alorcus! Even he! Another ingrate, faithless to the
+city which had overwhelmed him with honors and distinctions! His duty as
+chieftain compelled him to ignore his fraternal reception in Saguntum.
+
+Blind with rage they drew their bows against him but the arrows fell
+short of the spot where the Celtiberians were encamped. The maddened
+crowd experienced one slight consolation. The groups along the wall made
+way for Theron, the priest of Hercules, who advanced with the majesty of
+a god, his eyes fixed on the enemy, insensible to the general adoration
+which surrounded him.
+
+The Saguntines persuaded themselves that they beheld Hercules himself,
+who perhaps had abandoned his temple on the Acropolis to come down to
+their walls. He was nude; an enormous lion skin covered his back. The
+wild beast's claws were crossed over his breast, and his head was
+covered by the cranium of the animal, with bristling whiskers, sharp
+teeth, and yellow glass eyes which shone between the tossed golden mane.
+His right hand clutched without visible effort the entire trunk of an
+oak tree which served him as a cudgel in imitation of the mace of the
+god. His shoulders towered above all other heads. His breasts were round
+and strong as shields, on which the veins and sinews were traced like
+tendrils winding round the muscles, and his columnar limbs, all excited
+admiration. His virility was the very type of sovereign power. He was so
+enormous that his head seemed small between his great shoulders,
+exaggerated in size by the cushion of his muscles; his chest heaved like
+a bellows, and instinctively all took a step backward, fearing contact
+with that machine of flesh created for strength.
+
+Sónnica's friends, the young gallants, who, even on this extraordinary
+occasion had not forgotten to paint their faces, followed and admired
+him, ordering the crowd, to give them passage.
+
+"Hail, Theron!" shouted Lachares. "We will see what Hannibal will do
+when he meets you in battle."
+
+"Hail to the Saguntine Hercules!" replied the other youths, leaning
+weakly on the backs of their little slave boys.
+
+The giant looked over the encampment, in which trumpets began to sound,
+and the soldiers ran to form in rank. The slingers cautiously advanced,
+sheltering themselves behind buildings and hummocks. The attack was
+about to begin. On the walls the bowmen drew their bows, and the boys
+piled up stones to hurl with their slings. The old men compelled the
+women to retire. At the head of the stairway leading up to the top of
+the wall, Euphobias the philosopher stood haranguing in the midst of a
+group, paying no heed to the indignation of his hearers.
+
+"Blood is going to flow," he shouted; "you will all perish, and for
+what? I ask you what do you gain by not obeying Hannibal? You will
+always have a master, and it is just as well to be friends of Carthage
+as of Rome. The siege will be prolonged, and you will die of hunger; I
+shall outlive you all, because I know hunger from of old like a faithful
+friend. But again I ask you, what more does it profit you to be Romans
+than Carthaginians? Live and enjoy! Leave shedding of blood to the
+butchers, and before you think of putting another man to death, study
+your own selves. If you would give heed to my wisdom, if instead of
+scorning me, you would feed me in exchange for my advice, you would not
+be shut up in your city like foxes in a trap."
+
+A chorus of imprecations and a row of threatening fists answered the
+philosopher.
+
+"Parasite! Slave of poverty!" they shouted. "You are worse than those
+_lupas_ who throw themselves at the barbarians."
+
+Euphobias, whose insolence increased as the indignation blazed higher,
+opened his mouth to reply; but he hesitated, beholding a dark mass which
+shut out the sunlight. The gigantic Theron was before him, looking at
+him as scornfully as would one of those elephants that the besiegers had
+near the river. He raised his left hand carelessly, as if he were going
+to flip off an insect; he barely grazed the insolent face when the
+philosopher tumbled down the steps from the wall, his head bleeding,
+silent, bumping from step to step without a groan, like a man accustomed
+to such caresses, and convinced that pain is but a figment of the
+imagination.
+
+At the same moment a cloud of black arrows whistled over the walls like
+a flock of birds. Tiles flew off, bits of plaster sprang from the
+merlons, and some fell from the wall with broken heads. From between the
+merlons stones and arrows leaped as an impetuous answer.
+
+The defense of the city had begun!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ASBYTE AND HANNIBAL
+
+
+Hannibal lay tossing between the bright-hued coverings of his couch,
+unable to conciliate sleep.
+
+The cocks had announced midnight, breaking the silence of the camp with
+their shrill voices, and the chieftain was yet awake, closing his eyes
+though unable to sleep. His rest was disturbed by the singing of a
+nightingale perched in a great tree from the branches of which hung his
+tent.
+
+An earthenware lamp illuminated the mass of objects strewn carelessly
+around his bed. On the floor glistened cuirasses, greaves, and helmets,
+over which were thrown rich fabrics stolen from the Saguntine villas.
+Grecian furniture, delicately wrought toilette amphoræ, tapestries with
+mythological scenes, lay in a heap mingled with rawhide whips, shields
+of hippopotamus hide, and the rags of Hannibal's personal costume, for,
+though a lover of glittering arms, he was careless and dirty in his
+dress. Elegant Grecian vases he put to the vilest uses. An alabaster
+crater covered by a shield served as a seat; a huge terra cotta vase,
+decorated by a Grecian artist with the adventures of Achilles, the
+African scornfully used in a manner calculated to express the height of
+his contempt for refinement. Pieces of statues and columns destroyed
+during the tempest of invasion were sunk in the ground, making seats
+for Hannibal's captains when a council was held in the chieftain's tent.
+It was the spoil of war, looted and thrown about in a fever of robbery.
+Only a small portion of it had reached the chief, who felt absolute
+scorn for artistic beauty except when stamped on precious metals. He
+sneered at the gods of this land as he did at those of his own country
+and of the world; he spat upon the marble forms of divinities which
+filled the camp, as if they were scraps of worthless stone, good for
+nothing but to be hurled by a catapult against the enemy.
+
+Impelled by nervous excitement, which prevented his sleeping, he raised
+up in his couch, and the lamplight shone full upon his face. He was no
+longer the Celtiberian shepherd, dishevelled and ferocious, whom Actæon
+had met in the port of Saguntum. Divested of his disguise he showed what
+he was--a young man of medium height, with strong and well proportioned
+limbs, without display of exaggerated muscles, but revealing in his body
+the temper of steel, a vitality capable in supreme moments of the most
+stupendous achievements. His face was slightly bronzed, and his hair lay
+around his head in thick short curls like a black and lustrous turban,
+completely covering his forehead, and leaving exposed the lobes of his
+ears, from which hung great discs of bronze. His beard was thick and
+curly; his nose straight and somewhat prominent, and his eyes, large and
+imperious, always looked sidewise, with an expression of profound
+astuteness and unapproachable reserve. His muscular neck was habitually
+bent, inclining his head toward the right, as if to more clearly catch
+the sounds around him.
+
+He wore a simple, dirty, and threadbare sagum, like any one of those
+Celtiberians who lay snoring in the tents roundabout, and, as a sign of
+command, there shone on his wrists two broad golden bracelets, which
+added strength by their confinement of the tendons and muscles of the
+arm.
+
+For more than a month he had been before the walls of Saguntum without
+achieving any advantage. He had spent the whole of that afternoon
+directing his engines of war without result, and now in his solitude
+this want of success irritated his nerves, and dispelled his sleep. The
+petted child of victory, he had conquered in open fight the most savage
+tribes of Iberia; he had dragged his elephants over the crests of lofty
+mountains, crossing rivers, breaking trails through forests, seeing
+warlike hordes fall prostrate before him as if he were a god, but now,
+for the first time in his life he encountered a stubborn enemy, which
+behind sheltering walls mocked at him and would not suffer him to
+advance a step.
+
+The city of merchants and farmers which he had studied from within,
+looking scornfully upon its opulence and effeminacy, threatened to break
+the current of his good luck, and, finding it indomitable, and
+reflecting upon his enemies in Carthage, upon the wrath of Rome, and
+realizing that time was passing while he was making no headway, the
+chieftain experienced a gust of anxiety.
+
+He had chosen well the vulnerable point of Saguntum. His engines of war
+were placed before the lower part of the city where the walls projected
+into the valley, upon an open, level plain, which permitted the advance
+of the battering-rams; but scarcely had the hundreds of naked men who
+dragged the heavy machines come within range than such a shower of
+arrows fell about them that those who were not pinned to the ground had
+to flee for their lives.
+
+Sometimes, under cover of the mantelets, which advanced on wheels, and
+through the loopholes of which the Carthaginian bowmen shot, they
+managed to get the battering-rams to the foot of the wall, but while
+that part of the city was the most exposed to attack, the ramparts which
+in the upper portion of Saguntum were of adobe had here a stony rock
+base, and in vain the bronze rams'-heads which formed the ends of the
+beams, pounded and pounded, operated by hundreds of arms. Showers of
+arrows and stones fell upon the besiegers, breaking the shields which
+covered them. A great tower dominated the whole area around the
+assailants, sowing death among them without exposure to the besieged,
+and not content with this, under the impulse of their passion, they
+frequently sprang forth from behind the ramparts, knifing the
+Carthaginians.
+
+Each of these sallies cost Hannibal's army severe losses. The Africans
+had begun to tell with superstitious dread of a naked giant, wearing a
+lion's skin, and brandishing a tree-trunk, who charged at the head of
+the Saguntines, and at each blow ploughed a broad furrow through the
+assailants. The Ethiopians saw in him a terrible and sanguinary
+divinity, like those which they worshipped in their oases; the
+Celtiberians declared that it was Hercules, descended from Olympus to
+protect the city.
+
+Hannibal recognized him in the battles from afar. It was Theron, the
+priest whom he had seen one morning on the Acropolis, and whose
+extraordinary vigor he had admired. But in spite of knowing his human
+origin, he could not overcome the terror of the troops at the instant
+when they saw towering above all the helmets that invulnerable lion's
+head which seemed to change the course of the arrows and stones.
+
+Moreover the besieged counted on the assistance of the phalaric. It was
+well known that among the merchants and agriculturists there figured men
+expert in war, who had traveled through many lands. The memory of his
+boyhood companion, Actæon, the Greek adventurer, surged through
+Hannibal's mind. He, surely, must be the introducer of the phalaric, a
+dart wrapped in tow and dipped in pitch. The shaft sped blazing through
+the air like a stream of fire, with its long iron head capable of
+piercing the shield and the cuirass, and even if the terrible missile
+should not penetrate the armor, its flames set fire to the clothing; the
+combatants threw down their arms to put out the fire, and thus stood
+exposed to the blows of the enemy. The same warriors who had fought
+against the most determined and barbaric tribes of Iberia, flung away
+their shields and fled before those meteors of fire which came from the
+walls of Saguntum whistling and scattering sparks.
+
+Thus time passed; the besiegers gained nothing, and Hannibal was
+dominated by a galling impatience. Fire of Baal! He, chained to these
+walls which he could not make his own, while Hanno's faction was
+conspiring in Carthage, preparing the downfall of the Barcas if he
+should fail in taking Saguntum; planning, perhaps, his delivery to Rome
+when she should demand him on finding her treaties violated. In despair
+he threw himself back once more upon his couch, seeking the oblivion of
+sleep with the eagerness of one who must needs forget. He blew out the
+light, but lay open-eyed in the darkness. The bluish glint of the moon
+filtered through an opening in the cupola of his tent, shimmering upon
+the cuirasses which in the darkness shone like phosphorescent fishes.
+Outside, the nightingale continued singing.
+
+Hannibal grew frantic. Accursed bird that was keeping him awake! He
+could sleep in the din of battle! Accustomed from boyhood to the camp,
+the hoarse songs of the mercenaries and the whinnying of horses would
+fail to arouse him, and the harsh trumpet-blast of war had been his
+lullaby. But the sweet song of that bird, its incessant melodious trill,
+annoyed him like the buzzing of a hornet.
+
+He sprang from his couch; he groped in the dark amid the litter of arms,
+fabrics, and furniture; he burst out through the doorway of his tent,
+and the fresh night soothed his tempestuous spirit.
+
+The moon was shining in a cloudless sky; the breeze was warm, although
+it was the end of autumn; stars scintillated; the nightingale's trills
+were answered by another and yet another bird, throughout the expanse of
+the valley. The camp lay at rest. The flames were flickering out from
+dying bonfires near which soldiers were sleeping along with women and
+children of the army, wrapped in rags and in rich stolen fabrics; the
+horses picketed to the ground, pointed their nodding heads in a straight
+line; in the distance, the beleaguered city crouched dark and silent as
+if asleep, but a faint glow escaping through loopholes in its walls
+produced the effect of half-open eyes watching while feigning sleep.
+
+Hannibal leaped over the trusted soldiers who slept near the door of his
+tent. They raised up as they heard his footsteps, but recognizing the
+chief, lay down on the ground again and continued snoring. They were
+veterans from Hamilcar's wars, who looked with almost religious
+veneration on the lion cub of their old captain.
+
+As he turned the corner of the tent he drew his bow to shoot at the bird
+hidden in the foliage; but he started in surprise on seeing a white
+figure standing near the trunk of the tree, shining in the moonlight.
+
+It was a woman, an Amazon. On her head and on her breast glistened the
+helmet of gold and the cuirass of scales; her white linen tunic fell
+over her limbs, outlining her form, and her strong bare arms were
+resting on her lance with its shoe driven into the ground. Her dark eyes
+were fastened on Hannibal's tent with strange, unblinking persistence,
+as if she were dreaming awake, and the night-wind lightly swayed her
+floating hair. Behind her stood a black horse with glossy coat, nervous
+legs, and eyes injected with blood, destitute of saddle or bridle, his
+mane unbound; he was bending down to lick the border of the Amazon's
+tunic and her nude feet, like a dog which followed her everywhere.
+
+"Asbyte!" exclaimed Hannibal, surprised at the apparition. "What are you
+doing here?"
+
+The queen of the Amazons seemed to awake, and seeing the chief, she
+fixed on him the moist and impassioned gaze of her large eyes.
+
+"I could not sleep," she said with a voice languid and measured. "I
+spent the first part of the night dreaming horrible dreams. The Goddess
+Tanith will not guard my repose, and I have seen the shade of my father
+Iarbas announcing my approaching death."
+
+"Death!" exclaimed Hannibal, laughing. "Who thinks of death?"
+
+"Am I then immortal? Do I not fight like any one of your soldiers? I
+hurl myself impetuously through forests of lances; feathered shafts hiss
+around me like a trailing mantle of invisible birds; I scorn the
+phalarics with their streams of fire--but some day I shall die; my
+dreams foretell it."
+
+Asbyte, as if fearing to show too great melancholy in the presence of
+Hannibal, added bitterly:
+
+"Let death come when it will! It does not frighten me as it does the
+merchants of Carthage who hate you. If it disturbed my sleep it was
+because when I awoke I thought of you. I cannot explain to myself why I
+thought that you also might die, and to your death, Hannibal, I cannot
+be resigned. You should live long like a god. I knew that you sleep
+alone in your tent; that, to better conceal your movements you keep no
+guards to watch while you slumber, and I felt the need of doing
+something for you, of spending the night leaning on my lance near your
+couch to prevent the treachery of an enemy."
+
+"What madness!" exclaimed the African, laughing.
+
+"Hannibal," said the beautiful Amazon gravely, "remember Hasdrubal, the
+husband of your sister. The dagger of a slave was enough to put an end
+to him."
+
+"Hasdrubal was doomed to die," said the chieftain, with the conviction
+of fatalism. "The fate of Carthage demanded his death. It was necessary
+that Hasdrubal should succumb to make way for Hannibal. But Hannibal has
+no one to replace him, and he shall live even though he were to sleep
+surrounded by enemies. My sleep is light and my arm is sure; he who
+slips into the tent of Hannibal enters his tomb."
+
+Asbyte contemplated with loving admiration the young hero, who had flung
+down his bow, and while he spoke of his strength he raised his powerful
+arms, and the moon enlarged their shadow in such wise that as they moved
+he seemed to embrace the camp, the city, the whole valley, like a
+supernatural being.
+
+The Amazon drew near leaning her lance against the trunk of a tree. On
+laying down her weapon she seemed to throw off her warlike mien, and she
+approached Hannibal with feminine sweetness, gazing upon him with the
+moist, timid eyes of the antelopes that frisk about the oases of her
+native land.
+
+"Besides," she murmured, "I came because I needed to be near you. To
+guard your sleep gives me indescribable joy. I feel the delight of an
+exalting sacrifice in keeping vigil over you when you know it not. I
+never have an opportunity to speak with you. By day I see you on
+horseback among the Carthaginians with their golden armor, who flock
+around you; on foot directing those who push the engines of war, helping
+them, often, to excite their enthusiasm; but I see you always from afar,
+as a chieftain, as a hero, never as a man. Do you remember those days in
+the citadel of New Carthage when I had just arrived from Africa with the
+reinforcements which caused you to utter shouts of enthusiasm?"
+
+"Asbyte! Asbyte!" murmured Hannibal, repelling her with a movement of
+his arms, as if the recollection annoyed him.
+
+"Do not be angry, Hannibal; listen to me. I must speak to you. Give me
+at least the consolation of seeing you near, of telling you what I feel.
+If not, why have I come to Iberia, joining my fate to yours?"
+
+The chieftain glanced around, as if fearing that someone might be
+listening to his conversation with the Amazon.
+
+"Fear not," said Asbyte, divining his thought. "Mago, your brother,
+sleeps far from here with Maherbal, the favorite captain. My Numidians
+are at the opposite end of the camp. You surround yourself only with
+Iberians in order to encourage their fidelity with such a proof of
+confidence, and they do not understand Phœnician."
+
+Reassured by Asbyte's answer, Hannibal lowered his head and crossed his
+arms, resigned to listen.
+
+"You are as hard and disdainful as a god," sighed the Amazon. "The woman
+who loves you feels within her the fire of Moloch, and you will not
+deign to quench it even with a glance of kindness, nor with a smile. You
+have a heart of bronze; your eyes ever gaze aloft, and you cannot see
+those who crawl to approach you. You imagine that you have made me happy
+because you lead me from battle to battle, from conquest to conquest,
+and you consider that my happiness consists in having my hands, which
+used to be adorned with rings, calloused by the lance; my face, which in
+other times was covered with costly unguents brought from Egypt by my
+caravans, hardened by the cheek-pieces of the helmet. I have become rude
+and fierce like a man. Though I possess gardens far away where an
+eternal springtime dwells, I have suffered hunger and thirst at your
+side. I know not who I am; I doubt my sex, seeing my body made ugly by
+fatigue. My skin, over which the hands of my slaves used to slip as if
+it were a mirror, is now as hard as that of a crocodile. If I do not
+seem as hideous as the troop of wasted females which follows your
+soldiers it is because my youth has not forsaken me. And all this for
+whom? For you who will not deign to look at me; for you who have
+forgotten our first meeting; for you who see in Asbyte only a good
+friend, an esteemed ally, who came to you bringing a strong array of
+fighters. Hannibal! Lightning-flash of Baal! You are as great as a
+demigod, but you do not know human beings. You see in me only an Amazon,
+a warrior virgin like those of whom the Grecian poets sing--but I am a
+woman!"
+
+Asbyte sadly and silently searched the face of the pensive Hannibal.
+
+"You have forgotten, perhaps, how we met," she added, presently, with
+melancholy tone. "I dwelt happy in my oasis until I rushed to your side,
+drawn by some irresistible charm that emanates from your person. I, the
+daughter of Iarbas the Garamantan, wearied of the comforts of my house,
+of the songs of my slaves, and of the splendors which the merchants
+flung from the caravans at my feet, went into the desert hunting lions
+with Iarbas, and the warriors marveled when the most savage colts
+trembled, obedient and timid, as soon as they felt me on their backs. I
+was strong, and I was beautiful. Scarcely had I grown out of my girlhood
+than the bravest of the Numidian sheikhs came seeking hospitality of my
+father that they might see me, and they told of their flocks and of
+their warriors, proposing an alliance to Iarbas. And I, indifferent,
+cold, kept my thoughts ever on Carthage where I once had been in
+company with my father to adjust the tribute with the rich men of the
+Senate. Ah, the magnificent city, the immense city, with her temples as
+huge as towns and her gigantic gods!"
+
+Wandering from the trend of her ideas, she fell into enthusiastic
+reminiscence of Carthage, the great city which after all her travels and
+warlike adventures was still a vivid memory. She called to mind the
+dwellings of the rich Carthaginians, with their polychrome walls
+finished by brilliant spheres of metal and of glass; the great marble
+temples, with their mysterious groves through which resounded the lyres
+and cymbals of the priests; the temple of Tanith surrounded by rose
+gardens, perfumed hiding places which served as shelters for the sacred
+phallic rites in honor of the goddess; and then the port, the immense
+port, with a whole city of ships which poured into the metropolis a
+continual stream of riches from all over the world, tin from Brittania,
+copper from Italy, silver from Iberia, gold from Ophir, frankincense
+from Saba, amber from northern seas, purple from Tyre, ebony and ivory
+from Ethiopia, spices and pearls from India, and brilliant fabrics from
+nameless and mysterious peoples of Asia who dwelt at the uttermost
+borders of the world, wrapped in the mists of legend.
+
+She adored the city, not only for its splendors, but far more because it
+harbored partisans of the Barcas, the supporters of the heroic family
+whose deeds the Numidian warriors recounted in the moonlight, and of
+whom Hannibal, who added renown to his name in the wars of Iberia when
+still a boy, was the glorious descendant.
+
+"My people ever loved your people," continued the Amazon. "If my father
+Iarbas submitted to the domination of Carthage, it was because at the
+head of it was Hamilcar, an African, a Numidian like ourselves. I hate
+the Carthaginian merchants as bitterly as you do--those ancient
+Phœnicians from the rock-bound Aradus who prospered and reproduced
+like worms, afterwards to cross the sea and take possession of our
+beautiful soil of Africa. I hate the ship figured upon so many of your
+coins and temples, because it is the sign of the avaricious people who
+came to exploit us, but I adore the Carthaginian charger, the Numidian
+horse, the symbol of our past."
+
+Then she spoke of the charm which the glory of the Barcas had exercised
+over her mind from afar. She had loved Hannibal without realizing it,
+influenced by tales of his achievements which had reached her ears. She
+imagined him fighting like a young lion at his father's side, among
+herds of bulls with flaming horns, and among burning chariots which the
+Iberians drove against the Carthaginian invader; she thought of him, mad
+with fury, before the body of Hamilcar, and then languishing from
+inaction beside the beautiful Hasdrubal, conciliatory and pacific, until
+the moment when, his brother being assassinated by the dagger of a Gaul,
+the whole army acclaimed the youth as chieftain.
+
+Her father Iarbas had just died, and she, now become queen of her
+tribes, heard that Hannibal, thirsting for glory and for combat, was
+isolated in the fortress of New Carthage, with no other troops than the
+remnant of the army which Hamilcar had taken to Iberia. The rich of
+Carthage, enemies of the Barcas, fearing the populace, dared not
+deprive Hamilcar's son of the chieftancy which his soldiers tendered
+him; they confirmed it by their silence, but they kept him isolated,
+without resources, left to his own devices, so that the natives should
+put an end to him, or at the most, that he might conquer a small
+territory on the Iberian coast in which the ambition of the Barcas would
+gradually become extinguished.
+
+"Then I flew to your side," continued Asbyte. "I wished to know the man
+and to save the hero. I turned over a great part of my riches to the
+merchants of Carthage for the loan of their ships; I kindled the
+enthusiasm of the most warlike of my tribes to follow me; even their
+daughters imitated me, and went lion hunting, galloping all day long,
+lance in hand, drawn on by my mad adventure, and one afternoon, when
+perhaps you were weeping, believing your hopes of glory dead, you beheld
+from the height of the citadel of New Carthage a whole fleet coming from
+Africa. Do you remember? Tell me! Do you remember how you received me?"
+
+"Yes, and I shall never forget it," said Hannibal gently. "Those days
+are my happiest memory."
+
+"You received me as if I were a divinity, as if Ashtoreth, who illumines
+our nights had descended from the sky to give you her protection. You
+were oblivious to my warriors and saw only me, and scorning your
+ambitions for the moment we spent the nights lying on the terrace of the
+citadel, and the stars were witnesses to our interminable embraces. But,
+alas! that joy was like the roses from Egypt which last but a day in the
+vases of the rich women of Carthage. Soon the pride of conquest
+returned to you, the ambition of the chieftain. You admired the training
+of my Numidians more than my beauty when, of an afternoon, outside the
+walls they astounded your old warriors by hurling darts while kneeling
+on their horses, which ran so fast that they raised the dust with their
+bellies. We went out to fight with the Olcades, the Vaccæi, all those
+Iberian tribes which yesterday you fought and which to-day follow you.
+Led by you I fought like a soldier, and I considered myself happy when
+on the long marches, imitating our horses which lovingly put their heads
+together, you bent toward me, striking your helmet against mine to kiss
+me. Finally--not even that! What am I? One warrior more in your camp; a
+friend worthy of gratitude, who brought you assistance on seeing you
+abandoned by Carthage, with no other force than a handful of veterans
+and some elephants. In the battles if you see me in danger you fly to
+defend me; but afterwards, in the camp, on the long marches, a few words
+of friendship, a cold smile as to any one of your captains. Your heart
+has closed against me. Am I not Asbyte, she whom you knew in New
+Carthage? Do you not love me when you see me made ugly and hardened by
+war? Tell me that, and I will become a woman again, I will bedeck myself
+with jewels, I will abandon my Amazons and surround myself with Greek
+slaves, I will cover myself with ointments which will change my skin
+back to its pristine freshness, and I will follow you on your marches
+lying on a litter with curtains of purple."
+
+"No!" Hannibal made haste to reply, with enthusiasm. "I love you as you
+are. The beloved of Hannibal can only be an Amazon like yourself, who
+have made many warriors fall beneath your charger."
+
+"Then why do you flee from me? Why do you abandon me, why forget the
+sweetness of our early love? See that nightingale, at which a moment ago
+you aimed your arrow! In the midst of an army camp, before a besieged
+city, it sings and sings, calling to its mate, heedless of the horrors
+of war, unconscious of the stench of blood which rises from these
+fields. Let us be like him! Let us make war; but let us also love each
+other, and let us ride through the battles with our bodies thrilled with
+love!"
+
+"No, Asbyte," said the African gloomily. "That felicity is impossible; I
+love you, but we cannot understand each other. You complain because I
+see in you only an Amazon, when you are a woman; you, in return, see in
+me only a man, and I am more than man. I am not the demigod you imagine;
+I am something more; I am a formidable machine of war, without heart or
+sense of pity, created only to crush men and nations who obstruct my
+passage."
+
+Hannibal said this with conviction, beating his firm chest,
+straightening his figure with sombre majesty as he declared his
+destructive power.
+
+"I would love you if I were a man capable of wasting my time in such
+sweet folly, but when have you seen the eagle spend all his time in the
+nest caressing his mate, without desire to soar aloft and fall upon the
+quarry? Those who have talons cannot caress, and I was born to make prey
+of the world, or else for the world to crush me. Love? A sweet
+occupation, I grant you! In the past, full of blood and of battles, the
+only oases of my joy were those days in New Carthage when I believed
+that Tanith herself, with all her divine beauty, had deigned to come
+down to my arms. But that is over; Hannibal has other loves that attract
+him and dominate him; he loves his sword, he loves all that the enemy
+possesses, and he cannot sleep with tranquility for thinking of Rome,
+whom he desires to crush within these arms! How far away she is!"
+
+The Amazon made a gesture of despair at the passion with which the
+chieftain declared his ambitions.
+
+"You might complain," continued Hannibal, "if you saw that my thoughts
+were filled with the image of another woman. Whom have I loved but you?
+To draw to me those barbarians who follow me, to league them by ties of
+blood to my enterprises, I took to wife the daughter of an Iberian
+kinglet. Yes, and where is she? Does she follow me as do you? She
+remains in New Carthage, spinning her gay-colored wools, and she
+scarcely thinks of me, because never for a moment did the charms of the
+barbarian virgin move me. I love only you. Hannibal can fall tremulous
+with passion only into arms like yours, hardened by use of the lance.
+But be worthy of him! Think not as do other women; seek not new lovers;
+unite yourself to me, so that both together we can think of possessing
+and of hating, of making the world ours!"
+
+As if exalted by his own words, the African, with glowing eyes,
+approached Asbyte, caressing her arms, while he breathed in her face his
+ambitious plans.
+
+"I must be lord of the world! I want Carthage, only Carthage, to exist
+upon the earth, because Carthage is my native land! Had I been born a
+Roman, Rome should be mistress! With my name I mean to obliterate the
+memory of Alexander the Macedonian, to be greater than he, to conquer
+wider territories, and I dream of undertakings less easy than dominating
+the Asiatics, weakened by the softening tendency of the sun and of
+riches. Rome is sturdy, she is stronger than our republic of merchants
+corroded by avarice and pleasure; her hands are calloused by the plow
+handle and the lance--then against Rome am I headed! Alexander! How weak
+is his glory! It is easy to march to the conquest of the world when one
+is the son of Philip, who leaves as inheritance an army seasoned by a
+hundred victories, when one has an obedient kingdom at one's back, and
+even in childhood has the good fortune to receive instruction from
+Aristotle. The difficult thing is to be Hannibal, abandoned by my
+country, with no other resources than those I can find for myself;
+having to face at the same time the fury of the enemy and the treachery
+and intrigue of my fellow countrymen, reared far from my father, among
+astute merchants who, keeping me as hostage, sought to avoid future
+danger by diverting my warlike instincts; with no other culture than a
+little Greek which Sosilon the Spartan taught me; but despite all this,
+Hannibal wars with fate, and he is conquering. If Alexander is admired
+for his conquests in the land of the rising sun, some day the world will
+be startled at seeing me, after having crushed men, dominating Nature
+herself by crossing the loftiest glaciers and changing the positions of
+mountains to continue on my way. Look at me well, Asbyte, and you will
+be convinced that it is as useless to try to arouse human sentiments in
+my heart as to soften the breast of the enormous bronze Moloch which we
+have in Carthage! A moment ago, in the solitude of my tent, I felt weak
+and disheartened, but talking with you revives my strength. Look at me
+well; you are in the presence of one who fears neither men nor gods!"
+
+"The gods!" exclaimed Asbyte with a throb of terror. "Do you not fear
+that they will punish you?"
+
+A peal of laughter, sarcastic, tinged with deep scorn, answered the
+Amazon.
+
+"The gods!" exclaimed Hannibal. "I live among warriors of all nations.
+Each one adores his own gods, and I know so many, so many, that I do not
+believe in any of them, and I jest at them all. In Carthage I adored
+Moloch; here you have often seen me dedicate sacrifices to the Iberian
+divinities, to attract the people to me. If some day I enter as a
+conqueror that city where my thought continually dwells, the populace
+shall acclaim me, seeing me climb to the Capitol to offer thanks to
+their gods. I believe only in force and strategy. I have but one
+tutelary god--war, who makes giants of men, giving them the omnipotence
+of divinity. If on becoming lord of the earth, I find no one with whom
+to fight, I shall die, thinking the world empty!"
+
+The Amazon bowed her head, overcome with sadness.
+
+"I realize now that you will never be mine, Hannibal! You love war above
+all things else, and will be faithful to it as long as you live. You are
+indeed a bird of prey; the momentary love of a slave woman satisfies
+you; the wounded and weeping woman who falls into the power of your
+soldiers as they enter a city through a breach in its walls satiates
+you. You will never understand love and its sweetness."
+
+Hannibal shrugged his shoulders scornfully.
+
+"I love victory, success! The laurel which Greek heroes bound upon their
+brows in the triumph has for me a more penetrating perfume than the
+roses of the poets. Cease your laments, Asbyte; be a warrior, and forget
+that you are a woman; I will love you more. You shall be my brother in
+arms. Why think of those nights of love when I was still in misfortune
+and lacking in soldiers, now that all Iberia follows me and I see my
+dreams of world-power beginning to be realized? Look over this camp,
+where infinite tongues are spoken, and where each tribe dresses in a
+different costume. They flow in like streams which swell the torrent.
+Each day new warriors appear. How many are they? No one knows. Maherbal
+said yesterday that there were a hundred and twenty thousand; I believe
+that soon there will be a hundred and eighty thousand. Blind faith in
+Hannibal draws them on; they feel that with me they march to victory;
+perhaps their gods have told them that this is but the beginning of a
+series of achievements which will astound the world. Ponder over it,
+Asbyte! These peoples have spent their lives fighting among themselves;
+they hated each other, and yet the sword of Hannibal is a shepherd's
+crook which guides them like a common flock; and after this miracle
+would you have me waste my time loving you, staying in my tent lying at
+your feet, my head upon your knees, listening to you while you sing the
+dreamy songs of the oasis? No! Lightning of Baal! The city stands before
+us, mocking at the greatest army ever gathered together on the fields of
+Iberia, and this must stop. The hempen tent must crush the tower of
+stone. Sharpen well your lance, daughter of Iarbas; prepare your
+faithful steed, my beloved! That mysterious breeze which I always
+perceive on the eve of a victory blows around me. This very day we shall
+enter Saguntum."
+
+He glanced to the east as if impatient for the coming of dawn.
+
+The moon shone less clearly; the sky darkened, its blue becoming more
+dense, and on the side toward the sea a broad belt of violet light
+appeared.
+
+"It will soon be morning," continued the African. "This night, Asbyte,
+you shall sleep in the ivory couch of some rich Greek woman, and you
+shall have at your feet the Elders of the city to serve you as slaves."
+
+"No, Hannibal. This day which is now beginning will never end for me. I
+still see the shade of Iarbas, as it appeared to me before the first
+cock-crow. I shall die, Hannibal!"
+
+"Die! Can you believe that? Before the enemy reaches you he must pass
+over Hannibal's body. You are my brother in arms! _I_ will be at your
+side!"
+
+"Even so, I must die. My father cannot deceive me."
+
+"Are you afraid? Are you trembling, daughter of the Garamantan? Ah, at
+last the woman! Stay in your tent! Do not approach the walls! I will go
+and seek you when the moment arrives for you to enter the city like a
+lady!"
+
+Asbyte straightened her graceful figure as if she had just received a
+lashing. Her large eyes glowed with anger.
+
+"I will leave you, Hannibal. Day is beginning to dawn. Make preparation
+for the assault, and you will find me ready when your troops give the
+signal. Knowing that I am going to die, I wish to ask you for one kiss,
+the last--No, do not approach me. I do not want it now; it would do me
+harm. If I fall and you can find me among the slain, you will know what
+my last thought has been."
+
+Leaning on her lance she moved away between the rows of tents, followed
+by the black horse, which sniffed at her footprints in faithful
+devotion.
+
+Day was breaking. The camp fires were nearly extinguished, and around
+the dying embers the men could be seen arising from the ground,
+stretching their benumbed limbs, and shaking out the pieces of cloth in
+which they had been wrapped. Horses whinnied, tugging at their stake
+ropes, and the soldiers set them free, driving them to the river to
+water and clean them.
+
+Along every road huge carts were approaching the camp laden with
+provisions and forage, and the creaking of their axles mingled with the
+songs of the soldiers, who had arisen in good spirits and recalled their
+distant homes, singing in their native tongues.
+
+It was a confusion of voices and cries. Each tribe camped by itself; one
+people greeted the other with joyous shouts. From every side floated
+odors of naked, sweaty flesh, and of strange stews boiling in the pots;
+the hammers of the carpenters echoed loudly as they worked upon the
+siege-engines which would soon be hurling stones and darts against the
+walls. Warriors in flowing mantles, mounted on prancing steeds, galloped
+between the city and the camp, examining the battlements of Saguntum,
+reddened by the sun's first rays, where the defenders were beginning to
+stir among the merlons. Hannibal with uncovered head was sitting on a
+remnant of a wall, the ruin of a villa demolished by the besiegers, also
+studying the city.
+
+He was resolved to begin the attack as soon as his army had finished
+making the morning preparations. Fifteen hundred Africans, armed with
+pickaxes, were gathering on the outskirts of the camp. They were going
+to attack that portion of the city which threw its ramparts into the
+level, open plain, thereby permitting unobstructed approach to its base.
+In other divisions of the camp the Celtiberian infantry was forming with
+long ladders to attempt the walls on many sides at once. The engines of
+war advanced, the catapults, with the thick bow tightly drawn by elastic
+cords, ready to fling the stone deposited in the groove of the long arm;
+the battering-rams vibrating on their chains as they moved. The
+walking-towers, light, with walls of interlaced osiers, trundled upon
+massive disks crowned by the shields of the besiegers who concealed
+themselves behind them to hurl their missiles.
+
+Hannibal hurried to his tent, passing between the cavalrymen who were
+deliberately grooming their horses and polishing their weapons, knowing
+that they were not to take part in the assault until the last moment.
+The chieftain armed himself lightly. He put on a short lorica of bronze
+scales, adjusted his helmet, selected a shield, and on leaving his tent
+he met Maherbal and his brother Mago, in charge of the reserves who
+remained in the camp.
+
+"Your legs are unprotected," said his brother. "Are you not going to
+cover them with greaves?"
+
+"No," replied the chieftain spiritedly. "We are going to make an
+assault, and to climb over the fallen walls one must have his legs free.
+The missiles will respect me as ever."
+
+As he walked out of the camp he thought he saw the queen of the Amazons
+standing between two tents, following him with saddened eyes; but
+Asbyte, when her gaze met Hannibal's, moved away and turned her back
+upon him haughtily.
+
+Trumpets blew, and the army stirred, marching against the city.
+
+The mantelets rolled forward, veritable parapets of wood, through the
+interstices of which the bowmen shot. Under cover of these portable
+bulwarks the Africans armed with pickaxes advanced, while in other
+directions throughout the valley hurried the Celtiberians, carrying
+their ladders in front of them.
+
+In an instant the walls were manned with defenders. Over the merlons
+appeared sinewy arms hurling missiles, slings swirled discharging
+stones, and bows bent followed by sharp hisses.
+
+Hannibal, to animate the assailants, marched behind the fifteen hundred
+Africans, laughing at the projectiles which struck the wooden sides of
+the mantelets. Several nights, dragging himself on his belly, and at the
+risk of being taken prisoner, he had reached the foot of that rampart
+which projected on the valley side, and which formed the strongest wall
+of the city. The base was composed of great stones laid in clay. The
+chieftain being convinced that it was difficult to scale the walls,
+decided to open a breach through the foundation by undermining the
+reddish rampart before which his army had been confounded.
+
+As they drew near it the Africans abandoned the shelter of the mantelets
+and hurled themselves furiously against the barrier of enormous stones.
+Naked, black, shouting, raising and lowering their muscular arms which
+ended in glittering iron-pointed pickaxes, they looked like infernal
+spirits sent by the Cabiric gods of Carthage for the destruction of the
+city. Stubborn and tenacious in their work of destruction, they growled
+and picked, insensible to the blows which fell from above.
+
+The beleaguered people, infuriated by this audacity, scorned the
+Balearic slingers and archers who from a distance aimed over the
+merlons, and stepping into the crenels they cast down missiles and
+stones which, falling vertically, never failed to claim their victims.
+The Africans tumbled over with broken heads or crushed backs; arms and
+legs snapped like reeds beneath the weight of the stones, and more than
+one assailant was pinned to the ground by a dart which passed through
+his back. Over the palpitating bodies, the mangled flesh, the blood
+mixed with the clay from the walls, rushed fresh assailants, grasping
+the pickaxes from the hands of the dying, and taking up the work of
+destruction, pounding on the wall, beating it furiously as if it were an
+enemy standing before them. Africans, Celtiberians, Gauls, men of all
+colors and races crowded together, each cursing in his own language,
+frothing at the mouth with fury, with death hovering above them every
+instant, and surrounded by a din of howls and lamentations. Tormented by
+falling stones and blazing phalarics which set fire to their clothing
+and clung to their naked flesh, roasting them until they writhed in
+agony, they rushed to the river like animated torches.
+
+Now a block in the wall was giving way! Now it rolled out of place! The
+most important thing was to remove the first; after it the others would
+follow. The besiegers burst into exclamations of savage joy; they heard
+Hannibal's voice encouraging them; but before raising their heads to
+rest a moment, a deafening howl arose among them. It was raining, but
+raining fiery, infernal drops which penetrated the bodies of the men
+like interminable knives. Up there on the walls a fire was smoking. The
+merchants were melting the great ingots of silver from their vaults,
+pouring the molten metal like a rain of death upon those who dared
+destroy the city walls.
+
+The assailants fell back, roaring with fury, and sought refuge behind
+the mantelets. Hannibal raised his sword, striving with his blows to
+force them back to work, but in vain he exhorted them, haranguing of
+victory and of the necessity of destroying the wall; his soldiers
+retreated without turning their backs, looking with respect at the
+chieftain who seemed invulnerable, but complaining of the atrocious
+torment of the burns. Some wallowed on the ground kicking with pain,
+their lips covered with foam.
+
+Suddenly it seemed as if the city had burst, hurling its inhabitants
+forth in all directions. In the distance the Celtiberians were seen to
+flee, flinging away their ladders. The populace rushed out en masse
+against the besiegers. The gates were too narrow to allow passage to the
+armed multitude which swirled through them and then spread out in all
+directions like a torrent which, having run boxed in between mountains,
+suddenly inundates the plain. Many impatient ones swung from the merlons
+to fall more quickly upon the enemy.
+
+In a moment the whole space intervening between the walls and the camp
+was covered by attacking Saguntines and by fleeing besiegers. Hannibal
+felt himself dragged by the flight of his soldiers. The mantelets began
+to burn, and a crowd of women and boys, grasping torches, encircled the
+walking-towers, setting fire to their osier walls.
+
+The Saguntines, forming in phalanxes, advanced, sweeping before them the
+besiegers who fled in disorder. Before its movable front of pikes and of
+arms flourishing broadswords, nothing could be seen but fugitive men who
+flung away their arms and leaped into the air pierced by arrows and
+lances.
+
+The giant Theron came out in solitary majesty, as if he alone were a
+phalanx. The lion skin, and his enormous stature, attracted the gaze of
+all. His club rose and fell, crashing into the groups of fugitives and
+opening great swaths through their ranks.
+
+"It is Hercules!" the besiegers shouted, with superstitious terror. "The
+god of Saguntum has come out against us!"
+
+The presence of the giant accelerated the dispersion even more than the
+blows of the Saguntines.
+
+Hannibal tried to advance, to face about; in vain he lifted up his
+voice, brandishing his sword. He was swept by the torrent of flight; his
+own soldiers crowded him along, blinded by the contagion of terror; they
+tramped on his heels, they pressed against his back with their heads
+bent low in swift retreat, and he had to make strenuous efforts to keep
+from being overwhelmed and trampled down. A moment more and the
+Saguntines, having destroyed every engine of war, reached the camp.
+
+The chieftain was snarling curses and threats against his brother and
+Maherbal who did not come up with the reserves to stay the torrent of
+the rout. He saw the troops issuing from the camp hurriedly, but on foot
+and in disorder, with the precipitation produced by an unexpected event.
+Many of them were adjusting the straps of their cuirasses, and the
+different tribes were jostled together and minus their leaders, who in
+vain had trumpeters blow their horns to bring the hosts to order.
+
+The Saguntines in the blind impulse of victory clashed with this
+reinforcement and almost routed it in the first encounter. Hannibal, who
+had managed to reunite a group of the bravest soldiers, presented a firm
+front to the Saguntines.
+
+"This way! This way!" he shouted to those coming from the camp, who in
+their excitement did not know where to rally.
+
+But at the same time his cries attracted the enemy. Theron, as if guided
+by his god, turned toward Hannibal, and soon his mace began to hammer at
+the shields of the Carthaginians. He hurled himself against them with
+cool courage, breaking their lances with a blow of his club, wounding
+himself on the swords which seemed to rebound from his powerful muscles,
+dripping blood beneath his lion skin, ferocious and magnificent, like
+unto a divinity. He never raised his knotty trunk without dropping an
+enemy at his feet.
+
+The besiegers began to recede again before the pressure of the
+Saguntines; Hannibal was once more dragged by his men who were terrified
+by the savagery of the giant who seemed invulnerable, when an unexpected
+turn gave a new phase to the combat. The earth shook beneath a wild
+gallop, like the reverberation of rolling thunder, and leaning over
+their horses' necks, their hair floating from beneath their helmets, and
+their white tunics streaming around their naked limbs, Asbyte's Amazons
+fell upon the enemy with the violence of a hurricane. They came
+whooping, waving their lances, calling one to another to charge upon the
+denser groups, and the assailants fell back astonished at these women
+whom they saw near at hand for the first time, and who were now favored
+by the effect of surprise.
+
+Looking between the heads which surrounded him, Hannibal saw Asbyte pass
+like a luminous flash, absolutely alone. The light of the sun, striking
+upon her helmet, encircled her with a nimbus of gold. Her lover's
+instinct had revealed to her where Hannibal stood surrounded by enemies,
+and she dashed to his support.
+
+Succeeding events were rapid, instantaneous. Through the dust of the
+charge Hannibal barely made out what occurred, as if it were the
+fleeting agony of a dream.
+
+The Amazon, with couched lance, rode at a gallop against the priest of
+Hercules, who in the recoil of that disordered hand to hand struggle had
+been left alone in a broad open space.
+
+"Ohooo!----" shouted the Amazon, exciting her horse by her war cry.
+
+Pressing her legs against the animal's ribs she lifted herself upon his
+back in order to give the giant a deeper wound.
+
+The horse, terrified at the frightful lion's head on the forehead of the
+colossus, reared and whinnied, while at the same moment the enormous
+mace struck above his eyes with a crash like the breaking of a heavy
+amphora.
+
+The horse reeled backwards with a shattered skull, blood spurting from
+his eyes. The Amazon, thrown from his back, fell on her knees a few
+steps away, covering herself with her shield. If she could hold out a
+moment she would be saved. Hannibal, forgotten by his disorganized men
+who were milling like a frightened herd in the confusion of battle, ran
+to her aid. Bodies of cavalry rushed from the camp to assist the
+audacious Amazons, and the mass of the besieged retreated in disorder
+toward the city.
+
+Asbyte arose and advanced a step, raising her lance to thrust the giant;
+but at the same moment the enormous cudgel, brandished with both hands,
+crushed upon her like a toppling wall. Her crumpling bronze shield rung
+plaintively, her golden helmet parted on the seams, and Asbyte doubled
+up on the ground, her tunic stained with blood, like a wounded white
+bird folded in its fluttering wings.
+
+Theron, despite his ferocity, stood appalled, resting on his club,
+oblivious to what was taking place about him, as if repentant for the
+frightful destruction which his power had wrought upon that beautiful
+woman.
+
+"Answer _me_ for that, Theron! Defend yourself, butcher of Hercules!
+Kill me if you can; I am Hannibal!"
+
+The priest turned and beheld a warrior, his face covered by his shield,
+his sword held in tierce, advancing with amazing agility, circling
+around him like a tiger attacking an elephant and seeking by his greater
+mobility to spring upon him at a defenceless point. The battle had
+ceased; the Saguntines fell back toward the city. The besieging cavalry
+charged close up to the walls, leaving the two combatants alone on the
+field. A few soldiers sluggishly approached, and stood still some
+distance away, intimidated by the superstitious terror which the giant
+inspired.
+
+Theron did not falter on finding himself alone. Hannibal! It was
+Hannibal the great warrior, who was now to fight with him absolutely
+alone! This singular duel, in view of the whole city looking on from the
+walls, seemed arranged by his god! He was to rid Saguntum of her direst
+enemy! Hercules had reserved this glory for him; and smiling with
+satisfaction he raised the mace, striding straight toward the African.
+
+Hannibal eluded him, stepping backward, springing aside with feline
+agility, evading the encounter, until at last the priest was weary and
+wished to end the struggle before new combatants should arrive. He
+steadied himself on his colossal legs and hurled the club at Hannibal.
+The enormous tree trunk tore through the air, while Hannibal, seeing it
+coming, sprang aside. It grazed his shield with a thundering clang, and
+fell far away amid a cloud of dust.
+
+The African bent his knees at the shock, but recovered himself, and
+flinging away his broken shield rushed at Theron with lifted sword.
+
+The priest of Hercules, finding himself disarmed, experienced a
+momentary qualm; he knew fear, believing himself in the presence of a
+superior being against whom his strength could not avail, and turning
+his back on Hannibal he fled toward Saguntum. The people on the walls
+seeing his peril called to him. Some drew their bows to stop Hannibal
+with their arrows, but they dared not shoot for fear of wounding
+Theron. The Saguntines breathed hard at seeing their Hercules flee,
+pursued by the warrior who was heading him off so that he should not
+reach the city.
+
+The giant being heavy and muscular, ran with difficulty over the ground
+strewn as it was with dead and with the litter of the fight. He stumbled
+over a shield; his knees bent; he arose again; but this time completely
+nude. The lion skin had fallen from his shoulders, and lay among the
+wrack of battle.
+
+His pursuer caught up to him. The giant felt the cold steel sink into
+the muscles of his back, and not caring to die like a fleeing slave in
+sight of his entire city he turned quickly, extending his columnar arms
+to crush his enemy between them; but before the two muscular masses
+could encircle and mangle him, Hannibal had buried his sword again and
+again in the side of the colossus, and Theron fell, pressing his hands
+against his wounds and gazing at his dark red blood.
+
+He looked at Hannibal without anger, with a childlike expression of
+pain, and then he fixed his death-clouded eyes on the lofty Acropolis,
+where the roofs glistened in the sun.
+
+"Father Hercules!" he murmured bitterly. "Why do you abandon your
+people?"
+
+His enormous head raised a cloud of dust as it struck the ground.
+Hannibal bent over it and with his sword began to hew the robust neck,
+obliged to strike many blows to sever the network of corded tendons and
+stubborn muscles, which seemed to blunt the edge of the blade.
+
+A cloud of arrows began to plow the ground roundabout Hannibal.
+
+The chieftain removed his helmet, loosing his mass of curling hair; he
+grasped the head of Theron by its gory mane, and placing one foot in the
+attitude of conqueror upon the body of the priest, he showed it to the
+people on the walls.
+
+He was magnificent with his sword in his right hand and holding out his
+other arm which sustained the head of the giant. The dark integument of
+his eyes, brilliant as the metal disks which hung from his ears, gleamed
+with pride and icy hate.
+
+The Saguntines recognized the victor, and wails of surprise and peals of
+fury thundered along the wall.
+
+"Hannibal! It is Hannibal!"
+
+He still stood motionless, like a statue of victory, proudly defying the
+enemy, heedless of the storm of projectiles whizzing around him, until
+suddenly he dropped the head of Theron and sank to his knees, letting
+fall his sword.
+
+Mopsus the bowman had shot an arrow through his leg.
+
+From the walls all beheld how, in an outburst of angry pain he tore out
+the arrow-shaft, broke it into splinters, and flung them away. Then they
+saw no more. A host of the besieging army rushed forward and covered
+him, and his archers and slingers began to shoot against the
+battlements.
+
+Actæon, fatigued by the recent sally, and hidden behind a merlon,
+watched what was taking place around Hannibal, paying no attention to
+the missiles from the slingers, who, infuriated by the wounding of their
+chief, hurled a hail of stones against the walls.
+
+He saw Hannibal move away supported by two Carthaginian captains in
+golden cuirasses, accompanied by a multitude.
+
+Suddenly the chieftain repelled his helpers, and limped painfully toward
+a white, bloodstained object lying on the red earth like a shapeless
+rag. He bent over the form, and the Numidians who surrounded it beheld
+the terrible Hannibal weep--for the first and last time--pressing his
+lips upon the mangled head of the Amazon Asbyte.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE WALLS OF SAGUNTUM
+
+
+The wounding of Hannibal gave the city some days of respite. The
+besiegers remained non-combatant in their camp, watching Saguntum from
+afar. The slingers came out in the mornings to exercise their arms by
+shooting against the wall, but aside from this, and from the arrow-shots
+with which they replied from the city, there was no further exchange of
+hostilities between the besiegers and the besieged.
+
+Bands of cavalry overran the domain foraging, and the immense multitude
+of ferocious tribes finished the work of destruction, sacking the villas
+and country-houses. The groves were cleared away; each day they chopped
+down new trees in order to supply the camp with wood, and in these
+denuded spaces the tiled roofs and towers could no longer be seen. Only
+smoking and blackened ruins appeared here and there through the deserted
+fields. A mosaic on a level with the ground was often the only vestige
+of an elegant villa razed to its foundations by the invaders.
+
+The beleaguered people saw Hannibal's army rapidly swelling. Each day
+new tribes arrived. It seemed as if all Iberia, subjugated by the
+prestige of Hannibal, were coming to camp around Saguntum, fired by the
+fame of its riches. They came on foot or on horseback, dirty, savage,
+covered with skins or dressed in esparto, carrying crescent-shaped
+shields and short two-edged swords, eager to fight, and bringing with
+them showy presents for the African, whose glory dazzled them.
+
+Such of the Saguntines as had trafficked with the tribes of the interior
+recognized the new arrivals from the walls. They came from very far;
+some there were who had marched more than a month to reach Saguntum, and
+they pointed out the Lusitanians, athletic of figure, of whom horrible
+tales of ferocity were told; the Galicians, who lived on fish and by
+washing and melting the gold of their rivers; the Asturians, who worked
+in iron; and the gloomy Basques whose language other nations could not
+understand. Mixed with them came fresh tribes from Bætica, who had been
+slow in answering the Carthaginian's call; agile infantry, of olive
+skin, their hair hanging down their backs, dressed in short white skirts
+with broad purple borders, and carrying large round shields which served
+them as floats in crossing streams. The camp stretched along the river
+and spread over the extensive valley, scattering finally in groups of
+tents and huts as far as the eye could see. It was a veritable city,
+larger than Saguntum, which advanced and advanced as if it would swallow
+her walls.
+
+The day following their courageous sally the Saguntines noticed great
+activity in the besieging camp--the funeral honors to the queen of the
+Amazons. They saw Asbyte's body borne in parade on a shield by the
+women-warriors; then, in the centre of the camp rose a column of smoke
+from the enormous pyre which consumed her remains.
+
+The beleaguered people guessed the mood of the enemy. Hannibal was
+lying on his couch, and the army seemed depressed by the hero's
+suffering. The wizards came and went through the tent, examining the
+wound, and then they searched the surrounding mountains for mysterious
+herbs to compound miraculous poultices.
+
+In Saguntum some of the most daring urged another sally to take
+advantage of that moment of depression for falling upon the enemy and
+putting them to flight. But the besieging camp was well guarded;
+Hannibal's brother with the principal captains were on the watch to
+avoid a surprise; the army lay behind earthen breastworks thrown up
+around the camp as in a strong city, and they took advantage of this
+opportunity to accomplish new work for protecting it from the danger of
+attack. On the other hand the city was no less disheartened by the loss
+of the priest of Hercules. The people could not explain to themselves
+how the African chieftain had put the gigantic Theron to death before
+the eyes of all Saguntum, and the more superstitious saw in this a
+celestial sign, the omen that the tutelary gods of the city were about
+to abandon it.
+
+The same determination as at the beginning was still displayed; all were
+resolved to defend themselves; but the mocking joviality of the early
+days of the siege had disappeared. They believed that they scented
+adversity round about them, and the ever swelling numbers of the enemy
+dispirited them. Each morning they beheld the besieging camp increased.
+When would Hannibal's allies cease to come?
+
+The merry Grecian city of rich merchants and of pompous Panathenaic
+festivals presented the solemn aspect of every beleaguered town. The
+people from the fields who had sought refuge in the city camped in the
+streets and squares, distilling the odor of a sick and suffering flock.
+In the temples the wounded dragged themselves to the bases of the
+columns, groaning; above, on the Acropolis, a funeral pyre smoked day
+and night consuming the bodies of those who had died on the walls, or
+had fallen in the streets victims of strange diseases engendered by the
+congestion of the population.
+
+There were still enough provisions, but there was lack of fruits and
+vegetables; and the rich, divining the future, gathered in all they
+could, seeing days of want ahead.
+
+In the poor wards they killed the horses and beasts of burden, roasting
+the meat over flames kindled in the streets for the roofless refugees.
+
+On the walls, as well as on the Acropolis, all gazed impatiently out to
+sea. When would the auxiliaries come from Rome? What were the legates
+from Saguntum to the great Republic doing?
+
+Frequently impatience caused the whole city to be cruelly deceived. Some
+mornings the lookouts posted in the tower of Hercules on the Acropolis
+raised a furious clangor of cymbals on spying sails upon the horizon.
+The people rushed to the crest of the hill, following with anxious eyes
+the course of the white or red sails over the blue surface of the
+Sucronian gulf. It was they! The Romans! The advance ships of the
+succoring fleet bound for the port! But after hours of anguishing
+expectancy, their hopes were crushed on seeing that they were passing
+merchant ships from Massilia or Emporion, or hostile triremes which
+Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, was sending from New Carthage with
+provisions for the army.
+
+Each disappointment increased the melancholy of the Saguntines. The
+enemy's ranks were ever swelling, and the allies failed to come! The
+city would be lost! The enthusiasm of the defenders was revived only
+when they found old Mopsus on the walls, who because of his sure aim at
+Hannibal was the hero of the city, and the valorous Actæon, who with the
+light spirits of an Athenian, jesting and merry in the presence of
+danger, knew how to inspire fresh courage.
+
+Sónnica also appeared among them at the points of combat. She ran along
+the walls amidst the hissing arrows, and the poor citizens marveled at
+the bravery of the opulent Greek woman who scorned the missiles of the
+enemy.
+
+Love for Actæon and hatred of the besiegers made her bold. She was
+enraged at the Carthaginians. From the height of the Acropolis one
+afternoon she had seen the flames pouring from the roof of her villa.
+She saw the red tower of the dovecote topple, the beautiful groves which
+surrounded her house cut down, leaving nothing but a mound of rubbish
+and charred trunks; and she longed to be avenged, not for her lost
+riches, but for the destruction of the secluded retreat sacred to her
+love, and of the sumptuous dwelling crowded with memories. Moreover, she
+was nervous from the insufferable deprivation of this new life within
+the beleaguered city, where she was obliged to eat coarse food and to
+sleep in a room in her warehouse among the valuables piled together in
+the disorder of flight, almost mingling with her slaves, and deprived of
+her bath. There was no water in the city, except that in the cisterns
+which the magistrates distributed with great parsimony, foreseeing an
+approaching scarcity.
+
+This wretched life excited her, making her distinguished for warlike
+audacity. Occasionally she saw her lover, the soul of the defense;
+sometimes on the walls directing the slaves who were repairing them, at
+others on the Acropolis with Mopsus to examine the situation of the
+enemy. He wished to take advantage of the lull caused by Hannibal's
+wound to put the city into a better state of defense, and meanwhile
+Sónnica strolled along the wall talking with the young men, promising
+handsome rewards to those who most distinguished themselves, and
+exciting them to make an extraordinary sally in which the city should
+hurl itself en masse beyond the walls, crushing the enemy and sweeping
+them onward into the sea.
+
+She went everywhere escorted by Erotion and Rhanto. Life in the narrow
+limits, and a community of danger, had drawn her to the two children,
+and they followed in her wake listening to her words with enthusiastic
+smiles, and applauding the rich woman's warlike suggestions.
+
+Rhanto was no longer a shepherdess. One after another her goats had been
+devoured in Sónnica's house, and with no other occupation than following
+her mistress, clinging always to Erotion's hand, she regarded the
+situation as one of joy, and had no desire that it should ever cease.
+Even the frowning Mopsus, the father of her beloved, unprotesting found
+them together, and often smiled at seeing them tranquil and happy,
+walking along the walls without fear of the besiegers.
+
+Danger had developed kindness in the people. Rich merchants elbowed
+slaves as they shot their arrows from the cover of the merlons; more
+than one opulent Grecian woman was seen to tear her linen tunic to bind
+the wounds of rude mercenaries, and Sónnica the rich, she who used to
+scorn the women of the city, now talked of forming a troop like that of
+the Amazons who followed Hannibal. Rhanto, content with this new
+situation, so blinded by joy that she could not see the anguish and
+misery which the town endured, pulled her lover away in moments of
+combat, snatched the bow from his hands, and dragging him from the
+battlements, they hid beneath the hollow of a stairway at the foot of
+the rampart, and made love with fresh ardor, their pleasure seeming the
+more intense because threatened by the singing arrows and the cries and
+exclamations of pain and fury overhead.
+
+The respite lasted only twenty days. Breaking the silence of the camp
+the carpenters' hammers rung ceaselessly and the besieged saw gradually
+rising a great wooden tower several stories high, taller than the walls
+of the city.
+
+Hannibal regained his strength, and was eager to continue the siege. In
+his desire that the enemy should see him without delay, he left his
+tent, in spite of his still open wound, he mounted his horse, and rode
+out of the camp to gallop along the walls, followed by his captains.
+
+The Saguntines were dazed at the sight of him. He shone like a coal of
+fire upon his black horse; the sun wrapped him in a splendor which
+blinded, as if he were a divinity. He wore the cuirass and helmet made
+of gold from the rivers which the Galician tribes had brought him as a
+present. The chieftain preferred the bronze armor which he had ever
+worn in his battles, but his parade around Saguntum was like a
+resurrection, and he wished the besieged to behold him dazzling and
+majestic as a god.
+
+With the reappearance of Hannibal the siege began fiercer than before.
+The Saguntines understood from the first moment that the besiegers had
+taken advantage of the cessation of hostilities to augment their
+offensive power. With great effort they dragged up the enormous wooden
+tower which they had constructed. Archers were stationed in the
+different stories to shoot through the loopholes in the sides. The upper
+platform dominated the wall in such wise that its catapult hurled great
+stones over the merlons, sowing death among the defenders.
+
+Hannibal seemed everywhere at once, irritated by the tenacity of the
+Saguntines, and eager to terminate the siege without delay.
+
+It was impossible to remain uncovered on the walls. The tower had been
+placed near the projecting part of the city which Hannibal considered
+the weakest. Darts and stones fell ceaselessly and while the defenders
+sought refuge behind the merlons, unable to step out into the crenels,
+the battering-rams pounded at the base under the protection of the
+tower, hammering against the walls, and gradually weakening them; and
+the Africans who had outlived the first assault now attacked the blocks
+of stone with more security, little by little opening a breach.
+
+The Saguntines, pale with the rage of impotence, endeavored in vain to
+stay the destruction. The besieging tower, rolling over a level tract
+impelled by men hidden behind it, moved from place to place, scattering
+death, and at times it drew so near that the besieged could hear the
+voices of the bowmen who shot through the loopholes. Meanwhile, down
+below, at the base of the walls, the slow and obstinate work of
+undermining continued.
+
+The more excitable citizens, raging with indignation at seeing their
+walls destroyed with impunity, leaned out into the crenels to shoot at
+those who operated the battering-ram and worked with pickaxes; but no
+sooner did they appear than a stone fell upon them, or they tumbled over
+with their bodies pierced by an arrow. The wall was strewn with the dead
+and dying. The wounded dragged themselves along contemplating with
+clouded gaze the shaft of the arrow sunk in their flesh.
+
+In vain the besieged shot against the tower. Stones rebounded from its
+walls of logs with hollow clatter but without piercing them. It was
+bristling with arrows, moving like a monstrous elephant, insensible to
+wounds, and in vain the phalarics whistled through the air with their
+trail of sparks and smoke, for they could not set fire to the wet hides
+with which the upper part of the tower was covered.
+
+The more prudent fled from those places where the besiegers concentrated
+their efforts, and the more audacious took their places ignorant how to
+repel the enemy, but with the stubborn determination of dying before he
+should advance a step.
+
+Mopsus, the bowman, was the only one in the difficult situation who
+inflicted damage upon the Carthaginians. With drawn bow he thrust his
+head outside the merlons for an instant and shot, managing to send his
+arrows into the loopholes of the tower, scattering death among the
+soldiers who thought themselves secure. Erotion was at his side. Seeing
+his father in a place of danger he repelled Rhanto at the foot of the
+steps leading to the wall, paying no heed to her tears, and grasping his
+bow he tried to imitate the old archer, challenging the men in the
+tower.
+
+But with the imprudence of youth he exposed almost his entire body
+beyond the merlon, and when he managed to plunge an arrow into the tower
+he laughed, standing in the open crenel insulting the besiegers with his
+boisterous peals of boyish laughter.
+
+A stone from a catapult in the tower came whizzing and struck his head
+with a mournful crash. Blood and torn flesh spattered over those nearest
+him, and the boy, doubling up as if made of rags, rolled through the
+crenel and fell outside the wall. The arrows from his quiver struck
+roundabout his body with a metallic ring.
+
+"Mopsus! Mopsus!" shouted Actæon, striving to restrain the bowman.
+
+The old man had rushed out upon the wall, wholly unprotected, his eyes
+glassy, his gray beard quivering, impotent from grief and rage.
+
+Three times he tried to draw his bow to shoot at the platform in the
+tower which held the catapult, but in spite of his efforts he could not
+bend his weapon. Grief, surprise, despair, at being unable to
+exterminate his enemies with a single blow deprived him of his strength.
+
+While he stood struggling with the rigid bow which seemed to rebel
+against him, the enemy's projectiles were hissing around his head.
+Finding himself powerless, aged in an instant by grief, gazing down upon
+the mangled body of his son, and unable to avenge him, he uttered a
+moan, and summoning all the strength of his will he sprang outside the
+wall, and fell upon the corpse of Erotion. His head struck against the
+stones with a resounding thud, a stream of blood ran from it, and father
+and son formed a motionless pile a short distance from the assailants,
+who continued pounding with the battering-rams, and digging at the base
+of the wall.
+
+The unequal struggle lasted almost throughout the day. The Saguntines
+defending this part of the wall could not repulse the advance of the
+enemy. They felt the dull thud of the pickaxes, the wall seemed to reel
+beneath their feet, and they could do nothing to prevent the progress of
+the besiegers.
+
+Slowly the defenders began to retire. Actæon, saddened by the tragic
+death of his compatriot, and convinced that it was useless to remain at
+that point, advised them to retreat into the interior of the city. He
+fell back with some of his men, and soon a tower, eaten away at its base
+by the battering-ram, tottered and fell to the ground with a great roar
+of rubbish, and filled the air with dust. After this two other towers
+were battered down, and a long stretch of wall collapsed, burying in the
+débris the most obstinate defenders who had remained at their posts
+until the last moment.
+
+An awe-inspiring acclamation, a howl of savage joy from without greeted
+the overthrow of the walls. From the city streets the desolated fields
+and one end of the camp could be seen through the open breach. Arms
+glittered in the dense atmosphere, reddened by the dust of the shattered
+walls; dark bodies of troops could be seen advancing, and trumpet blasts
+resounded.
+
+"The assault! The Carthaginians are coming!"
+
+From all sides of the city armed men gathered. The narrow streets near
+the wall vomited groups and more groups who came shouting and
+brandishing swords and axes, with the determined mien of those who had
+decided to die. Clambering over the rubbish they began to take position
+in the breach, and this open space, this broad gash in the city's girdle
+of stone, was protected by a motley crowd which flourished weapons and
+formed a solid unbreakable mass.
+
+Actæon was in the first rank; near him he saw the prudent Alcon, who had
+exchanged his staff for a sword, and many of the peace-loving merchants
+whose astute faces seemed ennobled by the heroic resolution to die
+rather than give passage to the enemy.
+
+When the besiegers advanced to the assault they had to clash with the
+entire city. The walking-tower, the battering-rams, and the catapults,
+availed them nothing; the struggle was hand to hand, and the besieged no
+longer used the phalaric, but the sword and the axe.
+
+Hannibal, on foot, guided the phalanxes, which marched with lowered
+lance or lifted sword. He was fighting like a soldier, anxious to end
+this siege which was delaying his plans, believing this to be the
+decisive moment, and that a supreme effort might make him master of the
+city. With sharp words he encouraged the soldiers in the different
+idioms of their tribes, reminding them of the great riches within the
+city, of the beauty of the Greek women, of the large numbers of slaves
+inside those walls, and the Balearians attacked with lowered head,
+holding before them their wooden spears with points hardened by fire;
+the Celtiberians roared their war songs, beating on their breasts as on
+sonorous drums, drawing their sharp two-edged swords, and the Numidians
+and Mauritanians, dismounting from their horses, moved from place to
+place, cautious and sly, hurling upon the besieged the missiles which
+they carried in their girdles hidden beneath their white vestments.
+
+All in vain. The breach was a narrow throat. The Carthaginian army, in
+spite of superior numbers, had to contract its front to fight in such a
+constricted space, and in this equalizing of forces, the Saguntines
+retained an advantage, repelling the besiegers as often as they tried to
+climb over the mound formed by the fallen wall. Swords sunk into flesh
+producing atrocious wounds characteristic of ancient warfare; breasts
+were torn open by the brutal force of lances; combatants clinched
+entwining their arms like tendrils, linking their legs, making their
+panting chests wheeze like bellows, and rolling on the ground biting
+each other in the face. Often when the victor arose he proudly displayed
+a piece of bleeding flesh between his teeth.
+
+Hannibal's troops rushed up the mound like a hurricane, and on its
+approach the mass of defenders swayed, but none fell back; they must die
+firm at their post, for behind them was a compact multitude which forced
+them to be valiant, leaving no space for retreat.
+
+Thus the battle raged for hours. The mounds of dead between besieged and
+besieger made the advance difficult. The sun had sunk low in the west,
+and Hannibal was exasperated by the stubborn resistance which mocked his
+efforts. Still trusting in his lucky star he ordered the trumpets
+sounded for the final assault; but at that instant an unheard of thing
+occurred which disconcerted the chieftain and sowed confusion among his
+troops.
+
+Actæon did not know for a certainty whence came the voice. Perhaps it
+was an hallucination produced by faith; perhaps the invention of some
+enthusiast tired of being on the defensive.
+
+"The Romans!" shouted a voice. "Our allies are coming!"
+
+The news spread with the credulity born of danger. From one to another
+the story ran that the lookouts in the tower of Hercules had sighted a
+fleet bound for the port, and none asked who had brought the inspiring
+news to the breach in the walls. Everyone accepted it, adding by their
+own invention fresh details, and eyes shone with joy, blanched faces
+flushed, and even the wounded, dragging themselves over the rubbish
+heap, waved their arms exclaiming:
+
+"The Romans! The Romans are coming!"
+
+Suddenly, without command, by common instinct, as if impelled by an
+invisible force, they flung themselves through the breach, down the
+incline, falling like an avalanche upon the besiegers who were massed
+for the final assault.
+
+The unexpectedness of the shock, the force of the surprise, the cry of
+"The Romans! The Romans!" which the Saguntines raised with such
+conviction, wrought disruption among Hannibal's barbarian tribes. They
+defended themselves, but the whole city fell upon them; even the women
+and children fought as on that morning when Theron died, and Hannibal's
+soldiers, broken into scattered groups, neither seeing nor hearing their
+chiefs, fled precipitately toward their camp.
+
+Hannibal ran bellowing with rage, maddened at seeing that the besieged
+repelled his troops for the second time. Such was the blindness of his
+anger that he rushed in among the enemy, and several times came near
+falling beneath their blows.
+
+The day was almost ended. The Saguntine soldiers reached the vicinity of
+the camp, while the unarmored citizens scattering throughout the battle
+field dispatched the wounded and tried to set fire to the besieging
+engines. They would have destroyed them all had it not been for
+Maherbal, Hannibal's lieutenant, who came out of the camp with some
+cohorts of cavalry. The besieged, unable to resist the cavalry on open
+ground, began slowly to retire. When night closed in they reoccupied the
+breach, commenting with joyful shouts upon the victory which mitigated
+their disappointment over the non-appearance of the Romans.
+
+Actæon, with those Saguntines who had most distinguished themselves in
+the battles, set to work fortifying the city. He explained to the old
+men of the Senate how difficult it would be long to defend the opening.
+It was impossible to repeat the prodigy of that afternoon many times;
+and by the light of torches the people spent the whole night working
+behind the breach, throwing down tiled roofs and demolishing walls.
+
+Merchants and slaves, rich city dames and women from the suburbs, all
+mingled together, wielding pickaxes, rolling stones and carrying baskets
+of clay. Even the Ancients of the Senate took part in this titanic work,
+which lasted throughout the night and a great part of the following day.
+
+Euphobias the philosopher, who remained idle in spite of the insults of
+those who worked, ironically recalled the memory of the primitive
+founders of the city, the Cyclopes who moved stones as big as mountains
+and had thrown up the base of the Acropolis.
+
+The labor was not finished until the next afternoon, and at the same
+moment the besieging army began to stir. It marched solidly to the
+assault, silently, sullenly, revealing the fixed determination of taking
+possession at the first onset of that breach which had put them to shame
+the day before.
+
+They passed through the clouds of stones and arrows which the besieged
+hurled at them, and the cohorts leading on a run climbed up the pile of
+débris, struggling with the more audacious Saguntines, who still
+disputed passage through the breach. After a short conflict the
+besiegers made themselves masters of the entrance to the city, and they
+burst into exclamations of triumph.
+
+Hannibal marched intrepidly at the head of his soldiers; but on gaining
+the crest of the pile in the breach he stepped backward with an
+expression of disgust.
+
+Before him stretched a broad waste of demolished houses, and beyond the
+hills of débris rose a second monstrous wall, constructed in haste, as
+if an enormous broom had swept the desolated structures of the interior
+to the entrance of the city. Great, square-hewn stones, chunks of
+masonry, broken columns, were laid with the regularity of blocks in a
+wall, and the interstices were chinked with fresh clay. This wall
+quickly raised by a supreme effort of the whole city was taller than the
+previous one, and in the form of a curve it joined with the two curtains
+of the ancient walls which were still standing.
+
+Hannibal paled with wrath on seeing that all his efforts had served only
+to make him master of a pitiful little piece of ground covered by heaps
+of ruins and that by prodigious skill the walls which he had battered
+down had risen again beyond in a single night. Saguntum would destroy
+her houses to refortify herself with new barriers, cutting off his
+passage! He would have to conquer the ground inch by inch, street by
+street, and it might cost him months and years to narrow it down, first
+around the Forum, then up to the hill of the Acropolis, before he could
+succeed in making it surrender.
+
+On the summit of their new wall the Saguntines showed themselves as
+resolute as the day before, and their bows and slings prevented the
+assault of the enemy, who ended by falling back, remaining under cover
+of the débris at the breach.
+
+Hannibal stood outside the city wall, contemplating the heights of the
+Acropolis. He realized that he might gradually sacrifice his whole army
+if he continued attacking Saguntum on the level and weaker side where
+the besieged defended the ground so tenaciously. Calling Maherbal and
+his brother Mago, he laid before them the necessity of capturing a
+position on the hill, and of assaulting a portion of the immense
+Acropolis to attack the city from that direction, obliging it to
+surrender.
+
+Several days went by without resumption of hostilities on the side
+toward the river. The engines of war had been moved over to the foot of
+the hill, and they directed their heavy projectiles against the farthest
+walls of the Acropolis. These were old and had not been repaired, since
+the Saguntines trusted in the impregnability of the steeps.
+
+Moreover the number of defenders was insufficient to garrison the
+extensive precincts of Saguntum, while the besieger had at his disposal
+an immense armed multitude which could hurl itself against several
+places at once.
+
+One night in the Forum, Actæon encountered Sónnica, who was seeking him,
+followed by Alcon the Prudent.
+
+"The Elders have need of you," said the beautiful Greek woman, with a
+tone of sadness. "Behold Alcon, who wishes to speak with you."
+
+"Listen, Athenian," said the Saguntine gravely. "The days are passing
+and our needed succor does not come from Rome. Is it because our legates
+have been unable to reach the territory of the allied nation, and that
+the Senate of the great Republic is ignorant of our situation? Is it
+because Rome imagines that Hannibal, repenting of his audacity, has
+raised the siege? We need to know what our ally thinks concerning us. We
+wish the Senate of Rome to know in detail what Saguntum is doing, and
+the Ancients, at my suggestion, have thought of you."
+
+"Of me? And what do they wish?" asked Actæon in surprise, looking at the
+mournful Sónnica.
+
+"They wish you to start for Rome this very night. Here is gold! Take
+also these tablets which will serve as credentials, so that the Senate
+shall recognize you as an embassador extraordinary from Saguntum. We are
+not sending you to a festival. The exit is difficult, and it will be
+even more difficult to find, on these enemy-infested shores, anyone to
+convey you to Rome. You should start to-night; this moment, if possible;
+letting yourself down from the walls of the Acropolis, on the side
+toward the mountains where there are fewer enemies; to-morrow may be
+too late. Fly, and return soon with the aid which we await with
+anguish!"
+
+Actæon took the gold and the tablets which Alcon offered him, but not
+without making excuses, realizing the gravity of the undertaking.
+
+"No one can perform the mission better," said the Saguntine; "that is
+why I have turned to you. Your life has been spent running over the
+world; you speak many tongues; and you are not lacking in finesse and
+valor. Are you acquainted with Rome?"
+
+"No, my father's father made war against her, under orders of Pyrrhus."
+
+"Then go to her now as a friend, as an ally, and may the gods grant that
+some day we shall bless the moment in which you came to Saguntum!"
+
+Actæon was not eager to start. It seemed to him a shameful act to
+abandon the city at that critical moment, to leave Sónnica within a
+besieged town.
+
+"I am a stranger, Alcon," he said simply. "No tie of blood unites me to
+your fate. Are you not afraid that I shall flee forever, leaving you
+abandoned?"
+
+"No, Athenian, I know you, and that is why I have stood responsible for
+your fidelity to the Elders. Sónnica also has sworn that you will return
+if you do not fall into the power of the enemy."
+
+The Greek looked at his beloved as if asking her whether he should go,
+and she bowed her head, resigned to the sacrifice. Actæon then expressed
+himself as ready.
+
+"Farewell, Alcon! Tell the Elders that the Athenian Actæon will be
+crucified in Hannibal's camp or he will appear before the Senate of Rome
+presenting your suit."
+
+He kissed Sónnica on the eyes again and again, and the beautiful Greek
+woman, restraining her tears, pleaded to be allowed to follow him along
+with Alcon as far as the summit of the Acropolis, that she might see him
+a few moments longer.
+
+The three walked in the dark across the esplanades of the ancient city,
+along the walls of the Acropolis. They had blown out their torch in
+order not to attract the attention of the besiegers, and they went on,
+guided by the diffused light of the stars, which seemed to shine with
+more brilliancy, as if intensified by the cold of the night which was
+one of the first of winter.
+
+Alcon was searching for a place on the wall of which he had been told by
+some of the Elders who were more familiar with the Acropolis. When they
+had found it the Saguntine groped in the dark until he reached the end
+of a heavy rope fastened to a merlon, and he flung it over into space.
+
+The departure took place in absolute secret. The very Elders who had
+planned the journey for their ambassador and had arranged his flight,
+concealed themselves and did not witness it. Sónnica embraced Actæon,
+sobbing, and clinging to his neck.
+
+"Go quickly, Athenian," said the Saguntine impatiently. "This first hour
+of the night is the best; many groups of soldiers are still stirring
+around the camps before going to sleep. You can pass through now without
+being observed, while later, in the silence of the night, the sentinels
+will challenge you."
+
+Actæon freed himself from Sónnica's arms, and leaning over the walls he
+grasped the rope in the darkness.
+
+"Have confidence in our gods," said Alcon, as a parting word. "Although
+it may seem as if they have abandoned us, they ever watch over Saguntum.
+Not long ago a fugitive slave from the camp revealed before the Elders
+that the Vaccæi and the Carpetani, exasperated by the robbery of the
+detachments which Hannibal sent to gather supplies, have revolted
+against him, and have beheaded his emissaries. It seems that Hannibal,
+with a part of his army, will have to abandon the siege and go to punish
+them. We shall have fewer enemies before us, and if you return with the
+legions from Rome, Saguntum will be for the Carthaginians what the
+Ægates Islands were for them in Sicily. Ah! How much better is peace!"
+
+With this melancholy exclamation Alcon said farewell to the Greek, who
+descended the rope in silence. His feet soon rested upon a part of the
+rock on which the wall stood. He let go the rope and began groping his
+way down, catching hold, in his precipitous descent, of the scrawny
+olive trees which twisted over the heights as if complaining of the
+asperity of the rocks.
+
+At the feet of the Greek, in the black solitude of the plain, glittered
+the light of camp fires. Perhaps they were advance guards of the camp
+watching that part of the mountain, or marauders who followed the army,
+and had established themselves there out of Hannibal's sight.
+
+Actæon watched the plain and picked his way cautiously, crouching along
+by a stony ridge, stopping often to listen, holding his breath. He
+thought he was being shadowed, that someone was skulking behind him.
+Not far away blazed a great fire, and against its lurid smoke
+silhouettes of men and women were outlined.
+
+When he stood erect to explore the dark fields in order to circle away
+from the fire, someone suddenly caught him by the shoulders, and a
+hoarse voice murmured in his ears, between peals of loud and stupid
+laughter:
+
+"Now I have you at last!----You can not hide yourself from me!"
+
+Actæon squirmed from the clutching hands, and tugging at the broad knife
+he wore in his belt sprang in front of the unknown in an attitude of
+defense. It was a woman! By the dim starlight the Greek beheld her
+gesture of indecision and surprise.
+
+"Are you not Geryon the slinger?" she murmured, holding her hands out to
+the Athenian.
+
+They stared at each other, their faces almost meeting in the darkness,
+and the Greek recognized in the woman the unhappy _lupa_ who had fed him
+the first night of his arrival in Saguntum. She seemed even more
+surprised than the Athenian at the meeting.
+
+"Is it you, Actæon? It seems as if the gods put me in your path,
+although you scorn me. You are running away from the city, are you not?
+You must be tired of Sónnica the rich; you do not want to die like those
+merchants whom Hannibal the invincible will put to the knife! You are
+doing well! Fly! Fly far away!"
+
+She glanced apprehensively at the camp fire as if she feared the
+approach of the soldiers who were warming themselves around it, laughing
+and drinking with a group of _lupas_ from the port.
+
+The miserable harlot, in lowered voice, told the Greek why she was
+there. She was the favorite of Geryon, a Balearic slinger. He had left
+his companions a moment before, and had got out of her way so as not to
+have to give her the wages he had just received, and in searching for
+him she had stumbled upon Actæon. He might return, or his companions
+might approach, attracted by their voices; it was dangerous for Actæon
+to remain where he was.
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"I want to reach the coast, and follow along it until I find a fishing
+smack which will take me to Emporion or to Denia. I have money to pay my
+passage. Afterward I will look for a ship to take me away, very far
+away."
+
+"You will not return, will you? I do not wish you to return. If you only
+knew how often I have thought of you while men were killing each other
+on the walls! I shall never see you again, but I would rather not see
+you than have you remain in the city or become the slave of my lover the
+slinger. Hannibal will finish all of them! Ah, cruel city! And how I
+long to see all those rich women fall before Hannibal's troops--those
+women who used to have us beaten when we came near them at the port!"
+
+The poor harlot, extending her hand to the Greek, began to guide him
+through the fields.
+
+"Come!" she murmured; "I will conduct you to the beach, and from there
+you can continue on your way without other help than that of the gods.
+Seeing you with me they will think you are a Celtiberian soldier with
+his woman, looking for a place to spend the night. Come! I fed you the
+first night you came here, and I will save you on this last."
+
+They drew near the shore. As they passed several camp fires they were
+hailed by obscene calls from the soldiers and the women who thought them
+an amorous pair in search of a hiding-place. Some armed groups allowed
+them to pass without the slightest suspicion.
+
+The murmur of the waves on the sand grew louder. They were walking
+through the rushes, sinking into the warm and oozy bottom of the lagoon
+formed by the overflow of the tide.
+
+The poor _lupa_ stood still.
+
+"Here I leave you, Actæon. If you wished I would follow you as your
+slave! But you do not wish it; I know what I am----I can be nothing to
+you! You are going away forever, but I am content because you are
+fleeing from Sónnica. Before we part, kiss me, my divinity! No, not on
+the eyes----on the mouth----thus!"
+
+The Athenian, with tender commiseration, moved by the kindness of the
+miserable creature, kissed the dry and flaccid lips, from which escaped
+the insufferable odor of the wine of the Balearic slingers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE ROME OF FABIUS THE DELAYER
+
+
+When the sun's first rays reddened the walls of the Capitol the life of
+Rome had been astir for more than an hour.
+
+The Romans arose from their couches by the light of the morning stars.
+Carts from the Campagna rolled in the darkness through the tortuous
+streets, slaves awakened by the crowing of the cock trudged along
+carrying baskets and farm utensils, and by the hour of dawn all the
+houses had their doors thrown open, and the citizens not employed in the
+fields gathered in the Forum, that centre of traffic and of public
+business, that had begun to be adorned with the earlier temples, but
+still retained broad barren spaces upon which in later centuries were to
+rise the architectural glories of Rome, mistress of the world.
+
+Actæon had been in the great city for two days, lodged in an extramural
+inn established by a Greek. He never ceased to marvel at this austere
+Republic, existing almost in poverty, a hardy nation of farmers and
+soldiers who filled the world with their fame while they endured greater
+privation than any hamlet on the outskirts of Athens.
+
+Actæon expected to appear before the Senate that very day. The majority
+of the Fathers of the Republic lived in the country, in rustic villas
+with walls of unseasoned adobe roofed with branches, overseeing the work
+of their slaves, guiding the plow like Cincinnatus and Camillus; when
+affairs of state called them to the Senate they came into Rome in their
+carts, drawn by oxen, riding among baskets of vegetables and sacks of
+grain, and with their toil-calloused hands they arrayed themselves in
+the toga before entering the Forum, transfigured by the majesty lent by
+their flowing vestments.
+
+The Greek arrived at the Forum by sunrise, encountering the customary
+crowd--venerable Romans wrapped in their togas discoursing before the
+young men and their clients on the art of prudently placing money upon
+good security, the chief attainment of every citizen; and hungry Greek
+pedagogues scheming ever, in search of a situation among that sombre
+people more apt in war than in culture; old legionaries, their gray
+military cloaks covered with patches, their thoughts yearning back to
+the by-gone wars against Pyrrhus and Carthage, persecuted by debts and
+threatened with slavery by their creditors, in spite of the cicatrices
+all over their bodies; and the plebe, with no other clothing than the
+_lacerna_--a short cape of coarse cloth finished with the _cucullus_ or
+pointed hood--the multitudinous Roman plebe, exploited and oppressed by
+the patricians, ever dreaming, as a remedy for their ills, of new
+divisions of the public lands which, by means of usury, gradually fell
+into the hands of the rich.
+
+On the steps of the Comitium the members of a tribe were gathered to
+probate the will of one of their people who had just died. Near the
+military tribune veteran centurions wearing greaves and helmets of
+bronze stood leaning on staves of vine-wood, the badge of their
+military rank, discussing the siege of Saguntum and the audacity of
+Hannibal, eager to march immediately against the Carthaginian.
+
+On the huge blocks of blue stone which paved the Forum the vendors of
+hot drinks established their great craters, beating on them with ladles
+to attract the people, and at the foot of the steps of the temple of
+Concord some Etruscan buffoons, wearing hideous masks, began their
+grotesque pantomime, attracting the children and the idle from all sides
+of the quadrangle.
+
+It was cold; a damp and icy wind was blowing off the Pontine marshes;
+the sky was gray; and from the crowd stirring about the Forum rose a
+continuous and melancholy buzzing. Actæon compared this square with the
+bright Agora of Athens, and even with the Forum of Saguntum in its days
+of peace. The Grecian joyousness was lacking in Rome, the sweet and
+gladsome lightness of an artistic people, careless of riches, and if
+engaging in commerce doing so only that it may live more expansively.
+This was a people cold and sad, devoted to lucre and to the laying up of
+money, disdainful of ideals, with no other industry than agriculture and
+war, squeezing the last grain of wheat from their lands, and robbing the
+enemy; methodical, lacking initiative and youthfulness.
+
+"This people," said the Athenian to himself, "seems never to have been
+as young as twenty. Even the children seem to be born old."
+
+Actæon with his Grecian sagacity thought over what he had seen within
+the two days; the cruel discipline of the family, of the religion, and
+of the State, which held the citizens in subjection; their absolute
+ignorance of poetry and art; that stern training, sad, based only on
+duty, which obliged every Roman to a long and painful obedience so that
+he might some day be able to command.
+
+The father, who in Greece was a friend, in Rome was a tyrant. For the
+Latin city there existed no other member of the family than the father;
+the wife, the children, the clients, were almost on the level of slaves;
+they were instruments of toil, without rights and without name. The gods
+heard only him; in his house he was priest and judge; he could kill his
+wife, sell the children three times over, and his authority over the
+offspring persisted down the years; the conquering consul, the
+omnipotent senator, trembled when in his father's presence; and in this
+gloomy and despotic organization, more stern even than that of Sparta,
+Actæon divined a latent force cradled in mystery which some day should
+burst its bonds, clasping the world as in an embrace of iron. The Greek
+detested this gloomy nation, but it held his admiration.
+
+Its stamina, the tough and bellicose spirit of the race, were revealed
+in the Forum. The Capitol on the summit of the sacred mount was a
+veritable fortress, with naked and gloomy walls, destitute of such
+decorations as made the citadel of Athens glow with an eternal smile.
+The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, with its low roof and its row of
+flattened, tower-like columns, barely rose above the city ramparts.
+Below, in the Forum, prevailed a similar grave and gloomy ugliness. The
+buildings were low and heavy; they seemed rather constructions of war
+than temples of the gods and public buildings. The great network of
+highroads starting from the Forum was the only embellishment in which
+Rome interested herself, and that because of their usefulness in
+transporting her legions and in the hauling of farm products. From the
+Forum the Appian Way could be seen stretching in a straight line, paved
+with blue stone, with its two rows of tombs which loomed up in the
+suburbs of the city, fading in the distance through the Campagna in the
+direction of Capua; and at the opposite extreme led off the Flaminian
+Way, which ran by the coast, extending into Cisalpine Gaul. Upon the
+immense Campagna rose like fluttering red banners the first aqueducts
+constructed during the reign of Appius Claudius to supply the city with
+fresh water from the mountains, combating thus the malaria of the
+Pontine marshes.
+
+But aside from these crude monuments, the extensive, gigantic city,
+which of itself could arm over a hundred and fifty thousand men,
+presented a savage and wretched aspect, almost like that of those tribes
+which Actæon had seen on his trip through Celtiberia.
+
+There were few houses of more than a single story; the majority were
+great cabins of round walls of stone or clay, and conical roofs of
+boards and logs. After the Gauls burned Rome the city had been
+reconstructed in a year, haphazard, with precipitate celerity. In some
+wards the houses were huddled so closely together that they barely gave
+room for a man to pass between them, while in others they stood apart as
+if they were country villas surrounded by small fields inside the city
+walls. Streets did not exist; they were but tortuous prolongations of
+the roads which led to Rome; arteries formed at random, twisting hither
+and thither, following the sinuosities of a disorderly construction, and
+suddenly broadening into wide, untilled lands where the refuse of the
+houses was accumulating in piles, and where crows croaked by night,
+pecking at the carrion of dead dogs and asses.
+
+The crude simplicity of this city of farmers, money lenders, and
+soldiers, was reflected in the appearance of its inhabitants. Patrician
+matrons spun wool and hemp at the doors of their houses, clad only in
+tunics of coarse weave, and wearing bronze ornaments on their breasts
+and in their ears. The first coinage of silver had taken place
+subsequent to the war with the Samnites; the clumsy and heavy copper as
+was the current money, and the rich Grecian objects of virtu brought by
+the legions after the war with Sicily almost received adoration in the
+homes of the patricians, but were viewed askance by many as amulets
+which might corrupt the old sturdy Roman customs. Senators who owned
+extensive territories and hundreds of slaves, paraded their togas
+covered with patches in civic pride through the Forum. In all Rome there
+existed but a single table-service of silver, the property of the
+Republic, which passed from the house of one patrician to that of
+another when an envoy arrived from Greece, an ambassador from Sicily, or
+an opulent merchant from Carthage, habituated to Asiatic refinements and
+in whose honor banquets had to be given.
+
+Actæon, accustomed to philosophic arguments in the Athenian Agora, to
+dialogues on poetry or on the mysteries of the soul wherever two
+unoccupied Greeks chanced to meet, strolled through the Forum listening
+to the conversations carried on in that rude and inflexible Latin which
+wounded an Athenian's ears. In one group they were discussing the
+health of the flocks and the price of wool; in another they were closing
+the sale of an ox in the presence of five adult citizens who served as
+witnesses. The purchaser placed the bronze, the value of the purchase,
+in a balance, and touching the ox with his hand he said in solemn
+accent, as if reciting an oration:
+
+"This is mine, according to the law of the Quirites. I have paid for it
+with this metal duly weighed."
+
+Farther on, a legionary with hungry face was adjusting a loan with an
+old man, offering as security his helmet and his greaves, and
+pronouncing the formulas of the law in such a case:
+
+"_Dari spondes?_" (Do you promise to give?) the soldier asked.
+
+"_Spondeo_" (I promise), replied the lender.
+
+The bargain was closed with these sober words, the alteration of a
+single syllable in which was sufficient to annul the operation, for the
+Romans professed a superstitious respect for the letter and formula of
+their laws.
+
+In another group they were discussing the points which a slave must have
+in order to be useful to his master and to be maintained by him; and
+throughout the entire Forum this grave people, austere, and without
+ideals, talked only of possessions, and of the manner of increasing
+them.
+
+The attention of the Greek was attracted by a youth who, although barely
+twenty years of age, displayed the gravity of an old man. His hair was
+red and close-cropped; his steady gaze gave him an expression of
+intelligence and penetration. He was walking slowly beside a boy who
+was listening to him attentively, as to his master.
+
+"Although your father is consul," said the red-headed man, "you must not
+forget, Scipio, that in order to be a good citizen and to serve the
+Republic, it is necessary not only to know how to use the lance and to
+manage a horse, but to know how to till the soil, and to be familiar
+with the secrets of cultivation. Some day you may command our armies,
+and you will not only have to conquer lands for Rome, but cultivate
+them, so that they will produce abundantly. Do you realize that?"
+
+"Yes, Cato," said the youth.
+
+"Every day you should learn a month of the calendar which our
+forefathers made. With that well fixed in your memory it will be easier
+for you to command your slaves promptly and well in their work in the
+fields. Yesterday I taught you the month of May; repeat it, Scipio."
+
+"Month of May," recited the boy wrinkling his brows in order to better
+concentrate his mind. "Thirty-one days. The nones fall on the seventh
+day. The day has fourteen and a half hours; the night nine hours and a
+half. The sun is in the sign of Taurus; the month is under the
+protection of Apollo. Wheat should be weeded. Sheep should be shorn. The
+wool should be washed. Young steers should be put under the yoke. The
+vetch should be mown in the meadows. The lustration of the crops should
+be performed. Sacrifices to Mercury and to Flora."
+
+"You remember it well, Scipio. Our ancestors neither had nor desired any
+other science; they were satisfied with knowing what they should do in
+each month throughout the year, and with this, and with valor and
+audacity to hold their fields, and to take possession of the lands of
+their neighbors, they founded our city, which grows and will grow until
+it becomes the greatest in the world. We are not charlatans like the
+Greeks, who kneel in admiration before marble puppets and argue like
+buffoons about what comes after death. We are not madly ambitious like
+the Carthaginians, who base their life on commerce and risk all their
+wealth upon the sea. Our life is spent on the land; we are ruder but
+more solid than other people; we advance more slowly, but we shall go
+farther. On the soil which we tread for the first time we do not set up
+a tent as do others; we plunge in the plow, and that is why what Rome
+takes none wrests from her. Do not forget that, Scipio!"
+
+The Athenian followed not far behind. The words of that man, old at
+twenty years, taught him more than his observations. Rome seemed to
+speak through his mouth in that lesson given to the son of one of her
+consuls.
+
+"You should know also," continued Cato, "the domestic rules of every
+good citizen. When our fathers wished to eulogize a worthy man they
+called him 'a good husbandman.' This was the highest praise. At that
+time they lived on the land itself, in rustic tribes, the most honorable
+of all, and they only saw Rome on market days and on days of _comitia_.
+There are still good citizens who lead the sane life of Cincinnatus and
+Camillus, and only come when the Senate gathers; but war, with its
+expeditions to new countries, has corrupted many, who wish only to live
+in the city, and they have substituted for the old Roman home, with its
+roof of boards and its simple penates, houses crowded with columns as
+if they were temples, and adorned with gods and goddesses which they
+order from Greece."
+
+The austere gesture of Cato displayed immense scorn for the imported
+refinements which had begun to break down the sturdiness of his native
+land.
+
+"In the country the good citizen should not lose a day. If the weather
+prevent his going out he should entertain himself cleaning the stables
+and barnyards, fixing up the old utensils, and seeing that the women
+mend the clothing. Even on feast days something can be done; irrigate
+the young vineyards, wash the sheep, go to the city to sell oil or
+fruit. No time should be lost in consulting haruspices and augurs, nor
+in devotion to cults which oblige the citizen to abandon his house. The
+gods of the household or of the nearest cross-road are sufficient. The
+lares, the manes, and the silvani are sufficient to protect a good
+citizen. Our fathers had no others, but nevertheless they were great."
+
+The youthful Scipio listened attentively, but his eyes were fixed on two
+young men from the Campagna, who with the _cucullus_ fallen over their
+shoulders, were having a boxing match close to a vendor of mulled wine.
+The young man's cheeks flushed with emotion seeing the blows exchanged
+by the athletes with quivering muscles.
+
+"If the citizen dwell in Rome," continued Cato, without noticing this
+incident which failed to disturb the gravity of the Forum, "he should
+open the door of his house at dawn of day to explain the law to his
+clients, and to place his money prudently, teaching the young men the
+art of increasing their savings and how to avoid ruinous follies. The
+father of the family should turn everything into money and waste
+nothing. If he give new garments to his slaves, he should recover the
+old ones for other uses. He should sell the oil and the wine and the
+wheat which are left over at the close of the year. Let him also sell
+the old oxen, the calves, lambs, the wool, the hides, the unserviceable
+carts, the rusty iron, the old, infirm, and sick slaves. Let him be ever
+selling. The father of the family should be the seller, not the buyer.
+Note that well, Scipio!"
+
+But Scipio was restless and scarcely heard him.
+
+The rustics had ceased boxing, and the youth, eager to be off, glanced
+far away toward the river.
+
+"Cato, this is the time for athletics. I must go to the bank of the
+Tiber to train myself in running and in pugilism, and to take an hour
+for swimming afterward."
+
+"Go when you will, and heed my advice. After the lesson, athletics and
+the cold bath, which harden the body, are excellent. The citizen who
+wishes to serve his country must not only be prudent but strong."
+
+The boy walked away, and Cato retracing his steps met the Greek who was
+following him. Actæon's appearance attracted him, and he approached.
+
+"Greek," he said, "what do you think of our city?"
+
+"It is a gloomy town, but a great one. I have been in Rome only three
+days."
+
+"Are you, perchance, the messenger from Saguntum, who will appear before
+the Senate to-day?"
+
+Actæon replied in the affirmative, and the Roman leaned on his arm with
+grave familiarity, as if he were an old friend.
+
+"You will accomplish very little," he said. "The Senate is suffering
+with a sickness just now--an excess of prudence! I detest mad deeds; I
+do not believe that Hannibal is a great captain, since I see him commit
+such an audacity as the siege of Saguntum; but I cannot tolerate in
+silence the faint-heartedness with which Rome proceeds in her affairs.
+She wishes to avail herself of all means to keep the peace. She fears
+war, while war with Carthage is inevitable. She and our city will not
+fit in the same sack. The world is too small for the two. I am always
+saying, 'Let us destroy Carthage!' and they laugh at me. Some years ago,
+when the war of the mercenaries broke out, we could have crushed her
+with ease. By sending to Africa a brace of legions the revolted
+Numidians and the mercenaries would have finished with Carthage; but we
+were afraid; after her victory Rome occupied herself only in healing her
+wounds. We feared the uprising of the soldiery of all countries, so we
+saved Carthage, helping her to destroy her revolted mercenaries."
+
+"It is different now," said Actæon, with energy. "Saguntum is an ally,
+and if Hannibal makes war upon her it is on account of the love which
+the city professes for Rome."
+
+"Yes; that is why we Romans are interested in her fate; but do not hope
+for much from the Senate. It is more anxious about the pirates of the
+Adriatic who harrow our coasts, that rebellion of Demetrius of Pharos in
+Illyria, against whom we are about to send an army under command of the
+consul Lucius Æmilius."
+
+"But what of Saguntum? If you abandon her how will you resist the
+audacious Hannibal, who leads the most warlike tribes of Iberia? What
+will those unfortunates say of the seriousness with which Rome observes
+her alliances?"
+
+"Try to convince the Senate with your arguments. I am convinced; I see
+in Carthage the sole enemy of Rome. Would that they were all of my mind!
+They would then accept the audacious challenge of the son of Hamilcar
+and would declare war against Carthage, going to meet her in her own
+territory! Happen what may, we are invincible. Italy is a compact mass,
+and as advance sentinels of our camp, we have in the Orient Illyria, on
+the side which looks into Africa we have Sicily, and in the Occident is
+Sardinia, while the lands which Carthage dominates form an extensive
+belt of nine hundred leagues which runs along a great part of the coasts
+of Africa and all those of Iberia; but so narrow, and peopled by so many
+different races, that it can easily be broken. Though Rome might lose a
+hundred battles, she will always be Rome, but one defeat for Carthage is
+enough to dissolve the nation."
+
+"If only they all thought as you do, Cato!"
+
+"If the Senate thought as I do it would scorn Demetrius of Pharos, and
+its legions would have been in Saguntum days ago. Perhaps by such means
+a danger would be avoided, because who knows where that young African
+will go, and what he may not dare if he succeed in conquering without
+hindrance a city allied to Rome! That is why I, a free citizen, give
+lessons as a pedagogue, as you have just witnessed. That boy is the son
+of the consul Publius Cornelius Scipio, and all the virtues of his
+family are revived in him. Perhaps he may be the one destined to bar
+Hannibal's way, to destroy the insolent power of that Carthage against
+whom we are ever clashing."
+
+They continued strolling through the Forum discussing the customs of
+Rome, and arguing warmly as they contrasted them with those of Athens.
+Then the austere Roman, having to hold conference with various
+patricians in regard to private affairs, to which he attended with great
+scrupulousness, said farewell to the Greek.
+
+On being left alone Actæon realized that he was hungry. It would be some
+time before the Senate would assemble, and wearied of the noisy stir in
+the Forum he passed on, walking around the base of the Capitoline,
+following a street broader than the others, lined with stone buildings,
+which displayed through their open doors the relative abundance of
+patrician families.
+
+He entered a bakery and rapped on the stone of the deserted counter with
+an _as_. A plaintive voice answered from a kind of cavern. The Greek
+peered into the gloomy grotto and saw a mill for grinding wheat, and
+yoked to it a man, who was turning it with great effort.
+
+The slave came out almost naked, wiping off the sweat which was
+streaming down his forehead, and taking the money offered by the Greek
+handed him a round loaf. Then he stood looking Actæon over with
+curiosity.
+
+"Do you own the bakery?" Actæon asked.
+
+"I am nothing but a slave," he replied sadly. "My master had to go to
+the Forum to see the dealers in wheat. You are a Greek, are you not?"
+
+Before Actæon deigned to answer, he hastened to add with melancholy
+pride:
+
+"I have not always been a slave. I have been in this condition but a
+short time, and before I lost my freedom my fervent desire was to visit
+your country. O Athens! The city where poets are gods!"
+
+He recited in Greek some verses from the Prometheus of Æschylus,
+astonishing Actæon by the purity of his accent and by the expression
+which he communicated to his words.
+
+"Can it be that here in Rome your masters dedicate you to poesy?" asked
+the Athenian, laughing.
+
+"I was a poet before I became a slave. My name is Plautus."
+
+Glancing around as if fearing to be surprised by some member of his
+master's family he continued talking, happy at being able to free
+himself from the torment of the mill.
+
+"I have written comedies. I tried to establish the theatre in Rome,
+which is almost a cult among your people. The Romans have little
+sensibility to poetry. They love farces; a tragedy that would move the
+Hellenes to tears, leaves them cold; one of Aristophanes' comedies would
+put them to sleep. They, Athenian, enjoy only the Etruscan buffoons,
+those grotesque comedians of the farces which they call Atellanæ, and
+the hideous maskers with sharp teeth and deformed heads who stalk in the
+triumphal processions growling their obscenities. They would stone the
+heroes of your tragedies, while on the other hand, they howl with
+enthusiasm at the entry of a victorious consul when the soldiers pass
+disguised in rams' skins, wearing tufts of bristling horsehair, and they
+laugh at seeing them avenge themselves for their humble condition by
+insulting the conqueror behind his triumphal car. I wrote comedies for
+these people, and I write them still in moments when my master ceases
+beating me to make me turn the mill. The patricians, the free citizens,
+do not enjoy seeing themselves personated in the scene. Here they would
+rend Aristophanes to pieces, he who represented upon the stage the most
+prominent men of Athens. My heroes are slaves, foreigners, and
+mercenaries, and they make the audience laugh. I have finished a comedy
+there within that den, ridiculing the fanfare of the warriors. I would
+recite it if I did not fear that my master might return at any moment."
+
+"But how have you fallen into such a wretched situation after having
+been the entertainer of your people?"
+
+"I committed the madness of founding the first theatre in Rome, in
+imitation of those in Greece. It was a wooden enclosure on the outskirts
+of the city. I borrowed money; I contracted debts; the populace came to
+laugh, but they gave little. I was ruined, and the wise laws of Rome
+condemn him who cannot pay to become the slave of his creditor. This
+baker who used to laugh at my comedies, and who gladly loaned me sacks
+of copper, is now getting even for his former show of admiration by
+making me turn his mill, because I cost less than an ass. Every peal of
+laughter in the past is transformed into a blow with a stick dealt
+across my back. The fate of poets! You Greeks also thanked Æschylus for
+his verses by pelting him with stones, yet he was ever a freeman."
+
+Plautus became silent, but after a melancholy smile he added:
+
+"I trust in the future. I shall not always have to be a slave; perhaps I
+shall find someone who will give me back my liberty. The Romans who make
+war and see new countries return with milder customs and with a love of
+art. I shall be free, I will found a new theatre, and
+then,----then----"
+
+Hope shone in his glance, as if he saw the realization of the dreams
+with which he embellished his gloomy den, while, panting like a beast,
+he turned the enormous cone of stone.
+
+A noise was heard from within the house, and before his master's
+children could see him Plautus ran to yoke himself again to the
+mill-spindle, while the Greek left the place, astounded by this episode.
+
+What a people this, which converted its debtors into slaves and turned
+its poets into beasts of burden!
+
+The Greek sauntered back through the Forum munching his loaf of bread.
+He was waiting for the Senate to assemble, and to pass away the time he
+climbed to the crest of the Palatine Hill, the sacred ground which was
+the cradle of Rome. He visited the Lupercal Grotto where Romulus and
+Remus had been suckled by the she-wolf. At the entrance to the narrow
+cave, denuded by the winter, the Ruminal fig tree extended its naked
+branches, the famous tree in the shade of which the twin founders of the
+city had frolicked. Near it on a granite pedestal stood the wolf, in
+dark and lustrous bronze, the work of an Etruscan artist, with the
+hideous half-open fauces, and her belly bristling with a double row of
+gleaming teats to which two naked children clung, sprawling on the
+ground.
+
+From this height Actæon looked down upon the broad city, a wave of roofs
+between the seven hills, invading the heights and dispersing through the
+deep valleys. Almost at the side of the Palatine rose the Capitolium,
+the great fortress of Rome, on the naked crags of the Tarpeian rock, and
+the Greek passed from the summit of one to that of the other to examine
+the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, more famous than beautiful.
+
+He turned his back on the rude temple of Mars, which occupied the
+highest point of the Palatine, and following a path between abrupt rocks
+he crossed to the Capitoline. On his way he met the priests of Jupiter,
+walking with sacerdotal rigidity as if ever offering sacrifices to their
+god. He saw the vestals wrapped in their flowing white veils, marching
+with a sturdy tread. Some _milites_ were climbing up to the temple of
+Mars, their broad breasts encased in overlapping bands of copper, their
+bare thighs covered by strips of wool hanging from the waist; one hand
+resting on the pommel of their short swords while they talked with
+enthusiasm of the coming Illyrian campaign, without thought of the
+situation of their allies in Iberia.
+
+Actæon entered the sacred precincts of the Capitoline, surrounded by
+frowning ramparts. It was the ancient mount Tarpeius, with its two
+summits united by an extensive flat. The higher part which lay toward
+the north was occupied by the Arx or citadel of Rome; on the south was
+the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, surrounded by massive columns.
+
+The Greek entered the citadel, famous for its resistance during the
+invasion of the Gauls. On the margin of a pool before the temples
+huddled within the strong enclosure he saw the sacred birds--the geese
+which with their cackling in the silence of the night had protected Rome
+from the surprise of the invaders. Then he crossed the depression which
+divides the hill into two parts, and approached the great fane of Rome.
+
+A stairway of a hundred steps led to the temple, constructed in the
+time of the last Tarquin in honor of the three divinities of
+Rome--Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. The building consisted of three
+_cellæ_ or parallel sanctuaries, with three doors opening beneath the
+same pediment. The one in the centre was sacred to Jupiter, and the
+smaller ones on either side to the two goddesses. A triple row of
+columns sustained the pediment, which was decorated with prancing horses
+coarsely sculptured. Two rows of columns ran down the sides of the
+temple forming a portico, in the shade of which the eldest Roman
+citizens strolled, discussing the affairs of the city.
+
+The temple had been built by artists called from Etruria, and under the
+colonnade were statues acquired by the expeditions to Sicily and as a
+result of the many wars carried on by Rome. This rude nation was
+incapable of producing artists, but it had soldiers to supply it with
+art by means of war and loot.
+
+The Athenian entered the sanctuary in the centre dedicated to Jupiter,
+and he saw the image of the god in terra cotta, holding a golden lance
+in his right hand. Before him continually smoked the Altar of
+Sacrifices. On leaving the temple he glanced at the gnomon or sundial,
+which at that height marked the time for all Rome.
+
+It was now the hour to go to the Senaculum, the ancient building at the
+foot of the Tarpeian peak between the Capitolium and the Forum, which
+many years later was converted into the temple of Concord. On the steps
+which gave access to the temple Actæon met the two legates sent by
+Saguntum before the siege began; two old farmers who had gone away from
+home for the first time, and who seemed to be dazed by their long
+months of waiting in Rome, with their audiences which never terminated,
+and with their interviews and resultless supplications. The two
+perturbed Saguntines, impotent before a city which never responded
+definitely to their words, followed like automata the self-confident
+Greek who went everywhere as if he were in his own house, and who spoke
+many languages as if the entire world were his country.
+
+The senators began to arrive. Some came from their business in the city
+and presented themselves garbed in the white toga with purple border,
+followed by their clients who turned their gaze in all directions as if
+to attract public attention to their majestic protector. Others came
+from the country, drawing up their carts before the steps of the
+Senaculum, and, handing the reins to a slave, ascended to the temple
+with their togas flung over their arms, dressed in the short cloak of
+coarse wool worn by farmers, and emitting the odors of their stables and
+crops. They were mature men who displayed in the firmness of their
+strong muscles the activity of their life of continued struggle with the
+soil and with enemies; old men with long beards and wizened faces,
+tremulous with age, who still revealed in their unflinching eyes
+reliance on their departing strength. The crowd from the Forum, surging
+toward the steps of the Senaculum, watched them with admiration and
+respect. They were the fathers of the Republic, the heads of Rome.
+
+The two legates from Saguntum walked up the temple steps. Under the
+columns which sustained the pediment were numberless piles of loot from
+the last wars, deposited by the conquerors as they paraded through the
+Forum before the multitude, which had hailed them, waving branches of
+laurel. Actæon saw shields pierced by iron swords, rusted by blood;
+war-chariots with broken tongues, the gilded wheels bespattered with the
+mud of battles. They were spoils from the war with the Samnites. Farther
+on, standing along the wall, a row of hideous wooden dwarfs, dyed red
+and blue, stripped from the prows of Carthaginian ships after the great
+victory at the Ægates Islands; iron bars which had closed the gates of
+many cities conquered by the Romans; the golden standards decorated with
+fantastic animals which led the troops of Pyrrhus; the enormous tusks of
+the elephants which this descendent of Achilles had marched against the
+legions of Rome; the horned or eagle-winged helmet of the Ligurians; the
+darts of Alpine tribes, and, beside the door, as a trophy of honor, the
+armor of the glorious Camillus, paraded in triumph by the city after
+this great Roman had driven the Gauls from the Capitol. Along the walls,
+as a strange decoration, hung a long dark tissue, crisp as parchment. It
+was the skin of the great serpent which for a whole day held back the
+army of Atilius Regulus, when on his expedition to Africa he was
+marching to the conquest of Carthage. The horrible monster, insensible
+to arrows, devoured many soldiers before it succumbed beneath a shower
+of stones, and Regulus sent the reptile's skin to Rome as a testimony of
+the adventure.
+
+The envoys from Saguntum had a tedious wait before a centurion ushered
+them into the Senaculum.
+
+The Greek, sweeping his glance over the semicircle, was perturbed by the
+majesty of the assemblage. He recalled the entrance of the Gauls into
+Rome; the stupefaction of the barbarians in the presence of those
+Elders, firm in their marble chairs, wrapped like phantoms in their
+snowy garments which left uncovered only their silvery beards; their
+ivory staves held with a divine majesty, revealed again in the gleam
+from their steady eyes. None but barbarians intoxicated with blood-lust
+would dare to assault men of such patriarchal dignity.
+
+They numbered more than two hundred. Between them were vacant seats of
+senators unable to attend, and over the concentric rows of marble chairs
+the white togas spread out like newly fallen snow upon a crust of ice.
+Behind them stood a row of columns in a semicircle, sustaining the
+cupola through which filtered a crepuscular light which seemed to favor
+meditation and concentration of the mind. A low stone balustrade
+surrounded the semicircle, and beyond it were grouped important citizens
+who had not the investiture of senators. In the centre the barrier was
+broken by a square pedestal sustaining the bronze she-wolf with the
+twins hanging to her dugs, and on the base in great letters, the device
+of supreme authority in Rome: "S.P.Q.R." A tripod sustained a brazier
+before the pedestal, and over the embers floated a blue cloud of
+incense.
+
+The three legates seated themselves in marble chairs near the image of
+the wolf, before the triple row of white and motionless men.
+
+Some rested their chins in their hands as if to hear better.
+
+They might speak; the Senate would hear them; and Actæon, moved by the
+supplicating glances of his two companions, arose. In his mind
+impressions did not linger long; he had recovered from the emotion
+produced at first by the majesty of the assemblage.
+
+He spoke deliberately, taking care, after the manner of a true Greek, to
+avoid lapses of style in expressing himself in that rude tongue,
+endeavoring to give to his words the emotion which he wished to inspire
+in the representatives of Rome. He described the desperate resistance of
+Saguntum, and her confidence in the support of the Republic, that blind
+faith which had inspired her people to hurl themselves outside the walls
+and repulse the enemy at the mere announcement that the Roman fleet had
+appeared upon the horizon. When he left the city it still had supplies
+for subsistence and courage to defend itself. But much time had elapsed
+since then--nearly two whole months. The ambassador had been compelled
+to make his way amidst adventures and perils, sometimes by sea, taking
+advantage of the routes of the merchant ships, again on foot along the
+coasts, and at this moment the situation of the city must be desperate.
+Saguntum would fall if they did not go to her succor, and what a
+responsibility for Rome if she abandoned her protégé after the latter
+had drawn Hannibal's enmity upon her for wishing to be Roman! How could
+other nations rely on the friendship of Rome when they knew the sad end
+of Saguntum!
+
+The Greek ceased speaking, and the painful silence which fell over the
+Senate revealed the profound impression his words had made.
+
+Then Lentulus, an aged senator, arose to speak. The sharp voice of the
+old man penetrated the silence as he told of the origin of Saguntum,
+which if it were Grecian on account of the merchants of Zacynthus having
+established their factories there, was also Italian on account of the
+Rutulians from Ardea who had gone thither in remote times to found a
+colony. Moreover Saguntum was the friend of Rome. To be more faithful to
+her she had beheaded some of her citizens who had worked in the cause of
+Carthage. What audacity for that young man, a son of Hamilcar, to ignore
+the treaties of Rome with Hasdrubal, and to dare to raise his sword
+against a city friendly to the Romans! If Rome looked with indifference
+upon this offense Hamilcar's lion-cub would grow in temerity, for youth
+knows no bridle when it sees its imprudence crowned by success.
+Moreover, the great city could not tolerate such daring. Outside, at the
+door of the Senaculum were the glorious trophies of war as a
+demonstration that he who revolted against Rome should fall conquered at
+her feet. They must be inexorable with the enemy and faithful to the
+ally; they must carry the war into Iberia and destroy the reckless one
+who defied Rome.
+
+All the choler of the gloomy city, warlike and severe, spoke through the
+mouth of the aged man, who extended his rigid arm above his companions'
+heads, threatening the invisible enemy. The soldierly vigor of the
+veteran of ancient wars against the Samnites and against Pyrrhus, was
+aroused for a moment in the weak old man, and thrilled his muscles and
+caused his eyes to flash.
+
+Actæon's two companions, who did not understand the Latin tongue,
+nevertheless divined Lentulus' words, and they were filled with emotion
+by the eulogy of the self-abnegation of their city. Tears streamed from
+their eyes, they rent the dark mantles in which they were clad as solemn
+messengers, and throwing themselves to the floor to express the
+vehemence of their grief after the custom of the ancients, they shouted,
+sobbing:
+
+"Save us! Save us!"
+
+The desperation of the two old men, and the dignified attitude of the
+Greek, who, frowning and silent, seemed the personification of Saguntum
+awaiting the fulfillment of pledges, moved the Senate and the multitude
+that surged outside the balustrade of the she-wolf. All were agitated
+and were exchanging words of indignation. Beneath the cupola of the
+Senaculum resounded a disorderly buzzing, the echo of a thousand mingled
+voices. They clamored for the Senate to declare instant war against
+Carthage, to call out the legions, to make ready the ships, to embark an
+expedition in the port of Ostia, and to hurl Rome against the camp of
+Hannibal.
+
+A senator called for silence that he might speak. It was Fabius, one of
+the most famous patricians of Rome, the descendent of those three
+hundred heroes of that famous gens destroyed in a single day fighting
+for Rome on the banks of the Cremera. Prudence spoke through his mouth;
+his counsels were ever followed as being wisest; on this account the
+Senate recovered its calmness as soon as it saw that he had arisen to
+his feet.
+
+With reposeful language, after lamenting the situation of the allied
+city, he said that it was not known whether it were Carthage that had
+broken into hostilities against Saguntum, or whether Hannibal had done
+so on his own account. A war in Iberia would be a grave matter for Rome,
+now that she was going to begin a nearer struggle with the rebel
+Demetrius of Pharos. It would be advisable to send an embassy to
+Hannibal in his camp, and if the African refused to raise the siege, let
+it go to Carthage to ask if its rulers approved the chieftain's conduct,
+and to demand that the latter be turned over to Rome in punishment for
+his audacity.
+
+This solution seemed to please the Senate. Those who a few moments
+before had shown themselves warlike and uncompromising bowed their heads
+as if approving the words of Fabius. The thought of the insurrection in
+Illyria counseled prudence to the most violent. They remembered the
+enemy who was rising almost at their doors across the Adriatic, and who,
+with their fleets given over to piracy, might attempt an invasion of
+Roman territory. Egoism caused them to look upon this enterprise as more
+important than any oath, and in order to deceive themselves and to hide
+their own weakness, they exaggerated the importance of the embassy to
+Hannibal's camp declaring that the African would raise the siege and ask
+pardon of Rome as soon as he saw the Senatorial legates arrive.
+
+Actæon received this change on the part of the assemblage with visible
+signs of impatience.
+
+"I know Hannibal well," he shouted. "He will not obey you; he will scoff
+at you! If you do not send an army the journey of your legates will be
+useless!"
+
+But the senators, eager to conceal the weakness to which their egoism
+drove them, protested loudly against the words of Actæon. Who spoke of
+scoffing at the Republic of Rome? Who imagined that Hannibal would
+scorn the envoys of the Senate? Let the stranger maintain silence--he
+who was not even a son of the city in whose name he spoke.
+
+Actæon bowed his head. Then, turning to his aged companions, who did not
+understand the resolution of the Senate, he murmured: "Our city is lost!
+Rome fears to declare war against Hannibal and delays the clash of arms.
+When they become ready to help us Saguntum will no longer exist!"
+
+The three Saguntine legates received an order to retire. The senators
+were about to appoint two patricians who should go as envoys of Rome.
+
+As they left the Senaculum the eldest of the senators addressed Actæon:
+
+"Tell your companions to prepare for the journey. To-morrow at sunset
+you will embark with the legates of the Senate in the port of Ostia."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE HUNGRY CITY
+
+
+The trireme conveying the Roman legates had been on her voyage more than
+fifteen days.
+
+She had sailed up the coasts of the Tyrrhenian Sea; she had then crossed
+the Sea of Liguria, bound by abrupt coasts, and had passed before
+Massilia, the prosperous Grecian colony, also allied to Rome. Then,
+audaciously crossing the broad gulf, she had turned her prow toward
+Emporion, and had skirted the coasts of Iberia.
+
+The ambassadors from Rome were the patricians Valerius Flaccus, one of
+those who desired to maintain the peace with prudent words, and Bæbius
+Tamphilus who enjoyed the love of the Roman plebs because of his
+sympathy for their sufferings.
+
+Actæon displayed impatience to reach Saguntum. He wished to confer with
+his friends and avoid the useless sacrifice of the city, explaining to
+them the mood of Rome so that they should not persist in a useless
+defense. For seven months Saguntum had held out in strenuous resistance.
+Autumn had not yet commenced when Hannibal's army had appeared before
+the city, and it was now near the end of winter.
+
+The Greek reflected sadly upon the fond illusions he had cherished while
+making his adventurous and perilous way to Rome. He had hoped that his
+presence in the great city, and his story of the sufferings of the
+faithful ally, would arouse the Romans, and that the legions would shout
+for vengeance----but he was returning without soldiers, in a ship with
+ambassadors feigning interest in Saguntum but not deeply moved by her
+misfortunes----returning without other support than high-sounding,
+impotent words, and a bronze wolf on the end of a staff proclaiming the
+dignity of the embassy.
+
+What of the enthusiastic and credulous multitude fighting on the walls,
+filling the yawning breach with their unflinching breasts, and who to
+gather fresh courage only needed to imagine the coming of the
+Romans!----What would they say? Then, with a sudden turn of thought,
+what of Sónnica, she so brave, sending him that he might save the city!
+How could she, accustomed to a life of luxury and ease, live in the
+misery and horror of that siege, which had endured until the stores of
+the city must be consumed, and the energy of its defenders exhausted!
+
+The ship left the mouth of the Ebro, and struggling against contrary
+winds, at length, one morning, sighted the Acropolis of Saguntum. From
+the tall tower of Hercules shot up a cloud of smoke in greeting! They
+had recognized the vessel by the square rigging of the Roman men-of-war.
+
+The sun was in the zenith when the ship, with reefed sails, and driven
+by the triple bank of oars, stood into the channel which gave entrance
+to the port of Saguntum. Within the harbor, above the reeds waving in
+the marshes, rose the masts of Carthaginian vessels anchored in the
+triple port.
+
+The crew of the Roman ship beheld great troops of horsemen galloping
+along the beach. They were squadrons of Numidians and Mauritanians,
+waving their lances and uttering war cries as when charging in battle.
+
+One horseman, with bronze armor and uncovered head, had called to them
+to heave to. Advancing alone, he urged his horse into the channel,
+approaching the ship until the waters rose to the animal's belly.
+
+Actæon recognized him.
+
+"That is Hannibal," he said to the two legates standing beside him on
+the poop, who were watching with astonishment the bellicose character of
+their reception before they had even cast anchor in the port of
+Saguntum.
+
+Fresh squadrons continued to arrive, as if the news of the coming ship
+had spread alarm through the camp, attracting all the troops to the
+port. Behind the cavalry came the fierce Celtiberians at full speed, the
+Balearic slingers, all the foot-soldiers, of diverse races who figured
+in the besieging army.
+
+Hannibal, even at the risk of drowning, pressed his horse forward into
+the waters of the channel to make himself heard on the ship, and
+ordering them to stop he held up his hand so imperiously that in an
+instant the oars dropped motionless along the hull.
+
+"Who are you? What do you want?" he asked in Greek.
+
+Actæon interpreted between the Romans and the Carthaginian chief.
+
+"They are legates from Rome, coming to see you in the name of the
+Republic."
+
+"Who are you, speaking to me in a voice that I seem to know?"
+
+He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked keenly until he recognized
+the Greek.
+
+"Is it you, Actæon? Always you, restless Athenian! I thought you were
+within the city, yet you have managed to slip away to bring these men to
+me. Well and good! Tell them it is too late. Why waste words? A
+chieftain who lays siege to a city only receives ambassadors after he is
+inside the walls."
+
+The Greek repeated Hannibal's words to the Romans, translating their
+replies.
+
+"Listen, African!" said Actæon to Hannibal. "The envoys from Rome remind
+you of the friendship which they have contracted with Saguntum. In the
+name of the Senate and the Roman people they call upon you to raise the
+siege and to respect the city."
+
+"Tell them that Saguntum has offended me, and that she was first in
+declaring war by sacrificing my friends and by refusing to respect my
+allies, the Turdetani."
+
+"That is not true, Hannibal."
+
+"Greek, repeat what I say to the Romans."
+
+"The legates wish to land. They must speak to you in the name of Rome."
+
+"It is useless. They cannot make me desist from my enterprise. Moreover,
+the siege has lasted long, the troops are excited and a camp like mine,
+composed of ferocious peoples from many countries, who are only
+restrained when in my presence, is no safe place for ambassadors from
+Rome. We had a battle only a few hours ago, and they are still fuming
+with wrath."
+
+As he said this he turned toward his troops, and, as if taking the
+movement for an order, or perhaps divining in the eyes of their
+chieftain his hidden purpose, they advanced into the water as if to
+attack by swimming against the ship. Horsemen threatened with lances
+still dyed in the blood of recent battle; they raised their shields, on
+which the more savage Africans had hung as trophies the scalps of
+Saguntines killed in the last sally. The Balearians showed their white
+teeth in stupid grins, and taking clay balls from their pouches, they
+directed sling-shots against the Roman vessel.
+
+"Do you see?" shouted Hannibal with satisfaction. "It is impossible to
+receive the legates in my camp. It is too late to talk. There is nothing
+left but for Saguntum to give herself up to me in punishment for her
+crimes."
+
+The legates, scorning the projectiles from the slings, leaned over the
+side of the ship, thrusting forward their bodies covered by their togas,
+with an arrogance which seemed to defy the savage warriors.
+
+Indignation at being received with such scorn blanched their cheeks.
+
+"African!" shouted one of the legates in Latin, heedless that Hannibal
+could not understand, "since you will not receive the envoys from Rome
+we shall go on to Carthage to demand that they turn your person over to
+us for breaking the treaties of Hasdrubal. Rome will punish you when you
+become our prisoner!"
+
+"What does he say? What does he say?" growled Hannibal enraged at the
+incomprehensible words in which he surmised a threat.
+
+When Actæon explained, the chieftain burst into a loud laugh of
+derision.
+
+"Go, Romans!" he shouted. "Go thither! The rich hate me and they would
+be glad to grant your demands and turn me over to the enemy; but the
+people love me, and there is no man in Carthage who dares to come into
+the bosom of my army to make me prisoner."
+
+Arrows rained around the ship; clay balls rebounded from her sides, and
+the Roman pilot gave the order to recede. The oars moved and the vessel
+slowly began to put about, and dropped down the channel.
+
+"But are we going to Carthage?" asked the Greek.
+
+"Yes, in Carthage they will hear us better," replied one of the legates.
+"After what has taken place, either the Senate there will turn Hannibal
+over to us, or Rome will declare war on Carthage."
+
+"You may go, Romans, but my duty lies here."
+
+Before the two senators and the legates from Saguntum, who had witnessed
+the former scene with astonishment, could interfere, the Athenian flung
+one leg over the rail and sprang head first into the channel. He swam
+under water for some time, then came up, floating near the bank, to
+which the cavalry and foot-soldiers had rushed to take him prisoner.
+
+Before his feet touched ground Actæon was surrounded by a horde of
+slingers who rushed into the water up to their middles to take
+possession of his clothing without having to divide it among their
+comrades. In an instant they tore off his Celtiberian sword, the pouch
+hanging from his belt, and a gold chain which he wore on his breast in
+memory of Sónnica. They were about to strip him of his traveling tunic,
+leaving him naked, and he had begun to receive blows from the barbarous
+and cruel crowd, when Hannibal rode up and recognized him.
+
+"You have preferred to stay! I am glad of that. After having wrought me
+so much damage from the walls of Saguntum you have repented and you have
+come to join with me. I ought to leave you in the hands of these
+barbarians who would rend you to pieces; I ought to crucify you outside
+my camp so that that Greek woman whom you love could shudder at you; but
+I remember the promise I made you, and I shall keep it, and welcome you
+as a friend."
+
+He ordered one of his officials to cover the Greek's wet garments with
+an _endromis_, a military cloak of long hair with a hood, worn by
+soldiers over their armor in winter. Then he bade him mount a Numidian's
+horse.
+
+They took up their march toward the camp. The troops who had rushed to
+the entrance of the port slowly returned, while the ship fast dropped
+the land, spreading her glowing sails. On the Acropolis the smoke had
+dissipated, leaving only a few light clouds floating in the breeze. From
+afar one could guess the disappointment felt in the city by the
+unexpected flight of the Roman ship. With her seemed to vanish the last
+hope of the besieged. Hannibal's troops, as they retired, commented on
+the scene at the entrance to the port between their chief and the envoys
+from Rome. They did not understand the words which had been exchanged;
+but the energetic accent of the Roman as he spoke to Hannibal seemed to
+them a threat. Some, pretending that they had understood the ambassador,
+repeated an imaginary discourse in which the threat was made in the name
+of Rome to cut the throats of the whole army and to stretch Hannibal on
+a cross. They repeated these threats, each swelling them with inventions
+of his own, and when the troops met other detachments on the Road of
+the Serpent or in different parts of the valley, all declared they had
+seen the chains which the Roman legates displayed from the ship, and in
+which they expected to take their chieftain prisoner, and a howl of rage
+arose from the hosts of Hannibal.
+
+The African was flattered at the flood-tide of indignation surging
+around him. The soldiers, barring his way, acclaimed him with greater
+enthusiasm; he heard voices in every tongue crying death to Rome,
+calling upon the chieftain to make the final assault upon the city, to
+take possession of it before the ambassadors should reach Carthage and
+plot the downfall of the youthful hero.
+
+"Take care of yourself, Hannibal!" said an old Celtiberian planting
+himself before his horse. "Your enemies in Carthage, Hanno's faction,
+will unite with Rome to work your ruin."
+
+"The people love me," said the chieftain, arrogantly. "Before the
+Carthaginian Senate hears the Romans, Saguntum will be ours, and the
+Carthaginians will acclaim our triumph."
+
+With saddened heart Actæon beheld the desolation of the fields which
+used to be so joyous and so fertile. There were no other ships in the
+port but men-of-war from New Carthage. The seamen slept in the fane of
+Aphrodite after having rifled the temple of its valuables. The
+warehouses had been pillaged and destroyed; the wharves covered with
+filth; in the fields not a vestige of the ancient villas remained. The
+ferocity of the barbarian tribes from the interior, their hatred for the
+Greeks of the coast, had incited them to even tear up the multicolor
+pavements and to scatter the fragments. The whole valley was an immense,
+desolated plain. Not a tree was standing. To combat the cold of winter
+they had felled the groves of fig trees, the broad plantations of
+olives, the stocks of the grapevines of the vineyards, destroying even
+the houses to warm themselves with the rafters from the roofs. Nothing
+remained standing but ruined walls and low shrubbery. A fungoid
+vegetation which grew rapidly, fertilized by bodies of men and animals,
+extended over the valley, obliterating the ancient roads, creeping up
+the ruins, and choking the beds of the streams which, their irrigating
+ditches broken, scattered their waters until the low fields were
+converted into ponds.
+
+It was the devastating work of a continually swelling army composed of a
+hundred and eighty thousand men and of many thousands of horses. In a
+short time they had devoured the Saguntine domain. The soldiers after
+destroying all that was not of immediate use, extended their rapacity to
+surrounding zones, constantly broadening their radius of destruction as
+the siege was prolonged.
+
+Supplies now came from a distance of many days' journey; sent by remote
+tribes in the hope of a reward of booty which Hannibal knew how to
+instill into their minds, telling them of the riches of Saguntum. The
+elephants had been sent to New Carthage some months before, as they were
+useless in the siege and difficult to maintain in this devastated
+region.
+
+Over the domain flew crows in undulating black clouds. From the thicket
+rose the stench of rotting horses and mules. By the roadsides, their
+members pinned to the ground by rocks, lay the bodies of barbarians put
+to death because of hopeless wounds, and whose bodies their compatriots,
+according to the customs of their race, left abandoned to the birds of
+prey. The immense agglomeration had vitiated the atmosphere of the
+valley. They lived in the open, and yet, the filth of the multitude, and
+the vapors of death, seemed disseminated between the mountains and the
+sea as a heavy atmosphere replete with sickness and death.
+
+Actæon, coming from a distance, was the more sensitive to this stench of
+the camp, and he thought of the beleaguered people with sadness. Looking
+toward the city he guessed the horrors hidden behind those reddish walls
+after a resistance of seven months.
+
+They approached the camp. The Greek saw that this concentration of
+military forces had assumed the aspect of a permanent city. Few tents of
+canvas or of skins were left. The winter, which now was drawing to a
+close, had compelled the besiegers to construct stone huts with thatched
+roofs, and wooden houses which looked like towers and served as supports
+to the earthworks thrown up roundabout the camp.
+
+Hannibal, as if reading Actæon's thought, smiled savagely while his eyes
+swept the work of destruction wrought by his army outside the city.
+
+"You find all this greatly changed, eh, Actæon?"
+
+"I see that your troops have not been idle while you were off punishing
+the rebels in Celtiberia."
+
+"Maherbal, my chief of cavalry, is an excellent aide. When I returned he
+showed me two of the walls of Saguntum destroyed, and a part of the
+city in our power. Do you see that citadel near the Acropolis, inside
+the walled district? Well, that is ours. The catapults, which you can
+see from here, shoot into Saguntum, which has become reduced to half its
+former size--and they still dream of defending themselves! They still
+hope for auxiliaries from Rome! Stubborn brutes! They have constructed a
+line of walls for the third time, and thus they have gone on losing
+ground and persisting in the defense until nothing is left to them but
+the Forum, where I shall knife every man, woman, and child whom I find
+alive--O, proud and indomitable city! I will make you my slave!"
+
+The African turned to his old-time companion and changed the
+conversation.
+
+"Your eyes are opened at last, and you have come to me. Are you going to
+follow me with enthusiasm? Will you join me in that series of
+enterprises of which I spoke to you one day at sunrise here on this very
+road? Perhaps you will become a king because of having followed
+Hannibal, as did Ptolemy following Alexander. Are you resolved?"
+
+Actæon hesitated a moment before replying, and Hannibal read indecision
+in his eyes--the desire to deceive.
+
+"Do not lie, Greek; lies are for enemies, or for preserving life. I am
+your friend, and I have promised to respect your safety. Can it be that
+you do not mean to follow me?"
+
+"Well, of a truth, I do not," said the Greek with resolution. "I wish to
+return to the city, and if you truly have affection for the companion of
+your youth, let me go."
+
+"But you will perish inside that city! Do not expect mercy if we force
+our entrance through the breach!"
+
+"I shall die," said the Athenian simply, "but there, inside those walls,
+are men who received me as a compatriot when I was wandering hungry over
+the world; there is a woman who took me in when I was poor, and gave me
+love and riches. They sent me to Rome that I might bring them a word of
+hope, and I must return, even though it be only to give them sorrow and
+pain. What does it matter if you set me free? To-morrow perhaps you can
+kill me. I shall be one more mouth to feed, and surely hunger must reign
+in Saguntum. Perhaps when I tell them the truth, when they see me return
+without assistance, their courage may weaken and they may give up the
+town to you. Let me pass through the lines, Hannibal; with this, it may
+be that without desiring to do so, I shall forward your plans."
+
+Hannibal looked at him in surprise.
+
+"Madman! I never believed an Athenian capable of such a sacrifice. You
+are such a light-hearted people, so given to perfidy, so false when you
+wish to satisfy your egoism! You are the first Greek I ever found
+faithful to the city which adopted him. Carthage had worse luck with the
+mercenaries from your country! It is impossible to make anything of you;
+you are only half a man! Love overmasters you; you are not satisfied as
+I am with the woman who wanders around the camp, or whom one takes when
+a city is assaulted and afterwards turns over to the soldiers. You bind
+yourself to a woman, you become her slave, and you seek an inglorious
+death in a dark corner of the world, like a mercenary in the service of
+a handful of merchants, merely for the sake of seeing her again. Go,
+madman, go! I give you your liberty--I wish to hear no more about you. I
+was ready to make you a hero and you answer me like a slave. Go in to
+Saguntum, but know that the protection of Hannibal abandons you from
+this moment. If you fall into my hands inside the city you will be my
+prisoner, never my friend!"
+
+Digging his heels into his horse's ribs, Hannibal dashed into his camp,
+contemptuously turning his back upon the Greek. In a moment a young
+Carthaginian approached, who, without a word, nor even a glance at him,
+grasped his bridle-reins and proceeded toward Saguntum.
+
+As they gained the outposts of the besieging army the Carthaginian
+pronounced a word and Actæon passed on amid the hostile gaze of the
+soldiers who had heard of the scene at the port, and were clamoring with
+rage, thinking of the chains which the legates from Rome had the
+insolence to show to their chief. That Greek who was about to enter the
+besieged city must have been a companion of the legates, and many placed
+an arrow in the bow to shoot at him, but were restrained by a cold and
+haughty glance from the young Carthaginian who spoke in the name of
+Hannibal.
+
+They arrived at the ruins of the first walled quarter. The van of the
+besieging army was within the shelter of the walls. The Greek
+dismounted, and breaking a thorny branch from a bush he walked on,
+holding it aloft as a signal of peace.
+
+He stood before the wall which had been built under his direction one
+night to hold back the invader. Upon it he saw the helmets of only a few
+defenders. The besieger was directing his attacks against the upper
+part. That side of the city where the early battles had taken place was
+almost abandoned. The guardians on the wall greeted Actæon with loud
+shouts of surprise and joy, and they lowered a rope of esparto to help
+him climb up by means of the rough places on the wall, until he could
+enter through a crenel near the top. All surrounded the Greek eagerly.
+It seemed as if he were in the presence of spectres. Their bodies
+appeared ready to slip out of their ample armor; their faces, sad,
+yellow, parchment-like, were hidden beneath the visors of their helmets;
+their fleshless, wrinkled hands could barely sustain their weapons, and
+a strange, golden effulgence glowed in their eyes.
+
+Actæon parried their flood of questions with kind words of
+encouragement. He would speak opportunely; he must first render an
+account of his mission to the Elders of the Senate. They must be calm;
+before night they should know all. Filled with commiseration in the
+presence of these heroes, he lied mercifully, declaring that Rome would
+not forget Saguntum, and that he had come in advance of the legions sent
+by the allies.
+
+From the houses nearby, from the streets close to the wall, issued men
+and women drawn by news of the arrival of the Greek. They surrounded
+him, they questioned him; all wished to be first to receive the news to
+scatter it through the city. Defending himself from them, Actæon gazed
+with horror at their lean, yellow faces, their earthy skin outlining the
+prominent sutures of their skulls; their sunken eyes in their black
+orbits shining with an unearthly light, like fading stars reflected in
+the depths of a well, and their emaciated arms, which creaked like
+canes as they moved them with nervous emotion.
+
+He started onward, escorted by the multitude, preceded by boys
+absolutely nude, horrible to look at, with skins ready to break from the
+pressure of their ribs outlined one above the other, with enormously
+large heads above their fleshless necks. They staggered painfully, as if
+their tottering, thread-like limbs could not bear the weight of their
+bodies; some, to lessen their suffering, dragged themselves along the
+ground, lacking the strength to stand.
+
+Actæon beheld a deserted corpse lying in a corner, the face covered with
+strange flies which glinted in the sunshine with metallic reflections.
+Farther on at a cross street, some women were trying to raise to his
+feet a naked youth beside whom lay his abandoned bow. The Greek noted
+with horror his sunken, inward-curving abdomen, a palpitating whirlpool
+of skin between the protruding hip bones which threatened to burst from
+the body. It was a mummy still showing a flickering spark of life in the
+eyes, opening and shutting its parched and blackened lips as if feeding
+on the unnourishing air.
+
+He continued on his way down the lengthy streets, but no more people
+joined the group. The doors of many houses remained closed, despite the
+clamor of the crowd, and Actæon contrasted this solitude with the great
+multitude of people during the early days of the siege. Dead dogs lying
+in the gullies, as emaciated as the people themselves, polluted the
+atmosphere. At street crossings lay skeletons of horses and mules, clean
+and white, holding not even a scrap of flesh to satisfy the repugnant
+insects buzzing in the atmosphere of the doomed city.
+
+With his gift of keen observation, the Greek's attention was fixed by
+the warriors' weapons. He saw only cuirasses of metal; those made of
+leather had disappeared. The shields displayed their texture of osier or
+bull-tendon, destitute of their coverings of hide. In one corner he saw
+two old men fighting over a black and stringy morsel; it was a bit of
+crow boiled in water. Many two-storied houses had been demolished to
+obtain stones for use in the new wall which barred the advance of the
+enemy.
+
+Desolating hunger had swept everything with cruel touch. Even the most
+fetid and repugnant matter had been turned to account. It was as if the
+besiegers had already broken into the city and had carried off
+everything of worth, leaving nothing but the buildings behind as silent
+witnesses to their rapine. Hunger and death stalked hand in hand beside
+the desperate Saguntines.
+
+On approaching the Forum a woman pushed her way through the people
+toward the Greek and flung her arms around his neck.
+
+"Actæon, my love!" cried Sónnica.
+
+The privations of the siege had left deep marks upon her. She did not
+present the appearance of extreme emaciation as did most, but she was
+thin and pale, her nose sharpened, her cheeks transmitting an interior
+light, the arms which clung to him thin and hot with fever. A blue
+circle surrounded her eyes, and her rich tunic hung loose in empty
+folds; her body, in growing thinner, seemed to have gained in height.
+
+"Actæon----my love!" she cried again, "I had lost hope of ever seeing
+you! Bless you, bless you for coming back!"
+
+She walked beside him, one of her arms around his neck. The multitude
+looked upon Sónnica with veneration; she had sacrificed herself for the
+poor, sharing with them each day the shrinking supplies of her
+store-houses.
+
+Actæon recognized Euphobias the philosopher in the crowd, his garments
+more ragged than ever, almost naked, but with an appearance of relative
+vigor which contrasted strangely with the starving appearance of the
+majority. Lachares and the elegant young friends of Sónnica bowed to him
+from a distance with a distraught expression. They had the look of
+starving men, but they concealed their pallor beneath rouge and other
+cosmetics, and they wore their richest vestments as if to console
+themselves for their privations with the pomp of useless luxury. The
+young slave boys who accompanied them moved their emaciated limbs,
+covered by gold-embroidered garments, and gazing at their pendants of
+pearls, they yawned painfully. The crowd halted in the Forum. The Elders
+had gathered in the temple near the quadrangle. Above, on the Acropolis,
+the Carthaginians who occupied a part of the hill, kept up a continual
+bombardment, and great stones from the catapults fell constantly. Some
+of these reached the Forum, and the roofs of many houses and walls were
+pierced and shattered by the enormous projectiles.
+
+Actæon entered the temple alone. The number of Ancients had diminished.
+Some had died, victims of hunger and pestilence; others, with juvenile
+ardor, had rushed forth to defend the walls, and there encountered
+death. The prudent Alcon seemed to enjoy great ascendancy, and he
+figured at the head of the assembly. Events had justified the prudence
+which had caused him in other days to declare against the warlike
+enterprises of the city and their fondness for alliances.
+
+"Speak, Actæon," said Alcon. "Tell us the truth, the whole truth! After
+the misfortunes the gods have already sent us, we can bear even
+greater."
+
+The Greek looked at the men, wrapped in their flowing mantles, holding
+their tall staves of authority, awaiting his words with an anxiety which
+they made an effort to conceal behind majestic calmness.
+
+He related his audience by the Roman Senate; he told of the caution
+which had impelled it to favor conciliatory measures; of the arrival of
+the legates off Saguntum; of their extraordinary reception by Hannibal,
+and of the departure of the ambassadors for Carthage to demand the
+punishment of the chieftain and desistance from the siege of Saguntum.
+
+As the sad tale proceeded the calmness of the Elders gradually
+dissipated. Some, more violent, arose to their feet and rent their
+garments, crying aloud with grief; others, in their excitement, beat
+their foreheads with clenched fists, raging with fury on hearing that
+Rome had not sent her legions; and the eldest among them, without
+sacrificing their dignity, wept unashamed, allowing their tears to
+stream down their fleshless cheeks into their snowy beards.
+
+"They have forsaken us!"
+
+"It will be too late when help arrives!"
+
+"Saguntum will perish before the Romans can reach Carthage!"
+
+The assemblage remained long in a state of desperation. Some, motionless
+in their seats from weakness, implored the gods to let them die ere they
+should behold the downfall of their people.
+
+It seemed as if the hordes of Hannibal were already clamoring at the
+temple doors.
+
+"Restrain yourselves, Elders!" admonished Alcon. "Remember that the
+citizens of Saguntum stand waiting outside these walls. If they suspect
+your despair, discouragement will spread abroad, and this very night we
+will become the slaves of Hannibal!"
+
+Slowly the Elders recovered their composure, and silence reigned. All
+awaited the counsel of Alcon the Prudent. He spoke.
+
+"You do not entertain the thought of immediate surrender of the city, do
+you?"
+
+A roar of indignation from the Senate answered him.
+
+"Never, never!"
+
+"Then, in order to keep hearts beating with hope, to prolong the defense
+a few more days, you must lie; you must inspire in the Saguntines a
+deceptive confidence. Provisions are exhausted; those who man the walls,
+weapons in hand, have eaten the flesh of the last horses that remained
+in the city. The plebs are perishing of hunger. Every night hundreds of
+corpses are gathered and burned on the Acropolis for fear of their being
+devoured by wandering dogs pressed by hunger, which have turned into
+veritable wild beasts that attack even the living. There is a complaint
+that some of the foreigners sheltered in the city, in company with
+slaves and mercenaries, lie in wait by night near the walls to eat
+whatever bodies they find. The cisterns of the city are almost dry;
+there is but little water left, and that is thick with mud; and yet no
+one in Saguntum talks of surrender, and the defense must be continued.
+We all know what awaits us if we fall into the hands of Hannibal."
+
+"I have talked with him," said Actæon, "and he is inexorable. If he
+enters Saguntum every man of us will become his slave!"
+
+The assembly stirred again with indignation.
+
+"We will die first!" shouted the Elders.
+
+Hastily they agreed upon what must be said to the people. They swore by
+the gods to conceal the truth. They would prolong the sacrifice in the
+hope that aid from Rome might come in time. Composing their countenances
+so that none should divine their despair, the Elders walked out of the
+temple. Swiftly the news flashed through the city. The legates had
+proceeded to Carthage to waste no time in the camp; there they would
+demand the punishment of Hannibal. The legions which Rome was sending to
+the support of the Saguntines would arrive at any moment.
+
+The crowd received this specious fabrication with cold insensibility.
+The sufferings of the siege had deadened their feelings. Besides, they
+had been fired so many times with hope of the coming of the Romans that
+they doubted and would not believe until they saw the fleet itself.
+
+Actæon mingled with the starving crowd searching for Sónnica. He found
+her surrounded by Lachares and the young gallants. Near them stood
+Euphobias, smiling at Sónnica, but not venturing to approach.
+
+"The gods have protected you on your journey, Actæon," said the
+parasite. "You look better than we who have remained in the city. One
+can plainly see that you have fed."
+
+"But you, philosopher," said the Greek, "are not so lean and emaciated
+as the others. Who maintains you?"
+
+"My poverty. I was so accustomed to hunger in times of plenty that now I
+scarcely notice the famine. Observe the advantages of being a
+philosopher and a beggar!"
+
+"Trust not the words of that monster," said Lachares with repugnance.
+"He is as beastly as a Celtiberian. He eats daily; but he should be
+crucified in the middle of the Forum as a warning. He has been seen at
+night wandering near the walls with a band of slaves in search of dying
+men."
+
+The Greek turned from the parasite with disgust.
+
+"Do not believe it, Actæon," said Euphobias. "Now they envy me my
+beggar's parsimony, as in other times they jeered at it. Hunger is my
+ancient companion, and she respects me."
+
+All drew away from the parasite, and Actæon followed Sónnica to her
+house. The beautiful Greek woman was living almost alone. Many of her
+servants had been killed on the walls; others had perished in the
+streets, victims of pestilence. Some slaves, unable to resist the
+torments of hunger, had run away to the besieging camp. Two aged
+slave-women lay groaning in a corner, amidst stacks of luxurious
+furniture and chests filled with riches. The great warehouses in the
+lower story were empty. A gang of boys had taken possession, and passed
+the time watching cat-like in hopes of some stray rat issuing from a
+corner, that they might fall upon it as an animal of inestimable value.
+
+"Tell me of Rhanto!" the Greek said to his beloved.
+
+"Poor child! I see her only occasionally. She will not stay here; I have
+her brought to me so that I can watch over her, but at the first
+opportunity she slips away. Grief over Erotion's death has caused her to
+lose her reason. Day and night she wanders along the walls. She goes
+where the battle rages fiercest, and she passes among flying missiles as
+if she does not see them. By night I hear from afar the strange dirges
+which she chants to her Erotion; sometimes she appears crowned with a
+wreath of those flowers which grow on the walls, and she asks for the
+son of Mopsus, as if he were hidden among the defenders. The people
+believe that she is in communication with the gods, and they look upon
+her with awe and ask her what will be the fate of Saguntum."
+
+The two spent the night amidst the piled up riches in the warehouse
+wrapped in costly tapestries, insensible to their surroundings, as if
+they were still in the rich villa on the domain, at the end of one of
+those banquets which had so scandalized many of the Saguntines.
+
+Days passed. The city was growing weaker, but the people, still firm in
+their resolution, continued the defense, with stomachs faint from
+starvation. The besiegers made no violent assaults. Hannibal guessed the
+condition of the city, and, desirous of avoiding further shedding of
+the blood of his troops, he allowed time to pass, maintaining only a
+rigid blockade, waiting for hunger and pestilence to complete his
+triumph.
+
+The mortality in the streets increased. There was no longer any one left
+to gather up the dead; the crematory fire on the Acropolis had gone out.
+Corpses, abandoned in the doorways of their homes, were covered with
+loathsome insects, and birds of rapine audaciously came down by night
+into the heart of the city disputing the prey of vagabond dogs which
+prowled the streets with lolling tongues and flaming eyes.
+
+Vile smelling people of savage aspect, possessed by the delirium of
+starvation, dragged themselves cautiously through the streets armed with
+clubs, stones, and missiles. They went foraging as soon as night fell.
+Euphobias guided them, giving counsel with majestic emphasis, as if he
+were a great captain commanding his army. When they managed to kill a
+crow or a savage dog they carried it to the Forum and roasted it over a
+bonfire, quarreling violently over the noisome morsels, while the rich
+citizens stood aloof, faint with hunger but nauseated by such horrors.
+
+Spring had set in. It was a gloomy springtime, revealed to the besiegers
+by little flowers growing up among the weeds in the crevices of the
+towers and on the roofs of the houses. Winter was over, and yet it was
+cold in Saguntum, with a tomb-like chill which the besieged felt in the
+very marrow of their bones. The sun shone, but the city seemed obscured
+by a fetid mist which imparted to people and to houses a leaden color.
+
+One morning, on his way to the upper part of the mount where the defense
+continued, Actæon met the prudent Alcon in the Forum. This loyal
+citizen revealed discouragement in his dejected appearance.
+
+"Athenian," he said, with a mysterious expression, "I am resolved that
+this must end. The city can resist no further. She has waited long
+enough for aid from Rome. Let Saguntum fall, and let Rome be filled with
+shame because of her infidelity to her allies. This day I shall go to
+Hannibal's camp and sue for peace."
+
+"Have you considered it carefully?" exclaimed the Greek. "Do you not
+fear the indignation of your people when they see you treating with the
+enemy?"
+
+"I love my city well, and I cannot remain impassive and witness its
+sacrifice, its interminable agony. Few are aware of the actual
+conditions, but I can tell you, Actæon, because you are discreet. We are
+much worse off than the people realize. There is not a scrap of meat
+left for those who are defending our walls. This morning there was
+nothing but mud in the bottom of the cisterns. We have no water. A few
+days more of resistance and we shall be forced to eat dead bodies like
+those soulless creatures who feed by night. We shall have to kill the
+children to placate our thirst with their blood."
+
+Alcon was silent for a moment; he passed his hand over his forehead with
+a gesture of pain as if to obliterate terrible recollections.
+
+"No one knows better than we Elders what occurs in the city," he
+continued. "The gods must shudder with horror when they see the deeds
+done in Saguntum since they abandoned her. Listen and forget, Actæon,"
+he said in a low voice and with an accent of fear. "Yesterday two women,
+maddened by hunger, drew lots to choose which one of their children
+they should devour. We Elders have closed our eyes and our ears; we have
+not desired to see nor to hear, understanding that punishment would only
+serve to increase the horrors. The men who are fighting on the walls are
+chewing the leather from their weapons to deceive hunger. Their flesh is
+loosened from their bones, they weaken and fall as if wounded by an
+invisible stroke from the gods. We have resisted for nearly eight
+months; two-thirds of the city no longer exists. We have done enough to
+demonstrate before heaven and before man how Saguntum fulfills her
+oaths."
+
+The Greek bowed his head, convinced by Alcon's arguments.
+
+"Moreover the valor of the city is breaking down," continued the Elder.
+"Faith is dying. The omens are all against us. There are people who,
+during the night, have seen globes of fire rise from the Acropolis and
+fly toward the sea, plunging into the waters like shooting stars which
+cut through the blue of heaven with a stream of light. The people
+believe that they are the penates of the city, who, divining the coming
+destruction of Saguntum, are abandoning it to go and establish
+themselves on the other side of the sea whence they came. Last night,
+those who were watching up there in the temple of Hercules saw a serpent
+glide from beneath the tomb of Zacynthus, hissing as if it were wounded.
+It was blue, with golden stars--the serpent which bit Zacynthus and was
+the cause of the foundation of the city around the tomb of the hero. He
+crawled between the feet of the astonished watchers; he fled down the
+mount, and crept off across the plain in the direction of the sea. He
+also has abandoned us; the sacred reptile which was like the tutelary
+god of Saguntum."
+
+"It may not be true," said the Greek. "It may be the hallucinations of a
+people tormented by hunger."
+
+"That may be; but observe the women and you will find them weeping; in
+addition to their misery they are lamenting the flight of the serpent of
+Zacynthus. They believe the city defenseless, and many men on the walls
+will feel weaker to-day when they hear of the strange disappearance.
+Faith is the staff on which the people lean."
+
+The two men remained silent for a while.
+
+"Go," said the Greek, at last: "Speak to Hannibal, and may the gods
+incline his heart toward clemency!"
+
+"Why do you not come with me--you who have traveled so much, and who
+possess the eloquence of conviction? You can help me."
+
+"Hannibal knows me. I have refused his friendship, and he hates me. Go
+and save the city. My fate is sealed. The African will never abate his
+anger. He will pardon anyone but me. I will die rather than become his
+slave, or suffer myself to be put to death on a cross."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE LAST NIGHT
+
+
+Fighting on the walls with the defenders of the upper part of the city
+late in the afternoon Actæon saw Rhanto coming down a street near the
+ramparts.
+
+He had not seen the shepherdess since his return to Saguntum, and now he
+noticed the changes wrought by the sufferings of the siege, and by the
+grief which was breaking her reason.
+
+She walked absorbed, with bowed head, unconscious of her surroundings,
+and in her tangled hair were little faded flowers which at every step
+dropped their withered petals. Her torn and dirty tunic gave glimpses of
+her emaciated body, which still preserved the grace and freshness
+admired by the Greek. Her breasts had developed somewhat, as if pain had
+matured her figure; her eyes dilated by dementia, seemed to fill her
+whole face, shedding a mysterious light about her, an aureole of fever.
+
+She advanced slowly, raising her head at times, looking up at the men on
+the wall, and finally stopping at the foot of the stone steps she
+murmured in a supplicating voice, like the convulsive sobbing of a
+child:
+
+"Erotion! Erotion!"
+
+Behind the mantelets of the besiegers the defenders noticed fresh
+activity, as if a new attack against the city were being attempted, but
+in spite of it the Greek came down from the wall in his eagerness to see
+the girl.
+
+"Rhanto, shepherdess, do you know me?"
+
+He addressed her tenderly, taking one of her hands, but she tried to
+spring away from him, as if she had been startled from a sleep. Then she
+grew faint, and fixing her enormous, frightened eyes on the Greek, she
+exclaimed:
+
+"You! Is it you?"
+
+"Do you recognize me?"
+
+"Yes, you are the Athenian; you are my master; the lover of Sónnica the
+rich. Tell me, where is Erotion?"
+
+The Greek did not know how to answer, but Rhanto continued speaking
+without awaiting his reply.
+
+"They tell me he is dead; even I saw him lying at the foot of the walls;
+but it is not true; it was a bad dream. It was his father, Mopsus the
+archer, who died. Since then he runs away from me as if he wishes to
+weep alone for his father's death. He hides from me by day. I see him
+from afar, upon the walls, among the defenders, but when I climb up to
+search for him I find none but armed men, and Erotion disappears. He is
+only faithful to me at night. Then he seeks me, he comes to me. Scarcely
+do I conceal myself at the foot of the stairway and rest my head upon my
+knees than I see him coming, looking for me in the darkness, strong and
+loving, with his quiver at his side and his bow slung across his
+shoulders. When he comes the ferocious dogs which slink through the
+shadows, sniffing in my face and staring at me with their gloomy eyes,
+are frightened away. He comes to me, he sits beside me; he smiles, but
+he is ever silent. I speak to him and he answers me with a tender
+glance, but never with a word. I seek his shoulder, to lean my head upon
+it as in other days, and he flees, he disappears as if dissolved in
+shadow. What does it mean, good Greek? If you see him, ask him why he
+hides from me. Tell him not to run away!----He loves you so much, so
+much! How often has he talked to me of you and of your country!"
+
+She was silent a moment, as if these words had aroused within her a
+whole past of recollections. With a painful effort, which was reflected
+in her face, she caught at them and arranged them in her mind. Slowly
+surged through her memory again the image of those happy days before the
+siege when she and Erotion ran hand in hand through the valley and had
+for their house all the groves of the Saguntine domain.
+
+She smiled at Actæon, looking at him affectionately, and she recalled
+their several meetings; their first interview on the Road of the Serpent
+when he had just disembarked, poor and unknown. Then, the touch of
+paternal protection with which he greeted them when he found them in the
+fields climbing the cherry trees and quarreling playfully over the red
+fruit, and that surprise beneath the leafy fig trees, when she, in her
+virginal beauty, was acting as a model for the young sculptor. Did he
+remember? Had the Greek forgotten those days of peace and joy?
+
+Actæon did indeed cherish them in his memory. He still retained the
+impression caused by the vision of the lovely shepherdess, and at the
+same moment his eyes searched the tattered tunic, seeking with an
+artist's delight the warm tones of her amber skin.
+
+But Rhanto's mind, after evoking these recollections, began again to
+wander. Where was Erotion? Had Actæon seen him? Was he up there with the
+defenders? The Greek held her back catching her by the hand to prevent
+her climbing to the top of the wall.
+
+The defenders were shouting wildly, shooting their arrows and throwing
+darts and stones. The besiegers had begun the attack. Projectiles came
+hurtling from outside the walls, passing over the merlons like
+dark-colored birds, as if the Africans were covering an assault with
+battering-rams and pickaxes to open a breach.
+
+Actæon, who since his return to Saguntum had again assumed control of
+the work of defense, must go up on the wall.
+
+"Run away, Rhanto," he said hastily. "You will be killed here. Go to
+Sónnica's house----I will take you to Erotion. But fly! Hide yourself!
+See how the missiles are falling around us!"
+
+He shoved her from the stairway with an energetic push which nearly
+drove her to her knees.
+
+The Greek ran up hastily, hearing the ceaseless and deadly hisses
+rending the air about his head. Before he reached the merlons he heard a
+faint groan at his back, a gentle cry which recalled to Actæon's mind
+the bleating of a fawn when pierced by the huntsman's arrow. Turning he
+saw Rhanto half way up the steps, wavering, ready to fall backward, her
+breast covered with blood and pierced by a long feather-tipped shaft,
+still quivering from the swiftness of its flight.
+
+She had started to follow him up the wall, but an arrow had caught her.
+
+"Rhanto! Poor Rhanto!"
+
+Obeying an impulse of grief which he could not explain to himself, but
+which was stronger than his will, he forgot the defense of the wall, the
+attack of the enemy, everything, to run toward the girl, who sank down
+with the gentle flutter of a wounded bird.
+
+He took her in his strong arms and laid her at the foot of the steps.
+Rhanto sighed, moving her head as if trying to rid herself of the pain
+which had taken possession of her.
+
+The Greek supported her by the shoulders, calling tenderly:
+
+"Rhanto! Rhanto!"
+
+In her eyes, enlarged by pain, the light seemed to condense. The
+expression of her face had now become sane; it lost, at moments, the
+vagueness of dementia. Pain seemed to have restored her reason, and in
+this supreme moment of lucidity the whole past arose clear in her mind.
+
+"Do not die, Rhanto," murmured the Greek, impulsively, "wait; I will
+draw out that iron; I will carry you on my back to the Forum so that
+they shall cure you."
+
+But the girl shook her head sadly. No, she wished to die. She wished to
+join Erotion, near the gods, among the clouds of rose and gold where
+wandered the Mother of Love, followed by those who had loved each other
+devotedly on earth. She had roamed for weeks like a shadow among the
+horrors of the besieged city, believing that Erotion still lived,
+searching for him everywhere; but Erotion was dead; she remembered it
+well now; she herself had seen his corpse.
+
+"Since he is dead why should I live?"
+
+"Live for me!" cried Actæon, stung with grief, unconscious of his
+surroundings, deaf to the cries of the defenders on the wall and to the
+footsteps of someone approaching on the street.
+
+"Rhanto, shepherdess, listen to me! Now I understand why I longed to see
+you; why your memory came to me so often in Rome whenever I thought of
+Saguntum. Live and be to Actæon the last spring of his existence! I love
+you, Rhanto! You are my last love; the flower which blooms in the winter
+of my life! I love you, Rhanto! I have loved you since that day when I
+saw you revealed like a goddess. Live and let me be your Erotion!"
+
+The girl, her face clouded by the shadow of death, smiled, murmuring:
+
+"Actæon, good Greek, thank you, thank you!"
+
+Her head slipped from between Actæon's hands and fell heavily on the
+ground. The Athenian remained motionless, mutely gazing at the body of
+the girl. The silence which suddenly fell on the wall seemed to arouse
+him from his painful stupor. The besiegers had suspended the attack. The
+Greek stood up, but he knelt again to press kisses on the still warm
+mouth of the shepherdess and upon her unquivering wide-open eyes, in
+which the red splendor of the setting sun was reflected as in quiet
+waters.
+
+As he arose he was startled by Sónnica standing quietly before him, with
+cold, ironic stare.
+
+"Sónnica! You!"
+
+"I came to tell you to hasten to the Forum. A messenger from the hostile
+camp has presented himself at the gates of the city asking to speak to
+the Elders. The people are gathered in the Forum."
+
+Despite the importance of the news Actæon did not stir. He was
+transfixed by Sónnica's cold rigidity.
+
+"How long have you been here?"
+
+"Long enough to see how you bade my slave farewell forever!"
+
+She was silent for a moment, then as if impelled by a sentiment stronger
+than her will, she approached him with flashing eyes and with
+outstretched hands.
+
+"Did you really love her?" she asked bitterly.
+
+"Yes," he replied, faintly, as if ashamed of the confession. "I know now
+that I loved her----but I love you also."
+
+They stood motionless, their eyes fixed upon the body which lay between
+them. It was like a cold intervening wall, suddenly risen and separating
+them forever.
+
+Actæon was shamed by the grief which his words caused her who had so
+loved him. Sónnica seemed stunned by his immense deception, and she
+gazed frigidly at the body of the slave with the eyes of an implacable
+Nemesis.
+
+"Go, Actæon!" she said. "They are waiting for you in the Forum. The
+Elders are calling for you to serve as interpreter for the messenger
+from Hannibal."
+
+The Athenian advanced a few steps, and then stopped, gently imploring
+mercy for the body.
+
+"It will be deserted. Night is coming on, and----the hungry dogs----the
+soulless men who look for corpses----"
+
+He chilled with horror to think that the beautiful body which had
+thrilled him with admiration might be devoured by the beasts.
+
+Sónnica replied with a gesture. He might go. She would stay on guard,
+and, mastered by her chill hauteur, he turned and hastened toward the
+Forum.
+
+As he reached the quadrangle it was growing dark. In the centre burned
+the great fire which was lighted every night to combat the mortal
+springtime chill.
+
+The Elders brought their ivory chairs to the foot of the temple steps to
+receive Hannibal's messenger in the presence of the populace. The news
+had circulated throughout the city, and the people flocked to the Forum,
+eager to hear the propositions of the besieger. New groups poured in
+each moment along the streets leading to the great square where the
+waning life of the city was concentrated.
+
+Actæon placed himself near the Elders. He glanced around for Alcon, but
+failed to see him. The aged senator was still in the hostile camp, and
+the coming of this emissary must be in consequence of his interview with
+Hannibal.
+
+A senator explained the circumstances. An unarmed enemy had presented
+himself before the walls, waving an olive branch. He asked to speak to
+the Senate in the name of the besiegers, and the assembly of Elders
+thought it wise to summon the whole city to participate in this supreme
+deliberation.
+
+Orders to admit the messenger had been given, and soon an armed group
+was seen approaching, making its way through the crowd, conducting a man
+with uncovered head, unarmed, and carrying a branch in his right hand as
+a symbol of peace.
+
+As he passed before the fire the ruddy glow of the flames fell full upon
+his face and the Forum reverberated with a clamor of indignation. They
+had recognized him:
+
+"Alorcus! It is Alorcus!"
+
+"Traitor!"
+
+"Ingrate!"
+
+Many hands reached for their swords to fall upon him; above the heads of
+the multitude menacing arms brandished spears; but the presence of the
+Elders, and the sad smile of the Celtiberian restrained them. Moreover,
+the people felt the weakness of hunger; they had little strength left
+for indignation, and they were eager to hear the messenger, to learn the
+fate reserved for them by the enemy.
+
+Alorcus advanced until he stood before the Elders, and the great
+concourse subsided into profound silence, interrupted only by the
+crackling of the wood in the fire. All eyes were fixed on the
+Celtiberian.
+
+"Alcon the prudent is not with you?" he began.
+
+They glanced around in surprise. It was true; until then the absence of
+the man who was first in all public acts, had not been noticed.
+
+"You look for him in vain," continued the Celtiberian. "Alcon is in the
+camp of Hannibal. Heart-broken over the condition of the city, realizing
+that it is impossible to persist longer in the defense, he has
+sacrificed himself for you, and at the risk of his life he came to
+Hannibal's tent a few hours ago to beg him, with tears, to have
+compassion upon you."
+
+"And why has he not returned with you?" asked one of the Elders.
+
+"He was afraid and ashamed to repeat Hannibal's words to you----the
+conditions which he imposed for the surrender of the city."
+
+The silence grew more oppressive. The multitude divined in the terror of
+the absent Alcon the frightful demands of the conqueror which made all
+hearts beat fast with dread even before hearing them.
+
+Fresh groups of people kept straggling in to the Forum. Even the
+defenders of the city abandoned the walls, attracted by the event, and
+stood at the entrances of the streets around the quadrangle, the flames
+from the bonfire glinting on their bronze helmets and on their shields
+of varied shapes, round, rectangular, and oval. Actæon also saw Sónnica
+make her way through the crowd and seat herself near the group formed by
+the elegant young gallants who admired her.
+
+Alorcus continued speaking:
+
+"You know me well. A moment ago I heard threats, I saw menacing gestures
+when you recognized me. I understand your indignation at seeing me
+before you. Perhaps I am an ingrate; but remember that I was born in
+other lands, and that my father's death placed me at the head of a
+people whom I have to obey and to lead in their alliances. Never have I
+forgotten that I was the guest of Saguntum; I cherish the memory of your
+hospitality, and I am as interested in the fate of this city as if it
+were my native land. Ponder well your situation, Saguntines! Valor has
+its limits, and no matter how much you exert yourselves the gods have
+decreed the ruin of heroic Saguntum. They show it by having forsaken
+you, and your courage is all in vain before their immutable will."
+
+The vague words of Alorcus augmented the dread of the people. They
+feared the conditions set by Hannibal, and they read their harshness in
+the Celtiberian's hesitation in pronouncing them.
+
+"The conditions! Tell us the conditions!" they shouted from all sides of
+the Forum.
+
+"The proof that I have come in your sole interests," continued Alorcus,
+as if he did not hear their cries, "lies in the fact that as long as you
+were able to resist with your own strength, and while you expected
+assistance from the Romans, never did I come to counsel your submission.
+But your walls can no longer defend you; every day hundreds of
+Saguntines perish from hunger; the Romans will not come; they are far
+away, and occupied with other wars; in place of sending you legions they
+send you legates, and thus I, seeing that Alcon hesitated to return,
+face your indignation to bring you a peace rather necessary than
+advantageous."
+
+"The conditions! The conditions!" demanded the multitude, with a
+formidable howl which shook the Forum.
+
+"Remember," said Alorcus, "that what the conqueror offers you is a gift,
+for to-day he is master of everything you possess--your lives and your
+estates."
+
+This terrible truth, falling upon the multitude, produced silence.
+"Saguntum, which, for the greater part is already in ruins, and whose
+extremes his troops already occupy, he takes from you as a punishment;
+but Hannibal will permit you to build a new city in the place which he
+will designate. All your riches, those in the public treasury as well as
+those in your houses, shall be turned over to the conqueror. Hannibal
+will respect your lives and those of your wives and children, but you
+must depart from Saguntum to a place which he will indicate, unarmed,
+and with but two garments each. I understand that these terms are stern,
+but your misfortune commends them to you, for it is worse to die, and to
+have your families fall as booty of war into the hands of a triumphant
+army."
+
+Alorcus ceased speaking, but still the Forum remained in silence, a
+silence profound, threatening, like the leaden calm which precedes the
+tempest.
+
+"No, Saguntines! No!" shouted a woman.
+
+Actæon recognized the voice of Sónnica.
+
+"No, no!" answered the multitude, with a thundering echo.
+
+They swayed and surged from place to place; compact masses crowded
+against each other, possessed with fury, as if they would rend
+themselves in pieces to give vent to the wrath produced by the
+conditions of the conqueror.
+
+Sónnica had disappeared; but Actæon saw her return to the Forum followed
+by a cordon of people, slaves, women, soldiers, bearing upon their backs
+the rich furniture from the villa which had been stored in the
+warehouse; the chests of jewels, the sumptuous tapestries, ingots of
+silver, and boxes of gold dust. The multitude observed this procession
+of riches without guessing Sónnica's purpose.
+
+"No! No!" repeated the Greek woman, as if talking to herself.
+
+She was infuriated at the conqueror's proposals. She imagined herself
+departing from the city with no other fortune than the tunic she wore
+and another over her arm, compelled to beg along the highway, or to
+labor in the fields as a slave, persecuted by the fierce soldiers of
+many nations!
+
+"No! No!" she repeated energetically, making her way through the crowd
+to the fire in the centre of the Forum.
+
+She was magnificent with her auburn hair loosened in her excitement, her
+tunic rent by struggling through the multitude, her eyes flashing with
+the expression of a Fury who found an acrid satisfaction in destruction.
+Of what use were riches? Of what use was life? Her desperate energy was
+spurred by the bitterness which she had tasted an hour ago before the
+body of her slave.
+
+She gave the signal by hurling into the bonfire an image of Venus in
+jasper and silver which she carried in her arms, and which disappeared
+in the flames as if it were a clod. The wretched and starving crowd
+which followed imitated her with intense relish. The destruction of so
+many riches made them howl with joy, and they danced in their
+gladness--they, so poor, who had passed their lives in the deprivation
+of slavery! Into the flames fell dainty caskets of ivory, cedar, and
+ebony, and as they clashed against the firewood they burst open,
+spilling treasures within--collars of pearls, clusters of topazes and
+emeralds, diamond earrings, the whole scale of precious stones, which
+sparkled for an instant against the half-burnt wood like gleaming
+salamanders. Then came the tapestries, the silver-embroidered veils,
+the tunics of spun-gold flowers, the golden sandals, the chairs with
+lion claws, the couches with metal clamps, mirrors, lamps, bottles of
+perfume, rich inlaid marble tables, all the splendors of Sónnica the
+rich. The poverty-stricken multitude, transported by this sacrifice,
+applauded with bellowing enthusiasm as it saw the fire grow and grow
+with so much fuel, until the flames mounted to a great height and
+scattered ashes and sparks over the roofs of the houses.
+
+"Hannibal wants riches!" shouted Sónnica in a hoarse voice which
+resembled a howl. "Come, pile here your treasures, and let the African
+lay siege to the fire for them!"
+
+No need of urging them to imitate her! Many of the Elders who had
+withdrawn at the first moment of confusion now returned to the Forum
+carrying chests beneath their white mantles, and flung them into the
+fire. They were the hoarded treasures from their houses.
+
+Above the heads of the multitude furniture and rich fabrics passed from
+hand to hand until they tumbled into the immense furnace, which whirled
+its flames higher and higher, crowned by a white and luminous smoke.
+
+It was a holocaust in honor of the dead and silent gods on the
+Acropolis. Houses seemed to turn themselves inside out to fling their
+adornments and riches upon the fire. The men pursued their work of
+destruction silently and gloomily; but the women seemed mad, and they
+danced around the huge bonfire, disheveled, screaming, their eyes
+bulging from their sockets, hypnotized, caressing the flames with their
+garments, intoxicated by the glare, scratching their faces unconscious
+of their acts, and bellowing curses with mouths foaming with rage.
+Crazed by the infernal round, unable to resist the fascination of the
+lambent flames, one of them sprang and fell into the fire. Her hair and
+clothing blazed for an instant like a torch, and she sank among the
+white-hot coals. Another hurled into the roaring crematory, as if it
+were a ball, the babe she had borne in her arms clinging to her empty
+breast, and then, as if repentant for her crime, she followed the child
+into the burning pile.
+
+The conflagration had extended to the wooden roofs of the houses around
+the Forum. A chaplet of flame began to inwreathe the square. The heat
+and smoke were stifling, and the furniture seemed to travel
+automatically above the heads of the crowd toward the incandescent kiln
+through the dense sooty atmosphere. Lachares and his elegant friends
+began to talk of death. Those effeminate beings discussed with sublime
+tranquility the manner of their end. They did not wish to follow
+Sónnica, who had just armed herself with sword and shield to sally forth
+against the besieging camp and die fighting. It was repugnant to them to
+think of struggling with rude, half-savage soldiers, to inhale their
+wild-beast odors, and to fall with their painted faces cleft by a blow,
+covered with blood, and wallowing in gore like a beheaded ox; neither
+did it please them to stab themselves--that was a means reserved for
+heroes. They preferred to die in the flames; they recollected the
+sacrifice of the Asiatic queens who perished in a fire of perfumed
+woods. What a pity that this fire smelled so ill! But it was not a
+moment for refinements; drawing their mantles over their eyes, shoving
+their little slaveboys before them with their depilated and perfumed
+arms, one after the other the elegant young gallants walked into the
+fire with tranquil step, as if still dwelling in those days of peace
+when they strolled through the Forum, gratified by the scandal caused by
+their feminine adornments.
+
+Sónnica gathered her tunic around her waist in order to run with greater
+freedom, leaving disclosed the resplendent whiteness of her limbs.
+
+"We are going to die, Euphobias," she said to the philosopher, who stood
+absorbed in contemplation before this spectacle of destruction.
+
+For the first time the philosopher failed to display his insolent and
+ironic manner. He was grave and frowning; gazing at the people whom he
+had so often ridiculed, beholding the heroism of their death.
+
+"Die?" he exclaimed. "Must we die? Do you think so, Sónnica?"
+
+"Yes; he who is not willing to be a slave must die. Get a sword and
+follow me!"
+
+"No, if I must die I will avoid the fatigue of running and the exertion
+of striking blows. I will die placidly in the sweet indolence which ever
+embellished my life."
+
+Slowly, deliberately, he walked over to the fire, covered his face with
+his patched and mended mantle, and laid himself in the flames as calmly
+as he used to drop down on the porticos of the Forum in the old days of
+peace.
+
+On the steps of the temple the Elders were stabbing themselves in their
+breasts with a dagger. Before breathing his last, each passed the weapon
+on to his nearest companion, and they died trying to maintain
+themselves erect in their chairs of state. Groups of women caught up
+torches lighted at the great fire, and scattered like furious bacchantes
+throughout Saguntum, setting fire to doors, and flinging burning brands
+upon the wooden roofs.
+
+Suddenly from the direction of the citadel where the attacks of the
+besiegers had been concentrated, arose an appalling commotion, as if
+half a mountain had toppled over. The walls had been abandoned by the
+defenders who had gathered in the Forum, and a tower which the
+Carthaginians had undermined some days before had fallen. A cohort of
+Hannibal's army, seeing the city destitute of the usual outposts and
+guards, rushed through the breach, and made a signal for Hannibal to
+enter with his hosts.
+
+"Come on! come on!" shouted Sónnica with a hoarse voice. "This is our
+last night! I will not die in the fire! I choose to die fighting! I want
+blood!"
+
+She flew from the Forum like a Fury, followed by Actæon who ran beside
+her calling her name, trying to gain a look from her. But the beautiful
+Greek woman was insensible in her rage, as if she had at her side
+someone she had never seen before. They were followed by a discordant
+crowd, armed citizens, women brandishing knives and darts, naked youths
+with no other defense than a spear. They poured out like a stampeded
+herd, their bronze corselets and their helmets with broken crests
+shimmering in the firelight, their weapons dyed in blood, and displaying
+through the tatters of their clothing emaciated limbs which seemed to
+dance in their loose skin, dried and wrinkled by hunger.
+
+They passed out of Saguntum on the lower side, marching in the glare of
+the burning city straight upon the camp of the besieger.
+
+A cohort of Celtiberians hurrying toward Saguntum was routed, put in
+disorder, harried by this troop of desperate beings who ran with lowered
+head, striking blindly at everything before them. Farther on they
+encountered other troops who advanced in battle form to meet the sally,
+and they collided with the line of shields, unable to stand in a
+struggle hand to hand.
+
+The Saguntines, debilitated by the long siege, their strength exhausted
+by hunger and sickness, could not withstand the clash. The Celtiberians
+wounded mercilessly with their two edged swords, and the company of sick
+men, women, and children, fell rapidly beneath their blows.
+
+Actæon, fighting with his shield before his face and his sword raised
+against two vigorous soldiers, saw Sónnica receive a stab in the head
+and drop her weapons, doubling up in agony.
+
+"Actæon! Actæon!" she cried, forgetting her bitterness, the fire of her
+old love returning to her with death.
+
+She fell face downward on the ground. The Greek started toward her, but
+at the same instant his ears buzzed as if an immense mass had crashed
+upon his head; in his side he felt the chill of the steel perforating
+his flesh; everything turned black, and he sank to the ground, as if
+falling into a dark and gloomy pit the bottom of which he would never
+reach.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Greek awoke. His chest was weighted down by a form as heavy as a
+mountain. He was not sure whether he really existed. His members refused
+to obey him. Only with a painful effort could he open his eyes and
+understand confusedly why he was there.
+
+Gradually he realized that the something which oppressed his breast was
+the corpse of a gigantic soldier. Actæon thought he remembered having
+plunged his sword into the body of the warrior the instant that he fell
+into the dense and mysterious night.
+
+He looked around. A ruddy glow, as of an endless aurora, scintillated on
+the abandoned weapons and outlined silhouettes of the bodies lying in
+heaps or scattered over the field contracted in weird postures by their
+final convulsions.
+
+In the background a city was burning. The blackened and shapeless
+structures stood out against the curtain of flames, and through their
+restless splendor the walls of the Acropolis trembled.
+
+Actæon remembered all that had happened. That city was Saguntum; the
+conquerors could be heard howling through the streets; they were covered
+with blood; setting fire to the houses still untouched; cursing a people
+which only gave itself up after consuming its riches; killing in their
+fury whatever living thing they encountered in their way, and stabbing
+the wounded.
+
+As he realized this he knew that he was not dead, but that he was going
+to die. He knew it by the terrible weakness which overpowered him, by
+the mortal cold creeping up to his heart; by his mind which was growing
+dull, and was now but a flickering light.
+
+What of Sónnica? Where could he find Sónnica? His last thought was to
+reach her body, which must be near. He wished to kiss her as her slave;
+to render her that tribute before he died. But as he made a supreme
+exertion, raising his head from the ground, a wave of warm and sticky
+liquid covered his face. It was his last blood.
+
+Then he seemed to see, with the vagueness of a vanishing dream, a kind
+of black centaur, galloping over the slain, and looking at the blazing
+city, laughing with malevolent joy.
+
+He passed near. His horse's hoofs ploughed into the body of the
+Celtiberian lying on his breast. The dying Greek recognized the horseman
+by the light of the conflagration.
+
+It was Hannibal, his head uncovered, possessed by the fury of triumph,
+galloping on his jet-black horse which seemed to have caught the
+ferocity of the rider, whinnying, treading on the fallen bodies, lashing
+his tail above the litter of battle. To the Greek he appeared an
+infernal demon coming for his soul.
+
+Dimly, like a blurred vision, he saw the face of Hannibal animated by a
+smile of pride, of cruel satisfaction--the majestic and ferocious visage
+of one of those gods of Carthage who showed clemency only when human
+sacrifices were smoking upon their altars.
+
+Hannibal laughed on seeing that at last the city which had detained him
+eight months before her walls, was his. Now he was free to go on working
+out his audacious dreams!
+
+The Greek saw no more. He sank finally into eternal night.
+
+Hannibal galloped on around the city, and beholding the purplish glow of
+the coming day breaking over the sea, he reined in his horse, he looked
+into the East, and extending his arm, impatient to stretch it across the
+blue expanse bounded by the horizon, he shouted threateningly, as if
+challenging an invisible enemy before falling upon it:
+
+"Rome!----Rome!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sónnica, by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of S�nnica, by Vicente Blasco Ib��ez
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: S�nnica
+
+Author: Vicente Blasco Ib��ez
+
+Translator: Frances Douglas
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2010 [EBook #31821]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK S�NNICA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+S�NNICA
+
+BY
+
+VICENTE BLASCO IB��EZ
+
+Translated from the Spanish by
+FRANCES DOUGLAS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+NEW YORK
+DUFFIELD & COMPANY
+1919
+
+COPYRIGHT 1912
+By DUFFIELD & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                 PAGE
+
+    I. AT APHRODITE'S TEMPLE               3
+
+   II. SAGUNTUM                           45
+
+  III. DANCING GIRLS FROM GADES           95
+
+   IV. GREEK AND CELTIBERIAN             143
+
+    V. INVASION                          174
+
+   VI. ASBYTE AND HANNIBAL               200
+
+  VII. THE WALLS OF SAGUNTUM             234
+
+ VIII. THE ROME OF FABIUS THE DELAYER    258
+
+   IX. THE HUNGRY CITY                   285
+
+    X. THE LAST NIGHT                    311
+
+
+
+
+
+S�NNICA
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+AT APHRODITE'S TEMPLE.
+
+
+When the ship of Polyanthus, the Saguntine pilot, arrived off the port
+of his native land, the mariners and fishermen, their vision sharpened
+by ever watching the distant horizon, had already recognized his
+saffron-dyed sail and the image of Victory, which, with extended wings,
+and holding a crown in her right hand, stretched along the prow until it
+dipped its feet in the waves.
+
+"It is Polyanthus' ship! It is the Victoriata returning from Gades and
+New Carthage!"
+
+To obtain a better view they rushed out upon the stone breakwater
+surrounding the three basins of the port of Saguntum, which were
+connected with the sea by a long canal.
+
+The low marshy land, overgrown with reeds and tangled aquatic plants,
+extended as far as the Gulf of Sucro, which bounded the horizon by its
+curving blue belt, and over which the fishermen's smacks skimmed like
+dragon flies. The trireme slowly advanced. The colored sail fluttered in
+the breeze without filling, but the triple banks of oars, with rhythmic
+movement along its flanks caused the vessel to spring over the white
+foam lashing the entrance of the canal.
+
+Night was falling. On the hill near the port the temple of Venus
+Aphrodite reflected from the polished surface of its pediment the fire
+of the setting sun. A golden atmosphere wrapped the columns and the blue
+marble walls, as if the father of day, before sinking to rest, were
+greeting the goddess of the waters with a kiss of light. The chain of
+dark mountains, covered with pines and shrubbery, swung around the sea
+in a gigantic semicircle, embracing the fertile valley in which lay the
+Saguntine gardens, the white villas, the rustic towers and the hamlets
+rising among the clustering green trees of the fields. At the other
+extreme of this mountain barrier, dimmed by the distance and the haze of
+the landscape, could be seen the city, the ancient Zacynthus, with its
+dwellings compressed within walls and citadels upon the fold of the
+hill. Far above was the Acropolis, with cyclopean ramparts above which
+rose the high-roofed temples and public buildings.
+
+The port was enlivened by the stir of labor. Two ships from Massilia
+were loading with wine in the big basin. One from Liburnia was taking on
+a cargo consisting of Saguntine pottery and dried figs, to be sold in
+Rome, while a galley from Carthage contained in its hold great bars of
+silver brought from the mines of Celtiberia. Other ships, with sails
+furled and their banks of oars fallen against their sides, swung at
+anchor near the wharf, like great sleeping birds gently nodding their
+prows with figureheads of crocodiles or of horses, used by the navy of
+Alexandria, or displaying on the stern a hideous red dwarf resembling
+that which decorated the vessel of the Phoenician Cadmus in his
+astounding voyages over many seas.
+
+The slaves bending under the weight of amphor� and silver ingots,
+wearing no other clothing than a loin-cloth and a white hood, their
+fretted and sweating bodies bare, passed like an endless rosary along
+the boards leading from the mole to the ships, as they carried the
+merchandise from where it lay piled on the wharf into the concave holds
+of the vessels.
+
+In the centre of the great middle basin rose a tower guarding the
+entrance to the port; a solid structure with its stone foundations laid
+in the deepest water. Moored to the rings which adorned its walls lay a
+ship of war, a Liburnian galley, high of stern, the prow a sheep's head,
+the great square sail furled, an armored fore-castle near the mast, and
+on the gunwales, forming a double row, the shields of the _classiarii_,
+soldiers destined for marine combats. It was a Roman vessel which at
+daybreak next morning was to set sail, bearing the ambassadors sent by
+the great Republic to settle the political disorders which agitated
+Saguntum.
+
+In the second basin, a tranquil square of water where boats were
+constructed and repaired, sounded the hammers of the calkers striking
+against the wood. The dismasted galleys lay on the bank like sick
+monsters, showing through their lacerated flanks their strong frames and
+their pitch-blackened interiors. In the third and smallest, a lake of
+filthy waters, the fishermen's barks were anchored. Flocks of gulls
+whirled around them, darting down upon the spoils which floated on the
+water, while along the bank crowded women, old men, and boys, awaiting
+the arrival of the barks with fish from the Sucronian Gulf, which were
+sold in the interior to the more advanced tribes of Celtiberia.
+
+The arrival of the Saguntine ship had drawn all the people of the port
+away from their tasks. The slaves worked lazily while their overseers
+were preoccupied by the entrance of the trireme, and even phlegmatic
+citizens seated on the mole, rod in hand, trying to capture corpulent
+eels which abounded in the basin, forgot their fishing while they
+watched the advance of the Victoriata. She had by this time come into
+the canal. Her hull could not be seen. The mast, with its motionless
+sail, rose above the tall reeds which bordered the entrance to the port.
+
+The afternoon silence was interrupted by the hoarse cry of innumerable
+frogs croaking in the marshes and the chattering of birds which
+fluttered in the olive trees near the fane of Aphrodite. The
+hammer-blows of the arsenal rung more and more slowly; the people of the
+port were silent, watching the progress of the ship of Polyanthus. As
+the Victoriata rounded the sharp bend of the canal the gilded image of
+the prow hove into sight, and then the first oars quickly followed, like
+enormous red talons, clutching the glossy surface of the water with a
+force which flung aloft the white spray.
+
+The crowd, amid which chafed the eagerly watching families of the
+mariners, burst into acclamations as the ship swung into the port.
+
+"Greeting, Polyanthus! Welcome, son of Aphrodite! May S�nnica, your
+mistress, overwhelm you with riches!"
+
+Naked, brown-skinned boys dived head-first into the basin, swimming
+around the ship like a swarm of young Tritons.
+
+The people of the port praised their compatriot Polyanthus,
+exaggerating his skill. According to them his ship lacked nothing; well
+might the rich S�nnica be satisfied with her freedman. Forward on the
+vessel stood the _proreta_, motionless as a statue, watching with swift
+glances to discover the presence of obstacles; the crew, naked, their
+sweaty backs glistening in the sun, bent over the oars, and on the poop
+the _gubernator_, Polyanthus himself, insensible to weariness, wrapped
+in his ample red mantle, the tiller firmly held in his right hand, and
+in his left a white staff which he waved rhythmically, marking the swing
+of the rowers. Near the mast stood men in strange costumes, and
+motionless women wrapped in flowing mantles.
+
+The ship glided into the port like an enormous crustacean, parting the
+dead and silent waters with her prow, which but recently had been
+fretting the waters of the gulf.
+
+As she cast anchor near the mole and threw out her gang-plank, the
+rowers were forced to club back the multitude which crowded forward
+eager to board the ship.
+
+The pilot gave orders from the poop; his red robe moved from place to
+place like a flame kindled by the setting sun.
+
+"Eh! Polyanthus! Welcome, navigator! What cargo do you bring?"
+
+The pilot saw two young horsemen on the bank. The one who addressed him
+was wrapped in a white mantle; one of its corners covered his head,
+leaving exposed his beard done into curls and lustrous with pomatum. The
+other clung to the back of his steed with his strong bare legs; he wore
+the sagum of the Celtiberians, a short wool tunic over which the
+broadsword hung from his shoulder, and his hair, as thick and
+dishevelled as his beard, outlined a brown and manly countenance.
+
+"Greeting, Lachares! Greeting, Alorcus!" replied the pilot with an
+expression of respect. "Shall you see S�nnica, my mistress?"
+
+"This very night," answered Lachares. "We sup at her country-seat. What
+bring you?"
+
+"Tell her that I have argentiferous lead from New Carthage, and wool
+from B�tica. Excellent voyage!"
+
+The two youths tugged at their horses' reins.
+
+"Ah! Wait a moment," added Polyanthus. "Tell her that I have not
+forgotten her instructions. I am bringing what you so greatly desire,
+the dancing girls from Gades."
+
+"We are all grateful to you," said Lachares, laughing. "Hail,
+Polyanthus; may Neptune favor you!"
+
+The two riders set off at a gallop, becoming lost to view among the
+hovels grouped around the base of the temple of Aphrodite.
+
+Meanwhile one of the ship's passengers landed, making his way through
+the crowd. He was a Greek. All knew his origin by the _pilos_ which
+covered his head, a conical leather helmet, after the fashion of that
+worn by Ulysses in Greek paintings. He was clad in a short, dark tunic,
+adjusted around his waist by a leather belt, from which hung a pouch.
+His chlamys, which did not reach his knees, was fastened at the right
+shoulder by a copper brooch; worn and dusty laced shoes covered his
+stockingless feet, and his sinewy arms, carefully freed from hair,
+rested on a great dart which was almost a lance. His hair, short and
+arranged in thick curls, hung beneath the _pilos_, forming a hollow
+crown around his head. It was black, but silvery threads shone in it and
+also in his broad short beard. His upper lip was carefully shaved in the
+Athenian style.
+
+He was a strong and agile man, in the prime of life, healthy and
+vigorous. His eyes had an ironic glance, and in them sparkled something
+of that fire which reveals men born for warfare and for contact with the
+world. He walked at ease about the unfamiliar port, like a traveler
+accustomed to all manner of contrasts and surprises.
+
+The sun began to sink, and work at the port had ceased. The crowd which
+had swarmed on the wharf was gradually scattering. Bands of slaves
+stretching their aching limbs and wiping off the sweat, passed near the
+stranger. Controlled by the clubs of their guards, they were about to be
+locked up until the next morning in caves in the nearby hill, or in the
+oil mills situated beyond the mariners' taverns, the inns, and the
+brothels, with their mud walls and broad roofs, which as a complement to
+the port were grouped at the foot of the hill of Aphrodite.
+
+The merchants also left in search of their horses and chariots to ride
+to the city. They passed in groups, looking over the records on their
+tablets, and discussing the operations of the day. Their diverse types,
+dress, and bearing, showed a great mixture of races in Zacynthus, a
+commercial city to which in ancient times flocked the vessels of the
+Mediterranean, and whose traffic was in rivalry with that of Emporion
+and Massilia. The Asiatic or African merchants who imported ivory,
+ostrich feathers, spices, and perfumes for the rich of the city, were
+distinguished by their majestic step, their tunics with flowers and
+birds embroidered in gold, their green buskins, their tall embroidered
+tiaras, and their beards falling over their breasts, curled so as to lie
+in horizontal waves. The Greeks laughed and talked incessantly, jesting
+over their business affairs, and overwhelming with volubility the grave,
+bearded, diffident Iberian exporters dressed in coarse wool, who, with
+their silence seemed to protest against the stream of useless words.
+
+The wharves were deserted one after another, the life of the place
+flowing along the road toward the city. Horses galloped, raising clouds
+of dust, chariots rolled along, and little African donkeys passed with a
+short trot, bearing on their backs some corpulent citizen or other,
+seated like a woman.
+
+The Greek walked slowly along the mole behind two men clad in short
+tunics, wearing buskins and little conical hats with drooping brims,
+like those of the Hellenic shepherds. They were two artisans from the
+city. They had spent the day fishing, and were returning to their
+houses, gazing with ill dissimulated pride at their baskets in which
+writhed and wriggled barbels and eels. They were talking in Iberian,
+frequently mixing Greek and Latin words in their conversation. It was a
+not unusual dialect in that ancient colony, which was in continual
+contact through commerce with the principal peoples of the earth. The
+Greek, as he followed them down the wharf listened to their conversation
+with the curiosity of a stranger.
+
+"You will come in my cart," said one of them. "My donkey awaits me at
+Abiliana's inn. The beast as you know is the envy of all my neighbors.
+We shall yet reach the city before the gates are closed."
+
+"I thank you, neighbor. It is not prudent to travel alone when the
+country is swarming with adventurers whom we take as hirelings for the
+wars with the Turdetani, and all the people who fled from the city after
+the last revolt. Day before yesterday, as you know, the dead body of
+Acteio, the barber of the Forum, was found in the road. He was
+assassinated and robbed as he was returning from his little
+country-house at night-fall."
+
+"They say that we shall live more tranquilly now since the Roman
+intervention. The legates from Rome have ordered a few heads cut off;
+and they affirm that after this we shall have peace."
+
+The two men stopped a moment and turned their heads to look at the Roman
+liburna, which could barely be distinguished near the tower in the port,
+wrapped in the shadows of evening. Then they walked slowly onward, as if
+in deep thought.
+
+"You know," continued one of them, "that I am only a shoemaker who has
+his shop near the Forum and has been able to save a sack of silver
+victoriati in order to live at ease in his old age, and to spend the
+afternoons at the port, rod in hand. I do not know as much as those
+rhetoricians who stroll up and down outside the city wall disputing and
+shouting like Furies, nor do I worry my brain as do the philosophers who
+gather on the porticos of the Forum to quarrel amid the jests of the
+merchants as to whether this or that one of the men who occupy
+themselves there in Athens with such matters is in the right. But, with
+all my ignorance, I ask myself, neighbor, why this strife between us
+men who live in the same city who should deal with one another like good
+brothers? Why?"
+
+The shoemaker's comrade replied with vigorous nods of assent.
+
+"I understand," continued the artisan, "that from time to time we shall
+be at war with our neighbors the Turdetani. Sometimes on account of a
+question of irrigation, again on account of pasture-grounds, but mainly
+because of boundary lines, and to keep them from enjoying this beautiful
+port, I understand that the citizens take up arms and seek battle, going
+out to destroy their fields and burn their huts. But those people are
+not of our race, and that is how a great city makes itself respected.
+Besides, war yields slaves, which often are scarce, and what would we
+men, we citizens, do without slaves?"
+
+"I am poorer than you, neighbor," said the other fisherman. "I do not
+earn as much making saddles as you do making shoes; but in spite of my
+poverty I can afford to have a Turdetan slave, who helps me very much,
+and I desire war, because it brings in considerably more work."
+
+"War with our neighbors--that is welcome. The young men are restless,
+and seek ways of distinguishing themselves, the Republic acquires
+importance in consequence, and, after tramping through valleys and
+mountains, all will buy shoes and have their saddles mended. Very well;
+that enlivens business. But why have we been at work for over a year
+converting the Forum into a battlefield and turning every street into a
+fortress? At best you are in your shop extolling to a citizeness the
+elegance of a pair of papyrus sandals of Asiatic fashion, or of Greek
+buskins of great majesty, when you hear in the nearest plaza the clash
+of arms, shouts, death cries, and you rush to shut the door so that a
+stray missile will not nail you to your seat! And why? What reason is
+there for living like cats and dogs in the bosom of this Zacynthus,
+which used to be so tranquil and so industrious?"
+
+"The pride and riches of the Greeks"----began his companion.
+
+"Yes, I know that reason. The hatred between Iberians and Greeks; the
+belief that the latter, by their riches and wisdom, dominate and exploit
+the former--as if in the city there actually existed Iberians and
+Greeks! Iberians are those who are behind those mountains which mark off
+our horizon; a Greek is he whom we have seen disembark, and who is
+following our footsteps; but we are only sons of Zacynthus or of
+Saguntum, as they wish to call our city. We are the product of a
+thousand encounters by land and by sea, and Jupiter himself would be
+driven into a corner to tell who our grandparents were. Who can
+enumerate the people that have come here and have remained, in spite of
+others having come afterward to wrest from them the dominion of these
+lands and mines, since Zacynthus was bitten by the serpent in these
+fields, and our father Hercules raised the great walls of the Acropolis?
+Hither came the peoples of Tyre with their red sailed ships for the
+silver from the interior; the mariners from Zante fleeing with their
+families from the tyrants of their country; the Rutulian race from
+Ardea, people from Italy, who were powerful in the times when Rome did
+not as yet exist; Carthaginians of the epoch in which they thought more
+of commerce than of arms--and how do I know how many other peoples? You
+should hear the pedagogues when they explain our history on the portico
+of the temple of Diana! And I, do I know, perchance whether I am Greek
+or Iberian? My grandfather was a freedman from Sicily who came to take
+charge of a pottery and married a Celtiberian from the interior. My
+mother was a Lusitanian who came here on an expedition to sell gold dust
+to merchants from Alexandria. I call myself a Saguntine like all the
+rest. Those who consider themselves Iberians in Saguntum believe in the
+gods of the Greeks; the Greeks unconsciously adopt many Iberian customs;
+they think themselves different because they have divided the city in
+half and live separate; but their feasts are the same, and in the next
+Panathen�a you will see, together with the daughters of the Hellenic
+merchants, those of the citizens who cultivate the earth and who dress
+in coarse cloth and let their beards grow to more closely resemble the
+tribes of the interior."
+
+"Yes, but the Greeks dominate everywhere, they are masters of
+everything, they have taken possession of the life of the city."
+
+"They are the wisest, the bravest; they have something almost divine
+about them," said the shoemaker sententiously. "See if that is not true
+of the one who is following us. He is poorly dressed; perhaps he has not
+an obolus in his pocket for supper; perhaps he will sleep beneath the
+open sky, and yet, it seems as if Zeus had come down from the heavens in
+disguise to visit us."
+
+The two artisans turned their gaze instinctively to look at the Greek,
+and continued on their way. They had arrived near the huts which formed
+an animated town around the port.
+
+"There is another reason," said the leather-worker, "for the war which
+divides us. It is not only the hatred between Greeks and Iberians, it is
+because some want us to be friends of Rome and others of Carthage."
+
+"We should not affiliate with either," said the shoemaker tersely.
+"Tranquilly carrying on our commerce as in other times is the way in
+which we should prosper best. I reproach the Greeks of Saguntum for
+having allied us with Rome."
+
+"Rome is the conqueror."
+
+"Yes, but Rome is very far away, and the Carthaginians are almost at our
+doors. Troops from New Carthage can come here by a few days' journey."
+
+"Rome is our ally and she will protect us. Her legates, who leave
+to-morrow, have put an end to our strifes, beheading the citizens who
+disturbed the peace of the city."
+
+"Yes, but those citizens were friends of Carthage and old-time prot�g�s
+of Hamilcar. Hannibal will not easily forget his father's friends."
+
+"Bah! Carthage wants peace and wide commerce to enrich herself. Since
+her defeat in Sicily she fears Rome."
+
+"The senators may be afraid, but Hamilcar's son is very young, and, for
+my part, I am afraid of these boys converted into chiefs, who forget
+wine and love to dream only of glory."
+
+The Greek could hear no more. The two artisans had disappeared among
+the huts, and the echo of their argument was lost in the distance.
+
+The stranger was alone in the unfamiliar port. The wharves were
+deserted; lights began to glisten on the poops of the ships, and in the
+distance, over the waters of the bay, rose the moon like an enormous
+honey-colored disk. Only in the small fishermen's ports lingered
+animation. The women, naked from above the waist, tucking between their
+legs the rags which served them as a tunic, walked into the water up to
+their knees to wash the fish, and then putting them into broad baskets
+on their heads they took up their journey, dragging their big-bellied,
+naked youngsters after them. From the silent and motionless ships came
+groups of men who traveled toward the wretched settlement spread around
+the foot of the temple. They were sailors going in search of taverns and
+brothels.
+
+The Greek knew those customs well; it was a port like many others he had
+seen--the temple on the hill to guide the navigator, and below, wine in
+abundance, easy love, and the sanguinary fight as a termination of the
+feast. He thought for a moment of starting on the journey to the city,
+but the way was long, he did not know the road, and he preferred to
+remain, sleeping where he could until sunrise.
+
+He had entered one of the winding lanes formed by the hovels thrown
+together at hazard, as if they had fallen in confusion from the sky,
+with their walls of earth and roofs of reeds and straw, with narrow
+slits for light, and with only a few rags sewn together or a bit of
+threadbare tapestry, for a door. In some, with less wretched exteriors,
+dwelt the modest traders of the port, ship chandlers, dealers in grain,
+and those who, with the assistance of slaves, brought casks of water
+from the springs in the valley to the vessels; but the majority of the
+hovels were taverns and lupanars.
+
+Some of the houses had alongside the doors signs in Greek, Iberian, or
+Latin, painted with red ochre.
+
+The Greek heard some one calling him. It was a little, bald, fat man
+beckoning from the door of his dwelling.
+
+"Greeting, son of Athens!" he said, to flatter him with the name of the
+most famous city of Greece. "Come in! Here you will be among your own,
+for my forefathers also came from Athens. See the sign on my tavern, 'To
+Pallas Athene'. Here you will find wine from Laurona, as excellent as
+that from Attica; if you wish to try the Celtiberian beer, I have it
+also, and if you desire, I can serve you with a certain flask of wine
+from Samos, as authentic as the goddess of Athens which adorns my
+counter."
+
+The Greek answered with a smile and a shake of his head, while the
+loquacious tavern-keeper went into his hut, lifting the tapestry to
+allow a group of mariners to enter.
+
+After a few steps he stopped, attracted by a faint whistle which seemed
+to be calling him from the interior of a cabin. An old woman, wrapped in
+a black mantle, stood in her doorway making signs to him. Within, by the
+light of an earthen lamp hanging by a slender chain, he could see
+several women squatting on mats in the attitude of placid beasts, with
+no other sign of life than a fixed smile which displayed their shining
+teeth.
+
+"I am in haste, good mother," said the stranger, smiling.
+
+"Stay awhile, son of Zeus!" urged the old woman in the Hellenic idiom,
+disfigured by the harshness of her accent and by the hiss of breathing
+between toothless gums. "The moment I saw you I knew you for a Greek.
+All who come from your country are gay and beautiful; you look like
+Apollo seeking his celestial sisters. Enter! Here you will find
+them----"
+
+Approaching the stranger, and catching him by the border of his chlamys,
+she enumerated the charms of her Iberian, Balearic, or African wards;
+some majestic and grand like Juno, others small and graceful like the
+het�r� of Alexandria and Greece; and seeing that the customer released
+his garment from her clutch and continued on his way, she raised her
+voice, believing that she had not divined his taste, and she spoke of
+white youths with long hair, beautiful as the Syrian boys who were
+contended for by the gallants of Athens.
+
+The Greek had passed out of the winding lane, but he could still hear
+the voice of the old woman, who seemed to become shamelessly intoxicated
+crying her infamous wares. He was now in the country, at the beginning
+of the high road to the city. On his right rose the hill of the temple,
+and at its base, opposite the flight of stone steps, he saw a house
+larger than the others, an inn with doors and windows illuminated by
+lamps of red earthenware.
+
+Seated on stone benches were sailors from all countries, demanding food
+in their several languages--Roman soldiers wearing corselets of bronze
+scales, short swords hanging from their shoulders; at their feet
+helmets topped by a crest of red horsehair in the form of a brush;
+rowers from Massilia, almost naked, their knives half hidden among the
+folds of the rag knotted around their waists; Phoenician and
+Carthaginian mariners with wide trousers, wearing tall caps in the form
+of mitres with heavy silver pendants; negroes from Alexandria, athletic
+and slow of movement, displaying their sharp teeth as they smiled,
+making one think of frightful cannibalistic scenes; Celtiberians and
+Iberians with gloomy dress and tangled hair, looking suspiciously in all
+directions, and instinctively raising their hands to their broad knives;
+some redmen from Gaul, with long mustaches and coarse red hair tied
+behind and falling down their necks; people, in fine, who had come, or
+had been flung by the hazards of war and the sea, from one point of the
+known world to another, one day victorious warriors, and slaves the
+next, now sailors and anon pirates, acknowledging no law nor
+nationality; with no other respect than the fear of the master of the
+vessel who was quick to order them to the whip or the cross; with no
+other religion than that of the sword and the strong arm; testifying by
+the wounds which covered their bodies, in the long cicatrices which
+furrowed their muscles, by cuts on their ears covered by matted hair, to
+a past mysterious with horrors.
+
+Some ate standing by the counter, behind which were ranged the amphor�
+corked with fresh leaves; others seated on the stone benches along the
+walls held earthenware plates on their knees. Most had thrown themselves
+down on the floor upon their bellies, like wild beasts devouring their
+prey, reaching into their plates with their hairy claws, crunching the
+food in their jaws as they talked. They had not yet upset their wine
+nor asked for the women. They ate and drank with the appetite of ogres
+tormented by the deprivations of the long voyages, and morally starved
+by the brutal discipline on shipboard.
+
+Finding themselves huddled together in a small space, filled with smoke
+from the lamps and with vapors from the food, they felt the necessity of
+communicating with each other, and between mouthfuls, each spoke to his
+neighbor, paying no heed to difference of idiom, making themselves
+understood finally by a language composed more of gestures than of
+words. A Carthaginian was telling a Greek about his last voyage to the
+islands of the Great Sea, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, through a gray
+body of water covered with fog, until they arrived at an abrupt coast
+known only to the pilots of his country, where tin was found. Farther
+down the bench a negro, with grotesque mimicry, was describing to a
+couple of Celtiberians an excursion down the Red Sea, until they reached
+mysterious shores, deserted by day, but covered by night with moving
+fires and inhabited by hairy men as agile as monkeys, the skins of some
+of whom they stuffed with straw and carried to the temples of Egypt to
+offer to the gods. The older Roman soldiers, paying no attention, in
+their insolence as conquerors, to the humiliated Carthaginians who were
+listening, told of their great victory on the �gates islands which drove
+the Carthaginians out of Sicily, ending the first Punic War. The Iberian
+shepherds mixed in among the navigators wished to off-set the effect of
+these maritime adventures, and they bragged of the horses belonging to
+their tribe, and of their marvelous swiftness, while a little Greek,
+lively and keen, in order to overwhelm the barbarians and to demonstrate
+the superiority of his race, began to declaim fragments of some ode
+learned in the port of Pir�us, or he intoned a lyric poem, slow and
+sweet, which was lost amid the noise of conversation, of crunching jaws,
+and of clattering plates.
+
+They called for more light. The smoky atmosphere of the inn was
+constantly growing denser, and the frames of the lamps were scarcely
+more distinctly visible than drops of blood on the soot-blackened walls.
+From the kitchen floated an odor of piquant sauces and smoky wood which
+made many of the customers cough and weep. Some were drunk soon after
+beginning dinner, and they asked the slaves for crowns of flowers to
+adorn themselves as in the banquets of the rich. Others growled applause
+as they saw the den illuminated by the lurid flame of the candlewood
+which the proprietor lighted. The slaves passed behind the stone counter
+overturning great amphor�, and ran into the kitchen only to rush back
+again immediately, red with suffocation, bearing great platters. Wine
+ran across the floor as a crater was overturned. When there appeared at
+the window the painted faces of some of the prostitutes--she-wolves of
+the port--who were awaiting the moment for making an irruption into the
+inn, the mariners greeted them with hoarse laughter, imitating the howl
+of the beast after whom they were nicknamed, and throwing them a portion
+of their food, over which the women fought, scratching and shrieking.
+
+The food was all thirst-giving, so that each mouthful should be
+accompanied by a sip. The Greeks ate snails floating in a sauce of
+saffron; fresh sardines from the gulf appeared arranged in circles
+around the dishes, festooned with laurel leaves; birds' heads were
+served covered with green sauce; the Iberian shepherds were satisfied
+with dried fish and hard cheese; the Romans and Gauls devoured great
+chunks of lamb dripping blood, and eels from the basins of the port
+decorated with hard-boiled eggs. All these dishes and many others were
+loaded with salt, pepper, and herbs of acrid odor, to which the
+strangest qualities were attributed. Everybody was eager to spend his
+money, to satisfy his hunger and thirst, and to roll on the floor drunk,
+consoling himself thus for the hard life of privation which awaited him
+on shipboard. The Romans who were to sail the next day had collected
+their back pay and were determined to leave their sestertii in the port
+of Saguntum; the Carthaginians boasted of their Republic, the richest in
+the world, and other mariners praised their masters, ever generous when
+they touched that port where business was excellent. The innkeeper was
+continually throwing into an empty amphora coins of all kinds, those
+from Zacynthus, bearing the prow of a ship, with Victory flying above
+it; those from Carthage with the legendary horse and the frightful
+Cabiric deities; and Alexandrian coins with their elegant Ptolemaic
+profile.
+
+The meanest of the rowers felt the caprices of a potentate, the itch to
+imitate the opulent for a night that they might console themselves with
+its memory in future days of hunger; and they asked for oysters from
+Lucrinus, which an occasional ship brought packed in amphor� with sea
+water as a delicacy for the great merchants of Saguntum, or the
+_oxygarum_, salted fishmilt, prepared with vinegar and spices as an
+appetizer for which the patricians of Rome paid a great price. Black
+wine from Laurona and the pink wine from the Saguntine vineyards were
+scorned by those who had money. The wine from Massilia they despised
+also, sneering at the rosin and gypsum employed in its preparation, and
+they called for wines from the Campagna, Falerno, Monte Massico, or
+C�cubum, which, in spite of the price, they drank in capacious
+cymbas--boat-shaped drinking vessels of Saguntine clay. Hungry for the
+fresh products of the field after their long sojourn on the sea, these
+men devoured immense quantities of vegetables and fruits, in addition to
+the hot dishes and a great variety of drinks ranging from Celtiberian
+beers to foreign wines. They fell greedily upon the plates of mushrooms;
+they ate handfuls of radishes dressed with vinegar; leeks, beets,
+garlic, and heaps of fresh lettuce from the gardens of the Saguntine
+domain disappeared down their throats, while they littered the floor
+with green, muddy leaves.
+
+The Greek stood in the doorway with a few of the mariners who could not
+find room within, and contemplated the spectacle. As he gazed on the
+rude banquet the stranger remembered that he had not eaten since
+morning, when the master of the rowers on Polyanthus' ship had given him
+a piece of bread. The novelty of disembarking in an unknown land had
+quieted his stomach, accustomed as it was to privations; but now in
+sight of so many different foods he felt the pangs of hunger, and
+instinctively set one foot within the tavern, drawing it back
+immediately. What was the use of going in? The pouch hanging from his
+shoulder held papyri testifying to his past achievements; tablets for
+memoranda; even pincers for extracting his beard; a comb; all the small
+objects of which a good Greek, addicted to the scrupulous care of his
+person, would not deprive himself, but search in it as he might he could
+find not a single obolus. The pilot, who respected the Greeks of Attica,
+had given him free passage on the ship when he met him wandering along
+the wharves at New Carthage. He was hungry and alone in a strange land,
+and if he should enter the hostelry to eat without offering money, he
+would be treated like a slave, and be driven out with a club.
+
+Mocked by the odor of the viands and sauces, he turned to flee, tearing
+himself away from this torture of Tantalus, but as he drew back he
+bumped against a tall man clad only in a dark sagum and sandals with
+straps crossed to the knees. He resembled a Celtiberian shepherd; but
+the Greek, as he collided with him, received the impression in a hasty
+exchange of glances that this was not the first time he had looked into
+those imperious eyes which recalled to his mind the eyes of the eagle
+perched at the feet of Zeus.
+
+The Greek shrugged his shoulders with indifference. What he desired was
+to satiate his hunger and to sleep if possible until sunrise. Turning
+his back on the wretched suburb, illuminated and noisy, he sought a
+place where he might rest, and he took the road toward the fane of
+Aphrodite. The temple, situated on the crest of the hill, was approached
+by a broad stairway of blue marble, its first step rising from the quay.
+
+The Greek seated himself on the polished stone, proposing to await there
+the coming of the day. The moon illuminated the whole upper part of the
+temple; the sounds from the houses near the port, the murmur of the sea,
+the whisper of the olive trees, and the monotonous croaking of the frogs
+hidden in the marshes, floated to him muffled, as if lulled by the great
+calm of night.
+
+Again and again the Greek heard a strident, dismal cry, like the howl of
+a wolf. Suddenly it whined behind him, he felt a warm breath on his
+back, and as he turned he saw a woman bending toward him, her hands on
+her knees, her mouth rent by a stupid smile which displayed gums, in
+places lacking teeth.
+
+"Greeting, handsome stranger! I saw you flee from the tumult. You must
+be sad here all alone. I have come to make you happy.----What! Can it
+not be?"
+
+The Greek recognized her immediately--a "she-wolf" from the port, a
+wretched woman such as he had seen swarming around the wharves in many
+countries; miserable, cosmopolitan strumpets, flames for a single night
+of men of all colors and races, with no other ambition than to earn a
+few oboli, slinking near a stone or in the shadow of a boat, old het�r�
+sunk in brutality, fugitive slaves seeking liberty in obscenity and
+drunkenness; females who represented all that cruel men of the sea knew
+of love; poor beasts, weakened in their youth by excessive caresses, and
+destined to be treated with blows in their old age.
+
+The stranger looked at the woman, who was still young, and detected some
+traces of beauty. But she was wasted, her eyes lachrymose, her mouth
+disfigured by broken teeth. She was wrapped in an ample mantle which
+must have been of beautiful weave but was now dirty and threadbare; her
+feet were naked, and her tangled hair, in which the unhappy creature
+had thrust a branch of wild flowers, was held by a copper comb.
+
+"You are wasting your time here," said the Greek with a kindly smile. "I
+have not so much as an obolus in my pouch."
+
+The man's gentle accent seemed to intimidate the poor unfortunate. She
+was accustomed to blows; man to her represented brutal assault,
+gratification revealed with bites, and in the presence of the Greek's
+tender manner she seemed disconcerted and shy, as if she suspected
+danger.
+
+"Have you no money?" she said with humility, after a long silence. "It
+matters not; here I am. You please me; I am your slave. Among all those
+people rioting at the hostelry my eyes have turned to you."
+
+She bent over the Greek, caressing his curly hair with her calloused
+hands, while he regarded her with compassionate eyes, seeing her
+shrunken breast and hollow form. Hungry and alone in an unknown land he
+felt attracted by the kindness of the unhappy creature; there was the
+fraternity of misery between them.
+
+"If you desire company, stay near me," he said; "talk as much as you
+wish, but do not caress me. I am hungry; I have eaten nothing since
+dawn, and at this moment I would exchange all the joys of Cytherea for
+the pittance of any mariner."
+
+The harlot stood up straight, so great was her surprise.
+
+"You hungry? You faint with hunger, when I thought you nourished on the
+ambrosia of Zeus?"
+
+Her eyes displayed astonishment such as she would have felt had she seen
+Aphrodite, the nude, white, goddess who was guarded up there in her
+temple, descend from her marble pedestal and offer herself with open
+arms to the rowers of the port for an obolus.
+
+"Wait, wait!" she cried with resolution, after a moment's reflection.
+
+The Greek saw her running toward the huts, and when at last weariness
+and weakness began to close his eyes, he felt her near him again,
+touching his shoulder.
+
+"Take this, my master! It has cost me dear to obtain it. The cruel Lais,
+an old woman as horrible as the Pare�, who helps us to live through days
+of privation, has agreed to give me her supper, after making me take
+oath that by the time the sun rises I will hand her two sestertii. Eat,
+my love; eat and drink!"
+
+She placed upon the steps a loaf of brown bread, made in the form of a
+disk, some dried fish, half a Saguntine cheese, tender and oozing whey,
+and a jar of Celtiberian beer.
+
+The Greek fell upon the food, and began to devour it, followed by the
+gaze of the _lupa_, which sweetened at times, and acquired an almost
+maternal expression.
+
+"I should like to be as rich as S�nnica, a woman who they say began like
+any one of us, and is now mistress of many of these ships, and has
+gardens as wonderful as Olympus, troops of slaves, potteries, and half
+the domain of the commonwealth as her own property. I should like to be
+rich if only for to-night, to regale you on the best there is in the
+city; to give you a banquet like one of S�nnica's, which last till dawn,
+and where, crowned with roses, you should drink the Samian wine from a
+golden cup."
+
+The Greek, touched by the simplicity and ingenuousness with which she
+spoke, gazed at her tenderly.
+
+"Do not thank me," she continued. "It is I who should be grateful for
+the joy of feeding you. What is this? I know not. Never has a man
+approached me before without giving me something; some give me copper
+coins, others a piece of cloth or a patera of wine; most of them blows
+and bites; all have given me something, and I have accepted, though I
+detested them. But you, who come poor and hungry, who do not seek me but
+reject me, who give me nothing, just your being near me has made a new
+pleasure surge through my body. As I give you food I feel intoxicated,
+as if I were fresh from a banquet. Tell me, Greek, are you really a man,
+or are you the father of the gods, descending to earth to honor me?"
+
+Exalted by her own words, she arose, standing half way up the marble
+steps, and extending her rigid arms toward the temple, bathed in
+moonlight, exclaimed:
+
+"Aphrodite! My goddess! If some day I manage to get together the price
+of two white doves, I will present them on thy altar, adorned with
+flowers and fire-colored ribbons, in memory of this night."
+
+The Greek drank the bitter liquid from the jar and offered it to the
+woman, whose lips sought the same spot on the rim which had been touched
+by his.
+
+She did not taste the supper which the Greek held out to her; she
+continued drinking, and the wine made her more talkative.
+
+"If you only knew what it has cost me to get all this! The lanes are
+full of drunken men, who wallow in the mire and drag themselves along on
+their hands, tearing one's clothing and biting one's legs. Wine runs
+out of the doorways of the inns. They were fighting on the wharf a
+little while ago. Some Africans were holding one of their companions
+head down in the water to cure his broken skull; a Celtiberian had
+opened a great gash in it with his clenched fist. Others amused
+themselves by catching Tuga, an Iberian girl, by the feet, and thrusting
+her head in the biggest vat in the tavern as long as they dared. She was
+half drowned when they pulled her out. It is their usual diversion. I
+saw poor Albura, a friend of mine, seated on the ground covered with
+blood, holding in the palm of her hand one of her eyes which a drunken
+Egyptian had knocked out with a fisticuff. This kind of thing happens
+every night! And yet, all at once, I have become afraid. I have only
+just met you, and still it seems to me as if I were living in a new
+world, and that for the first time I give heed to my surroundings."
+
+She told him the story of her life. They called her Bacchis, and she was
+uncertain what was her native land. No doubt she was born in some other
+port, for she vaguely remembered in her childhood a long voyage in a
+ship. Her mother must have been a _lupa_ also, and she herself the
+result of a meeting with a mariner. The name of Bacchis, which had been
+given her when she was little, had been borne by many famous courtesans
+of Greece. No doubt she had been sold to some old woman by the pilot who
+had brought her to Saguntum, and, while still a child, long before
+coming to maturity, was visited in the old woman's hut by aged merchants
+of the port or libertines of the city.
+
+When her owner died she became a _lupa_, and passed into submission to
+mariners, fishermen, shepherds from the mountains, and to all the brutal
+horde which swarmed around the port. She was not yet twenty, but she was
+aged, disfigured, wasted by excesses and by blows. She had always seen
+the city from a distance. She had only entered it twice. The _lupas_
+were not tolerated there. They were allowed to remain near the fane of
+Aphrodite, as a guarantee of the security of Saguntum, that thus the
+rabble which came to the port from all lands might be held at a
+distance, but in the city the Iberians of cleanly habits became
+indignant at the mere sight of the wantons, and the corrupt Greeks were
+too refined in their tastes to feel pity for those sellers of the body
+who fell like beasts beside the roadway for a bunch of grapes or a
+handful of nuts.
+
+There in the shadow of the temple of Aphrodite she had spent her life,
+ever awaiting new ships and new men, hairy and obscene, brutal as
+satyrs, made ferocious by the abstinence of the sea, to be at last
+assassinated in some mariners' fight, or found the victim of hunger,
+dead beside some abandoned boat.
+
+"And you--who are you?" Bacchis asked at last. "What is your name?"
+
+"My name is Act�on; my native land is Athens. I have traveled over the
+world; in some parts I have been a soldier, in others a navigator; I
+have fought, I have trafficked, and I have even written verses, and
+discussed with philosophers things which you do not understand. I have
+been rich many times, and now you give me food. That is all my story."
+
+Bacchis looked at him with eyes full of admiration, divining through his
+concise words a past crammed with adventures, with terrible dangers and
+prodigious changes of fortune. She thought of the deeds of Achilles, and
+of the adventurous life of Ulysses, so often heard in the verses
+declaimed by Greek mariners when they were drunk.
+
+The courtesan, reclining on the Greek's breast, fondled his hair. The
+Greek, grateful, smiled fraternally on Bacchis, with indifference, as if
+she were a child.
+
+Two mariners came out from among the huts, and began to stagger along
+the wharf. A penetrating howl, which seemed to cleave the air, sounded
+close to Act�on's ears. His companion, impelled by habit, with the
+instinct of the vendor who sees a customer in the distance, had arisen
+to her feet.
+
+"I will return, my master. I had almost forgotten the terrible Lais. I
+must give her her money before the sun rises. She will beat me as she
+has done before if I do not fulfill my promise. Wait for me here."
+
+Repeating her wild howl, she went in search of the sailors, who had
+stopped, hailing the "she-wolf's" cries with loud laughter and obscene
+words.
+
+When the Greek found himself alone, his hunger placated, he felt a
+certain disgust in thinking of his recent adventure. Act�on the
+Athenian, he for whom the richest het�r� of the beautiful city used to
+dispute in the Cerameicus, protected and adored by a strumpet of the
+port! To avoid meeting her again he hurriedly left the temple steps,
+losing himself in the streets by the harbor.
+
+Again he stopped before the hostelry in the doorway of which he had
+experienced the torment of hunger. The sailors were in the midst of an
+orgy. The tavern keeper could barely command respect behind the
+counter. The slaves, terrified by blows, had taken refuge in the
+kitchen. Some amphor� lay broken on the floor letting the wine escape
+like streams of blood, and the drunken men wallowed in the gurgling
+liquid as it soaked into the earthen floor, calling for drinks of which
+they had vaguely heard on distant voyages, or for fantastic dishes
+conceived by the little tyrants of Asia. One Herculean Egyptian was
+running on all fours imitating the growl of the jackal, and biting the
+women who had entered the tavern. Some negroes were disporting with
+feminine movements, as if hypnotized by the whirling of the umbilical
+dance. In the corners, on the stone benches, men and women embraced in
+the crude light of the torches; the smell of bare and sweaty flesh
+mingled with the aroma of wine; in the atmosphere of viands and of
+wild-beast odor, seamen, forgetting shame, committed crimes peculiar to
+the aberration of the epoch.
+
+In the midst of this disorder a few men stood motionless near the
+counter, arguing with apparent calmness. They were two Roman soldiers,
+an old Carthaginian mariner, and a Celtiberian. The torpid slowness of
+their words, which in their anger acquired flute-like tones, their
+inflamed and blood-shot eyes, and their hawk-like noses, seeming to grow
+sharper as they talked, revealed that terrible drunkenness, stubborn and
+quarrelsome, which culminates in murder.
+
+The Roman was telling of his presence in the combat on the �gates
+islands, fourteen years before.
+
+"I know you," he said insolently to the Carthaginian. "You are a
+republic of merchants born for lying and bad faith. If someone who knows
+how to sell at top prices and cheat the buyer is wanted, I agree that
+you stand first; but talking of soldiers, of men, we are the best, we
+sons of Rome, who grasp the plow in one hand and the lance in the
+other."
+
+He proudly raised his round head with its close-cropped hair and shaven
+cheeks, on which the chin-straps of his helmet had worn hard calloused
+lines.
+
+Act�on looked through the window at the Celtiberian, the only one of the
+group who remained silent, but who had his glittering eyes fastened upon
+the bare neck showing above the Roman legionary's bronze corselet, as if
+attracted by the coarse veins outlined beneath the skin. Surely the
+Greek had seen those eyes before; they were like an old acquaintance
+whose name one cannot recall. There was something artificial about his
+person, which the Greek divined with his keen perception.
+
+"I would swear by Mercury that that man is not what he pretends to be.
+He looks something more than a shepherd, and the bronze color of his
+face is not that of the Celtiberians, no matter how sunburned they may
+be. Perhaps that long hair which falls around his shoulders is
+false----"
+
+He was unable to observe him longer because of the dispute between the
+legionary and the old Carthaginian, who gradually approached each other
+to hear better in the midst of the clamor which reigned in the tavern.
+
+"I also was on that sad expedition to the �gates," said the
+Carthaginian; "there is where I received this wound that crosses my
+face. It is true that you conquered us; but what does that show? Many
+times did I see your ships flee before ours, and more than once I
+counted Roman corpses by the hundred on the fields of Sicily. Ah, if
+Hanno had not arrived too late that day of the combat at the islands! If
+Hamilcar had only had reinforcements!"
+
+"Hamilcar!" disdainfully exclaimed the Roman. "A great chief who had to
+sue for peace! A merchant turned warrior!"
+
+And he laughed with the insolence of the strong, not fearing the anger
+of the old Carthaginian, who began to stammer an answer.
+
+The Celtiberian, who had remained silent, laid his hand upon the old
+man.
+
+"Silence, Carthaginian! The Roman is right. You are peddlers incapable
+of measuring up with them in war. You love money too much to dominate by
+the sword. But Carthage is not made of those of your breed; there are
+others born there who will know how to stand up before those peasants of
+Italy!"
+
+The Roman, seeing the rustic intervene in the dispute, became still more
+arrogant and insolent.
+
+"And who can that be?" he shouted scornfully. "The son of Hamilcar? That
+youngster who they say had a slave for a mother?"
+
+"Those who founded your city, Roman, were sons of a prostitute, and the
+day is not far distant when the horse of Carthage shall trample under
+foot the wolf of Romulus!"
+
+The legionary arose trembling with fury, feeling for his sword, but he
+suddenly gave a savage growl and fell, pressing his hands against his
+throat.
+
+Act�on had seen the Celtiberian introduce his right hand into the sleeve
+of his sagum, and, drawing a knife, stab the legionary in the thick neck
+he had been staring at with the fixity of a wild beast while the fallen
+man mocked at Carthage.
+
+The tavern shook with the strain of the combat. The other Roman seeing
+his companion down, hurled himself at the Celtiberian with raised sword,
+but quick as a flash he received a thrust in the face and was blinded by
+a stream of blood.
+
+The agility of the man was astounding. His movements had the elasticity
+of the panther; blows seemed to rebound from his body without doing him
+harm. Around him fell a shower of jars, of broken amphor�, of swords
+hurled through the air; but with extended arm, and knife held before
+him, he made a spring toward the door and disappeared.
+
+"After him! After him!" clamored the Romans, starting in pursuit.
+
+Attracted by the brutal joy of a man hunt, all who were sober enough to
+retain mastery of their legs followed him out of the hostelry. The horde
+of men, fired by the sight of blood, sprang over the bodies of the dying
+Roman and the drunken sailors who lay snoring near him. The Greek saw
+them break up into groups, running in all directions after the
+Celtiberian, who had disappeared a few steps distant from the hostelry
+as if dissolved into the shadow of the night.
+
+The port thrilled with the ardor of the chase. Lights flashed along the
+wharves and through the village streets; the lupanars and taverns were
+subjected to a brutal overhauling by the Romans who were mad with fury;
+a fresh fight started at the door of every hut; blood was about to flow
+anew, when the Greek, fearing to become involved in a riot, fled to the
+temple. Bacchis had not returned, and the Greek climbed up the steps
+and stretched out on the portico, a broad terrace paved with blue
+marble, over which the fluted columns supporting the pediment flung
+oblique bars of shadow.
+
+When Act�on awoke he felt the warmth of the sun on his face. Birds were
+singing in the olive trees, and he heard voices near. As he arose he was
+surprised to see that day had dawned, for it seemed but a few minutes
+had passed since he fell asleep.
+
+A woman, a patrician, stood not far away, smiling upon him. She was
+robed in a flowing white linen mantle which fell to her feet in graceful
+folds like the drapery of statues. A few curls of blonde hair fell over
+her forehead. Her lips were painted red, and her black eyes, velvety,
+and with a silky caress in their gaze, were surrounded by blue circles
+suggesting a night of fatigue. Moving her arms beneath her mantle,
+hidden ornaments jingled with silvery tones, and the toe of her sandal,
+peeping from beneath the border of her garment, shone like a jewelled
+star.
+
+She was followed by two slender Celtiberian slaves, their brown,
+swelling breasts almost bare, their limbs wrapped in multicolored cloth.
+One carried a pair of white doves, the other bore on her head a basket
+of roses.
+
+Act�on recognized Polyanthus, the Saguntine pilot, and also the perfumed
+young gallant who had been on the wharf with another horseman when the
+ship came in, standing near the handsome patrician.
+
+The Greek arose, amazed at the beautiful apparition smiling upon him.
+
+"Athenian," she said in Greek of the purest accent, "I am S�nnica, the
+mistress of the ship which brought you hither. Polyanthus is my
+freedman and he has done well in giving you passage, for he is aware of
+my interest in your people. Who are you?"
+
+"I am Act�on, and I ask the gods to shower blessings upon you for your
+kindness. May Venus guard your beauty while you live."
+
+"Are you a navigator? Are you engaged in commerce? Are you traveling
+about the world giving lessons in rhetoric and poetry?"
+
+"I am a soldier, as were all my ancestors. My grandfather died in Italy
+covering with his body the great Pyrrhus who wept for him as for a
+brother. My father was a captain of mercenaries in the service of
+Carthage, and was cruelly assassinated in the war called 'inexorable.'"
+
+He was silent a moment as if overcome by this recollection. His voice
+choked, but presently he added: "I fought until recently under the
+orders of Cleomenes, the last Laced�monian. I was one of his companions,
+and when the hero suffered defeat I accompanied him to Alexandria,
+afterward traveling over the world because I could not endure the
+inactivity of exile. I have also been a merchant in Rhodes, a fisherman
+on the Bosphorus, a farmer in Egypt, and a satirical poet in Athens."
+
+The handsome S�nnica approached him smiling. He was an Athenian
+possessed of all the qualities so loved by her; one of those adventurers
+accustomed to rapid changes of fortune, rounders of the world, who
+frequently chronicle their achievements when they have reached old age.
+
+"And why have you come hither?"
+
+"I have come by chance. Your pilot offered to bring me to Zacynthus, and
+I came. I felt stifled in New Carthage. I might have enlisted in
+Hannibal's army; it would have been sufficient perhaps to have revealed
+my origin to meet with welcome. The Greeks are paid great prices in
+every army. But a war is in progress here also, and I prefer to go
+against the Turdetani, to serve a city which I do not know, but which
+has never done me any harm."
+
+"And did you sleep here last night? Could you not find a bed in any of
+the inns?"
+
+"What I could not find was an obolus in my pouch. If I appeased my
+hunger, it was due to the charity of a forlorn harlot who shared her
+meagre supper with me. I am poor, and I was faint for food. Do not pity
+me, S�nnica. Do not look upon me with eyes of compassion. I have given
+banquets which lasted from sunset until dawn. In Rhodes, at the hour of
+the songs, we used to throw the metal plates out of the windows to the
+slaves. The life of a man should be thus, like Homer's heroes, a king in
+one place and a beggar in another."
+
+Polyanthus looked upon the adventurer with interest, and the elegant
+Lachares, who had at first opposed S�nnica when she wished to awaken so
+ill-dressed a Greek, approached him, recognizing Athenian refinement
+beneath his humble exterior, thinking to make a friend of him in the
+hope of receiving lessons to his advantage.
+
+"Come to my villa at sunset to-day," said S�nnica. "You shall dine with
+us. Anyone can guide you to my house. One of my ships has brought you to
+this land, and I wish you to find hospitality beneath my roof.
+Farewell, Athenian. I also am from Athens, and seeing you I imagine that
+the golden lance of Pallas on the height by the Parthenon still shines
+before my eyes."
+
+Bidding the Athenian farewell with a smile, S�nnica turned toward the
+temple, followed by the slaves.
+
+Act�on overhead the conversation of Lachares and Polyanthus outside the
+temple. They had spent the night before at S�nnica's house. They had
+left the table at dawn. Lachares still wore his banquet crown, but the
+roses were withered and falling to pieces. When S�nnica heard of the
+arrival of the dancing girls from Gades, whom she had so impatiently
+awaited to present at her suppers, she took a fancy to see Polyanthus
+and his ship, and she wished to make a sacrifice to Aphrodite in
+passing, as she did whenever she went to the port. She had come in her
+great litter, accompanied by Lachares and the two slaves, proposing to
+sleep on the way back, for she generally stayed in bed until well past
+the hour of noon.
+
+The pilot withdrew and went toward his ship to disembark the troop of
+dancers, and Act�on walked with Lachares to the entrance of the open
+temple.
+
+The interior was simple and beautiful. A great square space remained
+roofless to allow the light to enter, and the sun's rays descending
+through this opening gave the changing bluish green of sea-water to the
+azure columns with their capitals representing shells, dolphins, and
+cupids grasping the oar. At the lower end in a soft penumbra, laden with
+the perfumes of the sacrifices, stood the goddess, white, arrogant, and
+proud in her nudity as when she first emerged from the waves before the
+astonished eyes of men.
+
+The altar was near the door. Before it stood the priest in a full linen
+mantle, held to his head by a crown of flowers, receiving the offerings
+to the goddess from the hands of S�nnica herself.
+
+Coming out upon the peristyle she swept with a loving glance the expanse
+of whitecapped sea, the port glistening like a triple mirror, the
+immense green valley, and the distant city, gilded by the first rays of
+the morning sun.
+
+"How beautiful! Look at our city, Act�on! Greece is not more exquisite."
+
+At the foot of the great stone steps was her palanquin, which was a
+veritable house closed by purple curtains, decorated at their four
+corners with plumes of ostrich feathers. It was borne by eight athletic
+slaves with swelling muscles.
+
+S�nnica ordered her women to enter this ambulatory dwelling; she pushed
+in Lachares, whom she treated as an inferior, and whose familiarity was
+tolerated as one of her caprices; and, turning toward the Greek, who
+stood on an upper step of the temple, she smiled once more, bidding him
+farewell with a wave of a hand covered to the fingernails with rings,
+which at every movement traced streams of light through the air.
+
+The litter swiftly disappeared along the city road, when suddenly Act�on
+became aware of hands caressing his neck.
+
+It was Bacchis, looking still more wasted and ragged in the light of
+day. She had one eye blackened, and bruised spots on her arms.
+
+"I could not come before," said the slave humbly. "They only let me
+loose a little while ago. What people! They barely gave me enough to
+pay Lais. I have been thinking of you all night, god of mine, while they
+were tormenting me, blowing in my face like tired satyrs."
+
+Act�on turned away, shrinking from her caresses. He perceived the odor
+of wine on the wretched woman, drunk and exhausted after the adventures
+of the night.
+
+"You run away from me? Yes, I understand! I saw you talking with S�nnica
+the rich, she whom her friends call the most beautiful woman in
+Zacynthus. Are you going to be her lover? Oh, I know that she will adore
+you. But she is only another like myself. Tell me, Act�on, why do you
+not take me with you? Why do you not make me your slave? My price will
+be only one night with you."
+
+The Greek pushed aside the thin arms which tried to embrace him, in
+order to see the road where trumpets were blaring, and helmets and
+lances were gleaming, in the midst of a great cloud of dust.
+
+"Those are the legates from Rome who are leaving to-day," said the
+woman.
+
+Attracted by the charm which men of war exercised upon her childish
+mind, she ran down the steps to obtain a closer view of the ambassadors
+and their retinue.
+
+In advance marched the trumpeters of the Roman ship, blowing their long
+metal tubas, their cheeks bound by broad woolen bands. An escort of
+citizens of Saguntum surrounded the ambassadors, making their shaggy
+Celtiberian horses caracole, waving their lances, their heads covered
+with triple-crested helmets which still bore the dents from blows
+received in their latest skirmishes with the Turdetani. Some old men of
+the Saguntine senate rode sedately on heavy horses, their long beards
+covering their breasts. Their dark mantles, held upon their heads by
+embroidered tiaras, swept to their stirrups in heavy folds. The Roman
+ensign, over-topped by the wolf, was carried by a strong _classiarius_,
+and behind it rode the legates, their round, shaven heads uncovered. One
+was obese, and had a fat, triple chin; the other was spare, nervous,
+with a sharp aquiline nose; both wore embossed bronze cuirasses; their
+legs were covered with metal greaves, and over their protuberant thighs
+hung skirts the color of wine-lees, trimmed with loose strips of gold
+which quivered at the slightest movement of their steeds.
+
+As the procession reached the wharf, where swarmed groups of sailors,
+fishermen, and slaves, they met a band of women wrapped in their
+mantles, who were walking along guided by an old man with insolent eyes
+and sunken mouth, wearing that repulsive aspect acquired by eunuchs who
+live perpetually in the company of enslaved women. They were the dancing
+girls from Gades, who, as they left Polyanthus' ship, passed unnoticed
+in the hubbub of the leave-taking.
+
+Some women, issuing from the fish-wharves, offered the legates crowns of
+flowers gathered from the neighboring hills, and lilies from the
+lagoons. Acclamations arose throughout the entire length of the quay,
+witnessed by groups of indifferent sailors from all countries.
+
+"Hail to Rome! May Neptune protect you! The gods accompany you!"
+
+Act�on heard a mocking laugh behind him, and as he turned he saw the
+Celtiberian shepherd who had killed the legionary in the tavern the
+night before.
+
+"You here?" the Greek exclaimed with surprise. "Are you alone, and do
+you not hide from the Romans who seek you?"
+
+The imperious eyes of the shepherd, those strange eyes which aroused in
+the Greek confused and inexplicable memories, looked at him with
+arrogance.
+
+"The Romans! I hate and despise them! I would go without fear even to
+the deck of their ship! Mind your own affairs, Act�on, and don't meddle
+in mine."
+
+"How do you know my name?" exclaimed the Athenian with growing
+amazement, wondering also at the perfection with which the rude shepherd
+used the Greek tongue.
+
+"I know your name and your life. You are the son of Lysias, a captain in
+the service of Carthage, and, like all of your race, you wheel around
+the world, without finding contentment in any part."
+
+The Greek, so strong and sure of himself on most occasions, felt
+intimidated in the presence of this enigmatic man.
+
+Absorbed in the contemplation of the cort�ge which had come to bid
+farewell to the legates, he had turned his back on Act�on. His eyes
+expressed hatred and scorn as he saw the bronze wolf of the Roman
+standard flash in the sunlight, hailed with enthusiasm by the
+Saguntines.
+
+"They think themselves strong; they think themselves safe, because Rome
+protects them. They imagine Carthage dead, because her Senate of
+shopkeepers is afraid to provoke an issue with an ally of Rome. They
+have beheaded the Saguntine friends of the Carthaginian, those who of
+old were friends of the Barcas, and used to go out to greet Hamilcar
+when he passed near the city on his expeditions. They do not know that
+there is one who will not sleep as long as peace exists. The world is
+not wide enough for these two peoples; either the one or the other!"
+
+As if the acclamations of the multitude shouting farewells toward the
+small boat in which the legates were being borne to the liburna and the
+trumpet blasts which burst forth from the poop of the vessel, were
+whiplashes to the shepherd, with clenched teeth and eyes red with fury,
+he shook his sinewy arms at the ship and muttered in menacing tones:
+
+"Rome!----Rome!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SAGUNTUM
+
+
+The sun was high in the heavens when Act�on walked toward the city along
+the thoroughfare called the Road of the Serpent.
+
+On his way he overtook wagons laden with leather bottles of oil and
+amphor� of wine. The files of slaves bending under the weight of heavy
+burdens, their feet covered with dust, drew to one side of the road to
+give him passage, displaying that submission and shrinking which a
+freeman always inspired. The Greek paused a moment before the oil mills,
+watching the enormous stones revolved by chained slaves; then he
+continued on his way skirting the bases of the hills, on the crests of
+which rose the _specul�_, little red watchtowers, which, with their
+fires, announced to the Acropolis of Saguntum the arrival of ships, or
+any activity observed on the opposite slope where began the territory of
+the hostile Turdetani.
+
+The fertile fields of the immense domain were flooded by a golden shower
+of morning sunshine. From the villages, from the country-houses, from
+the innumerable dwellings scattered throughout the extensive valley,
+streamed people to the Road of the Serpent, traveling toward the city.
+
+The majority of the Saguntine people lived in the country, cultivating
+the soil. The city was relatively small. In it dwelt only the rich
+agriculturists, the magistrates, and foreigners. When some danger
+threatened, when the Turdetani attempted an incursion into the Saguntine
+territory, all the people streamed to the city, seeking the shelter of
+its walls, and the rustics, driving their flocks before them, mingled
+with the artisans of Saguntum, and took refuge within these precincts
+which they only visited when they came to town to sell their wares.
+
+Act�on guessed, by the great number of people met along the way, that
+this must be market day in the Forum. The country folk strode along in
+single file, carrying on their heads baskets covered with leaves, clad
+only in a dark tunic which hung far down their bodies, outlining their
+forms at every step. The peasants, sun-browned, sinewy, their single
+garment a skirt of skins or of coarse cloth, guided oxen drawing carts,
+or asses laden with bundles, and up and down the road sounded the
+incessant jingling of bells from flocks of goats, and the gentle lowing
+of cattle, as they trotted along in clouds of red dust raised by their
+sharp hoofs.
+
+Some families were already returning from market, displaying with pride
+the articles for which they had bartered their fruits at the booths in
+the Forum, and their friends stopped them to admire the new fabrics, the
+red terra cotta cups, fresh and brilliant, the rudely wrought feminine
+ornaments of solid silver, and their inspection was followed by a
+"salve!" of congratulation, which made their possessors flush with
+childish pride.
+
+Brown girls with firm, spare limbs and high foreheads, their hair
+hanging loose in Celtiberian fashion, marched in pairs carrying from
+their shoulders long poles on which hung branches of flowers for the
+ladies of the city. Others carried enormous bunches of red cherries,
+wrapped in leaves to preserve them from the dust, and at intervals they
+sprang and shouted between outbursts of noisy laughter, mimicking the
+voices and gestures of the rich youths of Saguntum, who, to the great
+scandal of the city, gathered in S�nnica's garden to imitate before the
+statue of Dionysus the picturesque follies of Greece.
+
+Act�on admired the beauty of the landscape; the groves of fig trees,
+which lent fame to Saguntum, just beginning to put forth new leaves,
+forming upon their ancient branches canopies of verdure which swept the
+ground; the vines, like waves of emerald, spreading over the plain and
+climbing the far off hills to the forests of pine and holly; and the
+olive orchards planted symmetrically in the red soil, forming colonnades
+of twisted branches with capitals of silvery leafage. The sight of this
+splendid landscape moved him, recalling to mind memories of his
+childhood. The valley was as beautiful as that of Mother Greece; here he
+would remain if the gods did not urge him forward again on his restless
+pilgrimage about the world.
+
+He walked almost an hour, keeping ever before him the red mountain with
+the city at its base, and on its summit the innumerable constructions of
+the Acropolis. At a turn of the road he saw the people stop before a
+shrine--a long altar of stone, upon which an enormous serpent of blue
+marble extended its scaly rings. The rustics deposited flowers and
+earthen cups of milk before the motionless reptile, which with head
+lifted and venomous jaws open seemed to threaten them. In this place
+the unfortunate Zacynthus had been bitten by the serpent as he was
+returning to Greece with the red cattle stolen from Geryon. His body was
+burned on the Acropolis, and the city grew around the spot. The simple
+people worshipped the reptile as one of the founders of their _patria_,
+and with affectionate words they surrounded it with offerings, which
+mysteriously disappeared, causing many to believe that it came to life
+in the dark, and they imagined that they heard its frightful hissing for
+great distances on stormy nights.
+
+As Act�on drew nearer to Saguntum he saw the tombs which rose on both
+sides of the road, attracting the attention of the traveler by their
+inscriptions. Behind these extended gardens enclosed by thick hedges
+over which peeped the branches of fruit trees belonging to the
+country-houses of the rich. Some slave women were watching nude children
+of pronounced Grecian type who played and wrestled. A corpulent old man,
+wrapped in a purple chlamys, stood in a garden gateway observing the
+passing of the flood of wretched people with the cold arrogance of a
+merchant newly risen to affluence. On the terrace of a villa Act�on
+fancied that he saw a gold-dyed coiffure in Athenian style interlaced
+with red ribbons, and near it a waving fan of multicolored feathers of
+Asiatic birds. These were the villas of the rich patricians of Saguntum
+who had retired from business.
+
+Upon nearing the river, the B�tis-Perkes, which divided the city from
+the champaign, the Greek noticed that he was walking beside a girl,
+almost a child, driving a flock of goats before her. Slender,
+well-formed, with spare limbs, her skin a brown and velvety color, she
+would have looked like a boy had it not been that her short tunic, open
+on the left side, afforded glimpses of her slightly rounded breast, with
+a gentle cup-like curve, as it were a bud beginning to expand with the
+vigor of youth. Her black eyes, moist and large, seemed to fill her
+whole face, bathing it with a mysterious effulgence, and through her
+lips, dry and cracked by the wind, shone her white teeth, strong and
+regular. Her hair knotted behind her neck she had adorned with a garland
+of poppies plucked in the wheat. She carried over her shoulder with
+masculine ease a heavy net filled with white cheeses as round as loaves
+of bread, fresh, and still oozing whey. With her disengaged hand she was
+caressing the white fleece of a straight-horned goat, her favorite,
+which rubbed against her limbs, ringing a little copper bell worn on its
+neck.
+
+Act�on was charmed contemplating her girlish figure, so sturdy for
+labor, in which the freshness of youth triumphed over fatigue. Her
+slenderness, with lines erect and harmonious, reminded him of the
+elegance of the Tanagra figurines on the tables of the het�r� of Athens;
+of the imperious virility of the canephor� painted in black around Greek
+vases.
+
+The girl cast furtive glances at him, and then smiled, showing her teeth
+with juvenile confidence on feeling herself admired.
+
+"You are a Greek, are you not?"
+
+She spoke like the people of the port, in that strange idiom of a
+maritime city open to all peoples, a mixture of Celtiberian, Greek, and
+Latin.
+
+"I am from Athens. And you--who are you?"
+
+"I am called Rhanto, and my mistress is S�nnica the rich. Have you not
+heard of her? Her ships are in every port, she has slaves by the
+hundred, and she drinks from cups of gold. Do you see above those olive
+trees, on the side toward the sea, that small rose-colored tower? It is
+the villa where she lives as soon as the passing of winter allows her to
+leave the city. I belong at the villa, and I am in her service during
+the open season. My father has charge of her flocks, and she often comes
+down to our stables to play with the goats."
+
+Act�on was surprised at the frequency with which he had heard of S�nnica
+since setting foot on Saguntine soil. The name of that opulent woman,
+whom some called "the rich," and others "the courtesan," was in every
+mouth. The shepherdess, who evinced a certain attraction toward the
+stranger, continued:
+
+"She is good. Sometimes she seems sad; she says she languishes with
+tedium in the midst of her riches; she is indifferent to everything, and
+in that mood she is capable of letting all her slaves be crucified
+without interfering. But when she is happy she is as kind as a mother,
+and she will not allow us to be punished. Her overseer in charge of the
+slaves is a cruel man, an Iberian freedman, who watches us, and at every
+instant threatens us with the lash and the cross. He has whipped my
+father several times on account of a lost ewe, or a goat which had
+broken its leg, or because a little milk was spilled in the
+cheese-making season. I would have received his blows myself had it not
+been for the respect he feels for me on account of having seen me
+caressed sometimes by S�nnica."
+
+Rhanto spoke of the terrible situation of the slaves with the
+naturalness of a creature accustomed from birth to witnessing such
+severities.
+
+"In winter," she continued, "I go to the mountain with my father, and I
+await with impatience the coming of the season when my mistress will
+return to the villa, and I can come down to the plain where there are
+flowers. Then I can spend the whole day in the shade of a tree
+surrounded by my goats."
+
+"And how have you learned something of Greek?"
+
+"S�nnica speaks it with rich people of the city, who are her friends,
+and with the slaves who serve her. Besides----"
+
+She hesitated, and her pale cheeks flushed.
+
+"Besides," she persisted, with animation, "my friend Erotion, the son of
+Mopsus, the archer who came from Rhodes, speaks it. He is a friend who
+helps me watch the goats when he is not working in the pottery, which
+also belongs to S�nnica."
+
+She pointed to the great works near the river, the famous Saguntine
+potteries, which revealed, between clay walls, the cupolas of its ovens
+like enormous red bee-hives.
+
+From one side of the road among the trees, sounded mellow notes, wild
+and joyous flute-tones, and Act�on saw a boy spring into the highway. He
+was about the same age as Rhanto, tall, slender, barefooted, clad only
+in a soft goat-skin which hung over his left shoulder, leaving his right
+exposed, and was tied together at the waist. His eyes were like live
+coals, his black hair had bluish tones and, forming short ringlets,
+shook like a heavy mane with the nervous movements of his head. His
+arms, thin but strong, with the skin stretched by the tension of veins
+and tendons, were stained to the elbow by the red potter's clay.
+
+Act�on, as he contemplated the short, correct profile of the handsome
+youth, and the nervous vivacity of his body, was reminded of the
+apprentices to the sculptors at Athens, artistic youths who in the broad
+glare of day, before returning to the studios, scandalized the
+well-behaved citizens by their frolics in the promenade of the
+Cerameicus.
+
+"This is Erotion," said Rhanto, who smiled sweetly as she saw her
+friend. "Although born in Saguntum, he is a Greek like yourself,
+stranger."
+
+The youth did not glance at the girl; he stood looking at the stranger
+respectfully.
+
+"Are you from Athens, really?" he said with admiration. "You cannot deny
+it. You look like Ulysses when he was wandering about the world, passing
+through the adventures related by Father Homer. I have seen just such as
+you on vases and in reliefs, resembling in figure and dress the husband
+of Penelope. Greeting, son of Pallas!"
+
+"And you--are you also one of S�nnica's slaves?"
+
+"No," the boy hastily answered with pride. "Rhanto is a slave, but
+perhaps some day she will not be. I am free; my father is Mopsus, a
+Greek from Rhodes, and the chief archer of Saguntum. He came from there
+with no other fortune than his bow and arrows, and now he is rich, since
+his recent expedition against the Turdetani, and he figures as the first
+in the militia of the city. I work in the pottery for S�nnica, who is
+very fond of me. She it was who gave me the name of Erotion, because
+when I was little I looked like a cupid. I am not one of those who
+mould clay, nor turn the wheel to shape the vases. They call me the
+artist; I make decorations of foliage, I model animals, I can make the
+head of Diana from memory, and no one can engrave in clay the great seal
+of Saguntum as I can. Do you know what it is like? A ship without sails,
+with three banks of oars; above it flies Victory in long draperies,
+depositing a crown on the prow. I could, if you wish, model your
+figure----"
+
+But he stopped, as if ashamed at these last words, and added sadly:
+
+"How you must be laughing at me, stranger! You come from _there_, from
+that marvelous country of which my father so often talks. You must have
+seen the Parthenon and Athene Promachos which navigators distinguish far
+out at sea long before they can descry Athens; the wonderful procession
+of horses in the metopes; the prodigious works of Phidias. How I long to
+see all that! When a ship comes into port from Greece I run away from
+the pottery and spend whole days in the taverns with the mariners. I
+drink with them, I give them presents of figurines in lewd attitudes,
+which make them laugh, just for the sake of getting them to tell me what
+they have seen--the temples, the statues, the paintings; and their
+stories, instead of calming me, excite my longing.... Ah, if S�nnica
+would allow it!... If only she would let me go in one of her ships when
+they set sail for Greece!"
+
+Afterward, he added earnestly:
+
+"This girl you see here, my sweet Rhanto, is all that sustains me. If
+she did not exist I should long ago have sought the _gubernator_ of a
+ship, should have sold myself to him as a slave, if necessary, to
+travel over the world, to see Greece, and to become an artist like those
+to whom you render there the same honors as to the gods."
+
+The three walked on in silence for some time behind the cloud of dust
+raised by the goats. The boy gradually recovered his serenity at the
+side of Rhanto, who had taken one of his hands in hers.
+
+"And you--why do you come here?" he asked Act�on.
+
+"I came as did your father. I am a Greek without fortune, and I wish to
+offer my arms to the Saguntine Republic in its wars with the Turdetani."
+
+"Speak to Mopsus. You will find him in the Forum, or above on the
+Acropolis near the temple of Hercules, where the magistrates gather. He
+will be glad to see you; he adores those of your race, and he will stand
+sponsor for you before the city."
+
+Again silence fell. The Greek noticed the loving glances exchanged
+between the two young people, the fervid pressure of their clasped
+hands, the tender inclination of their healthy young bodies, which
+seeking each other, clung together. Erotion, as if obeying an unspoken
+request from his beloved, drew from his bosom a flute made of a hollow
+reed, and began to blow upon it softly, producing tender, pastoral
+music, to which the goats responded with bleating.
+
+The Greek realized that his presence was becoming undesirable to the
+happy lovers, for they gradually slackened their pace.
+
+"Farewell, children! Travel without haste; youth is on time whenever it
+arrives. We shall meet again in the city."
+
+"May the gods protect you, stranger," replied Rhanto. "If you need
+anything you will find me in the Forum where I have to sell these
+cheeses and some others which were brought in the farmer's cart at
+dawn."
+
+"Farewell, Athenian! Speak to my father, but do not tell him with whom
+you saw me."
+
+Act�on crossed the river, picking his way between the carts which were
+immersed in the water up to their axles, and stood before the ramparts
+of the city, admiring their strength, the bases of undressed stone,
+fitted closely without mortar, supporting wall and towers of strong
+masonry.
+
+At the gate of the Road of the Serpent, which was the main entrance, he
+was detained by a jam of men, wagons, and horses in the narrow tunnel.
+Inside the city, and almost against the wall, was the temple of Diana, a
+shrine known throughout the world for its antiquity, and which gave not
+a little fame to the Saguntines. Act�on paused to admire the roof of
+juniper planks of venerable age, but, eager to see the city, he
+continued on his way.
+
+There was to be seen down at the end of a straight street, where the
+buildings widened out, forming an enormous right-angled space, a great
+square plaza with beautiful structures sustained by arches, beneath
+which the people were swarming. It was the Forum. Above the roofs at the
+lower end could be seen houses and more houses with white walls climbing
+up the mountain slope; and in the background the walls of the Acropolis,
+the colonnades of the temples sustaining the friezes consisting of
+enormous carved stones.
+
+Act�on, following the road leading to the Forum, was reminded of the
+maritime suburb of the Pir�us. This was the merchants' district,
+inhabited mainly by Greeks. The stir of traffic could be seen through
+the windows of the lower stories; slaves were piling up bales; young men
+with curly hair and aquiline noses were tracing on their wax tablets
+their complicated business accounts, and samples of their wares were
+exposed on small tables before the doors of the houses; there were piles
+of wheat or wool and heavy rough pieces of marble from the quarries. The
+merchants, standing in their doorways and leaning against the jambs,
+talked with their customers, gesticulating and with smooth accent
+calling upon the gods as witnesses that they were being ruined in their
+business.
+
+In some shops, the proprietors, in vestments embroidered with golden
+flowers, wearing tall mitres and purple sandals, with light, sphinx-like
+eyes, and stroking the curls of their perfumed beards, listened in
+silence to their customers. They were traders from Africa and Asia,
+Carthaginians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, who dealt in costly
+merchandise--trinkets of gold, tusks of ivory, ostrich feathers, and
+pieces of amber. Before their doors paused rich women clad in white
+mantles, followed by slaves, and as they talked they peeped their rosy
+faces into the shop, fascinated by the exotic aroma of stimulating
+spices from Asia and mysterious perfumes from the Orient. Rare birds
+brought from the East strode majestically among the bales with strident
+calls, trailing their multicolored plumage like a royal mantle.
+
+Act�on, after hastily examining these shops, entered the Forum. It was
+market day, and the life of the city streamed to the great square.
+Farmers spread out their garden stuff near the porticos; shepherds from
+the public domain piled their cheeses in pyramids in front of little
+pitchers of milk, and women of the port, brown and almost naked, called
+attention to their fresh fish, arranged upon beds of leaves in flat rush
+baskets. At one end shepherds from the mountain, dressed in esparto,
+ferocious of aspect, and armed with lances, watched over cattle and
+horses offered for sale. These were Celtiberians, of whom it was told
+with horror that they sometimes ate human flesh, and they seemed to feel
+imprisoned inside the plaza, contemplating with hostile eyes that
+bee-like activity, so different from the independent solitude they
+enjoyed in their wandering life. The riches excited their appetites for
+robbing and horse-stealing, and, grasping their lances, they stared with
+ferocious eyes at the group of armed mercenaries in the service of the
+city, who at the lower end of the Forum, on the steps of the temple,
+guarded the senator charged with dispensing justice on market days.
+
+In the centre of the square swarmed the multitude, buying and dickering,
+dressed in a thousand colors, and speaking diverse tongues. The virtuous
+women of the city, simply dressed in white, passed along, followed by
+slaves who deposited in netted sacks the provision for the week; the
+Greeks, in long, saffron-colored chlamydes investigated everything,
+haggling tediously before making an insignificant purchase; the
+Saguntine citizens, Iberians who had lost their primitive rudeness
+through infinite intermarriages, imitated the manner and bearing of the
+Romans who were at the moment the people in highest esteem. Mingled with
+these were natives from the interior, bearded, begrimed, with long
+dishevelled hair, attracted by the market in spite of their dislike for
+the city, and particularly for the Greeks on account of their refinement
+and riches.
+
+Some Celtiberians, chiefs of the tribes nearest to Saguntum, remained on
+horseback in the centre of the Forum, without putting aside their
+lances, and still clinging to their shields of woven bull-sinews. They
+wore triple-crested helmets and leather cuirasses, as if they were on
+hostile soil and feared treachery. Meanwhile their women, agile, brown,
+and masculine, moved from place to place, their ample vestments,
+embroidered in gayly colored flowers, fluttering as they walked, and
+anon they stopped with childish admiration before the table of some
+Greek selling crystal beads and coarsely engraved necklaces and trinkets
+of bronze.
+
+Mantles of finest linen and costly purple brushed against the naked
+limbs of slaves or against the Celtiberian sagum of black wool buckled
+at the shoulder. Coiffures in Grecian style with red ribbons plaited in,
+the tuft of curls at the back of the head resembling the flame of a
+torch, the forehead small as a sign of supreme beauty, mingled with
+coiffures of the Celtiberian women, who wore their foreheads shaven and
+shiny to make them larger, their hair curled around a little stick
+placed on their heads, forming a sharp horn from which hung a black
+veil. Other Celtiberian women wore strong steel collars with little
+wires which were brought together above the coiffure, and from this
+cage, which enclosed the head, hung the veil, proudly displaying their
+enormous foreheads, brilliant and luminous as the moon in her first
+quarter.
+
+Act�on lingered wondering at the costumes of these women, and at their
+masculine and warlike aspect. His quick Grecian perceptions divined
+danger as he contemplated the barbarians motionless on their steeds in
+the centre of the Forum, from that height dominating with looks of
+hatred this nation of merchants and farmers. They were like birds of
+prey that were compelled to come down to the plain as thieves in order
+to find food for existence in their arid mountains. Saguntum surrounded
+by such peoples would some day have to struggle for supremacy against
+them.
+
+The Greek pondering this, entered the colonnades where the idle of the
+city were gathered before the shops of barbers, money changers, and
+vendors of wines and refreshments. Act�on could imagine himself still in
+the Agora of Athens. Although smaller, this was the same world as his
+native city. Sedate citizens had themselves carried by a slave in a
+wicker chair to take seats before the door of some shop to learn the
+news. Newsmongers circulated from group to group spreading the most
+stupendous lies; parasites seeking an invitation to dine flattered the
+rich whom they chanced to meet, and spoke ill of everything that
+happened; unemployed pedagogues disputed in loud tones over a point in
+Greek grammar, and youthful citizens grumbled against the old senators,
+declaring that the Republic needed newer blood.
+
+The recent expedition against the Turdetani, and the great victory
+gained over them, was much discussed. They would no longer dare to raise
+their heads; their king Artabanes, a fugitive in the most remote of
+their territories, must be punished for the late defeat. And the young
+Saguntines looked proudly at the trophies of lances, shields, and
+helmets, hanging from the pilasters of the porticos. They were the arms
+of some hundreds of Turdetani killed or taken prisoner on the last
+expedition. Furniture and ornaments stolen in the villages of the enemy
+by the warriors of Saguntum were offered for sale at low prices in the
+barber-shops. Nobody wanted them. The city was filled with such spoils.
+The Saguntine soldiers had returned, dragging in their wake a veritable
+army of loaded wagons and an interminable horde of men and beasts. As
+they thought of the triumph they smiled with the grim ferocity of
+ancient warfare, incapable of forgiving, and in which the greatest of
+mercies for the conquered was slavery.
+
+The slave-market was situated near the temple where justice was
+administered. The slaves squatted on the ground in a circle, covered
+with rags, their hands clasped around their feet, their chins resting
+between their knees. Those born into slavery awaited the new master with
+the passivity of beasts, their limbs emaciated by hunger, their heads
+shaved and covered by a white cap. Others, more closely watched by the
+slave dealer, were bearded, and over their filthy hair wore crowns of
+branches to indicate their condition as slaves taken in war. They were
+Turdetani who had not given ransom. Astonishment and fury at finding
+themselves reduced to slavery still showed in their glowering eyes. Many
+of them wore chains, and on their bodies the cicatrices of the recent
+war were still fresh. They glared at the hostile people, contracting
+their mouths as if with desire to bite and some of them restlessly moved
+their right arms which terminated in mere formless stumps. Their hands
+had been cut off in wars with tribes of the interior, whose custom it
+was to thus render their prisoners useless.
+
+The Saguntines looked indifferently upon these enemies converted into
+chattels, into beasts, by the cruel law of conquest, and forgetting the
+presence of the Turdetani they discussed the city's quarrels, the
+rivalry of factions, which seemed to have been stifled by the
+intervention of the Roman legates. On the steps of a temple close at
+hand the bloodstains of those beheaded because of their friendship for
+Carthage could still be seen, and the adherents of Rome, who were in the
+majority, discoursed bravely and praised the energetic counsel of the
+envoys of the great Republic. The city would now live in peace and
+security under the protection of Rome.
+
+Act�on, while listening to the conversation of these various groups,
+glanced toward the temple and thought that he saw in the crowd streaming
+up and down the steps the Celtiberian shepherd who had killed the Roman
+legionary the night before. It was a swift vision; his dark sagum
+vanished in the multitude, and the Greek was uncertain if it were really
+he.
+
+The morning advanced. Act�on had spent a long time in the market, and he
+thought that now the hour had come for occupying himself with other
+matters. He must see Mopsus the archer, up on the Acropolis, and he
+began the ascent following winding streets paved with cobbles, and lined
+with white houses, where in the doorways sat women spinning and weaving
+wool.
+
+As the Greek approached the Acropolis, he admired the cyclopean walls of
+great stones laid with rare art, solidly fitted without mortar-joints.
+Here was the cradle of the city, relic of the companions of Zacynthus
+as they established themselves among the rude indigenes.
+
+He passed through a long archway, and found himself on the extensive
+esplanade upon the eminence, surrounded by ramparts which could shelter
+a population as great as Saguntum. On this immense plain, scattered at
+random, rose the public buildings, recalling the epoch when the city
+stood on the summit and had not yet descended, spreading toward the sea.
+From its walls one could take in the immensity of the fertile domain,
+the territories belonging to the Republic, reaching out of sight to the
+south along the shore toward the boundary of the lands occupied by the
+Olcades; the innumerable villages and estates, grouped on the banks of
+the B�tis-Perkes, and the city opening like a great white fan down the
+slope of the mount, enclosed by walls over which the close-packed houses
+seemed to spring and scatter through the orchards.
+
+Act�on, turning his gaze toward the enclosed quarter of the Acropolis,
+noticed the temple of Hercules; near it the portico on which the Senate
+gathered; the mint where money was coined; the temple where the treasure
+of the Republic was stored; the arsenal where the citizens were armed;
+the barracks of the mercenaries; and, dominating all these buildings,
+the tower of Hercules, an enormous cyclopean structure which at night
+answered with its lights to the _specul�_ on the shore and on the hills
+around the port, spreading alarm or giving tranquility throughout the
+whole of the Saguntine territory. In another quarter a band of slaves,
+directed by a Grecian artist, was putting the final touches on a small
+temple which S�nnica the rich was having raised on the Acropolis in
+honor of Minerva.
+
+The Saguntines who were climbing up to the citadel for a quiet stroll,
+proudly viewing their city and taking a look at the mercenaries who were
+burnishing their swords and their bronze cuirasses at the doors of their
+barracks, glanced curiously at the Greek.
+
+A prosperous looking Saguntine, wrapped in a red toga in Roman fashion,
+and leaning on a long staff, approached to speak to him. He was a middle
+aged man, strong, with gray hair and beard, and a kindly expression in
+his eyes and in his smile.
+
+"Tell me, Greek," he asked sweetly, "why have you come hither? Are you a
+merchant? Are you a navigator? Do you seek for your country the silver
+which the Celtiberians bring us?"
+
+"No, I am a poor man wandering about the world, and I have come to offer
+myself to the Republic as a soldier."
+
+The Saguntine made a gesture of distress.
+
+"I should have guessed it by the arm which serves you as a staff....
+Soldiers! Always soldiers! In other times not a sword nor a dart could
+be seen in the city. Foreigners used to come in ships loaded with
+merchandise; they took what we had, and in return they gave us what they
+brought, and we lived in that peace of which the poets sing. But now,
+those who come, whether Greek or Roman, African or Asiatic, present
+themselves armed; ferocious dogs who come to offer themselves as guards
+for the flock which used to frolic in peace without fear of enemies. As
+I behold all this warlike preparation, as I contemplate the youths of
+Saguntum rejoicing and boasting over their recent expedition against
+the Turdetani, I tremble for the city and the fate in store for my
+people. To-day we are the strongest, but will not someone come stronger
+than we, and clap upon our necks the chains of slavery?"
+
+Over the top of the walls he looked down at the city with tender
+solicitude.
+
+"Stranger," he continued, "my name is Alcon, and my friends call me 'the
+Prudent.' The old men of the Senate give heed to my counsels; but the
+young men will not listen to them. I have been a merchant, I have run
+over the world, I have a wife and children maintained in comfortable
+circumstances, and I am convinced that peace means felicity for the
+people and should be maintained at any cost."
+
+"I am Act�on, a son of Athens. I used to be a navigator, but my ships
+were wrecked. I was a trader, but I lost my fortune. Mercury and Neptune
+have ever treated me like harsh and merciless fathers. I have enjoyed
+much, I have suffered still more, and to-day, almost a beggar, I come
+here to sell my blood and brawn."
+
+"You do wrong, Athenian. You are a man, and you seek to turn yourself
+into a wolf. Do you know what I most admire in your race?... that you
+jest at Hercules and at his deeds; that you worship Pallas Athene! You
+scorn force, and you worship intelligence and the arts of peace."
+
+"The strong arm is as valuable as the head in which Zeus kindled the
+divine spark."
+
+"Yes, but that arm impels the head to death."
+
+Act�on was impatient at Alcon's words.
+
+"Do you know Mopsus the archer?"
+
+"There he is, near the temple of Hercules. You may recognize him by his
+weapons, which he never lays aside. He is another of those who drew
+hither the evil spirit of war."
+
+"Farewell, Alcon."
+
+"May the gods protect you, Athenian!"
+
+Act�on recognized the valorous Greek by his bow and by the quiver
+hanging from his shoulders. He was a robust, long-bearded man, who wore
+bound around his gray locks a bull's tendon to renew the one which
+served to string his bow. His strong muscular arms revealed in the
+elasticity of their sinews the high tension to which they were subjected
+in bending the strong bow and in shooting the arrows.
+
+He welcomed Act�on with the sympathetic respect which the Athenians
+inspired in the island-Greeks.
+
+"I will speak to the Senate," he said, on learning Act�on's aspirations.
+"My word will be sufficient to have you received among the mercenaries
+with all merited distinction. Tell me more about your military
+exploits."
+
+"I have made war in Laced�mon, under the orders of Cleomenes."
+
+"A famous captain! The renown of the deeds of the Spartan king has even
+reached these shores. What news of him?"
+
+"I left him when, conquered but not mastered, he took refuge in
+Alexandria. There he dwelt as an exile under the protection of Ptolemy;
+but, according to what I heard not long ago in New Carthage, he got into
+trouble through a palace intrigue. The Egyptian monarch ordered his
+execution, and Cleomenes, with his twelve companions, died fighting.
+When he fell, a pile of corpses lay before him."
+
+"Worthy end for a hero! Where did you learn the military art?"
+
+"I began in Sicily and Carthage, in the camps of the mercenaries, and I
+finished my education in the Prytaneum of Athens. My father was Lysias,
+captain in the service of Hamilcar, put to death afterwards by the
+Carthaginians in their war with the mercenaries, which is called the
+'Inexpiable War.'"
+
+"Famous schools, and an excellent father! His name also came to my ears
+in the epoch when I was running over the world, before taking service in
+Saguntum. You are welcome, Act�on! If you wish to enlist in the
+hoplites, you shall figure in the first rank of the phalanx with the
+heavy armor and the long spear. But, no, you Athenians prefer to fight
+light-armed. You are more to be feared in the onset than on account of
+the force of your blows. You shall be a peltast, with javelin and light
+shield; you shall fight unhampered, and surely great deeds will be
+related of you."
+
+Some old men whom the archer greeted respectfully passed near.
+
+"Those are senators," Mopsus said, "assembling because it is market day.
+Many of them come from their villas on the public domain, and ride up to
+the Acropolis in their litters. They meet on that portico."
+
+Act�on saw them taking their seats on wooden chairs with curved
+claw-legs supporting the head of the Nemean lion. Their countenances and
+dress denoted the great diversity of races existing in the city. The men
+of Iberian origin came from their country-houses, bearded, grimy, with
+linen cuirass lined with heavy wool, a two-edged short sword hanging
+from the shoulder, and a hat of hardened leather equivalent to a helmet.
+The Grecian merchants presented themselves with faces shaven, wrapped in
+white chlamys, from which the right arm emerged bare; a fillet was bound
+around the hair in fashion of a crown, and they were leaning on long
+staves tipped by the design of a pine cone. They resembled the kings of
+the Iliad gathered before Troy.
+
+Act�on noted among them a giant with black beard and short curling hair
+which lay around his head like a mitre of wool. His enormous limbs, with
+protuberant muscles and elastic sinews which seemed bursting with
+strength, peeped from below the openings of the red mantle in which he
+was wrapped.
+
+"That is Theron," said the bowman, "the great priest of Hercules; a
+prodigious man, who could conquer a crown in the Olympic games. He kills
+a bull with a single blow on its neck."
+
+Again the Greek thought he recognized among the people gathered near the
+Senate portico, the Celtiberian shepherd, studying intently the gigantic
+priest of Hercules; but the archer addressed Act�on, compelling him to
+turn his gaze away.
+
+"The council is about to sit, and I must be at the foot of the steps
+awaiting orders. Go, Act�on, and tarry for me in the Forum. There you
+will find my boy. Did you not say that you met him on the road? No doubt
+he was with that slave girl who herds S�nnica's goats. Don't hesitate,
+Act�on; don't tell a falsehood. I guess it. Ah, that boy! That vagabond,
+who, instead of working, races through the fields like a fugitive
+slave!"
+
+In spite of the grievousness with which the archer complained, a thrill
+of tenderness was observable in his accent, the note of preference over
+his other sons for that wandering and capricious artist who often
+abandoned the paternal roof to roam about the port and through the
+mountains for weeks at a time.
+
+The two Greeks bade each other adieu, and Act�on returned to the Forum,
+not without thinking that he saw again, strolling about the Acropolis,
+the mysterious Celtiberian shepherd. As he entered the porticos he heard
+hisses and shouting; the crowds were agitated, laughing and jeering;
+people rushed from the barber-shops and perfumeries. The Greek saw a
+group of luxuriously dressed young men passing with scornful smiles
+regardless of the tempest of hisses and sarcasm raised by their
+presence.
+
+They were the gallants of Saguntum; the rich youths who imitated the
+fashions of the Athenian aristocracy, exaggerated by distance and by
+their lack of taste. Act�on also smiled, with the cynical smile of an
+Athenian, as he observed the crudeness with which these young fops
+copied their distant models.
+
+At their head strode Lachares, the gallant who had accompanied S�nnica
+on her morning visit to the temple of Venus. They were dressed in
+transparent cloth of screaming colors and subtle weave, disclosing the
+body, like the tunics worn by the het�r� at banquets. Their cheeks,
+carefully plucked free of hair, were tinted with soft vermilion and the
+eyes were enlarged with black lines. The hair, curled, and perfumed with
+fragrant ointments, was confined by a fillet. Some wore large hoops of
+gold in their ears, and hidden bracelets jingled as they walked. Others
+were indolently leaning on the shoulders of small slave boys with white
+backs, and with hair hanging in heavy curls, resembling girls in the
+plumpness of their forms. As if deaf to the insults and sarcasms of the
+people, they talked with affected serenity of some Greek verses which
+one of them had composed; they discussed their merit, the manner of
+accompanying them with the lyre, and only stopped to caress the cheeks
+of their small slaves or to greet acquaintances, well pleased at heart
+over the scandal their presence caused in the Forum.
+
+"Do not tell me that they imitate the Greeks," shouted an old man with
+malicious face, clad in the patched and filthy mantle of an unemployed
+pedagogue. "The fire of the gods shall be hurled upon the city. It is
+true that in a moment of emotion our father Zeus carried off the
+beautiful Ganymede; but how about Leda and all the innumerable beauties
+touched by the fire of the Lord of Olympus? A fine place the world would
+be if men were to imitate the gods and were to behave as do these fools,
+dressing themselves like women! Do you wish to see a Greek? Well, there
+is one for you. That is a true son of Hellas."
+
+He pointed to Act�on, who found himself the target for curious glances
+from the assembled people.
+
+"How you must laugh, stranger, at seeing those miserable creatures who
+stupidly believe they are copying your country," the beggarly phrenetic
+continued shouting. "I am a philosopher; do you know that? The only
+philosopher in Saguntum, and by the same token you will guess that these
+ungrateful people are quite willing to let me starve to death. As a
+young man I lived in Athens; I attended the schools; I gave up the life
+of a mariner, and ceased running over the world, to seek truth within
+myself. I have invented nothing, but I know all that man has said about
+the soul and the world, and if you wish I will recite from memory entire
+paragraphs from Socrates and Plato, and all the answers of the great
+Diogenes. I know your country, and I am ashamed of my city when I see
+such fools as those. Do you know who is to blame for these follies that
+dishonor us? S�nnica, that S�nnica whom they call 'the rich,' an
+old-time courtesan who will succeed in making Saguntum a reproach,
+destroying the traditions of the city, and the simple, healthful customs
+of other times."
+
+On hearing the name of S�nnica a murmur of protest arose from the group.
+
+"Do you see?" shouted the philosopher, becoming more abusive. "They are
+adulatory slaves who tremble at the truth. The name of S�nnica produces
+in them the same effect as that of a goddess. Do you see that one
+running away? Well, not long ago S�nnica lent his father a great sum
+without interest, that he might buy wheat in Sicily, and so he thinks he
+must run away from any place where things are said against her. See that
+one turning his back? The courtesan freed his father, who was a slave,
+and he does not wish to hear anything said that might annoy S�nnica. And
+these others, who are more valiant, and remain staring as if they would
+devour me, have all received favors from her, and would like to beat me
+for my words as they have done before. They are slaves who defend her as
+if she were a beneficent divinity. There are many others like them in
+Saguntum, and that is why the magistrates dare not punish that Grecian
+woman, who with her mad extravagances scandalizes the city. Come, beat
+me, shopkeepers! Beat the only one in Saguntum who does not lie!"
+
+The crowd slunk away, leaving the philosopher shaking his fist and
+hurling epithets of indignation.
+
+"What you ought to do," said one of the latter scornfully as he retired,
+"is to show more gratitude. If you ever get anything to eat, it is at
+S�nnica's table."
+
+"I shall eat to-night, then!" shouted the philosopher insolently. "And
+what do you prove by that? I will tell her to her face the same that I
+say here! And she will laugh as usual, while you will be eating swill in
+your houses and thinking of her banquet!"
+
+"Ingrate! Parasite!" exclaimed the man, turning his back contemptuously.
+
+"Gratitude is the condition of the dog. Man shows his superiority by
+speaking ill of those who favor him. If you do not wish Euphobias the
+philosopher to be a parasite, maintain him in exchange for his wisdom."
+
+By this time Euphobias was talking to empty space. They had all left,
+and had mingled with the moving crowd on the street. Only Act�on
+remained, examining him with interest, as if marveling at finding in a
+far-away city a man so like those who in Athens swarmed about the
+Academy, forming a class of hungry and obscure philosophic plebs.
+
+The parasite, seeing himself with no other audience than the Greek,
+caught him by the arm.
+
+"You alone deserve to hear me. One can easily perceive that you are from
+_there_, and that you know how to distinguish merit."
+
+"Who is that S�nnica whose customs so anger you? Do you know the story
+of her life?" asked the Athenian, desirous of hearing the history of a
+woman who seemed to fill the whole city with her name.
+
+"Do I know it? A thousand times she has told me in her hours of
+melancholy and weariness, which out-number all the rest. When I cannot
+manage to make her laugh with my wit, when she feels the need of
+un-burdening her mind, then she tells of her past with as much abandon
+as though she were talking to a dog; but it is a long story."
+
+The philosopher paused and winked one eye, pointing to a door near at
+hand, within which was a perforated counter holding a row of amphor�.
+
+"We shall be more comfortable in Fulvius' house. He is a most honorable
+Roman who swears that he has quarreled with water. Day before yesterday
+he received a famous wine from Laurona. I smell its perfume even here."
+
+"I have not a single obolus in my pouch."
+
+The philosopher sniffed as if inhaling the vapor of the new wine, and
+made a gesture of disappointment. Then he looked at the Greek
+affectionately.
+
+"You are worthy to hear me; poor, like myself, surrounded by these
+merchants who stock their vaults with silver! Since there is to be no
+wine for us, let us take a walk. That clears the brain. I will treat you
+as Aristotle treated his favorite pupils."
+
+Strolling along the portico Euphobias began to relate what he knew of
+S�nnica's life.
+
+She was believed to have been born in Cyprus, the isle beloved of
+mariners. On those shores where the poets made the triumphant beauty of
+Aphrodite spring from the foam, the women of the island run by night in
+search of mariners to offer themselves in memory of the goddess. S�nnica
+was the fruit of one such alligation with a rower. She vaguely
+recollected the early years of her childhood, running about the deck of
+a ship, springing from one bank of rowers to another, fed and scorned
+like the cats on shipboard, visiting many ports populated by people
+diverse in dress, customs, and language, but seeing it all from afar,
+and vaguely, like images in a dream, never setting foot on terra firma.
+
+Before she became a woman she was the mistress of the owner of the ship,
+a pilot from Samos, who, grown tired of her, or tempted by money, sold
+her one night to a Boeotian who maintained a _dicterion_ in the
+Pir�us. She was not yet twelve years of age, and little S�nnica
+attracted special attention among the _dicteriadai_ who swarmed by night
+in the Pir�us, the chief centre of Athenian prostitution.
+
+The floating population of the city, composed of foreigners, gamblers,
+and young men thrown out of their homes by severe fathers, congregated
+in that suburb of Athens which surrounded the ports of the Pir�us and
+Phalerum and formed the deme of Estiron. No sooner had night closed in
+than the whole noisy and corrupt world gathered in the great square in
+the Pir�us, between the citadel and the port, and prostitutes began to
+circulate, who with the coming of the shadows, were privileged to leave
+the _dicteria_ in which they had been confined. On the porticos around
+the square the gamblers shook dice, wandering philosophers argued,
+vagabonds slept, mariners told of their voyages, and through this
+confusion of diverse peoples passed the _dicteriadai_, with painted
+faces, almost nude, or wearing striped mantles of vivid colors which
+revealed an African or Asiatic origin. There the young daughter of
+Cyprus grew up and became acquainted with the world, seeking each night
+some wheat merchant from Bithynia, or some exporter of hides from Magna
+Graecia, rude and merry people, who, before returning to their native
+lands wished to spend some of their earnings on the courtesans of
+Athens. By day she was a prisoner in the _dicterion_, a house of sordid
+aspect, without other ornamentation on the fa�ade than an enormous
+phallus which served the establishment as a sign, the door standing open
+at all hours without the chained dog customary at other dwellings, and
+displaying, immediately the heavy curtain was raised, an open courtyard,
+in which, near the entrance to the rooms, squatting or lying on the
+pavement, were all the wares of the house, women worn and consumed by
+the fires of concupiscence and girls barely arrived at puberty. All were
+nude, the dark and velvety skin of the Egyptians contrasting with the
+pale countenance of the Greeks and the white and silky flesh of the
+Asiatics.
+
+S�nnica, who was at that time called Myrrhina, wearied of the life of
+the _dicterion_. All the women there were slaves whom the Boeotian
+beat when they allowed a customer to leave discontented. It disgusted
+her to take the two oboli stipulated by the laws of Solon from those
+calloused hands which wounded as they caressed, and she was nauseated by
+the dirty, brutal people from all the countries in the world who came in
+search of pleasure, and went away surfeited, being immediately replaced
+by another and another, like an incessant surging of desires excited by
+the solitude of the sea, repeating similar caprices and identical
+demands.
+
+One night she visited for the last time the temple of Venus Pandemos
+raised by Solon in the great square of the Pir�us, and deposited an
+obolus as her final offering before the statues of Venus and her
+companion Peitho, the two divinities of the courtesans, before whom she
+went many times with her lemans of the moment, before giving herself
+up to them on the seashore or near the long wall constructed by
+Themistocles to unite the port with Athens. Then she fled toward the
+city, eager for liberty and joy, wishing to become one of those Athenian
+het�r� whose luxury and beauty she had admired from afar.
+
+She lived like the free, poor courtesans whom the Athenian youths called
+"she-wolves" on account of their howling. At first she spent whole days
+without eating, but she considered herself more happy than her former
+companions of the port of Phalerum, or in the district of Estiron,
+slaves of the masters of the _dicteria_. Her market now was the
+Cerameicus, a large district of Athens, along the wall between the gates
+of the Cerameicus and the Dipylon, in which were the garden of the
+Academy and the tombs of the illustrious citizens who had died for the
+Republic. By day the great _het�r�_ went or sent their slaves to see if
+their names were written in charcoal on the wall of the Cerameicus. The
+Athenian who desired a courtesan would write her name, with the sum
+offered, and if this were to the liking of the het�ra she tarried near
+the inscription until the coming of the favored proponent. In broad
+daylight the great courtesans appeared there, almost nude, wearing
+purple sandals, wrapped in flowered mantles, wearing crowns of fresh
+roses on their hair, powdered with gold. The poets, the rhetoricians,
+the artists, the distinguished citizens strolled through the green
+groves of the Cerameicus or along the porticos adorned with statues,
+chatting with the courtesans, having to rack their brains to keep even
+with their repartee.
+
+When night came on an irruption of wretched, ragged women filled the
+promenade, dispersing among the tombs of the renowned dead. It consisted
+of the dregs of Athenian gayety which lived in liberty under cover of
+the darkness--old courtesans who, trusting in the night, came out to
+conquer bread in the same place where in other times they had reigned
+with the power of beauty; fugitive _dicteriadai_, slave women who had
+run away from their owners for a few hours, and women of the plebs
+seeking alleviation of their poverty. Hiding behind the tombs, among the
+clumps of laurels, they remained as motionless as sphinxes, and scarcely
+did the steps of a man disturb the silence of the Cerameicus, than from
+all sides arose faint howls calling to the new arrival. Frequently they
+fled in mad race on recognizing the official whose duty it was to
+collect the _pornikontelos_, a tax imposed by Solon upon the courtesans
+and one which constituted the largest revenue of Athens. At midnight the
+passer-by crossing the Cerameicus on his return from a banquet, would
+hear around him the rustle and whispering of an invisible world which
+seemed to sweep over the turf and the gleaming sand. The poets jestingly
+averred that the ghosts of the great departed were groaning in their
+capacious tombs.
+
+Thus Myrrhina lived until she was fifteen, spending the night in the
+Cerameicus and the day in the hut of an old woman of Thessaly who, in
+common with all her countrywomen enjoyed great fame as a witch, and
+assisted at births as well as sold love-philters, and retouched the
+faces of those who were fading.
+
+Innumerable things the little _lupa_ learned at the side of the old
+woman, bony and ugly as a Parca! She helped her grind the white lead
+which, mixed with isinglass, filled the wrinkles of the face; she
+prepared the bean flour to anoint the breasts and abdomen, to make the
+skin tight and elastic; she filled little flasks with antimony to give
+brilliancy to the eyes; she made a liquid preparation of carmine for
+coloring with light touches the paste-filled wrinkles, and she listened
+with profound attention to the wise counsels with which the old woman
+instructed her pupils, so that they might show off their particular
+charms to the best advantage and hide their defects. The old Thessalian
+advised the girls with plump bodies to use cork soles inside their
+shoes, and the tall ones to wear light sandals, and to shrink their
+heads down between their shoulders; she made pads for the thin,
+whalebone corsets for the stout, she stained the gray hair with soot,
+and those who had good teeth she obliged to carry a stalk of myrtle
+between their lips, counseling them to smile at the slightest word.
+
+The young girl possessed the old witch's confidence to such an extent
+that she assisted her in the most dangerous part of her science, the
+confection of love-philters and the making of charms, which had more
+than once caused her to be prosecuted by the officials of the Areopagus.
+The richest het�r� consulted her about their desires and revenges, and
+she gave them the benefit of her knowledge. To accomplish the impotence
+of a man or the sterility of a woman, it was only necessary to give them
+a glass of wine in which a barbel had been stewed; to attract a
+forgetful lover a cake of unleavened dough was burned in a fire made of
+branches of thyme and laurel; and to convert love into hatred it was
+only necessary to follow the man, stepping in his tracks the opposite
+way, placing the right foot where he had put his left, and murmuring at
+the same time: "I am upon you, I step on you." If one wished to cause a
+satiated lover to return, the old woman rolled a bronze ball which she
+carried in her bosom, asking Venus to cause the lover to roll in over
+the threshold of the door in the same manner, and if the conjury
+produced no effect, the wax image of the person beloved was thrown into
+the brazier while asking the gods to melt the frozen heart with love
+even as the figure melted. With these enchantments, accompanied by
+mysterious invocations, went philters composed of aphrodisiacs and
+exciting herbs, which frequently led to death.
+
+One moonlight spring night Myrrhina had an adventure in the Cerameicus,
+which resulted in her abandoning the den of the Thessalian. Seated
+behind a tomb, her howl soft as a lament attracted a man wrapped in a
+white mantle. By the brilliancy of his eyes and the insecurity of his
+step he seemed to be intoxicated. He wore on his head a crown of
+withered roses.
+
+Myrrhina divined that he was a distinguished citizen coming from a
+banquet. It was the poet Simalion, a young aristocrat who had won a
+crown in the Olympian games, and in whom Athens saw revived the
+inspiration of Anacreon. The richest het�r� sang his verses at banquets
+to the music of the lyre, and virtuous dames murmured them in the
+solitude of the gyn�ceum, flushing with emotion. The most famous
+beauties of Athens contended for the poet, and he, already an invalid in
+his young manhood, and unable to resist the strain of worldly adoration,
+took refuge in the temple of �sculapius when the cough compelled him to
+spit blood; he went on a pilgrimage to the healing springs throughout
+Greece and the islands; and no sooner did he begin to feel stronger,
+with new blood surging through his veins, than, scorning the doctors, he
+began once more the round of banqueting with business men and artists of
+Attica, in company with famous het�r� and genteel Cyprians, rolling from
+the arms of one to another; paying for the caresses with verses which
+the city afterward repeated; ever ardent, and consuming his life like
+the torch which at the nocturnal feasts of Dionysus was passed by the
+chain of bacchantes from hand to hand until lost in the infinite.
+
+Coming from one of these orgies he met Myrrhina, and contemplating in
+the moonlight her youthful beauty, undimmed and almost childlike there
+in a place frequented by the filthy _lupas_, he raised his hand to his
+eyes as if he feared he were being deceived by the aberrations of
+intoxication. This must be Psyche with those firm, harmoniously curving
+breasts, round as cups; with those correct and gentle outlines which
+would have been the despair of sculptors at the Academy. The poet
+experienced the same satisfaction as when, after hours of solitary
+plodding along the wall of Themistocles from Athens to the port, he hit
+upon the culminating verse of an ode.
+
+She started to drag him to the old Thessalian's hut, but Simalion,
+dazzled by the marble flesh which seemed to shine through the rags, took
+her to his beautiful residence on the Street of Tripods, and there
+Myrrhina remained like a lady, with slaves and luxurious garments.
+
+This caprice of the poet astounded all Athens. In the Agora and in the
+Cerameicus they talked of nothing but Simalion's new love. They marveled
+at the rescue of a precious stone, forgotten and lost in the sands,
+which suddenly shone forth on the forehead of a grandee.
+
+The great het�r�, who had never succeeded in making complete conquest of
+the fickle poet, were amazed at seeing him devotedly attached to a young
+girl from a _dicterion_, who was remembered by many adventurers in the
+Pir�us. He took her out in his chariot, driving three horses with
+close-cropped manes, and to all the great feasts in the temples of
+Attica; in the morning he composed verses in her honor, and he awoke her
+by reciting them, while he flung a shower of rose petals upon her couch.
+He gave banquets to his artist friends that he might revel in their envy
+and admiration, when, at their conclusion, he had her exhibit herself
+nude upon the table, in all the magnificence of that perfect beauty
+which aroused a religious emotion in the Greeks.
+
+Faithful to Simalion from gratitude at first, and finally enamored of
+the poet and of his works, Myrrhina adored him as teacher as well as
+lover. In a short time she learned to play the lyre, to recite verses in
+all the known styles, she read in her lover's library so diligently that
+she was able to hold her own among the guests at the banquets of
+artists, and was invited out among the most brilliant het�r� of Athens.
+
+Simalion, constantly growing more enthusiastic over his beloved,
+dissipated his fortune and his life. He ordered for her from Asia
+transparent mantles embroidered with fantastic flowers, through which
+shone her pearly flesh; gold dust to sprinkle upon her hair, making her
+like the goddesses, which the poets and artists of Greece always painted
+blonde; he charged the navigators to buy roses in Egypt of marvelous
+freshness. He was steadily growing more emaciated, his skin more pallid,
+and his gaze glowing with fever, coughing and lying in the arms of his
+mistress, his strength slipping away.
+
+Thus two years passed, until one autumn afternoon, stretched on the lawn
+in his garden, his head resting on the knees of his beautiful inamorata,
+he heard his verses sung for the last time by the clear voice of
+Myrrhina, accompanied by the fluttering of her white fingers over the
+chords of the lyre. The setting sun caused Minerva's lance aloft by the
+Parthenon, dominating the city, to glow like a coal of fire; his boyish
+hand could scarce sustain the golden cup of honey and wine. He made an
+effort to kiss his mistress; the roses which crowned him fell apart,
+covering Myrrhina's breast with a shower of petals, and, uttering a
+plaint like that of a woman, he closed his eyes, falling upon that
+breast where he had lavished the last strength of his life.
+
+The young girl wept for him with the desperation of a widow. She cut her
+splendid hair to lay it as an offering upon his tomb. She put aside her
+dazzling costumes, she dressed in dark wool like the Athenian women of
+virtuous homes, and remained in retirement in her house, which she kept
+closed and silent as a gyn�ceum.
+
+The necessity of living, of maintaining the luxury to which she had
+become accustomed, of keeping a chariot and slaves and grooms, forced
+her, however, to consider her beauty, and the most celebrated het�r�
+became alarmed at the new rival. Covered with a dark red wig to hide the
+tonsure of mourning, wrapped in fine veils from which her throat emerged
+adorned with pearls, her fresh and alabastrine arms loaded to the
+shoulders with bracelets, she showed herself at an upper window of her
+house with the grave majesty of a goddess awaiting veneration. The
+richest men of Athens paused by night in the Street of Tripods to gaze
+at the poet's widow, as the women in the Ceramaeicus sarcastically called
+her. Some, more daring, or tremulous with desire, raised the index
+finger in mute question; but vainly they awaited her affirmative
+reply--the customary sigil of the het�r�, touching thumb to index finger
+as it were an annulus.
+
+Few managed to gain entrance to the famous courtesan's house. They
+grumbled that some nights, in moments of tedium, she had opened her door
+to young students who were modeling their first statues in the gardens
+of the Academy, or reciting their unrenowned verses to the idle in the
+Agora--youths who could only afford to spend on pleasures a few oboli,
+or at most a drachma. On the other hand the rich, who offered golden
+stateres or several min� to enter the house, were considered too poor to
+win favor. The old courtesans whispered into one another's ears, with a
+degree of respect, that a petty Asiatic king, on passing through Athens,
+had given Myrrhina two talents for one visit--as much as any republic in
+Greece would spend in a year--and that the beautiful het�ra, unmoved by
+such a fortune, had suffered his presence only while her clepsydra
+emptied itself once, for, tired of men, she measured prurience by her
+water-clock.
+
+Fabulously rich merchants, on arriving at the Pir�us, sought access to
+Myrrhina's house through the good offices of friends. They heaped
+presents upon the vagabond artists who were the courtesan's familiars,
+that they might be admitted to her suppers; and more than one, arriving
+at the port with a fleet loaded with rich merchandise, hastened to sell
+everything without waiting to discharge his cargo, so that he might stay
+in the poet's house; and he returned to his country with the help of
+charity, content with his poverty when he saw the envy and respect which
+he inspired among his companions.
+
+Thus she met Bomaro, a young Iberian merchant from Zacynthus, who had
+come to Athens with three ships laden with hides. The courtesan was
+attracted by his sweetness, which contrasted with the rudeness of the
+other merchants brutalized by their contact with the great ports. He
+spoke little and blushed, as if the silence of his long stays at sea had
+given him the timidity of a virgin. If she forced him to relate his
+adventures as a navigator he did so with simplicity, without mentioning
+the dangers he encountered. He displayed particularly a childish
+admiration for Grecian culture.
+
+Myrrhina, during the supper at which she saw him for the first time,
+surprised his eyes fixed on her with the expression of tenderness and
+respect of one gazing at a goddess impossible of possession. The
+navigator, reared among barbarians, in a remote colony scarcely
+retaining traces of its mother Greece, began to interest the courtesan
+more than the young Athenians and opulent merchants who surrounded her.
+Tremulous and hesitant he craved the grace of a single night, and spent
+it near her with more admiration than enjoyment, adoring her regal
+beauty, thrilled by her voice, put to sleep by it like a warm maternal
+lullaby, accompanied by the lyre.
+
+When he awoke he begged to turn over to her the entire product of his
+cargo; but Myrrhina, hardly knowing why, refused to accept it, in spite
+of his urging. He was rich; he had no parents; far away in that land of
+barbarians he possessed immense flocks, hundreds of slaves who
+cultivated his fields or worked in his mines; great potteries, and many
+ships like the three which awaited him in the Pir�us; and seeing that
+the courtesan, with kindly smile, treated him like a generous boy,
+declining to accept his money, he bought in the Street of the Goldsmiths
+a prodigious collar of pearls, the despair of the het�r�, and sent it to
+Myrrhina before he left the city.
+
+Afterwards he came back many times. He could not decide to return to his
+country. He set sail with his flotilla, but in the next port he took on
+a cargo for Athens, paying no regard to the price, and scarcely came to
+anchor in the Pir�us before he rushed to the courtesan's house, nor
+could resolve to leave until he suspected Myrrhina's weariness of his
+presence.
+
+The courtesan finally became accustomed to this submissive lover, ever
+at her feet, who was ready to die for her, showing his adoration with
+the fervor of a foreigner, so different from the cynical and mocking
+courtesy of the Athenians. She called him "little brother," and this
+word, which the het�r� used with young lovers, gradually took on her
+lips a warmth of sincere affection. When he was delayed in returning
+from the islands she longed for his presence, and when she saw him at
+the door she ran to him with outstretched arms, in a transport of joy
+such as her other friends never witnessed.
+
+She did not love him as she had loved the poet, but the earnest humility
+of Bomaro, his respectful and docile love, so different from the ardor
+she inspired in others, moved Myrrhina to a sentiment of gratitude.
+
+One night, the Iberian, who seemed preoccupied, ventured after much
+vacillation to express his inner thought.
+
+He could not live without her; he would never return alone to Zacynthus;
+he was resolved to abandon his fortune rather than never to see her
+more. He would sooner be a stevedore on the wharf at Phalerum; and
+finally, like one who makes a dash to more quickly overcome an obstacle,
+he abruptly proposed to make her his wife, turning his fortune over to
+her, and to take her to smiling Zacynthus with its flowery fields and
+its rose-colored mountains, so like those of Attica.
+
+Myrrhina smiled while listening to him and her heart was touched by the
+affectionate self-abnegation of the Iberian who, to unite with her
+forever, was willing to overlook a shameful past in the _dicterion_ and
+in the Cerameicus. She rejected his proposals with an ironical smile;
+but Bomaro was persistent. Was she not tired of her mode of life, of
+seeing herself flattered as a thing of great price, but often scorned by
+coarse creatures who thought they made themselves her masters by merely
+offering their gold? Would she not like to be a sovereign on the coasts
+of Iberia, surrounded by people who would admire her Athenian
+attainments?
+
+Bomaro conquered her by his loving determination, and one day Athens
+beheld with surprise that the house on the Street of Tripods was sold,
+and that Myrrhina's slaves were carrying to the port the riches gathered
+during three years of mad fortune, loading them in the ships of the
+Iberian who had unfurled from the masts his purple sails for a triumphal
+voyage.
+
+Myrrhina, in her desire to propitiate him who gave himself up to her so
+completely, wished to leave her whole past behind. She proposed to be a
+new woman, to put away her sinister cognomen, and begging Bomaro to
+repeat the most beautiful names of the Iberian women, she chose that of
+S�nnica as the most pleasing to her ears.
+
+Arrived at Zacynthus, the navigator and the Greek woman were married in
+the temple of Diana before all the Senate, of which the young man was
+himself a member.
+
+The city felt the effects of the charm which seemed to emanate from the
+person of S�nnica. She was like a breath from distant Athens, which
+fascinated the Greek merchants in Saguntum, grown slack by their long
+stay among uncultured foreigners.
+
+At the banquets, at the hour of sweet wines, when she sang the hymns of
+the great masters, the Saguntine youths from the ward of the Greeks were
+impelled to fall at her feet and adore her as a goddess. After being
+married a year Bomaro realized in the growth of his fortune the
+assistance of the woman, who, in changing her environment, began to
+interest herself in material things through her desire to prove her
+worth before the noble dames who gossipped about her.
+
+She watched the work in the fields, took note of the great flocks, and
+the potteries; she went to the port to greet the arrival of the ships;
+and Bomaro's enormous fortune increased. Excellent results followed the
+business ventures which she counseled, as she lay in the shade of a
+clump of laurel in her garden, speaking in a slow harmonious voice,
+caressed by a feather fan in the hands of a slave.
+
+Bomaro, the days of more ardent love-making ended, sailed along the
+coasts of Iberia, his mind free from business cares, and desirous of
+adding to the fortune which S�nnica administered so well. She had
+surrounded herself by a court of youths who treated her as a
+preceptress. The young Greeks born in Saguntum flocked about her to
+learn the manners and customs of Athens, which was their perpetual
+dream. The evil tongues in the city called her S�nnica the Cyprian, but
+the plebs who were the recipients of her charity, and the small
+merchants who never appealed to her without result, entitled her S�nnica
+the rich, and they were ready to fight those who spoke ill of her.
+
+One winter, four years after their marriage, Bomaro perished by
+shipwreck near the Pillars of Hercules, and S�nnica found herself in
+absolute possession of an immense fortune, and mistress of a whole city,
+over which she reigned by virtue of her riches and of her kindness of
+heart. She freed slaves in memory of the unfortunate navigator, she sent
+costly offerings to all the temples in Saguntum, she raised on the
+Acropolis a cenotaph in memory of Bomaro, summoning marble-workers from
+Athens for this purpose. By her charities she won consideration,
+bringing this city of sturdy and austere customs to tolerate her bright,
+mirth-loving existence, which was a perpetuation of Athenian manners in
+the midst of Iberic sobriety.
+
+Having passed the period of mourning, she gave suppers in her
+country-house which lasted until dawn. She brought famous auletai from
+Attica who set the Saguntine youths wild with their flutes. She sent
+ships on voyages with no other commercial object than to bring rare
+perfumes from Asia, fabrics from Egypt, and unique adornments from
+Carthage; and her fame extended so far into the interior that kinglets
+from Celtiberia were drawn to Saguntum to behold that wonderful woman,
+as wise as a priestess, and as beautiful as a divinity. The Greeks
+admired her, observing that she strengthened the prestige of their race
+among the primitive Saguntines, who were lavish with eulogy of her
+disinterestedness. Thus she lived! No women entered her house, none but
+flute-players, dancers, and slaves; she was surrounded by men who
+yearned for her, but she held herself aloof, and treated them all with a
+masculine but distant intimacy. She was ever thinking of Athens the
+luminous, the city which held so many memories, and many of whose
+customs she sought to revive.
+
+Euphobias the philosopher, as he reached this point in his story,
+stoutly declared that S�nnica's life in Saguntum was above reproach, in
+spite of what the Greek women of the district of the merchants said. He
+himself, who possessed the bitterest tongue in the city, affirmed it.
+Several times she had been attracted toward some guest at her dinners.
+Alorcus, the scion of a petty king of Celtiberia, who lived in Saguntum
+and frequented her house, had made an impression upon her with his wild,
+virile beauty, as a son of the mountains; but S�nnica held him back,
+plainly fearing to take the step and unite herself with one of a
+barbarous race. The memory of Attica wholly occupied her imagination. If
+some young Athenian had landed on those shores, some youth as beautiful
+as Alcibiades, singing verses, modeling statues, and displaying skill
+and dexterity as in the Olympian games, perhaps she might have fallen
+into his arms, but her emotions were unstirred among the arrogant
+Celtiberians who came to her feasts smelling of horses and with their
+swords girded at their sides, and among the effeminate sons of
+merchants, becurled, and shedding perfumes, caressing their small slave
+boys, who accompanied them even in the bath.
+
+"Athenian," continued the philosopher, "you should present yourself to
+S�nnica. She will receive you kindly. You are not an ephebus," he added,
+with a mocking smile; "your beard is turning gray, but you have in your
+figure the arrogance of a king in the Iliad; upon your forehead
+something of the majesty of Socrates; and who knows but that you may
+fall heir to Bomaro's riches! If that should come to pass, do not forget
+the poor philosopher. I will be content with a skin of wine from
+Laurona, since to-day you condemn me to thirst."
+
+Euphobias laughed, slapping Act�on on the shoulder.
+
+"I am invited to S�nnica's banquet to-night," said the Greek.
+
+"You, also? Then we shall meet there. I am not invited, but I go with
+the same right as a dog belonging to the house."
+
+The philosopher saw Alcon, the peaceful citizen, who had just come down
+from the Acropolis, pass through the centre of the Forum.
+
+"There is one of the few good men of this city. He extols virtue to me,
+he counsels me to go to work, and to forget philosophy, and on top of
+all that he never fails to give me something to drink; so farewell until
+to-night, stranger."
+
+He hurried toward Alcon who, leaning on his staff, greeted him with a
+kindly smile.
+
+Act�on, finding himself once more alone wandered through the centre of
+the market. Suddenly he heard a youthful voice calling him. It was
+Rhanto, sitting on the ground among the pitchers which were now empty of
+milk, selling her last cheeses. Near her squatted the young potter. They
+were eating a hard cake with fresh, juicy onions, playfully disputing
+the mouthfuls amid merry laughter. The shepherdess offered Act�on a
+round cake, and the Greek accepted gratefully. He seemed destined to
+receive his food in Saguntum from feminine hands. Twice since he landed
+he had been succored by women.
+
+Seated between the young people he saw the market gradually become
+deserted. The shepherds drove their flocks toward the Gate of the Sea;
+the Celtiberian chiefs, bearing their women behind them on their horses,
+rode off at a gallop, eager to reach their villages in the mountains;
+and the empty carts rumbled slowly toward the hamlets and towers in the
+Saguntine domain.
+
+Again Act�on saw the Celtiberian shepherd in the colonnades, moving from
+one group of rustics to another, listening to their conversation. As he
+passed near the Greek he gazed at him with those enigmatic eyes which
+awoke within him shadowy recollections.
+
+All at once the young potter arose and started to run, hiding behind the
+columns around the Forum.
+
+"He has seen his father," said Rhanto quietly. "There is Mopsus coming
+down from the Acropolis."
+
+Act�on advanced to meet the archer.
+
+"My word has been sufficient to have you received by the Senate. The
+city will soon need good soldiers like yourself. The elders seemed
+somewhat alarmed this morning. They fear Hannibal, that young cub of
+Hamilcar, who now leads the Carthaginians, and who will not calmly brook
+our friendship with the Romans and the execution of his sympathizers in
+Saguntum. Here, take this; it is the advance pay which the Republic
+allows you."
+
+He tendered Act�on a handful of coins, which the Greek put into his
+pouch. Mopsus then invited him to his house to meet his sons and to
+dine; but the Athenian was obliged to plead his previous invitation to
+S�nnica's banquet.
+
+When the archer had left, Act�on felt the torment of thirst, and,
+remembering the philosopher's recommendations, he entered the
+establishment of the Roman whose Lauronian wine inspired so much
+enthusiasm in Euphobias. At the counter he changed a victoriatus, and
+was given a boat-shaped terra cotta patera full of black wine crowned
+with iridescent bubbles. Two soldiers were drinking in a corner of the
+tavern--two rough mercenaries with the faces of bandits. One was an
+Iberian, the other with bronzed skin and athletic frame looked like a
+Libyan, and his cheeks, calloused by the helmet and his neck and arms
+furrowed with cicatrices, denoted the professional paid warrior who had
+fought with indifference since childhood, now in the service of one
+nation and now in that of its adversary.
+
+"I am in the service of Saguntum," said the Libyan. "These merchants pay
+better than those of Carthage. But, believe me, although content to live
+in this town, I realize that they have done an unlucky thing in
+displeasing Hannibal. Rome is strong, but Rome is far away, and that
+lion's whelp prowls only a few days journey from here. You ought to have
+known him, to have seen him from boyhood as I have done when I was
+fighting under the orders of his father Hamilcar! He runs like a mare;
+he fights as well on foot as on horseback, he eats what there is to be
+had, or he eats nothing at all; he goes about dressed like a slave; arms
+are his only luxury; he sleeps on the ground, and often, at daybreak,
+his father would find him lying among the sentinels of the camp. He is
+not content to be told about things, he must see everything with his own
+eyes, and mix with the enemy to study their weak points close at hand.
+Often Hasdrubal, his sister's husband, was surprised by seeing an old
+beggar come into his shop, and he would shout with laughter when
+Hannibal pulled off his wig and his rags, under cover of which he had
+been spending hours among the enemy."
+
+Act�on left the tavern hastily on seeing that Rhanto, after handing her
+pitchers to a slave who loaded them into a cart, was starting on her
+walk toward S�nnica's villa.
+
+"I will go with you, little one. You shall be my guide to your mistress'
+house."
+
+The sun had begun to set. The afternoon light gilded the foliage of the
+domain, giving a transparency of amber to the leaves and vines. Along
+the highway through the champaign sounded the bells of the flock, the
+creaking of carts, and the sonorous songs of the rustics returning from
+the city.
+
+They arrived at S�nnica's villa, which had the aspect of a town. They
+first passed the dwellings of the slaves, where buzzed around the
+doorways a swarm of nude children with prominent abdomens, and with the
+umbilicus protruding like buttons; then the stables, from which floated
+a warm vapor vibrant with lowing and whinnying; the granaries and
+farmhouses; the dwelling of the overseer; the calabooses for rebellious
+slaves, with their breathing-holes on a level with the ground; the
+pigeon-house, a high tower of red brick around which fluttered a cloud
+of white wings amid incessant cooing; the big straw huts which served to
+shelter the hundreds of chickens; and, behind this row of buildings, the
+country-seat, S�nnica's villa, which was discussed with admiration even
+among the most remote tribes of Celtiberia. It was surrounded by
+cypresses and laurels, encircled by walls covered with gnarled grape
+vines, while rising above the great mass of foliage were its
+rose-colored walls with columns and friezes of blue marble and the
+terrace crowned by polychrome statues with enameled eyes shining in the
+sun like precious stones.
+
+Act�on was silent and preoccupied. Rhanto had been talking to him for
+full half an hour without receiving a reply.
+
+"Look, stranger! All those fields which your eye can see belong to
+S�nnica. See, Greek, how many chickens! Nearly all the eggs used in the
+city come from here."
+
+Act�on continued oblivious to the objects pointed out by the
+shepherdess; but just as she rang the bell on the garden gate, and was
+answered from within by the barking of dogs and the sharp cries of
+hidden birds, he smote himself nervously on the forehead as if he had
+made a discovery.
+
+"Now I know who he is!" he exclaimed, as if awaking from a dream.
+
+"Who?" asked the young girl in surprise.
+
+"Nobody," he replied with the frigidity of him who fears that he has
+said too much.
+
+In his own mind, however, he was satisfied with the identification.
+Recalling the words of the Libyan mercenary, overheard in the tavern,
+had brought back to his memory that enigmatic figure of the Celtiberian
+shepherd. Suddenly a light was kindled in his thought.
+
+Now he knew who it was! For a good reason had he been impressed from the
+first moment by the glance of that unknown man, by the eyes which never
+change in a countenance despite the passing of years. Often had he seen
+those eyes in his childhood when his father made war in Sicily with
+Hamilcar, and he himself was being educated in Carthage.
+
+That shepherd was Hannibal!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DANCING GIRLS FROM GADES
+
+
+S�nnica awoke two hours after midday. The oblique rays of the sun
+filtered through the gilded bars of her window over which crept the
+foliage of grapevines. Its light heightened the color of the stucco
+frames around scenes from the Olympian games painted on the wall, and of
+the columns of rose-colored marble which flanked the doorway.
+
+The beautiful Greek threw to the floor the covers of white S�tabis
+linen, and her first glance swept her figure, taking in the outlines of
+her body with affectionate eyes, from her swelling bosom curving in
+harmonious lines, to the tips of her rosy feet.
+
+Her heavy hair perfumed and falling in silky curls, hung down over her
+body, enveloping her as in a regal mantle, caressing her from throat to
+knees with a gentle kiss. The old-time courtesan, as she awoke, admired
+her body with the adoration inspired in her by the eulogies of the
+artists of Athens.
+
+She was still young and beautiful; she could still thrill men with
+emotion when, at the end of a banquet, she displayed herself upon the
+table nude as Phryne. Her hands eager for the thrilling touch of her
+beauty, caressed her firm round throat, the pearly globes terminating in
+a soft rose petal, testing their firm elasticity, and the winding
+network of slender blue veins delicately outlined beneath the satiny
+skin, flowing down, down--in line with the strongly incurved waist; the
+rotund hips, the slightly rounded abdomen, like that of a crater, and the
+limbs the harmonious proportions of which had been compared in other
+times to the elephant's trunk by the Asiatic merchants who visited her
+in Athens.
+
+Passion had swept its fiery tongue over her without consuming her; she
+had lived in the midst of its ardor, cold, emotionless, and white, like
+a marble statue in the warmth of the sun. Seeing herself young, still
+beautiful, and with a virginal freshness, she smiled, pleased with
+herself, content with life.
+
+"Odacis! Odacis!"
+
+At the echo of her voice there entered a Celtiberian slave, tall, spare,
+strong, whom the Greek valued highly for the gentleness with which she
+combed her hair.
+
+Supporting herself on the shoulders of the slave, she raised up and
+sprang from the couch to enter the bath.
+
+Her nude form was invested by her hair like a transparent, golden veil.
+As her bare feet pressed the mosaic, which depicted the Judgment of
+Paris, the chill of the tiles with its agreeable shock brought a smile
+to her lips; her laugh deepened the dimples in her cheeks, and the
+reaction caused the curves of her body to quiver with gentle
+undulations.
+
+She descended three steps and threw herself into the jasper piscina
+swinging her arms and splashing the water into tiny pearls. In the green
+pool her body assumed an ideal transparency, the glow of a fantastic
+apparition, and she moved from one side of the tank to the other like a
+siren with pearly back and floating hair.
+
+"Who has come, Odacis?" she asked, lying deep in the bath.
+
+"The women from Gades, who danced last night, have arrived. Polyanthus
+has given them lodgings near the kitchens."
+
+"And who else?"
+
+"A moment ago the stranger from Athens, whom you met this morning at the
+temple of Aphrodite. I have had him go into the library, and I have
+forgotten none of the duties of hospitality. He has just come from the
+bath."
+
+S�nnica smiled, recalling the meeting that morning. She had slept badly.
+She attributed it to the wakeful night spent with friends on the terrace
+of the villa, and to the capricious journey to the port before sunrise;
+but she thought with some confusion of the impression made in her mind
+by the Athenian's figure, which had reappeared several times in her
+dreams. Without knowing why she associated Act�on's appearance with that
+of Zeus when he came to earth in mortal form in search of human love.
+
+In her moments of tedium in Athens, when she used to submit with
+repugnance to caresses for piles of gold, she experienced the vague
+desire of being loved by a god. She thought of Leda, of Psyche, even of
+the effeminate Ganymede beloved of the guests on Olympus, and she was in
+despair at the impossibility of finding a god who should transport her
+captive through a mysterious forest, or along some roadway leading to
+the unknown. She longed to contemplate her image in the depths of eyes
+animated by the splendor of the infinite; to kiss a mouth which served
+as a portal to supreme wisdom; to feel herself imprisoned in arms
+possessed of the immense strength of omnipotence. She had experienced a
+suggestion of this joy in loving her poet, who was sometimes as majestic
+and sublime as a divine being; but the simplicity of youth prevented her
+appreciation of that joy, and now, in her maturity, she only met men
+like those she had known in Athens, some rude and brutal, others
+effeminate and captious, lacking the severe and sovereign beauty she
+admired in statues.
+
+She left her bath breathing with happy, childlike thrills, while her
+hair scattered a light shower at every step.
+
+Odacis called, and three slaves entered; they were those who assisted at
+their mistress' toilet, the _tractatrices_ in charge of the massage of
+the body.
+
+S�nnica allowed herself to be manipulated by the three women who rubbed
+her vigorously, stretching her limbs to keep them supple and agile. Then
+she seated herself in a marble chair, resting her pink elbows on the
+dolphins which formed the arms of the seat, and in this position, erect
+and motionless, she waited for the slaves to proceed with the toilet.
+
+One who was almost a child, wrapped in a mantle of broad stripes, knelt
+on the floor holding a great engraved bronze mirror in which S�nnica
+gazed at herself down to her thighs. Another arranged the toilet
+articles on the tables, and Odacis began to smooth her mistress'
+splendid hair with ivory combs. Meanwhile, the other slave approached
+with a bronze patera filled with a gray ointment. It was the bean-flour
+used by the Athenians of refinement to preserve the skin firm and
+elastic. She anointed S�nnica's cheeks with this, and then the
+prominent breasts, the abdomen, the thighs, and knees, leaving nearly
+the whole body covered by a lustrous, unctuous coating. Where hair had a
+tendency to grow, she applied dropax, a depilatory paste, composed of
+vinegar and earth from Cyprus.
+
+S�nnica passively assisted these toilet preparations, which made her
+momentarily ugly in order that she might reappear each day more
+beautiful.
+
+Odacis continued combing her hair. She lifted the splendid tresses,
+burying both hands in the brilliant cascade; she gently wound it over
+her arms like an enormous golden serpent; then she shook it out,
+dividing it into small locks to dry it, and then she smoothed it
+lovingly with the ivory combs piled on the table near at hand, veritable
+prodigies of art, with the finest of teeth, their upper parts engraved
+with scenes representing forests, arrogant nymphs in pursuit of stags,
+and malodorous satyrs giving chase to nude beauties. After drying the
+hair the coiffeur proceeded to dye it. With a small, long-necked amphora
+she moistened it with a solution of saffron and gum arabic, and opening
+a little chest of gold dust she sprinkled it over the ample, silky
+skein, which assumed the brilliancy of the sun's rays. Then twisting the
+locks above her forehead around an iron heated over a small brazier, she
+formed tight curls which covered the Greek woman's brow almost to her
+eyes; she gathered the mass of hair at the neck, tying it with a red
+ribbon firmly interbraided, and she curled the crown of the coiffure,
+imitating the spiral flames of a torch.
+
+S�nnica arose. Two of the slaves approached with a heavy earthen
+amphora of milk, and dipping a sponge into it, they washed their
+mistress' body as she stood near the piscina, to remove the bean-paste.
+The glossy whiteness of her skin reappeared more fresh and moist.
+
+Odacis, with silver tweezers in her hand, carefully inspected her
+mistress' body, with the attentive and frowning brow of the artist
+preparing a great work. She had charge of the depilation; her skillful
+hand won praise for its gentleness as it obstinately sought out the
+lightest down, implacably destroying it with her tweezers, in deference
+to the Greek custom of imitating the polished smoothness of the statues.
+
+S�nnica being again seated in her ivory chair, the touching up of the
+face began. On the table near at hand was a formidable array of bottles,
+alabaster vases, pots of bronze and of silver, little caskets of ivory
+and gold, all engraved, brilliant, covered with delicate figures,
+ornamented with precious stones, containing Egyptian and Hebraic
+essences, balsams from Arabia, perfumes and intoxicating cosmetics
+brought by caravans from the heart of Asia to Phoenician ports, and
+thence to Greece or Carthage, bought for S�nnica by the pilots of her
+vessels in their venturesome trading voyages.
+
+Odacis painted her face white, and then, moistening a small wooden style
+with attar of roses, she thrust it into a bronze pot decorated with
+garlands of lotus and filled with a dark powder. It was the kohol, sold
+by Egyptian merchants at a fabulous price. The slave applied the point
+of the style to the Greek's eyelids, dyeing them an intense black, and
+tracing a fine line about the corners, which made them appear larger and
+softer.
+
+The toilet was almost complete. The slaves were opening the innumerable
+bottles and vases arranged in rows upon the marble table, and the
+atmosphere of the room was laden with costly perfumes--spikenard from
+Sicily, incense and myrrh from Judea, aloes from India, and cumin from
+Greece. Odacis took a small glass amphora inlaid with gold, with a
+conical stopper, terminating in a fine point which served to deposit
+antimony above the eyes to brighten them, and, after finishing this
+operation, she presented to her mistress the three ointments for
+imparting color to the skin in different shades--vermilion, carmine, and
+the Egyptian red extracted from the body of the crocodile.
+
+The slave began delicately coloring her mistress' body with a fine
+brush. She produced a pink flush on her cheeks and dainty ears; she
+marked rose petals on her bosom, and she colored her elbows and the
+harmoniously curving relievo of her dimpled sides. Then, with Egyptian
+red, she colored one by one the nails of her fingers and toes, while
+another slave put on her white sandals with papyrus soles and buckles of
+gold. Perfumes were showered upon her, each on a different part of the
+body, so that it might resemble a bouquet of flowers in which various
+aromas were mingled. Odacis presented the jewel-casket, within which
+precious stones lay shimmering like restless and glistening fish. The
+Greek woman's pointed fingers lifted with indifference the heap of
+collars, rings, and pendants, which, like all Grecian jewelry, were more
+valuable on account of the workmanship of the artists than for the
+richness of the material. Scenes from the great poems were reproduced
+almost microscopically in carnelian cameos, onyx, and agate, and the
+emeralds, topazes, and amethysts were decorated with profiles of
+goddesses and heroes.
+
+The slave clasped a necklace of stones of complicated design upon
+S�nnica's uncovered breast; she loaded her fingers to the tips with
+rings, and the whiteness of her arms seemed more diaphanous girdled here
+and there by wide bracelets of gold. To add more expression to the
+countenance, Odacis decorated her mistress with small patches, and then
+she proceeded to bind around her body the fascia, or corset of the
+epoch, a broad woolen band to support the breast. S�nnica, gazing into
+the burnished bronze, smiled at her statue-like reflection, as beautiful
+as Venus in repose.
+
+"Which costume, my mistress?" asked Odacis. "Do you wish the tunic with
+the golden flowers brought from Crete, or the _kal�siris_ veils,
+transparent as air, which you ordered bought in Alexandria?"
+
+S�nnica could not decide. She would choose in the vestiary; and in the
+majesty of her unveiled beauty, her papyrus sandals rustling, she walked
+from her dormitory followed by her slaves.
+
+Meanwhile Act�on was waiting in the library. He had visited great
+palaces in his travels about the world, he had seen--two years before
+the earthquake which ruined it--the celebrated Colossus of Rhodes; he
+was familiar with the Serapeum and the tomb of the great conqueror in
+Alexandria; he was accustomed to elegance and splendor; yet he could not
+conceal surprise at this Grecian house in a barbarian land, more
+luxurious and artistic than those of opulent citizens of Athens.
+
+Guided by a slave, and leaving the garden with its whispering foliage
+and its cries of exotic birds, he had passed along the colonnade which
+gave entrance to the villa. First the vestibule with its plinth of
+mosaic, on which were painted ferocious black dogs with fiery eyes,
+their fierce and foaming mouths agape, their fangs erect.
+
+Above the door, fastened to a lamp, hung a branch of laurel in honor of
+the tutelary gods of the house. Next to the somewhat gloomy vestibule,
+beneath the open sky, like a lung of the house, was the atrium with its
+four rows of columns supporting the roof and forming an equal number of
+cloisters, upon which opened the doors of the rooms, their three panels
+decorated with large-headed nails.
+
+In the centre of the atrium was the impluvium, a rectangular marble tank
+to catch and hold the waters from the roof. Great terra cotta urns
+covered with flowers stood upon pedestals between the columns; four
+marble tables sustained by winged lions surrounded the impluvium, and
+near it rose a statuette of Love which on festive days threw a spray of
+water.
+
+Act�on admired the graceful strength of the columns wrought in blue
+marble to match the socles of the galleries, which imparted to the light
+of the atrium a diffused radiance, as if the dwelling were submerged in
+the sea.
+
+Afterward the attendant turned him over to Odacis, the favorite slave,
+and she ushered him into the peristyle, an inner courtyard much larger
+than the atrium, which astonished the Greek with its polychrome
+decoration. The columns were painted red at their bases, and the color
+changed above into blue and gold on the fluting and capitals, and was
+dispersed over the trellis-work covering the porticos. In the unroofed
+part of the peristyle was a deep piscina of transparent water in which
+fish darted like flashes of golden lightning. Around it were marble
+benches supported by Herm�; tables held by dolphins with knotted tails;
+clumps of roses, between the foliage of which peeped white or terra
+cotta statuettes in voluptuous positions, and covering the walls of the
+peristyle, between the doors of the rooms, were great paintings by
+Grecian artists--Orpheus with his heavy lyre, nude and wearing his
+Phrygian cap, surrounded by lions and panthers who listened to his songs
+with humbled heads, stifling their growls; Venus springing from the
+waves; Adonis allowing himself to be cured of his wounds by the Mother
+of Love; and other scenes eulogizing the influence of art and beauty.
+
+Act�on was conducted to the bath by two young slaves, and as he emerged
+from this he again met Odacis, who bade him enter the library beyond the
+peristyle.
+
+It was a great room paved with mosaic representing the triumph of
+Bacchus. The young god, beautiful as a woman, nude, and crowned with
+vines and roses, was riding on a panther, waving his thyrsus. The
+pictures on the walls illustrated famous passages from the Iliad. The
+more voluminous books were ranged on shelves, and the smaller ones
+formed bundles placed in narrow willow baskets lined with wool.
+
+Act�on admired the richness of the library, where he counted more than a
+hundred volumes. They represented a veritable fortune. The navigators
+received from S�nnica commissions to bring her whatever notable works
+they found on their voyages, and the booksellers in Athens remitted to
+her famous books of entertainment which enjoyed vogue in their city.
+They were all of papyrus, consisting of strips rolled upon cylinders of
+wood or bone, each end wrought into an artistically carved _umbilicus_.
+The sheets, written only on one side, were impregnated on the other with
+cedar oil to protect them from moths, and the title of the book, the
+name of the author, and the index, gleamed in letters of minium and gold
+on the purple outer wrapping. The copying of these books represented the
+life work of many men, productions to be acquired only at the cost of
+great sums of money, and the Greek, with the respect characteristic of
+his race for art and wisdom, recognized that he was surrounded in the
+silence of the library by the august shades of many great men, and with
+veneration he turned from the Homer in its old, time-worn papyrus, and
+the works of Thales and Pythagoras, to the contemporary poets,
+Theocritus and Callimachus, whose volumes were unrolled, denoting recent
+reading.
+
+Act�on's ear caught a faint rustling of sandals in the peristyle, and
+the square of pale gold thrown on the floor by the light entering the
+doorway from the courtyard was darkened by a form. It was S�nnica
+arrayed in a gauzy white tunic. The light behind her marked the artistic
+lines of her body in the diaphanous cloud of her garment.
+
+"Welcome, Athenian!" she said, in a studied but harmonious voice. "Those
+who come from over _there_ are ever masters in my house. The banquet
+to-night shall be in your honor, for no one can be king of the feast and
+direct conversation like a son of Athens."
+
+Act�on, somewhat stirred by the presence of a beautiful woman enveloped
+by intoxicating perfumes, began to speak of her house, of his
+astonishment at its magnificence in that barbarian land, and of the
+admiration which its owner enjoyed in the city. Everyone he met had
+spoken to him of S�nnica the rich!
+
+"Yes, they like me; yet sometimes they censure me; but let us speak of
+you, Act�on; tell me who you are. Your life must be as interesting as
+that of old Ulysses. Tell me first what new thing there is in Athens."
+
+For a long time the two Greeks maintained an incessant chattering. She
+was eager to know what courtesans triumphed in the Cerameicus and set
+the fashions; merry, unconsciously harking back to the life of old,
+forgetful of her princely opulence in Saguntum, as if she were still in
+the house in the Street of Tripods, and Act�on one of the poor artists
+who visited her of an afternoon to discuss affairs of the city, in the
+intimacy of comrades. She laughed at the latest witticisms of the idlers
+in the Agora, at the song in vogue the year before, when Act�on left
+Athens; and with frowning brow and the gravity of a goddess, she
+listened to a detailed relation of the recent changes of fashion and of
+the style of coiffure used by the most celebrated het�r�.
+
+The curiosity of the exiled Athenian being satisfied, she longed to
+penetrate the adventurous life of her guest, and Act�on told his story
+simply. Born in Athens, he had been taken to Carthage at twelve years of
+age. His father, in the service of the African republic, fought with
+Hamilcar in Sicily. In a village in the interior the selfsame slave
+attended the son of the Greek mercenary and a lion-cub of Hamilcar, who
+was at that time only four years of age. It was Hannibal. The Athenian
+recalled the blows he had often dealt the savage youngster in exchange
+for bites with which the African surprised him in the midst of their
+games. The revolt of the mercenaries broke out with those horrors which
+gave it the name of "the truceless war," and his father, who had
+remained faithful to Carthage and would not take up arms with his
+companions, was despite his loyalty crucified by the Carthaginian
+populace, who, forgetting his wounds received in the service of the
+Republic, saw in him only a foreigner, a friend of Hamilcar who was
+hated by the partisans of Hanno. The son miraculously escaped these
+red-handed reprisals; and Hamilcar's faithful slave smuggled him aboard
+ship for Athens.
+
+There, under the protection of relatives, he received the education of
+all young Greeks. He won prizes in the Gymnasium, in wrestling, in
+running, and in throwing the discus; he learned to ride unbridled horses
+bareback, balancing himself merely by resting his toe in a groove of the
+lance; to temper the rudeness of this education he was taught to play
+the lyre and to sing verses in diverse styles, and being strong of body
+and mind, he was sent, as were all Athenian youths, to pass his military
+apprenticeship in the garrisons on the frontier.
+
+The monotony of this existence bored him; it was dull, and he loved
+pleasure; the blood of his forefathers, soldiers of fortune all, surged
+through his body; and he ran away from Attica to take charge of a
+fishing fleet in the Euxine Sea. Then he became a navigator, trading on
+land and sea; his caravans threaded Asia, through warlike tribes, and
+among peoples who dwelt in the lethargy of a remote and decadent
+civilization. He was a powerful personage in the court of some tyrants
+who admired him on seeing him drink at a gulp an amphora of perfumed
+wine, and overcome the giants of the guard in a boxing match with the
+agile dexterity of a true Athenian; and, loaded with riches, he built a
+palace in Rhodes near the sea, and he gave banquets which lasted three
+days and nights. The earthquake which flung down the Colossus, also
+destroyed his fortune; his ships were sunk, his warehouses full of
+merchandise disappeared beneath the waves, and he began again his
+pilgrimage roundabout the world; in some places he was a singing master,
+in others a military instructor of the young men, until, attracted by
+the Spartan war, he enlisted in the army of Cleomenes, the last Greek
+hero, accompanying him at the moment in which, vanquished, he embarked
+for Alexandria. Poor, disappointed, convinced that riches would never
+return to him, saddened at seeing the whole world filled with the names
+of Carthage and Rome, while that of Greece was sinking into oblivion, he
+had come to take final refuge in Saguntum, the small and almost unknown
+Republic, in search of bread and of peace. Perhaps, in this retired
+spot, if war did not disturb its calm, he would write the history of his
+adventures.
+
+S�nnica followed his narrative with interest, fixing upon Act�on a
+glance of sympathy.
+
+"And you, who have been a hero and a potentate, have come to serve this
+city as a simple mercenary?"
+
+"Mopsus the archer has promised to give me a post of distinction among
+his troops."
+
+"That is not enough, Act�on. You would have to live like the other
+soldiers, spending your life in the Forum taverns, and sleeping on the
+steps of the Temple of Hercules. No! here is your home! S�nnica will
+protect you!"
+
+In her sparkling eyes, enlarged by the dark circle traced about them,
+shone an almost maternal love and sympathy.
+
+The Athenian gazed at her with admiration as she sat erect in her chair
+like a white cloud in the dimly illuminated library, which, like all
+Grecian rooms, received no other light than that entering through the
+doorway.
+
+"Let us go into the garden, Act�on. The afternoon is delicious, and we
+can imagine ourselves for a moment in the groves of the Academy."
+
+They went out of the house and strolled along a winding avenue bordered
+by tall laurels, above which peeped the tops of banana trees, irrigated
+with wine to accelerate their growth. On the terrace two peacocks hailed
+them with strident calls, strutting along the balustrade and spreading
+their majestic tails.
+
+Act�on, on beholding his beautiful protectress in the light of the sun,
+felt a thrill of desire rush through his body. She wore as her only
+covering a Grecian chiton, an open tunic, fastened with metal clasps
+over the shoulders, and secured around the waist by a golden girdle. The
+arms emerged bare from the white wrapping, and the left side of the
+tunic, closed from the armpit to the knee by small brooches, half opened
+at each step, revealing her pearly nudity. The material was so delicate
+that its transparency displayed the outlines of her rosy body, which
+seemed to float in a veil of woven foam.
+
+"Does my dress astonish you, Act�on?"
+
+"No; I admire you. You seem to me Aphrodite surging from the waves. It
+is a long time since I have seen the women of Athens disclosing their
+divine beauty. I am corrupted by my travels, through the rude customs of
+the barbarians."
+
+"It may happen so. As Herodotus says, nearly all who are not Greeks
+consider it opprobrious to appear nude.--If you only knew how
+scandalized the people of this city were in the beginning at my Athenian
+customs!--as if there existed anything more beautiful in the world than
+the human form!--as if the nude were not the supreme beauty! I adore
+Phryne, astonishing with her nude body the old men of the Areopagus;
+making the thousands of pilgrims gathered on the Eleusinian strand shout
+with enthusiasm when they saw her white form surge from among the veils,
+like the moon from behind the clouds. I believe in the promise of her
+bosom more than in the power of the gods."
+
+"Do you doubt the gods?" asked Act�on, with his fine Athenian smile.
+
+"The same as do you and all those from _there_. The gods now serve only
+as themes for artists, and if they are tolerated in old Homer, it is
+because he was skilled in celebrating their quarrels in graceful verse.
+No; I do not believe in them; they are as simple and credulous as
+children, but I love them because they are sane and beautiful."
+
+"In what do you believe, then, S�nnica?"
+
+"I do not know--in something mysterious that surrounds us and animates
+life; I believe in beauty and love."
+
+She was silent a moment, standing in a pensive attitude; then she
+continued:
+
+"I hate the barbarians, not because they have no treasures of art, but
+for the odium they cast on love, which they enchain with all manner of
+laws and restrictions. They are hypocritical and deformed; they make
+reproduction a crime, and they hate the nude, hiding the body with all
+kinds of rags, as if it were an abominable spectacle--when carnal love,
+the meeting of two bodies, is the sublime love through which we are
+born, and without which the fount of existence would dry
+up--extinguishing the world."
+
+"That is why we are great," said Act�on with gravity. "On this account
+our arts fill the earth, and all bow before the moral grandeur of
+Greece. We are the people that has known how to honor life making a cult
+of its origin; we satisfy the impulses of love without hypocrisy, and
+because of this we understand better than others the needs of the
+spirit. Intelligence wings more truly when it does not feel the weight
+of the body tormented by pudicity. We love and study; our gods go naked,
+with no other adornment than the ray of immortal light upon the
+forehead. They do not demand blood, like those barbarian divinities
+enwrapped in clothing which only leaves uncovered their frowning
+assassin faces; they are as beautiful as human beings, they laugh like
+them, and their peals of merriment wafted around Olympus gladden the
+earth."
+
+"Love is the most virtuous sentiment; from it emanates all greatness.
+Only the barbarians calumniate it, hiding it as a dishonest thing."
+
+"I know a people," said Act�on, "among whom love, the divine fusion of
+bodies, is looked upon as an impurity. Israel is an amalgamation of
+miserable tribes, occupying an arid region surrounding a temple of
+barbaric construction, copied from all peoples. They are hypocrites,
+rapacious and cruel; on this account they abominate love. If such a
+people were to attain universal influence like Greece, if it should
+dominate the world, imposing its beliefs, the eternal light which shines
+on the Parthenon would go out; humanity would grope in darkness, with
+the heart dry and the thought dead; the world would be a necropolis, all
+would be moving corpses, and centuries and more centuries would pass
+before man would again find the road, coming back to our smiling gods,
+to the cult of beauty that gladdens life."
+
+S�nnica, listening to the Greek, approached the tall rose bushes and
+began to pluck the flowers, smelling them with delight. She imagined
+herself in Athens, in the garden on the Street of Tripods, listening to
+her poet who had initiated her into the sweet mysteries of art and love.
+And she gazed sweetly at Act�on, with frank and sincere passion, with
+the submission of a slave, saying "I love you" with her eyes, as if only
+awaiting a word to fall into his arms.
+
+The breeze lightly stirred the whole garden. Bits of purple sky inflamed
+by the setting sun could be seen through the foliage. A mysterious
+penumbra began to form beneath the trees. The sounds from the fields,
+the stirring of the people outside the villa in the houses of the
+slaves, and even the cries of the exotic birds on the terrace seemed to
+come from a distant world.
+
+Between two clumps of rose bushes stood an image of Priapos carved from
+the trunk of a tree. The rustic god was smiling with a lewd expression,
+arching his hairy breast and thrusting his abdomen forward.
+
+S�nnica smiled on seeing the Athenian looking at him.
+
+"You know that it is an ancient custom to place the gardens under the
+protection of Priapos," said S�nnica. "They say that he frightens away
+thieves. My slaves believe it firmly, and I keep the god as a symbol of
+life in the midst of these roses, which are as beautiful as those of
+P�stum. The allurements of Priapos complete the sweet charm of abounding
+Nature."
+
+The two Greeks walked on in silence, with slow step, along an avenue of
+slender cypresses at the end of which opened a grotto, its rocky walls
+draped with ivy, allowing a greenish, diffused light to filter through
+its openings. A white cupid spilled from a shell a stream of water like
+tender falling tear-drops, caught in an alabaster basin. There the
+luxurious S�nnica spent the warmer part of the day.
+
+Act�on was conscious of a soft, warm touch upon his shoulder.
+
+"S�nnica!"
+
+Caressing her around her gold-encircled waist, her white and satiny arms
+knotted themselves responsive about his neck like ivory serpents; her
+head fell upon the shoulder of the Greek, who, looking down, saw fixed
+upon him a pair of violet eyes moist with ecstatic emotion.
+
+"You are Athens come back to me!" She murmured sweetly, with bated
+breath. "When I met you this morning on the steps of Aphrodite's temple
+I thought you must be Apollo descended to earth. I felt the Olympian
+fire, impossible to resist. Long have I scorned love, but at last the
+little god is avenged, and--and--I love you!"
+
+Like a soft glow the beauty of the Greek shone in the twilight of the
+grotto.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nine guests were bidden to S�nnica's banquet, and as night closed in
+they came, some in chariots, others mounted on gaily caparisoned horses,
+passing between rows of slaves holding lighted torches.
+
+When S�nnica and Act�on entered the festal hall, the guests stood in
+groups near the purple couches arranged about the curving table, the
+marble top of which some slaves were washing with sponges and perfumed
+water. Four enormous bronze lampadaries occupied the corners of the
+triclinium. From their brackets were suspended numberless little jars of
+perfumed oil, in which floated wicks, shedding a rich light. Garlands of
+roses and foliage hung from lamp to lamp, constituting a fragrant border
+for the banquet hall. Near a door leading to the peristyle stood carved
+wooden tables piled with gold and silver dishes and the keen-edged
+carving knives for the use of the slaves.
+
+Alorcus the Celtiberian stood talking with Lachares and three of those
+young Greeks who so scandalized the Saguntines in the Forum by their
+effeminate ways. The arrogant barbarian, according to the custom of his
+race, wore his sword belted to his waist until the banquet began, when
+he hung it upon the ivory _anaclintron_ of the couch that he might have
+it ever within reach of his hand.
+
+At the other extreme of the table two citizens of advanced age, and
+Alcon the pacific Saguntine, with whom Act�on had spoken that morning on
+the esplanade of the Acropolis, were carrying on a quiet conversation.
+
+The two old men were long-time friends of the house, Greek merchants
+whom S�nnica had taken as partners in business, and whom she invited to
+her nocturnal feasts, appreciating the dignified air which they added to
+these occasions.
+
+As the devoted pair entered the banquet chamber the guests divined their
+felicity in S�nnica's tender, shining eyes, and in the abandon with
+which she inclined toward Act�on her blonde head, crowned with roses and
+violets.
+
+"At last we have a master," murmured Lachares with a tone of jealousy.
+
+"He has been more fortunate than we," replied the Celtiberian
+resignedly. "But he is an Athenian, and I can understand that S�nnica,
+the cold hearted, should have surrendered to one of her own people."
+
+Act�on, being presented to the guests, moved about the hall with the
+self-possession of a potentate enjoying his riches, like a man
+accustomed to princely splendors--he whom a stroke of fortune had
+suddenly lifted out of poverty to his old-time condition.
+
+At a signal from S�nnica the guests reclined upon the purple couches
+which surrounded the table, and four young girls entered the hall
+bearing on their heads, with the slender grace of canephor�, little
+willow baskets filled with rose-crowns. They walked with airy ease, as
+if gliding over the mosaic to the sound of invisible flutes, and with
+their delicate girlish hands they crowned the guests with flowers.
+
+Suddenly the steward appeared with an irritated countenance.
+
+"Mistress, Euphobias the parasite is trying to enter."
+
+The guests burst into cries and protests on hearing this.
+
+"Throw him out, S�nnica! He will make us miserable!" shouted the young
+men, recalling with anger his jeers in the Forum at their dress and
+manners.
+
+"It is a shame for the city to tolerate that insolent beggar," said the
+grave citizens.
+
+S�nnica smiled, then suddenly recalling a cruel epigram which the
+parasite had dedicated to her, and had recited in the Forum a few days
+before, she said frigidly to the steward:
+
+"Drive him away with a club."
+
+The guests bathed their hands at a lavabo of perfumed water which a
+slave passed from couch to couch, and S�nnica had given the order to
+commence the banquet when the steward returned with a rough-knobbed club
+clutched in his hand.
+
+"I have beaten him, mistress, but he will not go. He suffers the blows,
+but after each one he works his way a little farther into the house."
+
+"And what does he say?"
+
+"He says that one of S�nnica's feasts is impossible without the presence
+of Euphobias, and that the blows are a sign of appreciation."
+
+The woman displayed compassion; the guests laughed; and S�nnica gave the
+order to admit the philosopher, but before the steward had left the
+room to comply with her command Euphobias had already entered the hall,
+cringing, humble, but looking at the assembled company with insolent
+eyes.
+
+"The gods be with you! May joy ever attend you, beautiful S�nnica!"
+
+Turning to the steward he said loftily:
+
+"Brother, now that you see that I get in anyhow, try to wield a less
+heavy hand in future."
+
+Accompanied by the laughter of the guests he rubbed his forehead on
+which a lump had begun to rise, and with a corner of his time-worn
+mantle he wiped off a few drops of blood close to one ear.
+
+"Greeting, lousy one!" the gallant Lachares called to him.
+
+"Away from us!" shouted the other youths.
+
+But Euphobias paid no attention. He smiled at Act�on, seeing him
+reclining near S�nnica, and his eyes shone with a malicious expression.
+
+"You have arrived where I thought you would. You will master these
+effeminate creatures who surround S�nnica and who heap insults upon me."
+
+Paying no heed to the mocking retorts of the young gallants he added
+with a servile smile:
+
+"I trust you will not forget your old friend Euphobias. Now you can set
+him up to all the wine he wishes in the taverns of the Forum."
+
+The philosopher took the couch at the farther end of the table, and he
+refused the crown offered him by the slave.
+
+"I have not come for flowers; I have come to eat. I can find plenty of
+roses merely by taking a stroll in the country; but what I do not find
+in Saguntum is a crust of bread for a philosopher."
+
+"Are you hungry?" asked S�nnica.
+
+"I am more thirsty than hungry. I have spent the whole day talking in
+the Forum; they all listened to me, but it never occurred to any one to
+refresh my throat."
+
+According to the Grecian custom an _arbiter bibendi_ must be chosen, a
+guest of honor who should propose the toasts, announce the moment for
+drinking, and direct the conversation.
+
+"Let us choose Euphobias," said Alorcus, with the grave humor of a
+Celtiberian.
+
+"No!" protested S�nnica. "One night we put him in charge of the banquet
+for a joke, and we were all drunk before the third course. He proposed a
+potation at every mouthful."
+
+"Why choose a king?" said the philosopher. "We already have one at
+S�nnica's side. Let it be the Athenian!"
+
+"Yes, let it be he," said the elegant Lachares, "and may he not allow
+you to speak during the whole night, insolent parasite!"
+
+In the centre of the table stood a broad bronze crater, over the edges
+of which peeped a group of nymphs looking at themselves in the oval lake
+of wine. Each guest had a slave at his back to serve him, and they
+dipped wine from the crater to fill the glasses of the guests for the
+first libation. They were murrhine cups, brought from Asia at a great
+price, of mysterious fabrication, into which entered the dust of certain
+shells, and myrrh, hardened and tinted. They were white and opaque, like
+ivory, holding pieces of colored glass embedded, and their mysterious
+composition gave a voluptuous fragrance to the wine.
+
+Act�on raised himself in his couch to propose the first toast in honor
+of the chosen divinity.
+
+"Drink to Diana, Athenian," spoke the grave voice of Alcon; "drink to
+the Saguntine goddess!"
+
+But in the hand which remained free the Athenian felt another, delicate
+and beringed, clasping it with a warm caress, so he dedicated his
+libation to Aphrodite, and the young men greeted it with shouts of
+enthusiasm. Aphrodite was to be the goddess for that night! While the
+young men thought of the dancers from Gades, the great attraction of the
+banquet, S�nnica and Act�on, their elbows resting on the cushions,
+caressed each other with their eyes, while they leaned shoulder to
+shoulder, close to the edge of the table.
+
+Strong slaves, perspiring from standing over the fires in the kitchens,
+set upon the table the food for the first course, served in great plates
+of red Saguntine terra cotta. There were shellfish raw and broiled, all
+highly spiced. Fresh oysters, mussels, enchinoderms dressed with parsley
+and mint, asparagus, peppers, lettuce, peacock eggs, tripe seasoned with
+cumin and vinegar, and fried birds swimming in a sauce of grated cheese,
+oil, vinegar, and silphium. There was also served _oxygarum_ made in the
+fisheries of New Carthage--a paste of tunny milt, loaded with salt and
+vinegar, which excited the palate, stimulating one to drink wine.
+
+The aroma from these dishes floated through the festal hall.
+
+"Talk not to me about the nest of the phoenix!" said Euphobias with
+his mouth full. "According to the poets, the phoenix bestrews its
+nest with incense, bay, and cinnamon, but I swear by the gods that I
+would rather be in S�nnica's triclinium than in that nest!"
+
+"Which does not prevent your dedicating insulting verses to me, you
+rascal," said the Greek woman, smiling.
+
+"Because I am fond of you, and I protest against your follies. By day I
+am a philosopher; but at night my stomach compels me to come to you, so
+that your menials may beat me, and that you may give me something to
+eat."
+
+The slaves removed the plates of the first course, and brought on the
+second which consisted of fish and meat. A small roasted wild boar
+occupied the centre of the table; great pheasants with their plumage
+laid as a covering upon their cooked flesh, were displayed on plates
+surrounded by hard-boiled eggs and fragrant herbs; thrushes spitted upon
+reeds were arranged in form of crowns; hares, on being carved, displayed
+a stuffing of rosemary and thyme; and wild doves were brought on with
+quails and thrushes. There were innumerable dishes of fish, reminding
+the Greeks of the viands of their native land, and between mouthfuls
+they discussed the glauci from Megara, the eels from Scione, and breams
+and xiphiae from the coasts of Phalerum and from the Hellespont.
+
+Each guest chose his favorite food from among the different dishes, and
+regaled his friends with it, presents being carried by slaves from one
+end of the table to the other. More wines, in sealed and dusty amphor�,
+were brought up from the cellars, and overflowed the festal goblets.
+Wine from Chios, rare and costly, mingled with those from C�cubum, from
+Falerno, and from Massico, in Italy, and those from Laurona and from the
+Saguntine domain. To the bouquet of these liquids was added the aroma of
+the sauces, into which entered, following the complicated recipes of the
+Grecian cuisine, silphium, parsley, sesame, fennel, cumin, and garlic.
+
+S�nnica barely touched her food; she neglected the successive plates,
+heaped with presents from her guests, to smile at Act�on.
+
+"I love you," she whispered. "I feel as if a Thessalian magus had cast a
+spell over me. My whole being responds to the throb of love. Do you see
+these fishes? I am afraid to eat them; I feel that I would be committing
+a sacrilege, because roses and fishes are dedicated to Venus, the mother
+of our joy. I only wish to drink--to drink profoundly. I feel within me
+a fire which caresses, yet consumes me."
+
+The guests gormandized, rendering tribute to S�nnica's cook, an Asiatic,
+purchased in Athens by one of her navigators. He had cost her almost the
+price of a villa; but they considered the money well spent, and they
+admired the art with which his meditations in a corner of the kitchen
+produced these astonishing combinations, afterward executed by the other
+slaves--above all that happy invention of a mild sauce of dates and
+honey for the roasts. With such a slave it were possible to enjoy one's
+food throughout the whole of life and to ward off death for many years.
+
+The second course had ended. The guests were lying surfeited on their
+couches, loosening their garments. The slaves served them with wine in
+horn-shaped flagons of alabaster, which permitted a slender stream to
+gurgle from its spout, so that they need not lift themselves to drink.
+The purple drapery of the couches was stained with wine. The great
+lampadaries in the corners, with their tapers of perfumed oil, seemed to
+glow more faintly in the dense atmosphere charged with vapor from the
+steaming viands. The garlands of roses hanging in festoons from the
+lamps wilted in the heavy atmosphere. Through the open door the guests
+caught glimpses of the columns of the peristyle, and of a strip of dark
+blue sky in which twinkled many stars.
+
+The pacific Alcon rising up in his couch, smiled with the amiability of
+mild intoxication, gazing at the splendor of the firmament.
+
+"I drink to the beauty of our city!" he said, raising the horn filled
+with wine.
+
+"To the Grecian Zacynthus!" shouted Lachares.
+
+"Yes, let Saguntum be Greek!" answered his friends.
+
+The conversation turned upon the great festival which, at S�nnica's
+initiative, the Greeks of Saguntum would celebrate in honor of Minerva
+on gathering the harvest. The Panathenaic festivals should end with a
+procession like that which took place in Athens, and which Phidias had
+immortalized in marble in his famous friezes. The young men spoke with
+enthusiasm of the horses they would ride, and of the contests for which
+they were training by persistent exercise. S�nnica patronized the
+festivals with her immense wealth, and she wished to make these as
+famous as that one which Athens celebrated on the dedication of the
+Parthenon.
+
+The Saguntine youths would race outside the walls in the morning to
+demonstrate that they were as clever as the Celtiberian horsemen; the
+more pacific would contest in the Forum, lyre in hand, to win the crown
+offered to the one who should hymn the poems of Homer most creditably;
+afterward the procession would reveal all its magnificence through the
+streets of the city, climbing up to the Acropolis; and in the afternoon
+the race of the flaming torch would take place to divert the people, who
+would hiss at him who let his torch go out, and would whip up him who
+traveled slowly to protect the flame.
+
+"But do you really believe in Minerva?" Euphobias asked of S�nnica.
+
+"I believe in what I see," she replied. "I believe in spring, in the
+resurrection of the verdant fields, in the grain which springs from the
+ground to nourish man from its golden bearded heads; the flowers, which
+are the incense-bearers of the earth; and, above all the goddesses, I
+love Athene for the wisdom with which she endows man and makes him
+divine, and I love Minerva for her bounty which maintains them."
+
+The slaves laid the third course on the table, and the guests,
+half-inebriated, raised themselves in their couches to look at the
+little baskets of fruit, the plates covered with pastry toasted over the
+fire in the Cappadocian style; buns made of sesame flour, filled with
+honey, and browned in the oven; and cakes of cheese stuffed with stewed
+fruits.
+
+Small amphor� containing the choicest wines, brought from the uttermost
+ends of the world by S�nnica's ships, were uncorked. Wine from Byblus in
+Phoenicia saturated the atmosphere with a fragrance as penetrating as
+bottles of perfume; that from Lesbos which on being poured gave forth a
+ravishing odor of roses, and, in addition to these, cups were filled
+with cordials from Erythrea and Heraclea, strong and spiritous, and
+those from Rhodes and Chios, prudently mixed with sea-water to aid the
+digestion.
+
+Some slaves, to excite again the appetite of the guests, and to make
+them drink, offered plates of locusts cured in brine; radishes with
+vinegar and mustard, toasted garbanzos, and olives, prized for their
+size and flavor, swimming in a piquant sauce.
+
+Act�on could eat nothing, diverted by S�nnica, who, leaving her
+_epiclintron_, pressed against him, rubbing her cheek upon the
+Athenian's with mingling breath. Thus they remained in silence, each
+watching the image reflected from the pupils of the other.
+
+"Let me kiss you on the eyes," murmured S�nnica, "they are the windows
+of the soul, and I imagine that through them my caress will penetrate to
+the depths of your being."
+
+The arrogant Alorcus, grave as all Celtiberians when intoxicated, spoke
+of the coming festival as he gazed into his empty cup. He had five
+horses in the city, the finest his tribe could furnish, and if the
+magistrates would allow him to take part in the rejoicings, despite his
+being a foreigner, the Saguntines would have a chance to admire the
+strength and swiftness of his beautiful coursers. The crown should fall
+to him, unless some unexpected event summoned him from the city.
+
+Lachares and his elegant friends proposed to contest for the prize in
+singing, and their effeminate hands, slender and beringed, moved
+nervously over the table as if already thrumming the lyre, while their
+painted lips sang Homeric verses in subdued tones. Euphobias, lying on
+his back on his couch, gazed aloft with dreamy eyes, with no other
+earthly desire than to reach forth his glass and call for wine; but
+Alcon and the Greek merchants became impatient at the slowness of the
+banquet.
+
+"The dancers! Let the daughters from Gades come!" they called with
+tremulous voices, the fiery spark of intoxication glowing in their eyes.
+
+"Yes; let the dancing girls come!" cried Euphobias rousing from his
+stupor. "I want to see how this honorable people disturbs its digestion,
+which is the best gift to man, by the lewd steps of the daughters of
+Hercules."
+
+S�nnica made a sign to her steward, and in a moment the joyous sound of
+flutes was heard in the peristyle.
+
+"The auletai!" shouted the guests.
+
+Four slender girls, violet-crowned, marched into the triclinium, wearing
+a chiton open from waist to ankle, displaying the left leg at every
+step, holding to their mouths the double aulos, their agile fingers
+playing over the holes of the instrument.
+
+Standing in the space enclosed by the curve of the table, they began a
+sweet melopoeia, which caused the guests to sit up in their couches
+and to smile placidly. Most of them recognized the flute players as old
+acquaintances, and swinging their heads in time with the music, they
+watched with avid eyes the outlines of their bodies which swayed
+rhythmically from the movement of their dancing feet.
+
+Several times the flutists changed the tune and measure, but at the end
+of an hour the guests became bored.
+
+"We are used to all this," protested Lachares; "they are the same
+flutists who always play at your banquets, S�nnica. Since you have
+fallen in love you forget your friends. Give us something else! Let us
+see the dancers!"
+
+"Yes, let the dancing girls come!" chorused the young men.
+
+"Have patience," said the Greek woman, lifting her head for an instant
+from Act�on's breast; "the dancers will appear, but not until the end of
+the banquet when I am overcome with sleep. I know you well, and I can
+guess what the finish of the feast will be. First I wish you to see a
+little slave who has learned from the Grecian mariners tricks like those
+of celebrated Athenian performers."
+
+Before the slave entered, the guests turned in alarm toward the farther
+end of the table. A beast-like growling arose from beneath it. Euphobias
+had fallen from his couch, and with his head on the mosaic was
+disgorging his dinner, accompanied by a stream of wine.
+
+"Give him laurel leaves!" called the prudent Alcon. "There is nothing
+better to dissipate drunkenness."
+
+The slaves compelled him almost by force to chew the leaves, paying no
+attention to the philosopher's protests.
+
+"I am not drunk," shouted Euphobias. "It is the hunger which persecutes
+me. Most of the time I can find no bread, and when I am so fortunate as
+to sit at a table like S�nnica's, the food which I eat escapes me."
+
+"Say rather the wine which you drink escapes you," replied S�nnica,
+resting her head again on Act�on's breast.
+
+The contortionist had reappeared before the table, and had greeted her
+mistress by touching her hands to her face. She was a girl of about
+fourteen, with yellowish skin, wearing a pair of red trunks. Her nervous
+and agile limbs, and her lean, undeveloped chest, made her look like a
+boy. The elder guests smiled, stirred by her fresh and almost masculine
+beauty.
+
+She uttered a shout, and doubling over with elastic vigor stood on her
+hands, and with feet in the air and her head almost touching the floor,
+she began to run swiftly about the triclinium. Then, with a powerful
+spring of her arms, she leaped upon the table, and trotted on her hands
+among the confusion of plates, amphor�, and cups, without upsetting
+them.
+
+The guests applauded with enthusiasm. The two Greek merchants offered
+her their goblets, pinching her cheeks while she drank, and passing
+their hands caressingly over her back.
+
+"Lachares," said the philosopher to his aristocratic enemy, "why have
+you and your companions not brought your beautiful slave boys who serve
+you as supports in the Forum?"
+
+"S�nnica will not allow it," replied the young gallant, pleased at the
+question, not suspecting the irony in Euphobias' words. "She is a
+superior woman, but this is the only one of the refined customs of
+Athens which she declines to tolerate. She believes in Jupiter and Leda;
+but she spits upon the beautiful Ganymede. She is not a full-fledged
+Athenian."
+
+A double row of broad, sharp swords was placed along the floor by a
+group of slaves, so that the contortionist might show her greatest feat.
+The flutists began to play a slow, solemn melody, and the contortionist,
+again standing head downward, began to walk between the swords without
+disturbing them or touching their sharp edges. The guests, cup in hand,
+followed her course anxiously through the forest of keen steel blades,
+which at her slightest wavering would penetrate her body. She paused
+near a sword, extended one arm, and sustaining herself on a single hand
+she bent the elbow until she kissed the floor; then she stiffened the
+muscles, raising herself back to her first position, and throughout this
+whole maneuvre the cutting edge grazed her breast without even abrading
+the skin.
+
+When the girl finished her act the guests applauded vigorously. The two
+old men flung their tunics around her, while her malicious, boyish face
+peeped forth and sniffed the foods and sweetmeats.
+
+"But, S�nnica," protested Lachares, "when did the beautiful Greek ever
+forget her friends like this? Athenian, you have maddened her with your
+love; now intercede for us, and ask that the daughters of Gades present
+themselves quickly!"
+
+S�nnica appeared to be sleeping upon Act�on's breast, spellbound by his
+close, warm, throbbing heart.
+
+"Bid them enter----let my guests do what they wish----only leave us in
+peace!"
+
+Footsteps, giggling, and whispering were heard in the peristyle, and the
+Gaditanian dancers entered the triclinium, crowding each other like a
+stampeding flock.
+
+They were girls of small stature, with supple, agile limbs; their skin a
+pale amber, their eyes large and luminous; their hair black; their
+bodies floating in vapory veils, alluring and deceptive in their
+semi-transparency. They wore on their breasts and on their arms and
+ankles strands of coins and amulets which rung with merry tinkle at the
+slightest movement, and they stared boldly at the guests like a flock
+accustomed to such feasts, who traveled from banquet to banquet, seeing
+men only in their hours of intoxication.
+
+The ruler of the band, a wrinkled, parchment-faced old man with an
+insolent stare, was dressed like them in feminine veils, his cheeks
+painted, his eyes encircled with black, having great hoops in his ears,
+and a cynical leer on his vermilion lips, ready for trade in the most
+infamous traffic.
+
+Euphobias, indifferent to the charms of the dancing girls, looked at him
+with amazement, wondering to what sex belonged those skeleton arms
+peeping from beneath the veils, painted white, and weighted down with
+jewels.
+
+"Brother, are you a man or a woman?" the philosopher gravely enquired.
+
+"I am the father of all these flowers," replied the eunuch with a
+squeaking voice, showing as he smiled his repulsive, toothless gums.
+
+Three of the women, squatting on the floor, began to fillip their
+castanets with lively clacking, while another beat with her hands on a
+globe-bottomed timbrel tucked under her left arm.
+
+The eunuch rapped on the floor with his staff, and instantly four pairs
+of dancers whisked into the centre of the triclinium, and began to swing
+to the sound of clamorous barbaric music played by their companions.
+They danced with stately step, holding themselves majestically erect,
+spreading their arms as if swimming in space, their brown bodies
+wheeling in slow spirals, seeming to float on the waves of transparent
+foam which enwrapped them. Gradually their movements accelerated; they
+gracefully extended their bodies, elevating their firm chests, outlining
+their contours among the veils--contortions in which the trunk revolved
+on the hips, a whirl of forms enclosed in white and floating drapery,
+which as it flew into a thousand folds with voluptuous undulations,
+fanned up the flames of the lamps.
+
+Suddenly, at a signal from the old crone, the music stopped, and the
+dancing ceased.
+
+"More! More!" shouted the guests, sitting up in their couches with
+excitement.
+
+It was merely a halt to change the time and to evoke applause by taking
+a brief rest. The music assumed a gay and noisy rhythm; the old eunuch
+marked time on the floor with the beating staff; he uttered a prolonged
+lament, sad, yet with a mild sweetness, which did not seem to come from
+his infected mouth; and then followed slow dreamy strophes of love with
+words of double meanings, which acted like aphrodisiacs, and were
+greeted with a roar of enthusiasm.
+
+The dancers sprang into the centre of the triclinium, whirling swiftly,
+as if possessed of a fever. Each song served as a lash further to excite
+their nerves, and their bare feet tripped over the mosaic like
+snow-white birds, or rose in gentle flight, trailing clouds of gauze,
+displaying well modeled limbs with tinkling ornaments which scattered
+silvery tones. Their gently curving abdomens seemed to assume a separate
+existence, moving like restless animals over their bodies which they
+held in sacerdotal rigidity, contracting in circular waves, forming a
+whirlpool of voluptuous undulations, of which the umbilicus was the rosy
+centre. They accompanied the dance with incessant snapping of fingers.
+Gathering the gauzy draperies beneath their arms and adjusting them
+around their hips, they moved their amphoral curves with seductive
+rhythm, sighing langourously, with bowed heads, as if enchanted by the
+contemplation of their own beauty. Suddenly the music grew fainter, as
+if drawing away, and the dancers, their feet together and limbs half
+opened, descended in a slow spiral, with gentle undulations, until they
+touched the floor; the instant their callipygian charms grazed the
+mosaic, they recoiled like suddenly awakened serpents, and the castanets
+clacked and the timbrel beat louder, accompanied by the howls of the
+musicians who animated them with lascivious words and exclamations of
+supreme abandon.
+
+The guests, red with emotion, their eyes sparkling and their mouths dry,
+had rushed into the centre of the triclinium, interrupting the dance,
+mixing with the couples and grasping them. Euphobias lay snoring at the
+foot of his couch. S�nnica had disappeared long before, leaving the
+triclinium, supported by a slave without lifting her head from Act�on's
+shoulder.
+
+The veils of the dancing girls fell to the foot of the table; they
+devoured the sweetmeats and fruits, they drank from the amphor�, plunged
+their heads into the crater of the nymphs, and laughed on seeing their
+faces bespattered with wine. The eunuch continued singing and pounding
+furiously on the floor to mark the rhythm for his musicians. In vain!
+The girls who tried to dance could not escape from the hands of the
+guests, who at every turn slapped them on their buttocks and tore off
+their veils. The young men rolled at the foot of the lamps, maddened by
+these bacchantes wise in perversion, reared in a port to which
+navigators brought both the refinements and the corruptions of the
+entire world. Alorcus the Celtiberian, brutalized by his enthusiasm,
+walked around the triclinium making a display of his strength by
+sustaining in his sinewy hands two dancing girls, who screamed with
+fright, while outside could be noted in the darkness of the peristyle
+the movement of the slaves, men and women, from the kitchens, creeping
+near to enjoy from without the spectacle of the bacchanal.
+
+It was not yet dawn when Act�on awoke, wondering, no doubt, at the soft
+couch and at the perfumes of the dormitory. S�nnica was lying beside
+him, and by the light of a lamp hanging near the door he could see a
+smile of felicity flitting over her lips.
+
+After the intoxication of the night the Athenian felt a vehement desire
+to breathe the fresh, open air. He was stifling where he was, in
+S�nnica's room, sunk down in the couch that seemed to burn with the fire
+of their recent passion, near the form, which now lay inert and with no
+other sign of life than the gentle sighs which inflated her bosom.
+
+The Greek softly tiptoed out to the peristyle. The lamps were still
+burning in the triclinium, and an insufferable vapor of viands, wines,
+and sweaty bodies floated through the doorway. He saw the guests lying
+on the floor among the snoring women. Euphobias had awakened from his
+drunken sleep, and, occupying the place of honor, S�nnica's couch, was
+forging for himself the illusion of being master of the villa. Wrapped
+in his tattered mantle he was compelling two sleepy dancing girls to
+dance, contemplating their nude flesh with a disdainful stare like a man
+who considers himself above carnal desires.
+
+As Act�on appeared in the triclinium some slaves fled, fearing lest they
+should be punished for their curiosity. Not wishing to be seen by the
+philosopher the Greek went out of the house seeking the cool garden.
+There he noticed the same flight before his steps. Embracing couples
+fled along the avenues; from behind the clumps of foliage arose
+exclamations of surprise as he approached, and in the dissipating
+shadows of the night the garden seemed animated by a mysterious life
+beneath its leafy bowers.
+
+They were slaves who, excited by the feast, continued beneath the open
+sky the scenes of the triclinium.
+
+The Greek smiled, reflecting that the feast was destined to augment his
+mistress' wealth.
+
+"Let them enjoy themselves in peace. To disturb them would damage
+S�nnica's interests."
+
+He passed out of the garden so as not to interfere with the joy of the
+miserable flock which, forgetting every trouble, sought each other
+there in the dim light of dawn.
+
+He crossed S�nnica's immense dominions, through groves of fig trees and
+extensive olive orchards, until suddenly he found himself in the highway
+of the Serpent. It was deserted. In the distance he heard the galloping
+of a horse and saw in the bluish light of dawn a rider who was
+undoubtedly making for the port.
+
+As he drew near Act�on recognized him in spite of his head being covered
+by the hood of a war mantle. It was the Celtiberian shepherd. The Greek
+dashed into the centre of the roadway and grasped the horse by the
+bridle, while the rider, checked in his race, leaned back, tugging at
+the knife which he wore in his belt.
+
+"Be calm!" said Act�on in a low voice. "If I stop you it is to say that
+I have recognized you. You are Hannibal, the son of the great Hamilcar!
+Your disguise may serve you among the Saguntines, but your boyhood
+friend knows you."
+
+The African bent his head forward with its bushy mass of hair, and his
+imperious eyes made out the Greek in the dim light.
+
+"Is it you, Act�on? When I met you so many times yesterday I knew that
+you would finally recognize me. What are you doing here?"
+
+"I am living in the house of S�nnica the rich."
+
+"I have heard of her, a Greek as famous for her beauty and her talent as
+the courtesans of Athens. I was also desirous of knowing her, and I
+think I should have loved her if it were a man's mission to chase after
+women. And are you doing nothing else?"
+
+"I am a soldier in the pay of the city."
+
+"You, the son of Lysias, the confidential captain of Hamilcar! You, a
+man educated in the Prytaneum of Athens, in the service of a city of
+barbarians and merchants!"
+
+Hannibal was silent for a moment as if wondering at the conduct of the
+Greek. At last he added resolutely:
+
+"Mount behind me on my horse! Come with me! In the port a Carthaginian
+ship, loading with silver, is waiting for me. I go to New Carthage to
+place myself at the head of my troops. Days of glory are coming, an
+immense and sublime enterprise, like that of the giants when, heaping
+mountain on mountain, they scaled your Olympus. Come! You are the friend
+of my childhood; I knew you before Hasdrubal and Mago, those sons of
+Hamilcar, whom the glorious captain gave me for brothers, calling all
+three of us 'my lion's brood.' I know you. You are astute and brave like
+your father; at my side you will conquer riches. Who knows but that you
+may reign as king in some fair land when, imitating Alexander, I divide
+my conquests among my captains!"
+
+"No, Carthaginian," said Act�on gravely. "I do not hate you; I remember
+our early years with pleasure; but I will never go with you. Your
+lineage prevents it, the past record of your nation, and the bloody
+shade of my father."
+
+"Nationality is but a fiction; 'the people' a pretext for making war.
+What matters it to you whether you serve Carthage or any other republic,
+since you are a Greek? If my own people should abandon me I would fight
+for any country. We are men of war; we fight for glory, power, and
+riches; the needs of our people only serve to justify our victory and
+our despoiling of the enemy. I hate the merchants of Carthage, pacific
+and stuck to their shops, as much as I hate the proud Romans. Come,
+Act�on, since we have met, follow me! Fortune goes with me."
+
+"No, Hannibal; here shall I remain. Seeing your African soldiers I
+should remember the mob that crucified Lysias."
+
+"That was an unavoidable crime, a mad deed of that truceless war to
+which the mercenaries impelled us. My father lamented it a thousand
+times, remembering his faithful Lysias. With my protection I will make
+amends for that injustice of Carthage."
+
+"I will not follow you, Hannibal. I have bid farewell to war and booty.
+I prefer to grow old here in this sweet and tranquil life, at the side
+of my S�nnica, loving peace like any one of those Saguntines who dwells
+in the merchants' ward."
+
+"Peace? Peace?"
+
+A strident and brutal shout of laughter, like that which Act�on had
+heard on the steps of Aphrodite's temple when the Roman legates were
+embarking, broke the silence of the roadway.
+
+"Listen well, Act�on," said the African, recovering his gravity, "the
+proof that I still remember my boyhood affection for you lies in the
+frankness with which I speak my mind. Only to you, understand it well!
+If, sleeping in my tent, I should learn on awaking that what is in my
+mind had escaped in words, I would stab the sentinel who guarded my
+sleep. You speak of peace! Act�on, awake! If you think of growing old in
+tranquility in any part of the world, flee with that Greek woman whom
+you love, far, far away! Where I am, there shall be no peace until I
+have become the sovereign of the world! War marches ahead of my
+footsteps; he who will not submit to me must die or become my slave!"
+
+The Greek comprehended the significance of the threat.
+
+"Remember, Hannibal, that this city is Rome. The Republic has taken it
+for an ally and protects it."
+
+"Do you imagine that I fear Rome? If I hate Saguntum it is because she
+is proud of her alliance, and that she scorns and forgets me, in spite
+of my being near. She fancies herself secure because that far-away
+Republic protects her, and she laughs at me, though I reign over all the
+Peninsula as far as the Ebro, and am encamped almost at her very gates.
+She antagonizes the Turdetani, who are my allies, as are all the Iberian
+tribes, and within her walls she beheads the citizens who love me, those
+who were friends of the great Hamilcar. Ah, blind and vainglorious city!
+How dear shall it cost thee to live near to Hannibal without knowing
+him!"
+
+Turning about in his saddle he glared with menacing eyes at the
+Acropolis of Saguntum, which stood forth above the fog of the early
+morn.
+
+"You could scarcely lay siege to her ally before Rome would fall upon
+you!"
+
+"Let her come!" replied the African arrogantly. "That is what I want, I
+hate peace! I will not submit to seeing Carthage subdued while there
+exist men like me and my friends. Either Rome or Africa! Let the final
+clash come! The sooner the better, the supreme struggle; and let that
+nation which is left standing be ruler of the world! I hate the rich of
+my country who live content in the shame of defeat because it enables
+them to traffic calmly and to cram their vaults with silver. Those are
+the wretches who, after our defeat in Sicily, dared to dream of
+abandoning Carthage and of moving wholesale to the islands of the Great
+Sea to live in tranquility. They are Carthaginians indeed; true sons of
+Phoenicia, with no other conception of glory than trade, nor other
+aspiration than to find new ports where they can market their wares! We
+Barcas are Libyans; we descend from the gods; like them we have
+greatness of thought; we must be masters, or die! Those merchants do not
+understand that it is not enough to be rich; that one must dominate and
+instill fear; and they formed in Carthage a peace-party, which
+embittered my father's life by defeats, and they leave me with no other
+resources than those that I can procure on the Peninsula. They do not
+know the Barcas, despite the fact that we struggle to make Carthage a
+world power! My father, when he lost Sicily, foresaw the future
+extinction of our nation, and he wished to prevent it. We had lost a
+great part of our ancient commerce. We needed an army to defend us from
+ambitious Rome, and we did not have it. The citizens of Carthage are
+good, at the best, to fight on their own soil. The merchant cannot bear
+the weight of arms nor endure marches for months and years through
+hostile countries. The profit derived from booty conquered with blood,
+he can win more easily standing behind his bales of goods, and as he
+loves money he does not wish to pay it out to foreign soldiers. That is
+why Hamilcar brought us to the Peninsula, and here we have given
+Carthage new ports and markets, and the Barcas have an army gathered
+together by their own efforts. Little does it matter that the
+Carthaginian Senate, lovers of peace, refuse to send us soldiers. The
+Iberian tribes loved my father after putting his bravery to the test,
+and they will rise in arms at the voice of the Barcas against whatever
+enemy we may designate."
+
+Hannibal turned his gaze toward the distant mountains, as if he could
+behold the innumerable barbarian tribes who lived behind them scratching
+the earth, or pasturing their flocks. "Hamilcar fell," he said sadly,
+"just as he was beginning to see his dreams realized in a great army
+with which to enter anew into strife with Rome, with riches of his own
+to carry on the war without need of assistance from the African
+merchants. Hasdrubal, the handsome husband of my sister, frittered away
+eight years on succeeding to his authority. He was a good governor, but
+a timid commander. Perhaps it was Baal, our savage god, who guided the
+arm of his assassin that he might be succeeded by another capable of
+exterminating the eternal enemy of Carthage. That one shall be I! Listen
+well, Greek! You are the only one who shares my thought. The moment for
+fighting the final battle has come. Soon shall Rome know that there
+exists a Hannibal who defies her by taking possession of Saguntum."
+
+"You have scant power for that, African. Saguntum is strong, and I, who
+come from New Carthage, have seen there nothing but the elephants, the
+fragments of the army which your father brought, and the Numidian
+cavalry which your friends have sent from Africa."
+
+"You forget the Iberians and the Celtiberians, the whole Peninsula,
+which will rise bodily and flock to the taking of Saguntum. The country
+is poor, and the city is overstocked with riches. I have noted it well.
+There is enough in it to pay an army for entire years, and even the
+Lusitanian tribes from the coast of the Great Sea will come attracted by
+the hope of loot and urged on by the hatred of rude natives for a city,
+opulent and civilized, where dwell their exploiters. It will be no great
+task for Hannibal to take possession of a republic of farmers and
+merchants."
+
+"And after you become master, what then?"
+
+The African answered nothing, but shrugged his shoulders with an
+enigmatic smile.
+
+"You are silent, Hannibal. But after you are master of Saguntum you will
+have gained nothing. Rome will hurl her thunder at you for violating her
+treaties, and the Carthaginian Senate will curse you; it will set a
+price upon your head; it will order your soldiers to disobey you; and
+you will die crucified, or you will wander about the world like a
+fugitive slave."
+
+"No! Fire of Baal!" shouted the chief arrogantly. "Carthage will attempt
+nothing against me; she will accept war with Rome, even though to-day
+she may not wish it. I have there innumerable partisans of the Barcas;
+the populace which loves war, because it yields cargoes of loot for
+distribution; the people of the out-lying districts, whose enthusiasm I
+keep at white heat by sending them riches sacked on the Peninsula, after
+having paid my troops. Hamilcar and Hasdrubal did the same. They would
+be ready to cut off the heads of the rich if anything were attempted
+against Hannibal. Since following my father for nine years, I have not
+returned to Carthage, but the people adore my name. Even those of the
+peace-party will follow me to war, if to war I drag them."
+
+"And how will you conquer Rome?"
+
+"I know not," said Hannibal with his mysterious smile. "I harbor a world
+of thoughts which would provoke the laughter of my friends if I should
+relate them. I see myself like a Titan scaling immense mountains,
+following the course of the eagle, ploughing through the snow, climbing
+to the very sky to fall upon my enemy with greater force. Ask me no
+more; I know nothing further. My will says, 'I desire,' and that is
+enough--I shall carry it through!"
+
+Hannibal was silent, wrinkling his brows as if fearing he had said too
+much.
+
+It was now daylight. Women with baskets on their heads were passing
+along the road. Two slaves carrying a great amphora hanging from a pole
+swung between their shoulders, stopped near them a moment to rest. The
+African patted his horse's neck as if preparing to leave.
+
+"For the last time, Greek, will you come?"
+
+Act�on shook his head.
+
+"I know you too well to beg you to forget that you have seen Hannibal.
+You are astute. You know that what we have spoken here must be swallowed
+in the silence of the fields, and must be repeated to no one. Be happy
+in your new love, and live in peace, since, though born to soar as an
+eagle, you choose to stay here in a barnyard. If ever you oppose me as
+an enemy and contend against me, I will not crucify you; you shall not
+become my slave. I love you, although you will not follow me. I do not
+forget that you were the first who taught me to hurl a dart. May Baal
+guard you, Act�on! My men await me at the port."
+
+His mantle floating in the breeze, he started on a gallop, raising a
+cloud of dust, scattering the country people and slaves, who scurried to
+the sides of the road to give him passage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+GREEK AND CELTIBERIAN.
+
+
+Act�on told no one of his meeting. Moreover, after a few days he had
+almost forgotten it. Seeing the city tranquil, busy in preparation for
+the great Panathenaic festival, trusting in its protecting alliance with
+Rome, the recollection of the interview with the African assumed the
+vagueness of a dream.
+
+Perhaps Hannibal's words were only the arrogant boasts of youth. Hated
+by the rich of his country, and with no better followers than those he
+himself could procure, he was surely not going to attempt the audacious
+enterprise of attacking a city allied to Rome, thus violating the
+treaties with Carthage.
+
+Besides, the Greek was living in a period of sweet intoxications; ever
+in S�nnica's arms in the shade of the peristyle; listening to the lyres
+of the slaves and the flutes of the flute players, and watching the
+dancers from Gades, while his beloved crowned him with flowers, or
+sprinkled costly perfumes upon him.
+
+Sometimes the restless spirit of the wanderer and man of war, trained to
+action and strife, manifested itself in the midst of this effeminacy.
+Then he would flee to the city. There he conversed with Mopsus, the
+archer, and listened to the grumblers in the Forum, who, not suspecting
+that Hannibal had passed through Saguntum, jested at the possibility of
+the African chief attempting anything against them, and gloated in their
+power, trusting in the strength of their walls, and still more in the
+protection of Rome, which would repeat on the coasts of Iberia their
+triumphs over the Carthaginians in Sicily.
+
+Act�on contracted a great friendship with Alorcus the Celtiberian. He
+admired the fiery pride of the barbarian, his nobility of sentiment, and
+the almost religious respect he displayed for the cultured Grecian
+woman. His father, now old and sick, was a petty king reigning over some
+tribes which pastured great flocks of horses and cattle in the mountains
+of Celtiberia. He was the sole heir, and some day would be obliged to
+rule that rude people with their ferocious customs, who, in perpetual
+brigandage, made war for the sake of stealing horses, and in years of
+famine came down from the mountains to despoil the farmers on the
+plains. His father had brought him to Saguntum when a child, and the
+Grecian customs produced such an effect in him that, when he had grown
+to manhood it became his most earnest desire to return to the city on
+the coast, and there he lived with a few servants of his tribe and his
+magnificent horses, deaf to the affectionate calls of the old chieftain
+drawing near to death, and being esteemed by the Saguntines as almost a
+fellow citizen.
+
+He was eager to figure in the festival of the Panathen�a that the Greeks
+of the city should admire him galloping in the races to conquer the
+crown of olives. He was grateful to Act�on for using his influence with
+S�nnica to secure the consent of the magistrates that the Celtiberian
+might enter among the horsemen in the great procession that would climb
+to the Acropolis carrying the first sheaves of wheat to the temple of
+Minerva.
+
+In those days when the Athenian languished amidst songs and perfumes,
+overwhelmed by the caresses of the Greek woman, who seemed to blaze with
+the fire of the last passion of her life, he sprang from his couch at
+dawn, slung his bow across his back, and followed by two handsome dogs
+tramped through the Saguntine domain, giving chase to the wildcats which
+came down from the surrounding mountains.
+
+On one of these excursions he had an adventure. It was noon; the sun's
+warm light fell upon the land, and the panting dogs halted, barking at a
+grove of ancient fig trees with branches sweeping the ground, forming
+shady canopies of dense foliage. Act�on, quieting the animals,
+approached cautiously with bow ready to draw, and as he parted the
+curtain of leaves he saw in the centre of an open space enclosed by the
+trees his two friends Rhanto and Erotion.
+
+The boy was seated on the ground before a pile of red clay which he was
+carefully modeling, wrinkling his brow, and whistling intently. The
+shepherdess, completely nude, with the assurance of healthy and innocent
+beauty, happy in being admired, was smiling at Erotion, her cheeks
+flushing lightly every time the artist raised his eyes from the clay to
+the model.
+
+Act�on drank in with his eyes the form of her vernal body. He felt the
+enthusiasm of the Greeks in the presence of beauty, intensified by the
+ardor of manhood. He admired her bosom, tender and small as buds, barely
+perceptible; her lightly curving hips; the line from her throat to her
+feet soft and undulating, which served to give more elegance to her
+chaste appearance; the grace of strong and beautiful girlhood, in
+addition to the attraction of sex. With the taste of a Greek of
+refinement he rejoiced in the freshness of her form, comparing it
+mentally with S�nnica's opulent but somewhat over-ripe charms.
+
+Rhanto, as she saw the Greek's head appear between the leaves, uttered a
+piercing scream and scurried behind a fig tree in search of her clothes.
+Bells tinkled among the foliage and the goats thrust forward their
+glossy muzzles, their moist eyes, and curving horns.
+
+"Is it you, Athenian?" said Erotion, arising with a gesture of ill
+humor. "You have frightened Rhanto by your unexpected presence."
+
+Then he added maliciously, "Rhanto is your slave. I am well aware of
+that. And I also know that you are the master of the pottery where I
+work. You have risen much since that morning when we met you on the
+highway of the Serpent. You have dominion over S�nnica the rich. Love
+has made her your slave."
+
+"I am not master of anyone," said the Greek simply. "I am your friend,
+and I do not forget that the first bread I ate in this city I received
+from your hands."
+
+Erotion seemed to gain confidence at these words.
+
+"What are you looking at, Athenian? That clay? How you must laugh at me!
+I am convinced that I am worthless as an artist. Yet there are moments
+when I feel myself capable of a great work; I conceive it; I see it in
+my mind as clearly as if I had it erected before me; but when I put my
+hands to the clay I realize my lack of skill, and I am ready to weep.
+Ah! if only I could have gone to Greece!"
+
+His words sounded like a lament; he stared angrily at the pile of clay
+which had crudely begun to assume the outlines of Rhanto's form.
+
+"If you only knew how I had to urge her before she would consent to show
+the divine nudity of her body. Do not think it strange. She comes of a
+race of barbarians. She fears the club of her grandfather, the chief
+shepherd, that would fall upon her body if he should discover her as you
+did a few minutes ago. I explained to her about our sculptors, before
+whom the most famous het�r� contended for the honor of disrobing; and
+the certainty that her mistress, S�nnica, had done the same in Athens
+was the only thing that decided her. But how can one copy her divine
+body? How imbue molded clay with the life which throbs beneath her
+skin?"
+
+In his despair he threatened the clay figurine as if he would crush it
+under his feet. Then he took courage, and said resolutely:
+
+"But I will be stronger than my untrained hands. I will work years and
+years if necessary, until I see the divine form of my Rhanto reproduced
+in all its beauty. I will not return to the pottery, although the old
+archer may kill me with blows. I began my statuette hoping that it might
+figure in the Panathenaic procession. Rhanto would carry it on her head,
+and the multitude would crowd around to see it. I only hope for a moment
+of inspiration, a fortunate moment. Who knows if to-morrow the muses may
+not breathe upon me, and that I shall arise with the skill in my hands
+to execute my dream?"
+
+Frankly hurling himself down from the pinnacle of his imagination he
+told the Athenian his ambition.
+
+"If I manage to finish this statue the future will be all my own, and
+some day my name will be engraved in the Forum, and the people of the
+city will read it with admiration. I will free myself from the pottery
+forever. I will present my statue to S�nnica, after it has been admired
+by all Saguntum in the Panathen�a, and your lover, who is so generous,
+will give me passage in one of her ships. I shall see Athens. I will
+admire what you have seen, and then--then! Look, Act�on, through these
+leaves. What do you see on the hill of the Acropolis? Nothing. Walls of
+great stones, columns, roofs of temples, but not a single statue to
+proclaim from afar the glory of the city. They say that upon the
+Acropolis of Athens rises the gigantic figure of Pallas, all of bronze
+and gold, with a lance that seems to burn in the sunlight, and that it
+guides the mariners like a flame from many stadia out at sea. Is that
+true? Many, many nights have I dreamt of something like that, and I see
+Erotion returned from Athens a great artist, and raising a colossal work
+upon our Acropolis. The bulls of Geryon, enormous, gigantic, with gilded
+horns shining like flames, and behind them Hercules, covered with the
+skin of the Nemean lion, like Theron, his priest, in the great festivals
+of Saguntum, and his club, menacing on the height, shall be a signal to
+all the navigators of the Sucronian gulf. Ah! If only some day I realize
+this achievement!"
+
+Rhanto had come out of her hiding-place covered by a tunic, and she
+timidly approached Act�on, looking at him respectfully, and blushing at
+the same time at the recollection of the condition in which he had
+surprised her. Erotion, excited by the telling of his hopes, showed
+eagerness to resume his task. He glanced at his work, and seemed to
+disrobe the shepherdess with his eyes.
+
+The Athenian understood that his presence disturbed the young people.
+
+"Work, Erotion!" he said. "Be a great artist if you can. The sculptors
+of Athens would envy you your model. Now that I know that you hide here
+I will not again annoy you with my presence."
+
+And so it was. He left the grove of fig trees permitting the two to work
+undisturbed in their mysterious retreat, Erotion spurred on by ambition,
+Rhanto submissive from love.
+
+The day of the Panathen�a came at last.
+
+The fame of the solemn festival had spread beyond the confines of
+Saguntum, and the rude Celtiberians assembled by caravans to witness the
+diversions of the rustic people.
+
+The workers from the domain abandoned the labor of the harvest, and,
+dressed in their best, began streaming into the city at sunrise to
+attend the festival of the goddess of the fields. They carried great
+sheaves of wheat, interspersed with flowers, to offer to the goddess,
+and white fleeced lambs adorned with ribbons to sacrifice on her altar.
+
+By sunrise the city was filled with a multicolored crowd which gathered
+in the Forum, or hurried along the river banks to see the horse races.
+
+A great stadium had been formed near the B�tis-Perkes in which the
+principal citizens of Saguntum were to contest for the triumph. The
+senators, on long benches, and guarded by a group of mercenaries,
+presided over the festival. At one end of the race-track the sons of the
+merchants and rich agriculturists, the entire youth of Saguntum, almost
+nude, awaited the signal, leaning on their light lances, and holding the
+bridles of their barebacked horses which snorted and champed the bit,
+scenting the coming contest.
+
+The signal to start was given, and placing their left feet on the
+handles of their lances all sprang simultaneously upon their chargers,
+dashing forward in a compact squadron along the track. The immense crowd
+broke into acclamations at sight of the bizarre riders who leaning
+forward almost lay on their horses' necks, as if forming a single body
+with them, waving their lances, quickening their gallop with shouts, and
+wrapped in a cloud of dust through which the multitude could barely make
+out the straining legs and the bellies of the animals which were nearly
+touching the ground. The wild race lasted long. The less skillful
+riders, and those with poorer mounts, were being out-stripped; the
+squadron was diminishing visibly. He who should remain longest on the
+track, ever in advance of the others, would win the crown, and the
+people made bets on the Celtiberian Alorcus, and on the Athenian Act�on
+who figured from the first instant at the head of the riders.
+
+The citizens who did not wish to wait in the sun for the end of the race
+followed the river bank until they reached the walls, in the shade of
+which the youths were wrestling or engaging in boxing matches in
+competition for the prize for dexterity. Others of more pacific turn
+went to the Forum, where beneath the porticos the young aristocrats were
+competing for the laurel crown offered for the most skilled in music and
+song. Seated on ivory chairs, attended by their handsome slave boys who
+fanned them with branches of myrtle, Lachares and his friends played the
+flute or thrummed the lyre, singing Greek verses with sweet and
+effeminate intonations. In the gathering, some laughed, mimicking the
+softness of their voices, but others, indignant, compelled silence,
+overcome by the charm which art, even in this womanish guise, exercised
+over their uncultured minds.
+
+Late in the morning the clamor from the enthusiastic multitude filled
+the broad space of the Forum like reverberating thunder. It was the
+people returning from the races, acclaiming the victor. The arrogant
+Alorcus, dragged off the back of his horse, was borne on the shoulders
+of the most enthusiastic. The olive crown encircled his tossed and dusty
+hair. Act�on was beside him, celebrating his triumph fraternally,
+without a touch of envy.
+
+The singers, swept away before this wave of enthusiasm, made off with
+their chairs and instruments. The crown of laurel was bound upon
+Lachares in the midst of general indifference, and he received no other
+congratulations than those of his slaves. All the enthusiasm of the city
+was lavished upon the winner in the races; the people were inflamed with
+admiration for strength and skill.
+
+The solemn moment had come; the _pompa_ was about to begin. In the
+merchant's ward slaves hung red and green bunting from roof to roof
+which shaded the streets. The windows and terraces were draped with
+multicolored tapestries of complicated design, and slave women placed
+censers in the doorways for burning perfumes.
+
+The rich Grecian women, followed by their servants who carried sedan
+chairs, went in search of places where they could sit on the steps of
+the temples or in the shops at the Forum, and the people ranged
+themselves along the houses, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the
+procession which was forming outside the walls. Flocks of children
+completely nude ran through the streets waving branches of myrtle,
+shouting acclamations in honor of the goddess.
+
+Suddenly the people stirred, bursting into cries of enthusiasm. The
+pageant in honor of Minerva had entered through the gate of the Road of
+the Serpent and was advancing slowly toward the Forum, through the ward
+of the merchants, who were the organizers of the festival.
+
+In advance marched venerable old men with long beards, dressed in white,
+with voluminous mantles, their snowy hair crowned with green leaves, and
+carrying olive branches in their hands. Then came the more arrogant
+citizens, armed with lance and shield, the visor of the Grecian helmet
+drawn down over their eyes, proudly displaying the strong muscles of
+their arms and limbs. Next followed the most beautiful youths of the
+city, crowned with flowers, singing hymns in praise of the goddess;
+choruses of nude children, dancing with unaffected grace, clasping
+hands, forming a chain of complicated combinations. Now appeared the
+maidens, daughters of the rich, clad only in a tunic of finest linen,
+which displayed their youthful charms. They carried in their hands as
+offerings dainty willow baskets covered by veils which hid the
+instruments for the sacrifice to the goddess, and with these the loaves
+made of new wheat and the handfuls of golden ears which were to be
+deposited on her altar. To clearly mark the dignity of the rich virgins,
+slave women marched behind them bearing their sedan chairs inlaid with
+ivory, and the striped silk sunshades with gay colored tassels at the
+ends of the staves.
+
+A group of slave women chosen for their beauty, with Rhanto in the
+premier rank, carried on their heads great amphor� filled with honey and
+water for the libations in honor of the goddess. Behind them marched the
+musicians and singers of the city, crowned with roses, clad in flowing
+white vestments. They swept the lyre, and played the flutes, and some
+Greeks from S�nnica's pottery, who had been wandering rhapsodists, sang
+fragments from the epic of the Trojan war before the barbarian throngs,
+who scarcely understood them, but admired the harmonious cadence of
+Homer's verses.
+
+The people pressed forward, craning their necks to get a better view of
+the salii, the dancing devotees of Mars, who advanced nude, armed with
+sword and shield. Slung from the stick laid across their shoulders, two
+slaves were carrying a row of bronze shields, on which another slave was
+beating with a mallet, and keeping time to these harsh sounds the salii
+danced, making feigned attacks, and raining blows with their swords on
+the shield of the pretended adversary, uttering ferocious shouts, and
+also performing pantomimes to recall the main episodes in the life of
+the goddess Minerva.
+
+Behind the clamor, which set the streets in a commotion, causing the
+populace to roar with enthusiasm excited by the warlike display, came a
+group of girls holding a peplus of finest texture on which the principal
+Grecian women of the city had embroidered the combat of Minerva with the
+Titans. It was the offering which was to remain in the new temple of the
+goddess as a perpetual token of the festival.
+
+Closing the procession, the sacred squadron advanced, the richest
+citizens, mounted on fiery horses, which, with their evolutions
+compelled the crowd to fall back against the walls. They presented a
+brave display, making their steeds rear on their hind feet, guided only
+by the bridle, riding bareback, pressing their knees into the horses'
+ribs. The eldest of the horsemen wore huge hats in the Athenian fashion.
+The young men wore the winged helmet of Mercury or went bareheaded,
+their short curls bound by a fire-colored ribbon. Alorcus wore the crown
+he had won, and Act�on, riding beside him on one of the Celtiberian's
+horses, smiled at the crowd, which regarded him with a certain respect
+as if he were S�nnica's husband and in possession of her enormous
+riches. The horsemen gazed with pride at the swords which hung at their
+sides and clanked against the flanks of their horses, and they took in
+with a glance the high Acropolis and the city lying at its feet, as if
+expressing confidence in their strength, and faith in the tranquility in
+which Saguntum might dwell, sure of protection.
+
+The crowd fired with enthusiasm by the brilliant procession, acclaimed
+S�nnica. Surrounded by her slave women, she gazed down from the terrace
+of her great building in the ward of the merchants where she stored her
+merchandise. She was the organizer, the one who bore the cost of the
+peplus of Minerva, she it was who had transplanted to Saguntum the
+beautiful festival of Athens. Fragrant odors from the censers were flung
+upon the air; a shower of roses fell from the windows upon the maidens;
+arms glistened in the sunlight, and in moments when the people were
+silent the sounds of lyres and flutes floated on the breeze,
+accompanying with soft melodies the voices of the Homeric rhapsodists.
+
+The crude Celtiberians, gathered to witness the festival, remained
+silent in astonishment at the procession which dazzled them with its
+glitter of arms and jewels and the multicolored confusion of costumes.
+The natives of Saguntum congratulated their fellow-citizens, the Greeks,
+admiring the splendor of the festival.
+
+The festivity did not cease with the passing of the brilliant
+procession. In the afternoon the diversion of the populace, the festival
+of the poor, would take place. The race of the flaming torch would be
+held along the walls. Mariners, potters, laborers, all the free and poor
+people of the port and the country in wild career, would carry lighted
+torches in memory of Prometheus. He who accomplished the feat of making
+the round of the city, keeping his torch still burning, would be
+declared winner; those who let theirs go out, or who traveled slowly to
+protect the flames, would be greeted with hisses and blows by the crowd.
+Even the rich gave vent to enthusiasm over this popular festival which
+produced so much merriment.
+
+Near the Acropolis, when the procession was wholly within its walls,
+Alorcus discerned among the people a Celtiberian mounted on a horse
+covered with foam and sweat, beckoning him to approach.
+
+Alorcus, turning away from the troop of horsemen, trotted towards him.
+
+"What do you want?" he asked, in the harsh language of his country.
+
+"I am one of your tribe, and your father is my chief. I have just
+reached Saguntum after traveling three days to say to you; 'Alorcus,
+your father is dying, and he calls for you.' The ancients of your tribe
+have ordered me not to return without you."
+
+Act�on had followed his friend, breaking away from the sacred squadron,
+and witnessed the dialogue without understanding a word, although he
+guessed something disagreeable by the Celtiberian's pale face.
+
+"Bad news?" he asked Alorcus.
+
+"My father is dying, and he has sent for me."
+
+"What shall you do?"
+
+"I must go immediately. My people demand my presence."
+
+The two horsemen began the descent to the city, followed by the
+Celtiberian messenger.
+
+Act�on sympathized with his comrade's emotion. At the same time the
+curiosity of the traveler, so often aroused by the Celtiberian's tales,
+was awakened within him.
+
+"Do you wish me to accompany you, Alorcus?"
+
+The young man received the proposition with a look of gratitude. Then
+he declined, saying that he must depart in haste; the Greek might wish
+to bid farewell to S�nnica; perhaps the separation would be a grief to
+her; and he desired to start on the journey at once.
+
+"We will omit the farewell," said the Greek in his light, happy manner.
+"S�nnica will be resigned when I make known to her through a slave that
+I shall be absent for some days. Do you wish to leave immediately? I
+will accompany you. I am curious to see that land with its strange
+customs, and its valiant and sturdy inhabitants, of whose brave deeds
+you have so often told me."
+
+They crossed the city. The streets were deserted. The entire population
+had gone up to the Acropolis. Act�on stopped a moment before S�nnica's
+warehouses to give the news of his journey to her slaves, and then he
+followed his friend, riding forth from the city.
+
+Alorcus lodged in one of the inns in the suburb, an enormous edifice
+with extensive stables and broad courtyards, where continuously rang the
+diverse tongues of the interior of the Peninsula, hoarsened and made
+strident by dickering for merchandise and the bartering of beasts. Five
+men of the tribe accompanied the young Celtiberian during his stay in
+Saguntum, taking care of his horses and serving him as free domestics.
+
+On learning that they were to depart these sons of the mountains shouted
+with joy. They had languished with inactivity in that rich and fruitful
+country amid customs which they detested, and they made preparations for
+the journey in haste.
+
+The sun was setting when they started. Alorcus and Act�on rode in
+advance, their mantles thrown over their heads, padded linen
+breastplates to protect their chests after the Celtiberian fashion, and
+short broadswords, and leather shields hanging at their sides. The five
+servants and the messenger brought up the rear, armed with long lances,
+driving the mules laden with Alorcus' clothing and provisions.
+
+Throughout the afternoon they traveled upon the roads, being still in
+the Saguntine domain, and they passed cultivated and fruitful fields,
+beautiful villas and compact little towns clinging close around the
+tower which served them as defense. When night closed in they camped
+close to a miserable village in the mountains. There the territory of
+Saguntum ended. Beyond lay the tribes which were almost constantly
+warring with the people of the coast.
+
+Next morning the Greek beheld a wholly different landscape. The sea and
+the green plains lay behind him, and he saw only mountains and more
+mountains, some covered with great pine forests, others red, with bluffs
+of bluish stone, overgrown with dense thickets which, brushed by the
+passing caravan, sent forth clouds of frightened birds, while terrified
+rabbits scampered under the very horses' hoofs.
+
+The trails were not the work of man. The beasts laboriously picked their
+way in the tracks left by former travelers; they often twisted around
+masses of rock fallen from the summits, and again they forded streams
+which ran across their path. They skirted mountains; they climbed
+heights into a silent region seldom penetrated by man, where eagles
+screamed, flapping their wings in anger at this invasion. They rode down
+into gorges, deep crevices, in which reigned a sepulchral penumbra and
+where buzzards hopped close by the dead body of some abandoned animal.
+
+In the distance they saw beside a stream in a little valley, a group of
+mud-walled cabins with straw-thatched roofs, with an open hole to let
+light into the dwelling and to give exit to the smoke. The women, bony
+and dressed in skins, surrounded by naked children, came out of their
+hovels to stare at the passing caravan, with wild expressions of alarm
+as if the approach of strangers could only bring misfortune. Others
+younger, barelegged, with ragged aprons hanging from their waists, were
+reaping the stunted wheat, which barely rose like a golden film above
+the sterile, whitish earth. Girls, strong and ugly, with masculine
+limbs, came down from the mountains, bearing great bundles of fagots on
+their backs, while the men sat in the shade of nut and oak trees
+braiding bull-tendons for making their shields, or they practiced
+hurling, darts and handling the lance, their tangled hair falling over
+bronzed and bearded faces.
+
+On the highest points along the way appeared warriors of doubtful
+aspect, a mixture of bandit and shepherd, armed with long lances and
+carrying leather shields, mounted on small horses with long and filthy
+hair. They looked the company over, and after measuring its strength,
+and seeing it would be difficult to conquer, they turned back to their
+sheep pasturing in the deep mountain gorges filled with a tangle of
+shrubbery. The innumerable flocks of lambs and herds of cattle,
+accustomed to the wild solitude, fled terrified as they heard the
+passing of the caravan. Bevies of quail ran in search of food like gray
+ants among the rosemary and thyme growing on the slopes, and flew away
+at the sound of the horses' hoofs, whirring like a hiss over the
+travelers' heads.
+
+Act�on was interested in the rude customs of these people. The cabins
+were made of red adobe, or of stones laid in clay, and roofed with
+branches. The women, uglier and more energetic than the men, performed
+the fatiguing labor. Only boys worked, imitating their mothers. Young
+men early grasped the lance, and under the direction of their elders
+learned to fight on foot or on horseback; they broke the colts,
+springing to the ground, and mounting again while the horse was running,
+and they trained themselves to remain kneeling motionless on the horses'
+backs with their arms free to wield the sword and shield.
+
+In some villages the party was received with traditional hospitality,
+and was welcomed even more affectionately on recognizing Alorcus, the
+heir of Endovellicus, the respected chieftain of the tribes of Baraeco
+which had pastured their flocks for centuries on the banks of the Jal�n.
+When night came they gave up to them their best beds of woven thongs
+covered with fluffy dried grasses; they impaled a calf on a spit,
+turning it before an enormous bonfire, for regaling the caravan, and
+during the journey the women detained them at the entrance to their
+huts, offering them in coarse earthen vessels the bitter beer brewed in
+the valleys, and the bread made of acorn flour.
+
+Alorcus explained the customs of his people to the Athenian. They
+gathered acorns, their chief food, exposing them to the sun until well
+dried. They husked and ground them, and stored the supply of flour for
+six months. This bread, with game, and the milk of their animals,
+constituted their principal food. At intervals pestilence robbed them of
+their flocks, the crops failed, and hunger decimated the tribes; then
+the strong devoured the weak. Alorcus remembered hearing this from the
+elders of his tribe as having occurred in remote times when Neton,
+Autubel, Nabi, and other divinities of the land, irritated against their
+people, had sent upon them these fearful punishments.
+
+The young Celtiberian continued telling of the customs. Some of the
+women who worked in the fields with so much vigor had perhaps given
+birth to a child the day before. As soon as born they immersed it in the
+nearest river, so that by this act, which in many cases caused death, it
+would grow vigorous and insensible to cold; and while the mother
+resolutely arose and continued her work, the husband took her place in
+the bed, lying down with the newly born child. The woman, still barely
+convalescent, took care of the two, surrounding the hale and hearty
+husband with comforts, as if in gratitude for the fruit he had given
+her.
+
+Several times the caravan on its march passed men lying rigid and
+groaning on couches of herbs gathered by the wayside. Flies buzzed about
+their heads in clouds; an amphora of water stood within their reach. A
+child squatted near the couch brushing away the insects with a branch.
+They were sick people whom their relatives exposed by the roadside
+according to ancient custom, partly to implore the clemency of the
+divinities by exhibiting their misery, and also in order that passing
+travelers might advise a remedy, thus transmitting prescriptions from
+distant countries.
+
+The strong men bathed in horse urine to harden their muscles. Their only
+luxury consisted in weapons. They admired as priceless jewels the bronze
+swords brought from the north of the Peninsula, and those of steel made
+by the people of Bilbilis and tempered in the sands of their famous
+river. The flexible cuirasses, formed by several thicknesses of
+superposed linen, or those of leather, decorated with nails, were
+defensive arms which the Celtiberian never laid aside, not even when in
+bed. They slept dressed in the sagum, the metal greaves on their legs,
+and their weapons within reach of the hand, ready to fight the instant
+the slightest alarm might disturb their sleep.
+
+After three days of travel the caravan entered the territory belonging
+to the tribes of Alorcus. The mountains separated on both sides of the
+Jal�n, forming smiling valleys covered by tall grasses, through which
+ran herds of wild horses with curling manes and waving tails. The women
+came out of the villages to greet Alorcus, and the men, grasping lances,
+mounted their horses and joined the caravan. In the first village where
+they stopped an old man told Alorcus that his father, the powerful
+Endovellicus, was dying, and in the next through which they passed in a
+few hours, he heard that the great chieftain had died at daybreak.
+
+All the warriors of the tribe, herders and farmers, followed them on
+horseback. When they reached the village where the kinglet had lived,
+the escort had grown to a small army.
+
+In the doorway of the paternal house, a low structure of red stones
+roofed with logs, Alorcus saw his sisters in dresses made of flowers and
+wearing around their necks and over their heads cage-like collars from
+the bars of which hung mourning veils.
+
+The sisters of Alorcus, as well as the women who accompanied them, the
+wives of the chief warriors of the tribe, hid their grief at the death
+of the chieftain, and smiled as if it were the eve of a festival. Old
+age was a disgrace among the Celtiberians, who held life in contempt,
+and fought for diversion when not engaged in war. To die in bed was
+deemed dishonorable, and the only thing which somewhat disturbed the
+serenity of the family of Endovellicus was that so famous a warrior, the
+terror of neighboring clans, should have died with white hair, his life
+flickering out like a wasted torch, after having galloped his steed
+through so many combats, hurling his sword like a thunderbolt upon the
+enemy.
+
+Act�on's dress and his countenance attracted the curious gaze of all the
+tribe. Many of the Celtiberians had never seen a Greek, and they looked
+upon this one with hostile eyes, recalling the clever tricks and sharp
+dealings of the Hellenic merchants experienced by their brethren when
+they went down to Saguntum to sell silver from the mines.
+
+Alorcus reassured his people.
+
+"He is my brother," he said, in the language of the country. "We have
+dwelt together in Saguntum. Besides, he is not a native of that city. He
+is from very far away, from a land where the men are almost gods, and he
+has journeyed hither with me to become acquainted with you."
+
+The women gazed at Act�on in astonishment on hearing the almost divine
+origin which Alorcus attributed to him.
+
+The members of the caravan had dismounted, and entered the immense log
+structure which had served the chief for a palace. A vast room blackened
+by smoke, lighted only by narrow apertures like loopholes, served as a
+place of reunion and council for the warriors of the tribe. At one end
+was an enormous stone, upon which was burning a wood fire, while a great
+opening in the roof did service as a chimney. Set in one wall was a
+stone slab, with the figure of the divinity of the tribe strangling two
+lions rudely sculptured upon it. Hung along the walls were lances and
+shields, skins of wild beasts, bleached craniums and twisted horns of
+large game. A stone bench ran along the sides of the room making way
+near the fireplace for a high masonry seat covered by a bear skin. Here
+the chieftain was accustomed to sit.
+
+The warriors took their places on the bench as they entered.
+
+One old man taking Alorcus by the hand, guided him to a place of honor.
+
+"Sit here, son of Endovellicus. You are his only heir and you shall be
+our chief. May his valor and his prudence dwell in you."
+
+The other warriors assented to the elder's words with grave nods of
+approval.
+
+"Where is my father's body?" asked Alorcus, filled with emotion by the
+simple ceremony.
+
+"Since the sun set it has slept in the meadow where you learned to break
+horses and to use arms. The young men of the tribe are keeping guard
+over it. The obsequies worthy of so great a chief will take place at
+sunrise. Then, as our new king, you will give us counsel upon the great
+affairs of the tribe."
+
+Alorcus compelled the Greek to sit beside him. The women filed in with
+torches, since no more than a dim twilight was produced by the pale,
+diffused glow filtering through the narrow slits in the wall. The
+sisters of Alorcus, with lowered eyes, their flowery tunics floating
+about their strong, virginal forms, passed before the warriors, offering
+drinking horns filled with metheglin and beer. The men imbibed
+enormously without losing self-control. They recounted the deeds of
+Endovellicus as if he had died many years before, and they told of the
+great enterprises in which his successor would surely lead them hinting
+again and again, in mysterious words, at a subject with which they must
+deal in the council on the morrow.
+
+Supper was brought. The Celtiberians were not accustomed to eating at
+table like the people of the coast. They remained seated on the stone
+bench. The women placed beside them a wheaten loaf, instead of the acorn
+bread which was commonly eaten, this being an extraordinary feast.
+Others passed a great vessel filled with chunks of roasted meat still
+dripping blood, and each warrior speared a piece with the point of his
+knife. Horns overflowing with liquor circulated from hand to hand, and
+Act�on accepted with graceful mien whatever his neighbors, in hospitable
+phrase which he could not understand, offered him.
+
+Supper being ended, the young men of the tribe came in with trumpets and
+flutes, and began to play a bizarre air which combined the joy of the
+chase with the fury of their charge upon the enemy in battle. The
+guests were aroused, and the youngest among them, springing into the
+centre of the room, began to dance with gymnastic freedom. It was the
+dance with which the Celtiberians terminated their banquets, a violent
+exercise which put their muscles to the test, and caused them to regain
+their spirit even in moments of greatest depression.
+
+Long before midnight the warriors retired, leaving Alorcus and Act�on
+alone in the great smoke-filled room, where sputtered the torches,
+tingeing the barbaric decorations on the walls with a blood-like hue.
+They slept on couches of aromatic herbs, without removing their
+clothing, their weapons near them, as slept all the tribe, ever fearful
+of attack from neighbors tempted by the multitude of their flocks.
+
+At daybreak they went down to the meadow where the body of Endovellicus
+was exposed. The whole tribe was gathered on the plain near the river;
+the young men on horseback with their lances, and in full armor; the old
+men seated in the shade of the oak trees; the women and children near
+the pyre of logs upon which lay the corpse of their chief.
+
+Endovellicus was arrayed in his war costume. His faded hair escaped
+beneath the borders of his triple-crested helmet; his silvery beard
+rested upon a cuirass of bronze scales; his muscular arms were naked,
+and his hands were clasped over the Celtiberian sword, short and
+slender, with broadened point, and his legs were bound by the broad
+straps of his sandals. His shield, engraved with a representation of the
+gods of the tribe struggling with two lions, served as a cushion for his
+head.
+
+When the two young men arrived the same elder who had spoken to Alorcus
+the day before advanced. He was the wisest of the tribe, and had
+counselled Endovellicus many times before undertaking audacious
+expeditions. Under extraordinary circumstances he had laid open with his
+sacred knife the viscera of his prisoners to read the future in the
+quiverings of their entrails. Again he had cut off the hands of the
+conquered to dedicate them to the god of the tribe, nailing them to the
+chieftain's door to placate the divinity. Mystery used him as a
+mouthpiece and all the tribe regarded him with awe and fear, as if he
+were capable of changing the course of the sun and of destroying in a
+night the crops of an enemy.
+
+"Advance, son of Endovellicus!" he said solemnly. "Look upon your people
+who choose you as most valiant and most worthy to succeed your father!"
+
+He questioned the assemblage with a look, and the warriors answered by
+beating on their shields, uttering the same shouts with which they
+infuriated themselves on plunging into battle.
+
+"You have become our king!" continued the elder. "You shall be father
+and guardian of your people! That you may fulfill your mission receive
+the great inheritance of your father! Bring hither the shield."
+
+Two young men climbed to the top of the pyre, and raising Endovellicus'
+head, they brought down the shield engraved with the image of the god,
+and delivered it to Alorcus.
+
+"With this shield," continued the venerable warrior, "you shall protect
+your people from the blows of the enemy. Bring hither the sword!"
+
+The young men brought down the sword, drawing it forth from the stiff
+fingers of Endovellicus.
+
+"Bind it upon you, Alorcus," continued the wizard. "With this you shall
+defend us, and may it fall like a thunderbolt wherever the destiny of
+your people points! Advance, youthful king!"
+
+Guided by the elder, Alorcus stepped forward to the pyre upon which his
+father lay. He turned away his face that he might not behold the body,
+fearing an outburst of grief which would force him to shed tears before
+his tribe.
+
+"Swear by Neton, by Autubel, by Nabi, by Caulece, by all the gods of our
+tribe, and of all the tribes that people this earth and hate the
+foreigners who one day came from across the sea to rob us of our riches.
+Swear to be faithful to your people and ever to obey the counsels of the
+warriors of your tribe! Swear it by the body of your father, which soon
+will be only ashes!"
+
+Alorcus took the oath, and the warriors pounded upon their shields
+again, uttering acclamations of joy.
+
+The old warrior, with extraordinary vigor, climbed upon the logs and
+searched beneath the cuirass of the corpse.
+
+"Take this, Alorcus!" he said, on descending. He handed the new
+chieftain a slender copper chain from which hung a disk-like case of the
+same metal. "This is the greatest inheritance from your father--the
+manumission which accompanied him at all times. There is not a warrior
+in Celtiberia who does not carry upon his person his poison so that he
+may die rather than become the slave of the conqueror. I prepared this
+for your father. I spent a whole moon extracting it from the wild
+apium, and one drop of it will kill like a lightning flash. If some day
+you fall vanquished, drink and die before your people behold their
+chieftain with a hand stricken off and serving the enemy as a slave."
+
+Alorcus slipped the chain over his head, concealing the heirloom in his
+breast. Then he returned to Act�on, beneath the oaks where the ancients
+of the tribe were grouped.
+
+The young men in the meadow, apprentices in the art of warfare, ran
+around the pyre with lighted torches. The flaming candlewood licked the
+resinous logs, and soon the smoke and flames began to enwrap the corpse.
+
+The warriors most famous for valor and strength advanced, making their
+horses caracole round about the fire.
+
+Waving their lances, they proclaimed with hoarse cries the deeds of the
+departed chief, the body of the tribe joining in the acclamation. They
+related the innumerable combats from which he had come forth victor; the
+audacious expeditions on which he had caught the enemy off their guard
+at night, burning their dwellings, and leading off interminable strings
+of captives; the flocks captured, for which there was barely
+pasture-ground in the territories belonging to the tribe; his colossal
+strength; the quickness with which he mastered the wildest colt; and the
+prudence which he demonstrated in all his counsels.
+
+"He covered the doors of our houses with the hands of our enemies,"
+shouted a warrior, galloping like a phantom through the smoke of the
+funeral pyre.
+
+The multitude shouted with an intonation of lament.
+
+"Endovellicus! Endovellicus!"
+
+"All the tribes feared him, and his name was respected like that of a
+god!"
+
+The multitude repeated the name of the chief over and over, as if
+weeping.
+
+"With his hands of stone he would fell the bull in full career, and
+smite off the head of the enemy with a stroke of his sword!"
+
+"Endovellicus! Endovellicus!"
+
+Thus proceeded the last rites to the chieftain. The flames from the bier
+rose straight into the heavens clouding the blue sky with its pall of
+smoke, and the mourners tireless in heralding the deeds of their leader,
+passed and repassed like black demons crowned with sparks, making their
+horses leap over the flaming wood. The funeral pyre fell overwhelming
+the remains of Endovellicus with ashes and charring logs, while around
+the embers of the fire commenced the combat in honor of the dead.
+
+The warriors advanced on horseback with slack rein, the shield held
+before the breast, the sword raised high, and they fought like
+irreconcilable enemies. The closest comrades, brothers at arms, dealt
+each other tremendous blows, with the enthusiasm of a people which turns
+fighting into a diversion. They must shed blood to glorify the memory of
+the deceased with greater pomp. Horses fell at the shock of the
+encounter and the riders continued the struggle on foot, wrestling body
+to body, making the shields resound with the force of the blows. When
+some of the warriors had retired covered with blood, and the combat had
+assumed the character of a general battle, in which, aroused by the
+spectacle, the women and children participated, Alorcus ordered the
+trumpets to sound the retreat, and he hurled himself among the
+combatants to separate the more tenacious.
+
+Thus ended the funeral rites. The slaves of the tribe flung the remnants
+of the bonfire into a ditch, and the crowd, seeing the festival over,
+before retiring to their villages, held aloft once more their horns
+brimming with beer, to drink to the honor of the new-made king.
+
+The principal warriors turned toward the dwelling of the chief to hold
+council.
+
+The Athenian traveled beside Alorcus, manifesting astonishment at the
+barbaric and warlike customs of the Celtiberians. As he could not
+understand their language, the warriors were not alarmed at seeing him
+take a seat in the council hall near their new chieftain.
+
+The wizard discoursed at length to Alorcus, amid the respectful silence
+of the warriors. Act�on understood that he was giving an account of
+extraordinary events which had occurred in the tribe a few days before
+the arrival of the new king. Perhaps some call from friendly tribes,
+some fruitful expedition planned by the more venturesome.
+
+He saw the face of Alorcus darken, as if they were telling him something
+painful, repugnant to his feelings. The assemblage looked at him
+fixedly, betraying in their eyes enthusiasm and agreement with the old
+man's words. Alorcus recovered his composure, listening calmly to the
+wizard, and when the latter ceased talking, after a long pause, he spoke
+a few words and with his head made a gesture of assent.
+
+His rude countrymen received the chieftain's acceptance with ardor, and
+rushed from the house in vehement haste to carry the news to those
+outside.
+
+When the Greek and the Celtiberian were left alone, the latter said
+sadly:
+
+"Act�on, to-morrow I set out with my people. I begin to serve as
+chieftain of the tribe. I must lead it to combat."
+
+"May I accompany you?"
+
+"No. I know not where we are going. My father had a powerful ally whom I
+dare not name to you, and this ally calls me without saying why. The
+whole tribe displays tremendous enthusiasm for this expedition."
+
+After a pause Alorcus added:
+
+"You are welcome to stay here as long as you wish. My sisters will obey
+you as if you were Alorcus himself."
+
+"No; since you will not be here, nothing remains for me to do. I have
+seen enough in one day to know the Celtiberians. I will return to
+Saguntum."
+
+"Happy man, who can return to the Grecian life, to S�nnica's banquets,
+to the sweet peace of those merchants! May it never be disturbed, and
+may I be able to return there as a friend!"
+
+The two preserved a long silence, as if black thoughts were whirling
+through their minds.
+
+"You will return from this expedition loaded down with riches," said the
+Greek, "and you will come back to Saguntum to spend them joyously."
+
+"May it be thus!" murmured Alorcus. "But I feel a presentiment that we
+shall never meet again, Act�on; or, if we meet, it will be to curse the
+gods that we should ever have known each other. I go ignorant of my
+destination, and perhaps I must march against what I most love."
+
+They said no more; they feared to give expression to their thoughts.
+
+Greek and Celtiberian embraced tenderly. Then, after a sorrowful
+farewell, they kissed each other on the eyes in sign of fraternal
+friendship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+INVASION
+
+
+S�nnica feared that she had lost Act�on forever. His sudden departure
+seemed the caprice of a fickle Athenian--of an eternal wanderer, driven
+by the fever of seeing new lands. Only the gods could tell where that
+bird of passage might fly after his visit to Celtiberia! Perhaps he
+would remain with Alorcus; perhaps he would go to war along with those
+barbarians; perhaps, captivated by his knowledge and cleverness, they
+would go so far as to give him a kingdom.
+
+S�nnica doubted that the Athenian would ever return. Her short
+springtime of love had been like the fugitive joy of the women adored by
+the gods when they had come down to earth. She who used to be so
+unfeeling as to mock at affection, now spent the days weeping on her
+couch, or wandering by night like a shade through the gardens, stopping
+in the grotto where the Greek had given her his first caress. The slaves
+wondered at the harsh and capricious temper of their mistress, who one
+moment groaned like a child, and the next, as if fired with sudden
+cruelty, ordered punishments for them all; but, without warning, Act�on
+presented himself before her villa one morning, riding a dusty, sweaty
+horse. He dismissed the ferocious featured barbarians who had served him
+as bodyguard, and ran with outstretched arms toward the tremulous
+S�nnica. The whole of her immense dominions seemed resuscitated; the
+mistress smiled; the garden bloomed more beautifully; on the terrace
+shone the plumage of the rare birds with greater splendor; the
+instruments of the flute players sounded more joyful, and to the slaves,
+freed now from punishment, the air seemed sweeter and the sky more blue.
+
+S�nnica's villa reawoke to its merry life, as if its owner had risen
+from the dead. The nights were devoted to feasting in the great
+triclinium; S�nnica's friends, the young gallants, accepted her
+invitations, and even Euphobias, the philosopher, reached his place at
+the table without having to fight his way through the blows of her
+slaves.
+
+S�nnica was radiant, clinging to Act�on and listening to his words as to
+sweet music. The guests urged him to relate the story of his adventures
+among the Celtiberians, wondering at the customs of the tribes over
+which Alorcus reigned. Euphobias, the parasite, did not conceal his
+satisfaction at possessing so powerful a friend, and he declared that he
+would go to his kingdom to live awhile in comfort, without having to beg
+his bread from the merchants of Saguntum. Love's springtime returned for
+the Athenian. He spent his days at the villa, lying at S�nnica's feet,
+watching her spin the bright colored wool from the distaff or give the
+finishing touches to her toilette, assisted by her slaves. At the close
+of day they strolled through the garden, and night surprised them in the
+grotto, in fond embrace, listening to the song of the water falling into
+the alabaster basin with sweet, monotonous melody.
+
+Now and again Act�on went to the city in the morning to stroll through
+the porticos of the Forum listening to the newsmongers with the
+curiosity of a Greek accustomed to the grumblings in the Agora. He
+noticed extraordinary stir in the great Saguntine market-square. The
+idle talked of war; the more bellicose recounted with exaggeration their
+achievements on the last expedition against the Turdetani, and the
+tranquil merchants left their counters to ask for news, accepting with
+gestures of despair the possibility of a coming struggle. As Act�on came
+into Saguntum he saw on the wall hundreds of slaves repairing the
+merlons worn by time, and filled with cracks which many years of peace
+had opened in them.
+
+Mopsus, the archer, put him in touch with the deliberations of the
+elders. Hannibal had sent an emissary with an ultimatum to return to the
+Turdetani the conquered territories and the booty taken during their
+last expedition. The African threatened with insufferable arrogance, and
+the Saguntine Republic had answered with scorn, refusing to listen to
+his commands. Saguntum would only obey its strong ally Rome, and, secure
+in her protection, she looked with indifference upon the threats of the
+Carthaginian. However, as war seemed inevitable, and as all stood in
+fear of the youth and audacious character of Hannibal, two senators had
+embarked some days before at the port of Saguntum, setting sail for the
+coasts of Italy to relate what had taken place, soliciting the
+protection of the Roman Senate.
+
+This news circulated confusedly through the Forum, and the crowd jested
+at Hannibal as an impetuous youth who needed a lesson. He might come
+against Saguntum whenever he wished. These Carthaginians were the very
+same who had been driven out of Sicily, the same who had been compelled
+to abandon the coasts of Magna Grecia, being expelled by the Romans, who
+had then raised their own city beside the ruin! If they had achieved
+victories afterward in Iberia it was only against barbarian tribes
+ignorant of the art of warfare, who fell victims to their cunning! When
+they attacked Saguntum they would encounter a worthier enemy, and Rome,
+the powerful ally, would fall upon their rear and exterminate them!
+
+These ideas infuriated the city.
+
+News came that Hannibal had set forth upon his campaign and was slowly
+approaching, and with such tidings a gust of war seemed to sweep over
+Saguntum inflaming the minds of the most prudent. The peace-loving
+merchants with the mute choler of pacific-minded men who see their
+possessions endangered, stood in the doorways of their shops cleaning
+the rust from old arms, or they went down to the river bank to practise
+using them, mingling with the young men, who, since sunrise, had been
+making their horses caracole, gaining skill in the management of the
+lance, or improving themselves in archery under the direction of Mopsus.
+
+Act�on now began to spend his days away from the villa, deaf to the
+prayers of S�nnica, who longed to have him ever near her. The Senate had
+given him command of the peltasts, the light infantry, and at the head
+of some hundreds of young men, barefooted and with no other defensive
+arm than a cuirass of wool and a shield of osiers, he ran along the
+river bank, teaching them to hurl darts without stopping in their race,
+to wound an enemy as they passed swiftly by his side, without giving
+him time to respond with another blow.
+
+This exercise over, the perspiring youths dived into the river to
+refresh themselves with a swim, while the Greek slowly returned to the
+villa, lingering in the most smiling spots of the domain.
+
+One afternoon the Athenian met Erotion, the potter, at the foot of an
+enormous cherry tree, gazing into the tallest branches, from which fell
+a shower of red fruit shaken down by an invisible hand. They had not met
+since the day when Act�on surprised him modeling before the nude
+shepherdess.
+
+The youth greeted the Greek with a smile.
+
+"Are you no longer busy?" asked Act�on with paternal kindness. "Have you
+finished your work?"
+
+The boy answered with a gesture of indifference: "My work! Do not laugh
+at me, Greek. I have nothing to do."
+
+"And where is Rhanto?"
+
+"She is in the top of that tree, gathering the finest cherries for me.
+She climbs like a wood-nymph and she will not let me go with her. She is
+afraid I shall hurt myself."
+
+The branches of the cherry tree shook, and the shepherdess descended,
+agile as a squirrel, her limbs bare, her skirt gathered up and filled
+with cherries. She and her lover devoured them amid laughter, their lips
+ruddy with the crimson fruit-juice, and they decorated each other's hair
+or hung yokes of cherries over their ears, forming picturesque
+ruby-colored earrings.
+
+Act�on smiled at the strong, handsome young folks who ever sought each
+other's company and frolicked as if they were in the heart of the
+desert, giving no heed to the danger threatening the city.
+
+"But what about your art?" he asked.
+
+Erotion and Rhanto laughed at the recollection.
+
+"I smashed the figure to pieces," said the boy. "I broke the clay into
+fragments, and I have decided to touch no other than that in the
+pottery--when I make up my mind to return there."
+
+He flung his arms around the shepherdess and rested his head upon her
+shoulder, rubbing his cheek against her neck with an almost feline
+caress.
+
+"Why should I work?" he added. "I spent many days kneeling before that
+accursed clay, struggling to make it take on the form of her body; but
+it is useless. Clay is clay, and it cannot become living substance. When
+the soft flesh of my Rhanto is within reach of my hand, it is folly to
+grow desperate trying to mold earth into a semblance of her life. I wish
+to dream no more, Athenian. I will be content with what I have."
+
+With sublime indifference he caressed his playmate in Act�on's presence.
+
+"One day," continued the boy, "I saw clearly, and I understood the
+truth. Rhanto stood before me. Blinded by ambition I had seen in her
+only the model, but that day I beheld the woman. Why seek glory when I
+had love before me! Even though I should mould a great statue, what
+should I gain? That people should say, after I am dead, 'Erotion the
+Saguntine made this.' I should not hear it--after having spent my life
+working and suffering. No; let us live and love. That day I kicked the
+statue to pieces, and I embraced Rhanto with an enthusiasm of joy.
+Loving each other is better than wasting time over clay puppets. Is not
+that so, Rhanto?"
+
+They kissed each other again, heedless of the presence of the Greek.
+Act�on observed a transformation in the pair, both in the frank devotion
+of the boy, and in the glow in the eyes of the shepherdess. The ardor of
+love seemed to have made him more manly, and to have given her a suave
+and tender grace, a sweet abandon which she had lacked before.
+
+"I have forgotten art, and now we are happy," continued the boy. "It
+would have been madness to have run off to Greece, leaving here a
+treasure which I had not fully appreciated. We spend our time wandering
+through the fields; we know mysterious corners in the groves sheltered
+by curtains of leaves, dark and perfumed hiding places which even
+S�nnica the rich might envy us. When we are hungry we milk Rhanto's
+goats and we rob a beehive; we climb trees in search of fruit; this is
+the glorious season of the year; the whole champaign is full of
+cherries."
+
+He suddenly ceased speaking, fearing lest he had said too much. Perhaps
+Rhanto reproved him with a nudge. Then he added, in a supplicating tone:
+
+"You are good, Athenian. Rhanto and I have looked upon you as an elder
+brother since that day we met you on the Road of the Serpent. Do not say
+anything to my father, nor to S�nnica. Let us be happy in this life of
+ours, which is worthy of the gods."
+
+Act�on envied the felicity of these care-free youths, who loved each
+other frankly, living beneath the trees, strong and beautiful as wild
+creatures who had no thoughts beyond their companionship.
+
+"Saguntum is about to be attacked. War is at our gates. Did you not know
+it?"
+
+"We have not heard of it," said Erotion, with a scornful gesture. "I am
+interested in nothing but Rhanto."
+
+"Are you not interested in the fate of your city?"
+
+"I am more interested in the kisses of my shepherdess. As long as there
+be love, sunshine, and fruits, what does the rest of the world matter to
+me?"
+
+"Have you no thought for your country, you truant?"
+
+"Just now I have no thought for anything but these cherries, and for
+these red lips which are as fresh as they."
+
+They parted, and Act�on long held the memory of the meeting. The
+light-heartedness of the loving couple filled him with envy.
+
+The summer months passed. The vines of the domain ripened their
+clusters, the farmers rejoiced in the prospect of the coming crop hidden
+beneath the leaves, but from time to time, like a gloomy trumpet blast,
+came news of Hannibal, of his victories over the tribes of the interior
+who refused to recognize him, and of his imperious demands upon
+Saguntum.
+
+Act�on scented the nearness of war, and this, which had ever been his
+principal occupation, now caused him only sorrow. He had grown to love
+this beautiful land as dearly as Greece. His soul, saturated with the
+sweet peace of the fertile fields, and of the rich industrious city, was
+saddened at the thought that this life was to be paralyzed. His
+existence had been spent amid struggles and adventures; and now, rich
+and happy, when he longed for peace in a corner where he hoped to end
+his days, war, like a forgotten mistress who presents herself
+inopportunely, returned unbidden, forcing him anew to cruelty and
+destruction.
+
+One afternoon, at the end of summer, he was pondering these things as he
+was riding toward the city. In the oblique rays of the sun the
+industrious bees, searching out the wild flowers, glistened like golden
+buttons. The vintagers were singing in the vineyards, stooping over
+their baskets. Act�on saw one of the slaves whom S�nnica kept in her
+warehouses in Saguntum come running from the direction of the city.
+
+He stopped panting before Act�on. He was almost speechless from fatigue,
+and his broken words revealed his alarm. Hannibal was coming from the
+direction of S�tabis! The people from the country were crowding into the
+city in terror, driving their flocks before them. They had not seen the
+invader but they ran, horrified by the tales of the fugitives who were
+fleeing from the frontiers of the Saguntine territory. The Carthaginians
+had crossed the border; they were people of ferocious aspect, who bore
+strange arms, who looted the villages, and set them on fire. He was
+running to tell his mistress that she might take refuge in the city.
+
+He rushed on toward S�nnica's villa. The Greek hesitated a moment; he
+deliberated whether he should go back in search of his beloved, but he
+ended by setting out on a gallop toward the city, and as he neared it,
+he rode at full speed around the walls. He went for a look at the
+highway from the mountains which gave Saguntum communication with the
+towns by a branch which led to S�tatis and Denia. As he approached he
+began to meet the refugees of whom the slave had told him.
+
+They flooded the road like an inundation. The flocks and herds were
+bleating and lowing under the lash, crowding in between the wagons;
+women were running, carrying great bundles on their heads, and dragging
+along the children clutching at the folds of their tunics; boys were
+driving horses laden with furniture and clothing thrown together
+haphazard in the precipitation of flight, and ewes leaped to the sides
+of the road to escape the wheels which, catching their dragging fleece,
+almost crushed them.
+
+The Greek, riding into the stream of fugitives, opened passage with his
+horse through the seething wave of wagons and animals, rustics and
+slaves, in which people of different towns were confusedly mingled,
+while members of scattered families were calling to one another
+desperately through the clouds of dust.
+
+The fleeing multitude was clearing away. Act�on was beginning to meet
+the stragglers; poor old women traveling with vacillating step, bearing
+on their shoulders some lamb which constituted their entire fortune; old
+men crushed by the weight of pots and clothing; sick people dragging
+themselves along by the aid of a staff; abandoned animals wandering
+among the olive trees near the highway, that suddenly darted forward at
+full speed through the fields as if scenting their masters; children
+seated on a stone weeping, abandoned by their kindred.
+
+Soon the road was empty. The last of the refugees were left behind, and
+Act�on saw before him only the narrow tongue of red earth winding along
+the mountain slopes, without a solitary being to break the monotony of
+the road with his shadow.
+
+The gallop of his horse resounded like distant thunder through the
+profound silence. It seemed as if Nature had expired as she guessed the
+approach of war. Even the ancient trees, the twisted olives which had
+stood for centuries, the great fig trees which rose like green cupolas
+against the mountain slopes, remained motionless, as if terrified at the
+approach of that something which caused the people to abandon their
+homes and to flee into the city.
+
+Act�on rode through a village. Closed doors! Silent streets! From the
+interior of a cabin he thought he heard a faint groan--some sick person
+forsaken by his kindred in their haste to escape. Then he passed a great
+closed villa. Behind the high mud walls a dog was howling in despair.
+
+Then once more solitude, silence, absence of life, a paralysis that
+seemed to creep over the fields. Night began to fall. From afar, as if
+diffused and mellowed by the distance, he heard a muffled booming;
+something like the surging of an invisible sea, the swelling roar of an
+inundation.
+
+The Greek left the road; his horse began to climb a cultivated hill, his
+hoofs sinking into the red soil of the vineyards. From the height he
+could dominate the landscape for a great distance.
+
+The sun's last rays dyed the mountain slopes a brilliant orange. On the
+winding red road shone like a rivulet of sparks the cuirasses of a group
+of horsemen approaching cautiously on a trot, as if exploring the way.
+Act�on recognized them; they were the Numidian cavalry with white and
+floating mantles, while, mingled with them galloped other warriors of
+less imposing stature, waving lances and making their small horses
+caracole. The Greek smiled as he recognized Hannibal's Amazons, the
+famous squadron he had seen in New Carthage, formed of the wives and
+daughters of soldiers, commanded by the valorous Asbyte, daughter of
+Iarbas, the Garamantan of Fezzan.
+
+Behind this group, the road was deserted for some distance. Against the
+background, like a dark monster moving with serpentine undulations,
+loomed the army, an immense girdle upon which glittered the lances like
+a line of fire broken at intervals by square bulks, which advanced like
+moving towers. These were the elephants.
+
+Suddenly a new sun seemed to rise behind the army, illuminating its
+footsteps. A lurid light filled the horizon, and upon this ruddy
+background the serrated outlines of an immense mass were traced. A
+village was in flames. Hannibal's troops, composed of mercenaries from
+all countries, and from barbarian tribes in the interior, intended to
+terrify the hostile city, hence immediately upon entering Saguntine
+territory they laid waste the fields and set fire to the dwellings.
+Act�on feared to become surrounded by the Numidians and the Amazons, and
+riding down from the height he started toward Saguntum at a desperate
+gallop.
+
+It was after dark when he reached the city, and he had to call his
+friend Mopsus and make himself known before the gate would open to him.
+
+"Have you seen them?" asked the archer.
+
+"Before the cock crows they will be before our walls."
+
+The city presented an extraordinary aspect. The streets were
+illuminated with bonfires. Pine torches burned in doorways and windows,
+and the multitude of fugitives huddled in the public squares, filling
+the porticos, and lying on the thresholds. All the Saguntines had
+streamed into the city.
+
+The Forum was a camp. The flocks and herds were crowded between the four
+colonnades without space to move, stamping and bellowing; sheep sprang
+about on the steps of the temples; families of rustics boiled pots on
+the Attic bases of the marble columns, and the glow of so many fires,
+flickering on the fa�ades of the houses, seemed to communicate a thrill
+of alarm to the entire city. The magistrates ordered the fugitives lying
+in the streets obstructing traffic to get up, and lodged them in the
+slaves' quarters of the dwellings of the rich, or had them conducted to
+the Acropolis to camp in its innumerable buildings. The herds also were
+driven thither by the light of torches, between a double row of almost
+naked men who beat the oxen when they tried to escape down the sides of
+the sacred mountain.
+
+Rising above the murmur of the multitude sounded blasts from trumpets
+and conch shells calling the citizens to form ready for defending the
+walls. Merchants, dressed in bronze loricas, their faces covered by the
+Grecian helmet crested with an enormous brush of horsehair, issued from
+their houses, tearing themselves from the arms of wives and children,
+and strode majestically through the crowds of rustics, bow in hand,
+their spears over their shoulders, and their swords clanking against
+their nude thighs, their limbs covered to the knees with the copper
+greaves. The young men dragged to the walls enormous stones to hurl
+down upon the besiegers, and they laughed on being assisted by the
+women who were eager to take part in the combat. Old men with venerable
+beards, rich members of the Senate, opened passage, followed by slaves
+with great bundles of spears and swords, distributing the arms among the
+strongest country people, first making sure if they were freemen.
+
+The city seemed to rejoice. Hannibal was coming! The more enthusiastic
+had actually been anxious lest the African would not dare to present
+himself before their walls; but there he was, and all laughed, thinking
+that Carthage would perish in the fall of Hannibal here at the feet of
+Saguntum, as soon as Rome should rally to the aid of the city.
+
+The Saguntine ambassadors were already in Rome, and her legions would
+soon arrive and crush the besiegers at a blow. Some, in their
+enthusiastic optimism, inclined to the marvelous, believing that, by a
+miracle of the gods, the great deed would happen within a few hours, and
+that as soon as day should dawn, at the very instant when Hannibal's
+army had begun to invest Saguntum, a countless galaxy of sails would
+appear on the blue of the Sucronian gulf--the fleet convoying the
+invincible veterans of Rome.
+
+Nearly the entire city was on the walls. The multitude crowded upon them
+until many had to catch hold of the merlons to keep from falling.
+
+Outside the ramparts darkness reigned absolute. The frogs that inhabited
+the pools along the river were hushed as if terrified; the dogs that
+wandered vagabond through the champaign barked ceaselessly; they sensed
+the presence of hidden beings moving in the shadows surrounding the
+city.
+
+Obscurity augmented the anxious uncertainty of the watchers on the
+walls. Suddenly a point of light pierced the darkness of the plain;
+another and then another flash, in different places at a distance from
+the city. They were torches guiding the steps of the approaching army.
+Before the ruddy spot of light silhouettes of men and horses were seen
+to pass. Far off on the hilltops gleamed bonfires, serving as signals to
+straggling troops.
+
+These lights exasperated the more impatient. Some of the younger men
+could no longer remain inactive, and drawing their bows, began to shoot
+their arrows. Promptly came response from out the darkness. A whistling
+passed over the heads of the crowd, and from the houses near the wall
+some tiles flew off with a crash. Sling-shots from the enemy!
+
+Thus the night passed. When the cocks crowed announcing dawn a great
+part of the multitude had fallen asleep, wearied with straining their
+eyes into the darkness where buzzed the invisible foe.
+
+When the sun rose the Saguntines saw Hannibal's entire army before their
+walls, on the side toward the river. Act�on, as he noted the location of
+the troops, could not repress a smile.
+
+"He well knows the lay of the land. His visit to the city has stood him
+in good stead. Even in the dark he has chosen the only point from which
+Saguntum can be attacked."
+
+The whole side of the mountain was free of besiegers. His army had
+encamped between the river and the lower part of the city, occupying the
+orchards, the gardens of the villas, the beautiful section of which the
+rich of Saguntum were so proud.
+
+Soldiers came and went through the luxurious villas, preparing their
+morning meal; they made kindling of sumptuous furniture to light their
+camp fires; they wrapped themselves in garments they had found, and they
+cut down trees to make room for setting up their tents. Across the
+river, over the immense domain, groups of horsemen scattered out to take
+possession of villages, of villas, of the innumerable buildings which
+rose above the verdure of the plain, abandoned to the mercy of the
+enemy.
+
+The first things to attract the attention of the Saguntines, exciting a
+childish curiosity, were the elephants. They stood in a row on the
+opposite side of the river, enormous, ashen-hued, like tumescences
+uprisen from the earth within the night, their green-painted ears
+drooping like fans, from time to time waving their trunks which seemed
+like gigantic leeches, trying to suck in the blue of the sky. Their
+drivers, assisted by the soldiers, unbound the square towers resting on
+their backs, and rolled up the heavy trappings which covered their
+flanks when engaged in battle. They set them free, as if the fertile
+plain were to them an immense stable, their drivers being convinced that
+the siege would be a lengthy undertaking, and that while it lasted they
+would not need the assistance of the terrible beasts, so appreciated in
+battle.
+
+Near the elephants, along the river bank, stood the engines of war, the
+catapults, the battering-rams, the movable towers, complicated
+structures of wood and bronze, drawn by rosaries of double yokes of
+oxen having enormous backward curving horns.
+
+As if suffering from an eruption the fields were covered with pustules
+of diverse colors, tents of cloth, of straw, or of skins, some conical,
+others square, the majority mound-shaped like ant hills, around which
+swarmed the armed multitude.
+
+The Saguntines, from the top of the walls, examined the besieging army
+that seemed to fill the whole plain, and which was being joined by a
+ceaseless stream of new crowds on foot and on horseback, flowing in from
+every road, and seeming to roll down from the crests of the surrounding
+mountains. It was an agglomeration of diverse races, of different
+peoples; a bizarre collection of costumes, colors, and types, and those
+Saguntines who had been taught by travel recognized the different
+nations, and were pointing them out to their absorbed fellow citizens.
+
+Some horsemen who seemed to fly, lying stretched along the backs of
+their swift barbs, were Numidians, Africans of feminine aspect, covered
+with white veils, wearing women's earrings and slippers, perfumed, with
+eyes painted black, but who were impetuous in combat and fought in full
+career using their lances with great skill. Around the camp fires in the
+gardens stalked athletic negroes from Libya, with kinky hair and
+glistening teeth, smiling in stupid satisfaction as they wrapped their
+naked limbs in garments of rich weave which they had just stolen,
+shivering with cold as soon as they drew away from the fire, as if
+suffering martyrdom in the cool morning air. These dark, shiny-skinned
+men, so seldom seen in Saguntum, excited the curiosity of the citizens
+almost as much as the Amazons who audaciously passed on a gallop close
+to the walls to obtain a better view of the city. They were young women,
+slender, their skins bronzed by exposure. Their hair floated behind
+their helmets like a barbaric decoration, and they wore no other
+clothing than a broad tunic open on the left side, displaying sinewy
+limbs clinging to their horses' ribs. Over the breast some wore
+corselets of bronze-scales, also open on the left side to give greater
+freedom in fighting, displaying the roundness of their small breasts
+made firm and hard by fatiguing exercise. They rode their wild nervous
+horses bareback, guiding them with a delicate bridle, and as they
+galloped in groups the ferocious animals bit and kicked each other, thus
+enlivening the desperate race. The Amazons approached close to the
+walls, laughing and hurling insults which the Saguntines did not
+understand; they waved their lances and shields; and when a cloud of
+arrows and stones was flung after them, they dashed away, with
+wind-swept drapery, turning their heads to repeat their mocking
+gestures.
+
+The besieged distinguished in the dark crowd of soldiers the cuirasses
+of certain horsemen which shone like plates of gold. They were the
+Carthaginian captains, some rich men of Carthage who followed Hannibal,
+sons of opulent merchants who marched with the army more like shepherds
+than like chiefs, covered with metal from head to foot for protection
+against blows, and, with the genius of their race, more devoted to
+administering the conquests and in sharing the booty than in seeking
+glory in combat.
+
+In addition to these people, those on the walls who were familiar with
+them pointed out the other troops of the besieging army. Some with skin
+the color of milk, with faded mustaches, and red horsehair tied to the
+crowns of their heads, who laid aside their military cloaks and tall
+boots of untanned leather to bathe in the river, were Gauls. The others,
+bronzed and so thin that their skeletons were outlined as if they would
+push through the skin, were Africans from the oases of the great desert,
+mysterious people, who with the beating of their small drums caused the
+moon to descend, and by playing the flute forced venomous serpents to
+dance. Mingling with them were the bulky Lusitanians, with limbs as
+strong as columns, and broad rock-like chests; those from B�tica, united
+to their horses day and night by a love which lasted all their lives;
+the hostile Celtiberians, bushy-haired and dirty, wearing their rags
+with arrogance; tribes from the North, who worshipped solitary menhirs
+as gods, and in the moonlight sought mysterious herbs for charms and
+philters; men of ferocious customs, in perpetual battle with hunger;
+barbarian people of whom horrifying tales were told, believed to devour
+the bodies of the conquered after a victory.
+
+The Balearic slingers provoked laughter in spite of their ferocious
+aspect. From the walls the observers commented on the extravagant
+customs which prevailed in their island home, and the multitude burst
+into laughter contemplating the almost naked youths, carrying sticks
+with charred points which served them as lances, and having three
+slings, one wound around the forehead, another about the waist, and the
+third held in the hand. One of these slings was of horsehair, one of
+esparto, and the third of bull tendon, and one or the other was used
+according to the distance they had to throw.
+
+They lived on their islands in caves or in the hollow spaces between
+huge masses of rock, and they were taught to use the sling while mere
+children. Their fathers set their bread some distance from them, and
+would not let them eat it until they had brought it down with a pebble.
+Their passion was drunkenness, and woman their strongest appetite. In
+combat they turned with scorn from prisoners who would bring high ransom
+to capture the women, and they not infrequently would exchange six
+strong slave men for a single slave woman. On the islands they were
+unfamiliar with gold and silver; the elders divining the evils of money,
+had prohibited the importation of coins, and the Balearic slingers in
+the service of Carthage, unable to carry their earnings to their
+country, spent their wages in drink or flung them generously into the
+hands of the loose and wretched women who followed the army. Their
+traditional customs amused the Saguntines. At their weddings, so said
+those who had visited the islands, it was customary for all the guests
+to embrace the bride in advance of the husband, and at funerals the
+corpse was beaten until the bones were crushed and converted into a
+shapeless mass which they forced into a narrow urn and buried under a
+heap of stones. Their slings were terrible. They hurled to great
+distances balls of sun-baked clay, conical at their ends, and bearing
+grotesque inscriptions dedicated to the one who received the blow, and
+in battle they flung stones weighing a pound with such force that the
+highest tempered armor failed to resist them.
+
+In the rear of this warlike crowd ragged women of all colors scattered
+through the champaign; lean, naked children who did not know their
+parents; the parasites of war, who marched at the tail of the army to
+revel in the spoils of victory; females who at night lay down in one
+extreme of the camp and arose on the opposite in the morning, and, aged
+in the prime of their youth by fatigue and blows, died forsaken by the
+roadside; youngsters who looked upon all the soldiers of their race as
+their fathers, bearing on their backs on long marches the firewood or
+the flesh-pot of the warriors, and, in moments of fiercest struggle,
+when the fighting was hand to hand, they slipped between the
+adversaries' legs and bit them like rabid cur-dogs.
+
+Act�on found S�nnica on the wall, gazing at the hostile camp in the
+first streak of dawn. The beautiful Greek had taken refuge in Saguntum
+the night before, followed by slaves and flocks, moving part of her
+riches from the villa to her warehouse. She had left behind rooms filled
+with paintings and mosaics; rich furniture, sumptuous table-service, all
+which would fall into the hands of the victor. And she and her fellow
+Greek saw peeping through the distant foliage the terrace of the villa
+with its statues, the tower of the doves and the roofs of the houses of
+the slaves, over which men, barely discernible, were running like
+insects. The invaders were there; perhaps they would amuse themselves by
+shooting their arrows at the brilliantly plumaged Asiatic birds, and by
+beating the old and sick slaves abandoned in the flight. Between the
+banana trees in the garden rose the smoke of a bonfire. The Greek woman
+and her lover guessed the destruction and rapine that were taking
+place. S�nnica grew sad, not at the loss of a part of her riches, but
+because they were rending her heart through destroying a place which had
+been witness to her first outbursts of love for the Athenian.
+
+Some time after sunrise the Saguntine people cried out with indignation.
+Along the Road of the Serpent appeared groups of drunken and shouting
+women embracing soldiers. They were the _lupas_ of the port, the
+miserable harlots who thronged around the temple of Aphrodite by night,
+and who were denied entrance to the city. When the first Carthaginian
+horsemen passed through the port these creatures had followed them with
+enthusiasm. Accustomed to the coarse blandishments of men of all
+countries, the presence of these soldiers, so different in dress and
+nationality, did not seem strange to them. The 'wolves' of the land were
+the same as those of the sea. They adored strong men, birds of prey
+which could destroy them with their talons, and they followed the
+Carthaginians to their camp, rejoicing in their hearts at the chance to
+approach the city without fear of punishment, and at being able to mock
+the besieged inhabitants with the concentrated odium of long years of
+humiliation.
+
+They sang like mad women, flitting from one pair of greedy and trembling
+hands to the next which disputed for them as if in their eagerness they
+would tear them to pieces. They drank to intoxication from amphor� of
+rich wines sacked from the villas; around their shoulders they flung
+cloths with threads of gold, stolen but a moment before; the Numidians
+with their moist gazelle-like eyes, looked upon them admiringly,
+bedecking them with crowns of grass, and they in turn bursting into
+bacchanal laughter, petted the kinky hair of the Ethiopians, who giggled
+like children, displaying their sharp cannibal teeth.
+
+They gave themselves up to all manner of ribaldry near the long line of
+horses staked out in front of the tents, displaying their wantonness as
+a shameless insult to the besieged city, and the Saguntines who had
+witnessed undaunted the approach of the long defile of the enemy
+trembled with ire behind their merlons as they witnessed this offense of
+their courtesans.
+
+"The wretches! _Canin�!_"
+
+The women of the city hissed and reviled them, pale with fury, leaning
+over the walls ready to spring into the camp to lay hold upon the
+strumpets, while they, as if the anger of the city only stimulated them,
+redoubled their laughter, adding insult to insult, and exciting the
+whole army to join with them.
+
+A fresh cause of indignation infuriated anew the minds of the
+Saguntines. Some thought they saw something familiar in the appearance
+of one of the Celtiberian warriors riding at the head of a troop of
+cavalry. His gallant bearing on his horse, the arrogance with which he
+galloped with firm seat in the saddle, recalled to many the sightly
+procession of the Panathenaic festival. When he dismounted and removed
+his helmet, wiping away the sweat, all recognized him, and raised a
+shout of resentment. Alorcus! Even he! Another ingrate, faithless to the
+city which had overwhelmed him with honors and distinctions! His duty as
+chieftain compelled him to ignore his fraternal reception in Saguntum.
+
+Blind with rage they drew their bows against him but the arrows fell
+short of the spot where the Celtiberians were encamped. The maddened
+crowd experienced one slight consolation. The groups along the wall made
+way for Theron, the priest of Hercules, who advanced with the majesty of
+a god, his eyes fixed on the enemy, insensible to the general adoration
+which surrounded him.
+
+The Saguntines persuaded themselves that they beheld Hercules himself,
+who perhaps had abandoned his temple on the Acropolis to come down to
+their walls. He was nude; an enormous lion skin covered his back. The
+wild beast's claws were crossed over his breast, and his head was
+covered by the cranium of the animal, with bristling whiskers, sharp
+teeth, and yellow glass eyes which shone between the tossed golden mane.
+His right hand clutched without visible effort the entire trunk of an
+oak tree which served him as a cudgel in imitation of the mace of the
+god. His shoulders towered above all other heads. His breasts were round
+and strong as shields, on which the veins and sinews were traced like
+tendrils winding round the muscles, and his columnar limbs, all excited
+admiration. His virility was the very type of sovereign power. He was so
+enormous that his head seemed small between his great shoulders,
+exaggerated in size by the cushion of his muscles; his chest heaved like
+a bellows, and instinctively all took a step backward, fearing contact
+with that machine of flesh created for strength.
+
+S�nnica's friends, the young gallants, who, even on this extraordinary
+occasion had not forgotten to paint their faces, followed and admired
+him, ordering the crowd, to give them passage.
+
+"Hail, Theron!" shouted Lachares. "We will see what Hannibal will do
+when he meets you in battle."
+
+"Hail to the Saguntine Hercules!" replied the other youths, leaning
+weakly on the backs of their little slave boys.
+
+The giant looked over the encampment, in which trumpets began to sound,
+and the soldiers ran to form in rank. The slingers cautiously advanced,
+sheltering themselves behind buildings and hummocks. The attack was
+about to begin. On the walls the bowmen drew their bows, and the boys
+piled up stones to hurl with their slings. The old men compelled the
+women to retire. At the head of the stairway leading up to the top of
+the wall, Euphobias the philosopher stood haranguing in the midst of a
+group, paying no heed to the indignation of his hearers.
+
+"Blood is going to flow," he shouted; "you will all perish, and for
+what? I ask you what do you gain by not obeying Hannibal? You will
+always have a master, and it is just as well to be friends of Carthage
+as of Rome. The siege will be prolonged, and you will die of hunger; I
+shall outlive you all, because I know hunger from of old like a faithful
+friend. But again I ask you, what more does it profit you to be Romans
+than Carthaginians? Live and enjoy! Leave shedding of blood to the
+butchers, and before you think of putting another man to death, study
+your own selves. If you would give heed to my wisdom, if instead of
+scorning me, you would feed me in exchange for my advice, you would not
+be shut up in your city like foxes in a trap."
+
+A chorus of imprecations and a row of threatening fists answered the
+philosopher.
+
+"Parasite! Slave of poverty!" they shouted. "You are worse than those
+_lupas_ who throw themselves at the barbarians."
+
+Euphobias, whose insolence increased as the indignation blazed higher,
+opened his mouth to reply; but he hesitated, beholding a dark mass which
+shut out the sunlight. The gigantic Theron was before him, looking at
+him as scornfully as would one of those elephants that the besiegers had
+near the river. He raised his left hand carelessly, as if he were going
+to flip off an insect; he barely grazed the insolent face when the
+philosopher tumbled down the steps from the wall, his head bleeding,
+silent, bumping from step to step without a groan, like a man accustomed
+to such caresses, and convinced that pain is but a figment of the
+imagination.
+
+At the same moment a cloud of black arrows whistled over the walls like
+a flock of birds. Tiles flew off, bits of plaster sprang from the
+merlons, and some fell from the wall with broken heads. From between the
+merlons stones and arrows leaped as an impetuous answer.
+
+The defense of the city had begun!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ASBYTE AND HANNIBAL
+
+
+Hannibal lay tossing between the bright-hued coverings of his couch,
+unable to conciliate sleep.
+
+The cocks had announced midnight, breaking the silence of the camp with
+their shrill voices, and the chieftain was yet awake, closing his eyes
+though unable to sleep. His rest was disturbed by the singing of a
+nightingale perched in a great tree from the branches of which hung his
+tent.
+
+An earthenware lamp illuminated the mass of objects strewn carelessly
+around his bed. On the floor glistened cuirasses, greaves, and helmets,
+over which were thrown rich fabrics stolen from the Saguntine villas.
+Grecian furniture, delicately wrought toilette amphor�, tapestries with
+mythological scenes, lay in a heap mingled with rawhide whips, shields
+of hippopotamus hide, and the rags of Hannibal's personal costume, for,
+though a lover of glittering arms, he was careless and dirty in his
+dress. Elegant Grecian vases he put to the vilest uses. An alabaster
+crater covered by a shield served as a seat; a huge terra cotta vase,
+decorated by a Grecian artist with the adventures of Achilles, the
+African scornfully used in a manner calculated to express the height of
+his contempt for refinement. Pieces of statues and columns destroyed
+during the tempest of invasion were sunk in the ground, making seats
+for Hannibal's captains when a council was held in the chieftain's tent.
+It was the spoil of war, looted and thrown about in a fever of robbery.
+Only a small portion of it had reached the chief, who felt absolute
+scorn for artistic beauty except when stamped on precious metals. He
+sneered at the gods of this land as he did at those of his own country
+and of the world; he spat upon the marble forms of divinities which
+filled the camp, as if they were scraps of worthless stone, good for
+nothing but to be hurled by a catapult against the enemy.
+
+Impelled by nervous excitement, which prevented his sleeping, he raised
+up in his couch, and the lamplight shone full upon his face. He was no
+longer the Celtiberian shepherd, dishevelled and ferocious, whom Act�on
+had met in the port of Saguntum. Divested of his disguise he showed what
+he was--a young man of medium height, with strong and well proportioned
+limbs, without display of exaggerated muscles, but revealing in his body
+the temper of steel, a vitality capable in supreme moments of the most
+stupendous achievements. His face was slightly bronzed, and his hair lay
+around his head in thick short curls like a black and lustrous turban,
+completely covering his forehead, and leaving exposed the lobes of his
+ears, from which hung great discs of bronze. His beard was thick and
+curly; his nose straight and somewhat prominent, and his eyes, large and
+imperious, always looked sidewise, with an expression of profound
+astuteness and unapproachable reserve. His muscular neck was habitually
+bent, inclining his head toward the right, as if to more clearly catch
+the sounds around him.
+
+He wore a simple, dirty, and threadbare sagum, like any one of those
+Celtiberians who lay snoring in the tents roundabout, and, as a sign of
+command, there shone on his wrists two broad golden bracelets, which
+added strength by their confinement of the tendons and muscles of the
+arm.
+
+For more than a month he had been before the walls of Saguntum without
+achieving any advantage. He had spent the whole of that afternoon
+directing his engines of war without result, and now in his solitude
+this want of success irritated his nerves, and dispelled his sleep. The
+petted child of victory, he had conquered in open fight the most savage
+tribes of Iberia; he had dragged his elephants over the crests of lofty
+mountains, crossing rivers, breaking trails through forests, seeing
+warlike hordes fall prostrate before him as if he were a god, but now,
+for the first time in his life he encountered a stubborn enemy, which
+behind sheltering walls mocked at him and would not suffer him to
+advance a step.
+
+The city of merchants and farmers which he had studied from within,
+looking scornfully upon its opulence and effeminacy, threatened to break
+the current of his good luck, and, finding it indomitable, and
+reflecting upon his enemies in Carthage, upon the wrath of Rome, and
+realizing that time was passing while he was making no headway, the
+chieftain experienced a gust of anxiety.
+
+He had chosen well the vulnerable point of Saguntum. His engines of war
+were placed before the lower part of the city where the walls projected
+into the valley, upon an open, level plain, which permitted the advance
+of the battering-rams; but scarcely had the hundreds of naked men who
+dragged the heavy machines come within range than such a shower of
+arrows fell about them that those who were not pinned to the ground had
+to flee for their lives.
+
+Sometimes, under cover of the mantelets, which advanced on wheels, and
+through the loopholes of which the Carthaginian bowmen shot, they
+managed to get the battering-rams to the foot of the wall, but while
+that part of the city was the most exposed to attack, the ramparts which
+in the upper portion of Saguntum were of adobe had here a stony rock
+base, and in vain the bronze rams'-heads which formed the ends of the
+beams, pounded and pounded, operated by hundreds of arms. Showers of
+arrows and stones fell upon the besiegers, breaking the shields which
+covered them. A great tower dominated the whole area around the
+assailants, sowing death among them without exposure to the besieged,
+and not content with this, under the impulse of their passion, they
+frequently sprang forth from behind the ramparts, knifing the
+Carthaginians.
+
+Each of these sallies cost Hannibal's army severe losses. The Africans
+had begun to tell with superstitious dread of a naked giant, wearing a
+lion's skin, and brandishing a tree-trunk, who charged at the head of
+the Saguntines, and at each blow ploughed a broad furrow through the
+assailants. The Ethiopians saw in him a terrible and sanguinary
+divinity, like those which they worshipped in their oases; the
+Celtiberians declared that it was Hercules, descended from Olympus to
+protect the city.
+
+Hannibal recognized him in the battles from afar. It was Theron, the
+priest whom he had seen one morning on the Acropolis, and whose
+extraordinary vigor he had admired. But in spite of knowing his human
+origin, he could not overcome the terror of the troops at the instant
+when they saw towering above all the helmets that invulnerable lion's
+head which seemed to change the course of the arrows and stones.
+
+Moreover the besieged counted on the assistance of the phalaric. It was
+well known that among the merchants and agriculturists there figured men
+expert in war, who had traveled through many lands. The memory of his
+boyhood companion, Act�on, the Greek adventurer, surged through
+Hannibal's mind. He, surely, must be the introducer of the phalaric, a
+dart wrapped in tow and dipped in pitch. The shaft sped blazing through
+the air like a stream of fire, with its long iron head capable of
+piercing the shield and the cuirass, and even if the terrible missile
+should not penetrate the armor, its flames set fire to the clothing; the
+combatants threw down their arms to put out the fire, and thus stood
+exposed to the blows of the enemy. The same warriors who had fought
+against the most determined and barbaric tribes of Iberia, flung away
+their shields and fled before those meteors of fire which came from the
+walls of Saguntum whistling and scattering sparks.
+
+Thus time passed; the besiegers gained nothing, and Hannibal was
+dominated by a galling impatience. Fire of Baal! He, chained to these
+walls which he could not make his own, while Hanno's faction was
+conspiring in Carthage, preparing the downfall of the Barcas if he
+should fail in taking Saguntum; planning, perhaps, his delivery to Rome
+when she should demand him on finding her treaties violated. In despair
+he threw himself back once more upon his couch, seeking the oblivion of
+sleep with the eagerness of one who must needs forget. He blew out the
+light, but lay open-eyed in the darkness. The bluish glint of the moon
+filtered through an opening in the cupola of his tent, shimmering upon
+the cuirasses which in the darkness shone like phosphorescent fishes.
+Outside, the nightingale continued singing.
+
+Hannibal grew frantic. Accursed bird that was keeping him awake! He
+could sleep in the din of battle! Accustomed from boyhood to the camp,
+the hoarse songs of the mercenaries and the whinnying of horses would
+fail to arouse him, and the harsh trumpet-blast of war had been his
+lullaby. But the sweet song of that bird, its incessant melodious trill,
+annoyed him like the buzzing of a hornet.
+
+He sprang from his couch; he groped in the dark amid the litter of arms,
+fabrics, and furniture; he burst out through the doorway of his tent,
+and the fresh night soothed his tempestuous spirit.
+
+The moon was shining in a cloudless sky; the breeze was warm, although
+it was the end of autumn; stars scintillated; the nightingale's trills
+were answered by another and yet another bird, throughout the expanse of
+the valley. The camp lay at rest. The flames were flickering out from
+dying bonfires near which soldiers were sleeping along with women and
+children of the army, wrapped in rags and in rich stolen fabrics; the
+horses picketed to the ground, pointed their nodding heads in a straight
+line; in the distance, the beleaguered city crouched dark and silent as
+if asleep, but a faint glow escaping through loopholes in its walls
+produced the effect of half-open eyes watching while feigning sleep.
+
+Hannibal leaped over the trusted soldiers who slept near the door of his
+tent. They raised up as they heard his footsteps, but recognizing the
+chief, lay down on the ground again and continued snoring. They were
+veterans from Hamilcar's wars, who looked with almost religious
+veneration on the lion cub of their old captain.
+
+As he turned the corner of the tent he drew his bow to shoot at the bird
+hidden in the foliage; but he started in surprise on seeing a white
+figure standing near the trunk of the tree, shining in the moonlight.
+
+It was a woman, an Amazon. On her head and on her breast glistened the
+helmet of gold and the cuirass of scales; her white linen tunic fell
+over her limbs, outlining her form, and her strong bare arms were
+resting on her lance with its shoe driven into the ground. Her dark eyes
+were fastened on Hannibal's tent with strange, unblinking persistence,
+as if she were dreaming awake, and the night-wind lightly swayed her
+floating hair. Behind her stood a black horse with glossy coat, nervous
+legs, and eyes injected with blood, destitute of saddle or bridle, his
+mane unbound; he was bending down to lick the border of the Amazon's
+tunic and her nude feet, like a dog which followed her everywhere.
+
+"Asbyte!" exclaimed Hannibal, surprised at the apparition. "What are you
+doing here?"
+
+The queen of the Amazons seemed to awake, and seeing the chief, she
+fixed on him the moist and impassioned gaze of her large eyes.
+
+"I could not sleep," she said with a voice languid and measured. "I
+spent the first part of the night dreaming horrible dreams. The Goddess
+Tanith will not guard my repose, and I have seen the shade of my father
+Iarbas announcing my approaching death."
+
+"Death!" exclaimed Hannibal, laughing. "Who thinks of death?"
+
+"Am I then immortal? Do I not fight like any one of your soldiers? I
+hurl myself impetuously through forests of lances; feathered shafts hiss
+around me like a trailing mantle of invisible birds; I scorn the
+phalarics with their streams of fire--but some day I shall die; my
+dreams foretell it."
+
+Asbyte, as if fearing to show too great melancholy in the presence of
+Hannibal, added bitterly:
+
+"Let death come when it will! It does not frighten me as it does the
+merchants of Carthage who hate you. If it disturbed my sleep it was
+because when I awoke I thought of you. I cannot explain to myself why I
+thought that you also might die, and to your death, Hannibal, I cannot
+be resigned. You should live long like a god. I knew that you sleep
+alone in your tent; that, to better conceal your movements you keep no
+guards to watch while you slumber, and I felt the need of doing
+something for you, of spending the night leaning on my lance near your
+couch to prevent the treachery of an enemy."
+
+"What madness!" exclaimed the African, laughing.
+
+"Hannibal," said the beautiful Amazon gravely, "remember Hasdrubal, the
+husband of your sister. The dagger of a slave was enough to put an end
+to him."
+
+"Hasdrubal was doomed to die," said the chieftain, with the conviction
+of fatalism. "The fate of Carthage demanded his death. It was necessary
+that Hasdrubal should succumb to make way for Hannibal. But Hannibal has
+no one to replace him, and he shall live even though he were to sleep
+surrounded by enemies. My sleep is light and my arm is sure; he who
+slips into the tent of Hannibal enters his tomb."
+
+Asbyte contemplated with loving admiration the young hero, who had flung
+down his bow, and while he spoke of his strength he raised his powerful
+arms, and the moon enlarged their shadow in such wise that as they moved
+he seemed to embrace the camp, the city, the whole valley, like a
+supernatural being.
+
+The Amazon drew near leaning her lance against the trunk of a tree. On
+laying down her weapon she seemed to throw off her warlike mien, and she
+approached Hannibal with feminine sweetness, gazing upon him with the
+moist, timid eyes of the antelopes that frisk about the oases of her
+native land.
+
+"Besides," she murmured, "I came because I needed to be near you. To
+guard your sleep gives me indescribable joy. I feel the delight of an
+exalting sacrifice in keeping vigil over you when you know it not. I
+never have an opportunity to speak with you. By day I see you on
+horseback among the Carthaginians with their golden armor, who flock
+around you; on foot directing those who push the engines of war, helping
+them, often, to excite their enthusiasm; but I see you always from afar,
+as a chieftain, as a hero, never as a man. Do you remember those days in
+the citadel of New Carthage when I had just arrived from Africa with the
+reinforcements which caused you to utter shouts of enthusiasm?"
+
+"Asbyte! Asbyte!" murmured Hannibal, repelling her with a movement of
+his arms, as if the recollection annoyed him.
+
+"Do not be angry, Hannibal; listen to me. I must speak to you. Give me
+at least the consolation of seeing you near, of telling you what I feel.
+If not, why have I come to Iberia, joining my fate to yours?"
+
+The chieftain glanced around, as if fearing that someone might be
+listening to his conversation with the Amazon.
+
+"Fear not," said Asbyte, divining his thought. "Mago, your brother,
+sleeps far from here with Maherbal, the favorite captain. My Numidians
+are at the opposite end of the camp. You surround yourself only with
+Iberians in order to encourage their fidelity with such a proof of
+confidence, and they do not understand Phoenician."
+
+Reassured by Asbyte's answer, Hannibal lowered his head and crossed his
+arms, resigned to listen.
+
+"You are as hard and disdainful as a god," sighed the Amazon. "The woman
+who loves you feels within her the fire of Moloch, and you will not
+deign to quench it even with a glance of kindness, nor with a smile. You
+have a heart of bronze; your eyes ever gaze aloft, and you cannot see
+those who crawl to approach you. You imagine that you have made me happy
+because you lead me from battle to battle, from conquest to conquest,
+and you consider that my happiness consists in having my hands, which
+used to be adorned with rings, calloused by the lance; my face, which in
+other times was covered with costly unguents brought from Egypt by my
+caravans, hardened by the cheek-pieces of the helmet. I have become rude
+and fierce like a man. Though I possess gardens far away where an
+eternal springtime dwells, I have suffered hunger and thirst at your
+side. I know not who I am; I doubt my sex, seeing my body made ugly by
+fatigue. My skin, over which the hands of my slaves used to slip as if
+it were a mirror, is now as hard as that of a crocodile. If I do not
+seem as hideous as the troop of wasted females which follows your
+soldiers it is because my youth has not forsaken me. And all this for
+whom? For you who will not deign to look at me; for you who have
+forgotten our first meeting; for you who see in Asbyte only a good
+friend, an esteemed ally, who came to you bringing a strong array of
+fighters. Hannibal! Lightning-flash of Baal! You are as great as a
+demigod, but you do not know human beings. You see in me only an Amazon,
+a warrior virgin like those of whom the Grecian poets sing--but I am a
+woman!"
+
+Asbyte sadly and silently searched the face of the pensive Hannibal.
+
+"You have forgotten, perhaps, how we met," she added, presently, with
+melancholy tone. "I dwelt happy in my oasis until I rushed to your side,
+drawn by some irresistible charm that emanates from your person. I, the
+daughter of Iarbas the Garamantan, wearied of the comforts of my house,
+of the songs of my slaves, and of the splendors which the merchants
+flung from the caravans at my feet, went into the desert hunting lions
+with Iarbas, and the warriors marveled when the most savage colts
+trembled, obedient and timid, as soon as they felt me on their backs. I
+was strong, and I was beautiful. Scarcely had I grown out of my girlhood
+than the bravest of the Numidian sheikhs came seeking hospitality of my
+father that they might see me, and they told of their flocks and of
+their warriors, proposing an alliance to Iarbas. And I, indifferent,
+cold, kept my thoughts ever on Carthage where I once had been in
+company with my father to adjust the tribute with the rich men of the
+Senate. Ah, the magnificent city, the immense city, with her temples as
+huge as towns and her gigantic gods!"
+
+Wandering from the trend of her ideas, she fell into enthusiastic
+reminiscence of Carthage, the great city which after all her travels and
+warlike adventures was still a vivid memory. She called to mind the
+dwellings of the rich Carthaginians, with their polychrome walls
+finished by brilliant spheres of metal and of glass; the great marble
+temples, with their mysterious groves through which resounded the lyres
+and cymbals of the priests; the temple of Tanith surrounded by rose
+gardens, perfumed hiding places which served as shelters for the sacred
+phallic rites in honor of the goddess; and then the port, the immense
+port, with a whole city of ships which poured into the metropolis a
+continual stream of riches from all over the world, tin from Brittania,
+copper from Italy, silver from Iberia, gold from Ophir, frankincense
+from Saba, amber from northern seas, purple from Tyre, ebony and ivory
+from Ethiopia, spices and pearls from India, and brilliant fabrics from
+nameless and mysterious peoples of Asia who dwelt at the uttermost
+borders of the world, wrapped in the mists of legend.
+
+She adored the city, not only for its splendors, but far more because it
+harbored partisans of the Barcas, the supporters of the heroic family
+whose deeds the Numidian warriors recounted in the moonlight, and of
+whom Hannibal, who added renown to his name in the wars of Iberia when
+still a boy, was the glorious descendant.
+
+"My people ever loved your people," continued the Amazon. "If my father
+Iarbas submitted to the domination of Carthage, it was because at the
+head of it was Hamilcar, an African, a Numidian like ourselves. I hate
+the Carthaginian merchants as bitterly as you do--those ancient
+Phoenicians from the rock-bound Aradus who prospered and reproduced
+like worms, afterwards to cross the sea and take possession of our
+beautiful soil of Africa. I hate the ship figured upon so many of your
+coins and temples, because it is the sign of the avaricious people who
+came to exploit us, but I adore the Carthaginian charger, the Numidian
+horse, the symbol of our past."
+
+Then she spoke of the charm which the glory of the Barcas had exercised
+over her mind from afar. She had loved Hannibal without realizing it,
+influenced by tales of his achievements which had reached her ears. She
+imagined him fighting like a young lion at his father's side, among
+herds of bulls with flaming horns, and among burning chariots which the
+Iberians drove against the Carthaginian invader; she thought of him, mad
+with fury, before the body of Hamilcar, and then languishing from
+inaction beside the beautiful Hasdrubal, conciliatory and pacific, until
+the moment when, his brother being assassinated by the dagger of a Gaul,
+the whole army acclaimed the youth as chieftain.
+
+Her father Iarbas had just died, and she, now become queen of her
+tribes, heard that Hannibal, thirsting for glory and for combat, was
+isolated in the fortress of New Carthage, with no other troops than the
+remnant of the army which Hamilcar had taken to Iberia. The rich of
+Carthage, enemies of the Barcas, fearing the populace, dared not
+deprive Hamilcar's son of the chieftancy which his soldiers tendered
+him; they confirmed it by their silence, but they kept him isolated,
+without resources, left to his own devices, so that the natives should
+put an end to him, or at the most, that he might conquer a small
+territory on the Iberian coast in which the ambition of the Barcas would
+gradually become extinguished.
+
+"Then I flew to your side," continued Asbyte. "I wished to know the man
+and to save the hero. I turned over a great part of my riches to the
+merchants of Carthage for the loan of their ships; I kindled the
+enthusiasm of the most warlike of my tribes to follow me; even their
+daughters imitated me, and went lion hunting, galloping all day long,
+lance in hand, drawn on by my mad adventure, and one afternoon, when
+perhaps you were weeping, believing your hopes of glory dead, you beheld
+from the height of the citadel of New Carthage a whole fleet coming from
+Africa. Do you remember? Tell me! Do you remember how you received me?"
+
+"Yes, and I shall never forget it," said Hannibal gently. "Those days
+are my happiest memory."
+
+"You received me as if I were a divinity, as if Ashtoreth, who illumines
+our nights had descended from the sky to give you her protection. You
+were oblivious to my warriors and saw only me, and scorning your
+ambitions for the moment we spent the nights lying on the terrace of the
+citadel, and the stars were witnesses to our interminable embraces. But,
+alas! that joy was like the roses from Egypt which last but a day in the
+vases of the rich women of Carthage. Soon the pride of conquest
+returned to you, the ambition of the chieftain. You admired the training
+of my Numidians more than my beauty when, of an afternoon, outside the
+walls they astounded your old warriors by hurling darts while kneeling
+on their horses, which ran so fast that they raised the dust with their
+bellies. We went out to fight with the Olcades, the Vacc�i, all those
+Iberian tribes which yesterday you fought and which to-day follow you.
+Led by you I fought like a soldier, and I considered myself happy when
+on the long marches, imitating our horses which lovingly put their heads
+together, you bent toward me, striking your helmet against mine to kiss
+me. Finally--not even that! What am I? One warrior more in your camp; a
+friend worthy of gratitude, who brought you assistance on seeing you
+abandoned by Carthage, with no other force than a handful of veterans
+and some elephants. In the battles if you see me in danger you fly to
+defend me; but afterwards, in the camp, on the long marches, a few words
+of friendship, a cold smile as to any one of your captains. Your heart
+has closed against me. Am I not Asbyte, she whom you knew in New
+Carthage? Do you not love me when you see me made ugly and hardened by
+war? Tell me that, and I will become a woman again, I will bedeck myself
+with jewels, I will abandon my Amazons and surround myself with Greek
+slaves, I will cover myself with ointments which will change my skin
+back to its pristine freshness, and I will follow you on your marches
+lying on a litter with curtains of purple."
+
+"No!" Hannibal made haste to reply, with enthusiasm. "I love you as you
+are. The beloved of Hannibal can only be an Amazon like yourself, who
+have made many warriors fall beneath your charger."
+
+"Then why do you flee from me? Why do you abandon me, why forget the
+sweetness of our early love? See that nightingale, at which a moment ago
+you aimed your arrow! In the midst of an army camp, before a besieged
+city, it sings and sings, calling to its mate, heedless of the horrors
+of war, unconscious of the stench of blood which rises from these
+fields. Let us be like him! Let us make war; but let us also love each
+other, and let us ride through the battles with our bodies thrilled with
+love!"
+
+"No, Asbyte," said the African gloomily. "That felicity is impossible; I
+love you, but we cannot understand each other. You complain because I
+see in you only an Amazon, when you are a woman; you, in return, see in
+me only a man, and I am more than man. I am not the demigod you imagine;
+I am something more; I am a formidable machine of war, without heart or
+sense of pity, created only to crush men and nations who obstruct my
+passage."
+
+Hannibal said this with conviction, beating his firm chest,
+straightening his figure with sombre majesty as he declared his
+destructive power.
+
+"I would love you if I were a man capable of wasting my time in such
+sweet folly, but when have you seen the eagle spend all his time in the
+nest caressing his mate, without desire to soar aloft and fall upon the
+quarry? Those who have talons cannot caress, and I was born to make prey
+of the world, or else for the world to crush me. Love? A sweet
+occupation, I grant you! In the past, full of blood and of battles, the
+only oases of my joy were those days in New Carthage when I believed
+that Tanith herself, with all her divine beauty, had deigned to come
+down to my arms. But that is over; Hannibal has other loves that attract
+him and dominate him; he loves his sword, he loves all that the enemy
+possesses, and he cannot sleep with tranquility for thinking of Rome,
+whom he desires to crush within these arms! How far away she is!"
+
+The Amazon made a gesture of despair at the passion with which the
+chieftain declared his ambitions.
+
+"You might complain," continued Hannibal, "if you saw that my thoughts
+were filled with the image of another woman. Whom have I loved but you?
+To draw to me those barbarians who follow me, to league them by ties of
+blood to my enterprises, I took to wife the daughter of an Iberian
+kinglet. Yes, and where is she? Does she follow me as do you? She
+remains in New Carthage, spinning her gay-colored wools, and she
+scarcely thinks of me, because never for a moment did the charms of the
+barbarian virgin move me. I love only you. Hannibal can fall tremulous
+with passion only into arms like yours, hardened by use of the lance.
+But be worthy of him! Think not as do other women; seek not new lovers;
+unite yourself to me, so that both together we can think of possessing
+and of hating, of making the world ours!"
+
+As if exalted by his own words, the African, with glowing eyes,
+approached Asbyte, caressing her arms, while he breathed in her face his
+ambitious plans.
+
+"I must be lord of the world! I want Carthage, only Carthage, to exist
+upon the earth, because Carthage is my native land! Had I been born a
+Roman, Rome should be mistress! With my name I mean to obliterate the
+memory of Alexander the Macedonian, to be greater than he, to conquer
+wider territories, and I dream of undertakings less easy than dominating
+the Asiatics, weakened by the softening tendency of the sun and of
+riches. Rome is sturdy, she is stronger than our republic of merchants
+corroded by avarice and pleasure; her hands are calloused by the plow
+handle and the lance--then against Rome am I headed! Alexander! How weak
+is his glory! It is easy to march to the conquest of the world when one
+is the son of Philip, who leaves as inheritance an army seasoned by a
+hundred victories, when one has an obedient kingdom at one's back, and
+even in childhood has the good fortune to receive instruction from
+Aristotle. The difficult thing is to be Hannibal, abandoned by my
+country, with no other resources than those I can find for myself;
+having to face at the same time the fury of the enemy and the treachery
+and intrigue of my fellow countrymen, reared far from my father, among
+astute merchants who, keeping me as hostage, sought to avoid future
+danger by diverting my warlike instincts; with no other culture than a
+little Greek which Sosilon the Spartan taught me; but despite all this,
+Hannibal wars with fate, and he is conquering. If Alexander is admired
+for his conquests in the land of the rising sun, some day the world will
+be startled at seeing me, after having crushed men, dominating Nature
+herself by crossing the loftiest glaciers and changing the positions of
+mountains to continue on my way. Look at me well, Asbyte, and you will
+be convinced that it is as useless to try to arouse human sentiments in
+my heart as to soften the breast of the enormous bronze Moloch which we
+have in Carthage! A moment ago, in the solitude of my tent, I felt weak
+and disheartened, but talking with you revives my strength. Look at me
+well; you are in the presence of one who fears neither men nor gods!"
+
+"The gods!" exclaimed Asbyte with a throb of terror. "Do you not fear
+that they will punish you?"
+
+A peal of laughter, sarcastic, tinged with deep scorn, answered the
+Amazon.
+
+"The gods!" exclaimed Hannibal. "I live among warriors of all nations.
+Each one adores his own gods, and I know so many, so many, that I do not
+believe in any of them, and I jest at them all. In Carthage I adored
+Moloch; here you have often seen me dedicate sacrifices to the Iberian
+divinities, to attract the people to me. If some day I enter as a
+conqueror that city where my thought continually dwells, the populace
+shall acclaim me, seeing me climb to the Capitol to offer thanks to
+their gods. I believe only in force and strategy. I have but one
+tutelary god--war, who makes giants of men, giving them the omnipotence
+of divinity. If on becoming lord of the earth, I find no one with whom
+to fight, I shall die, thinking the world empty!"
+
+The Amazon bowed her head, overcome with sadness.
+
+"I realize now that you will never be mine, Hannibal! You love war above
+all things else, and will be faithful to it as long as you live. You are
+indeed a bird of prey; the momentary love of a slave woman satisfies
+you; the wounded and weeping woman who falls into the power of your
+soldiers as they enter a city through a breach in its walls satiates
+you. You will never understand love and its sweetness."
+
+Hannibal shrugged his shoulders scornfully.
+
+"I love victory, success! The laurel which Greek heroes bound upon their
+brows in the triumph has for me a more penetrating perfume than the
+roses of the poets. Cease your laments, Asbyte; be a warrior, and forget
+that you are a woman; I will love you more. You shall be my brother in
+arms. Why think of those nights of love when I was still in misfortune
+and lacking in soldiers, now that all Iberia follows me and I see my
+dreams of world-power beginning to be realized? Look over this camp,
+where infinite tongues are spoken, and where each tribe dresses in a
+different costume. They flow in like streams which swell the torrent.
+Each day new warriors appear. How many are they? No one knows. Maherbal
+said yesterday that there were a hundred and twenty thousand; I believe
+that soon there will be a hundred and eighty thousand. Blind faith in
+Hannibal draws them on; they feel that with me they march to victory;
+perhaps their gods have told them that this is but the beginning of a
+series of achievements which will astound the world. Ponder over it,
+Asbyte! These peoples have spent their lives fighting among themselves;
+they hated each other, and yet the sword of Hannibal is a shepherd's
+crook which guides them like a common flock; and after this miracle
+would you have me waste my time loving you, staying in my tent lying at
+your feet, my head upon your knees, listening to you while you sing the
+dreamy songs of the oasis? No! Lightning of Baal! The city stands before
+us, mocking at the greatest army ever gathered together on the fields of
+Iberia, and this must stop. The hempen tent must crush the tower of
+stone. Sharpen well your lance, daughter of Iarbas; prepare your
+faithful steed, my beloved! That mysterious breeze which I always
+perceive on the eve of a victory blows around me. This very day we shall
+enter Saguntum."
+
+He glanced to the east as if impatient for the coming of dawn.
+
+The moon shone less clearly; the sky darkened, its blue becoming more
+dense, and on the side toward the sea a broad belt of violet light
+appeared.
+
+"It will soon be morning," continued the African. "This night, Asbyte,
+you shall sleep in the ivory couch of some rich Greek woman, and you
+shall have at your feet the Elders of the city to serve you as slaves."
+
+"No, Hannibal. This day which is now beginning will never end for me. I
+still see the shade of Iarbas, as it appeared to me before the first
+cock-crow. I shall die, Hannibal!"
+
+"Die! Can you believe that? Before the enemy reaches you he must pass
+over Hannibal's body. You are my brother in arms! _I_ will be at your
+side!"
+
+"Even so, I must die. My father cannot deceive me."
+
+"Are you afraid? Are you trembling, daughter of the Garamantan? Ah, at
+last the woman! Stay in your tent! Do not approach the walls! I will go
+and seek you when the moment arrives for you to enter the city like a
+lady!"
+
+Asbyte straightened her graceful figure as if she had just received a
+lashing. Her large eyes glowed with anger.
+
+"I will leave you, Hannibal. Day is beginning to dawn. Make preparation
+for the assault, and you will find me ready when your troops give the
+signal. Knowing that I am going to die, I wish to ask you for one kiss,
+the last--No, do not approach me. I do not want it now; it would do me
+harm. If I fall and you can find me among the slain, you will know what
+my last thought has been."
+
+Leaning on her lance she moved away between the rows of tents, followed
+by the black horse, which sniffed at her footprints in faithful
+devotion.
+
+Day was breaking. The camp fires were nearly extinguished, and around
+the dying embers the men could be seen arising from the ground,
+stretching their benumbed limbs, and shaking out the pieces of cloth in
+which they had been wrapped. Horses whinnied, tugging at their stake
+ropes, and the soldiers set them free, driving them to the river to
+water and clean them.
+
+Along every road huge carts were approaching the camp laden with
+provisions and forage, and the creaking of their axles mingled with the
+songs of the soldiers, who had arisen in good spirits and recalled their
+distant homes, singing in their native tongues.
+
+It was a confusion of voices and cries. Each tribe camped by itself; one
+people greeted the other with joyous shouts. From every side floated
+odors of naked, sweaty flesh, and of strange stews boiling in the pots;
+the hammers of the carpenters echoed loudly as they worked upon the
+siege-engines which would soon be hurling stones and darts against the
+walls. Warriors in flowing mantles, mounted on prancing steeds, galloped
+between the city and the camp, examining the battlements of Saguntum,
+reddened by the sun's first rays, where the defenders were beginning to
+stir among the merlons. Hannibal with uncovered head was sitting on a
+remnant of a wall, the ruin of a villa demolished by the besiegers, also
+studying the city.
+
+He was resolved to begin the attack as soon as his army had finished
+making the morning preparations. Fifteen hundred Africans, armed with
+pickaxes, were gathering on the outskirts of the camp. They were going
+to attack that portion of the city which threw its ramparts into the
+level, open plain, thereby permitting unobstructed approach to its base.
+In other divisions of the camp the Celtiberian infantry was forming with
+long ladders to attempt the walls on many sides at once. The engines of
+war advanced, the catapults, with the thick bow tightly drawn by elastic
+cords, ready to fling the stone deposited in the groove of the long arm;
+the battering-rams vibrating on their chains as they moved. The
+walking-towers, light, with walls of interlaced osiers, trundled upon
+massive disks crowned by the shields of the besiegers who concealed
+themselves behind them to hurl their missiles.
+
+Hannibal hurried to his tent, passing between the cavalrymen who were
+deliberately grooming their horses and polishing their weapons, knowing
+that they were not to take part in the assault until the last moment.
+The chieftain armed himself lightly. He put on a short lorica of bronze
+scales, adjusted his helmet, selected a shield, and on leaving his tent
+he met Maherbal and his brother Mago, in charge of the reserves who
+remained in the camp.
+
+"Your legs are unprotected," said his brother. "Are you not going to
+cover them with greaves?"
+
+"No," replied the chieftain spiritedly. "We are going to make an
+assault, and to climb over the fallen walls one must have his legs free.
+The missiles will respect me as ever."
+
+As he walked out of the camp he thought he saw the queen of the Amazons
+standing between two tents, following him with saddened eyes; but
+Asbyte, when her gaze met Hannibal's, moved away and turned her back
+upon him haughtily.
+
+Trumpets blew, and the army stirred, marching against the city.
+
+The mantelets rolled forward, veritable parapets of wood, through the
+interstices of which the bowmen shot. Under cover of these portable
+bulwarks the Africans armed with pickaxes advanced, while in other
+directions throughout the valley hurried the Celtiberians, carrying
+their ladders in front of them.
+
+In an instant the walls were manned with defenders. Over the merlons
+appeared sinewy arms hurling missiles, slings swirled discharging
+stones, and bows bent followed by sharp hisses.
+
+Hannibal, to animate the assailants, marched behind the fifteen hundred
+Africans, laughing at the projectiles which struck the wooden sides of
+the mantelets. Several nights, dragging himself on his belly, and at the
+risk of being taken prisoner, he had reached the foot of that rampart
+which projected on the valley side, and which formed the strongest wall
+of the city. The base was composed of great stones laid in clay. The
+chieftain being convinced that it was difficult to scale the walls,
+decided to open a breach through the foundation by undermining the
+reddish rampart before which his army had been confounded.
+
+As they drew near it the Africans abandoned the shelter of the mantelets
+and hurled themselves furiously against the barrier of enormous stones.
+Naked, black, shouting, raising and lowering their muscular arms which
+ended in glittering iron-pointed pickaxes, they looked like infernal
+spirits sent by the Cabiric gods of Carthage for the destruction of the
+city. Stubborn and tenacious in their work of destruction, they growled
+and picked, insensible to the blows which fell from above.
+
+The beleaguered people, infuriated by this audacity, scorned the
+Balearic slingers and archers who from a distance aimed over the
+merlons, and stepping into the crenels they cast down missiles and
+stones which, falling vertically, never failed to claim their victims.
+The Africans tumbled over with broken heads or crushed backs; arms and
+legs snapped like reeds beneath the weight of the stones, and more than
+one assailant was pinned to the ground by a dart which passed through
+his back. Over the palpitating bodies, the mangled flesh, the blood
+mixed with the clay from the walls, rushed fresh assailants, grasping
+the pickaxes from the hands of the dying, and taking up the work of
+destruction, pounding on the wall, beating it furiously as if it were an
+enemy standing before them. Africans, Celtiberians, Gauls, men of all
+colors and races crowded together, each cursing in his own language,
+frothing at the mouth with fury, with death hovering above them every
+instant, and surrounded by a din of howls and lamentations. Tormented by
+falling stones and blazing phalarics which set fire to their clothing
+and clung to their naked flesh, roasting them until they writhed in
+agony, they rushed to the river like animated torches.
+
+Now a block in the wall was giving way! Now it rolled out of place! The
+most important thing was to remove the first; after it the others would
+follow. The besiegers burst into exclamations of savage joy; they heard
+Hannibal's voice encouraging them; but before raising their heads to
+rest a moment, a deafening howl arose among them. It was raining, but
+raining fiery, infernal drops which penetrated the bodies of the men
+like interminable knives. Up there on the walls a fire was smoking. The
+merchants were melting the great ingots of silver from their vaults,
+pouring the molten metal like a rain of death upon those who dared
+destroy the city walls.
+
+The assailants fell back, roaring with fury, and sought refuge behind
+the mantelets. Hannibal raised his sword, striving with his blows to
+force them back to work, but in vain he exhorted them, haranguing of
+victory and of the necessity of destroying the wall; his soldiers
+retreated without turning their backs, looking with respect at the
+chieftain who seemed invulnerable, but complaining of the atrocious
+torment of the burns. Some wallowed on the ground kicking with pain,
+their lips covered with foam.
+
+Suddenly it seemed as if the city had burst, hurling its inhabitants
+forth in all directions. In the distance the Celtiberians were seen to
+flee, flinging away their ladders. The populace rushed out en masse
+against the besiegers. The gates were too narrow to allow passage to the
+armed multitude which swirled through them and then spread out in all
+directions like a torrent which, having run boxed in between mountains,
+suddenly inundates the plain. Many impatient ones swung from the merlons
+to fall more quickly upon the enemy.
+
+In a moment the whole space intervening between the walls and the camp
+was covered by attacking Saguntines and by fleeing besiegers. Hannibal
+felt himself dragged by the flight of his soldiers. The mantelets began
+to burn, and a crowd of women and boys, grasping torches, encircled the
+walking-towers, setting fire to their osier walls.
+
+The Saguntines, forming in phalanxes, advanced, sweeping before them the
+besiegers who fled in disorder. Before its movable front of pikes and of
+arms flourishing broadswords, nothing could be seen but fugitive men who
+flung away their arms and leaped into the air pierced by arrows and
+lances.
+
+The giant Theron came out in solitary majesty, as if he alone were a
+phalanx. The lion skin, and his enormous stature, attracted the gaze of
+all. His club rose and fell, crashing into the groups of fugitives and
+opening great swaths through their ranks.
+
+"It is Hercules!" the besiegers shouted, with superstitious terror. "The
+god of Saguntum has come out against us!"
+
+The presence of the giant accelerated the dispersion even more than the
+blows of the Saguntines.
+
+Hannibal tried to advance, to face about; in vain he lifted up his
+voice, brandishing his sword. He was swept by the torrent of flight; his
+own soldiers crowded him along, blinded by the contagion of terror; they
+tramped on his heels, they pressed against his back with their heads
+bent low in swift retreat, and he had to make strenuous efforts to keep
+from being overwhelmed and trampled down. A moment more and the
+Saguntines, having destroyed every engine of war, reached the camp.
+
+The chieftain was snarling curses and threats against his brother and
+Maherbal who did not come up with the reserves to stay the torrent of
+the rout. He saw the troops issuing from the camp hurriedly, but on foot
+and in disorder, with the precipitation produced by an unexpected event.
+Many of them were adjusting the straps of their cuirasses, and the
+different tribes were jostled together and minus their leaders, who in
+vain had trumpeters blow their horns to bring the hosts to order.
+
+The Saguntines in the blind impulse of victory clashed with this
+reinforcement and almost routed it in the first encounter. Hannibal, who
+had managed to reunite a group of the bravest soldiers, presented a firm
+front to the Saguntines.
+
+"This way! This way!" he shouted to those coming from the camp, who in
+their excitement did not know where to rally.
+
+But at the same time his cries attracted the enemy. Theron, as if guided
+by his god, turned toward Hannibal, and soon his mace began to hammer at
+the shields of the Carthaginians. He hurled himself against them with
+cool courage, breaking their lances with a blow of his club, wounding
+himself on the swords which seemed to rebound from his powerful muscles,
+dripping blood beneath his lion skin, ferocious and magnificent, like
+unto a divinity. He never raised his knotty trunk without dropping an
+enemy at his feet.
+
+The besiegers began to recede again before the pressure of the
+Saguntines; Hannibal was once more dragged by his men who were terrified
+by the savagery of the giant who seemed invulnerable, when an unexpected
+turn gave a new phase to the combat. The earth shook beneath a wild
+gallop, like the reverberation of rolling thunder, and leaning over
+their horses' necks, their hair floating from beneath their helmets, and
+their white tunics streaming around their naked limbs, Asbyte's Amazons
+fell upon the enemy with the violence of a hurricane. They came
+whooping, waving their lances, calling one to another to charge upon the
+denser groups, and the assailants fell back astonished at these women
+whom they saw near at hand for the first time, and who were now favored
+by the effect of surprise.
+
+Looking between the heads which surrounded him, Hannibal saw Asbyte pass
+like a luminous flash, absolutely alone. The light of the sun, striking
+upon her helmet, encircled her with a nimbus of gold. Her lover's
+instinct had revealed to her where Hannibal stood surrounded by enemies,
+and she dashed to his support.
+
+Succeeding events were rapid, instantaneous. Through the dust of the
+charge Hannibal barely made out what occurred, as if it were the
+fleeting agony of a dream.
+
+The Amazon, with couched lance, rode at a gallop against the priest of
+Hercules, who in the recoil of that disordered hand to hand struggle had
+been left alone in a broad open space.
+
+"Ohooo!----" shouted the Amazon, exciting her horse by her war cry.
+
+Pressing her legs against the animal's ribs she lifted herself upon his
+back in order to give the giant a deeper wound.
+
+The horse, terrified at the frightful lion's head on the forehead of the
+colossus, reared and whinnied, while at the same moment the enormous
+mace struck above his eyes with a crash like the breaking of a heavy
+amphora.
+
+The horse reeled backwards with a shattered skull, blood spurting from
+his eyes. The Amazon, thrown from his back, fell on her knees a few
+steps away, covering herself with her shield. If she could hold out a
+moment she would be saved. Hannibal, forgotten by his disorganized men
+who were milling like a frightened herd in the confusion of battle, ran
+to her aid. Bodies of cavalry rushed from the camp to assist the
+audacious Amazons, and the mass of the besieged retreated in disorder
+toward the city.
+
+Asbyte arose and advanced a step, raising her lance to thrust the giant;
+but at the same moment the enormous cudgel, brandished with both hands,
+crushed upon her like a toppling wall. Her crumpling bronze shield rung
+plaintively, her golden helmet parted on the seams, and Asbyte doubled
+up on the ground, her tunic stained with blood, like a wounded white
+bird folded in its fluttering wings.
+
+Theron, despite his ferocity, stood appalled, resting on his club,
+oblivious to what was taking place about him, as if repentant for the
+frightful destruction which his power had wrought upon that beautiful
+woman.
+
+"Answer _me_ for that, Theron! Defend yourself, butcher of Hercules!
+Kill me if you can; I am Hannibal!"
+
+The priest turned and beheld a warrior, his face covered by his shield,
+his sword held in tierce, advancing with amazing agility, circling
+around him like a tiger attacking an elephant and seeking by his greater
+mobility to spring upon him at a defenceless point. The battle had
+ceased; the Saguntines fell back toward the city. The besieging cavalry
+charged close up to the walls, leaving the two combatants alone on the
+field. A few soldiers sluggishly approached, and stood still some
+distance away, intimidated by the superstitious terror which the giant
+inspired.
+
+Theron did not falter on finding himself alone. Hannibal! It was
+Hannibal the great warrior, who was now to fight with him absolutely
+alone! This singular duel, in view of the whole city looking on from the
+walls, seemed arranged by his god! He was to rid Saguntum of her direst
+enemy! Hercules had reserved this glory for him; and smiling with
+satisfaction he raised the mace, striding straight toward the African.
+
+Hannibal eluded him, stepping backward, springing aside with feline
+agility, evading the encounter, until at last the priest was weary and
+wished to end the struggle before new combatants should arrive. He
+steadied himself on his colossal legs and hurled the club at Hannibal.
+The enormous tree trunk tore through the air, while Hannibal, seeing it
+coming, sprang aside. It grazed his shield with a thundering clang, and
+fell far away amid a cloud of dust.
+
+The African bent his knees at the shock, but recovered himself, and
+flinging away his broken shield rushed at Theron with lifted sword.
+
+The priest of Hercules, finding himself disarmed, experienced a
+momentary qualm; he knew fear, believing himself in the presence of a
+superior being against whom his strength could not avail, and turning
+his back on Hannibal he fled toward Saguntum. The people on the walls
+seeing his peril called to him. Some drew their bows to stop Hannibal
+with their arrows, but they dared not shoot for fear of wounding
+Theron. The Saguntines breathed hard at seeing their Hercules flee,
+pursued by the warrior who was heading him off so that he should not
+reach the city.
+
+The giant being heavy and muscular, ran with difficulty over the ground
+strewn as it was with dead and with the litter of the fight. He stumbled
+over a shield; his knees bent; he arose again; but this time completely
+nude. The lion skin had fallen from his shoulders, and lay among the
+wrack of battle.
+
+His pursuer caught up to him. The giant felt the cold steel sink into
+the muscles of his back, and not caring to die like a fleeing slave in
+sight of his entire city he turned quickly, extending his columnar arms
+to crush his enemy between them; but before the two muscular masses
+could encircle and mangle him, Hannibal had buried his sword again and
+again in the side of the colossus, and Theron fell, pressing his hands
+against his wounds and gazing at his dark red blood.
+
+He looked at Hannibal without anger, with a childlike expression of
+pain, and then he fixed his death-clouded eyes on the lofty Acropolis,
+where the roofs glistened in the sun.
+
+"Father Hercules!" he murmured bitterly. "Why do you abandon your
+people?"
+
+His enormous head raised a cloud of dust as it struck the ground.
+Hannibal bent over it and with his sword began to hew the robust neck,
+obliged to strike many blows to sever the network of corded tendons and
+stubborn muscles, which seemed to blunt the edge of the blade.
+
+A cloud of arrows began to plow the ground roundabout Hannibal.
+
+The chieftain removed his helmet, loosing his mass of curling hair; he
+grasped the head of Theron by its gory mane, and placing one foot in the
+attitude of conqueror upon the body of the priest, he showed it to the
+people on the walls.
+
+He was magnificent with his sword in his right hand and holding out his
+other arm which sustained the head of the giant. The dark integument of
+his eyes, brilliant as the metal disks which hung from his ears, gleamed
+with pride and icy hate.
+
+The Saguntines recognized the victor, and wails of surprise and peals of
+fury thundered along the wall.
+
+"Hannibal! It is Hannibal!"
+
+He still stood motionless, like a statue of victory, proudly defying the
+enemy, heedless of the storm of projectiles whizzing around him, until
+suddenly he dropped the head of Theron and sank to his knees, letting
+fall his sword.
+
+Mopsus the bowman had shot an arrow through his leg.
+
+From the walls all beheld how, in an outburst of angry pain he tore out
+the arrow-shaft, broke it into splinters, and flung them away. Then they
+saw no more. A host of the besieging army rushed forward and covered
+him, and his archers and slingers began to shoot against the
+battlements.
+
+Act�on, fatigued by the recent sally, and hidden behind a merlon,
+watched what was taking place around Hannibal, paying no attention to
+the missiles from the slingers, who, infuriated by the wounding of their
+chief, hurled a hail of stones against the walls.
+
+He saw Hannibal move away supported by two Carthaginian captains in
+golden cuirasses, accompanied by a multitude.
+
+Suddenly the chieftain repelled his helpers, and limped painfully toward
+a white, bloodstained object lying on the red earth like a shapeless
+rag. He bent over the form, and the Numidians who surrounded it beheld
+the terrible Hannibal weep--for the first and last time--pressing his
+lips upon the mangled head of the Amazon Asbyte.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE WALLS OF SAGUNTUM
+
+
+The wounding of Hannibal gave the city some days of respite. The
+besiegers remained non-combatant in their camp, watching Saguntum from
+afar. The slingers came out in the mornings to exercise their arms by
+shooting against the wall, but aside from this, and from the arrow-shots
+with which they replied from the city, there was no further exchange of
+hostilities between the besiegers and the besieged.
+
+Bands of cavalry overran the domain foraging, and the immense multitude
+of ferocious tribes finished the work of destruction, sacking the villas
+and country-houses. The groves were cleared away; each day they chopped
+down new trees in order to supply the camp with wood, and in these
+denuded spaces the tiled roofs and towers could no longer be seen. Only
+smoking and blackened ruins appeared here and there through the deserted
+fields. A mosaic on a level with the ground was often the only vestige
+of an elegant villa razed to its foundations by the invaders.
+
+The beleaguered people saw Hannibal's army rapidly swelling. Each day
+new tribes arrived. It seemed as if all Iberia, subjugated by the
+prestige of Hannibal, were coming to camp around Saguntum, fired by the
+fame of its riches. They came on foot or on horseback, dirty, savage,
+covered with skins or dressed in esparto, carrying crescent-shaped
+shields and short two-edged swords, eager to fight, and bringing with
+them showy presents for the African, whose glory dazzled them.
+
+Such of the Saguntines as had trafficked with the tribes of the interior
+recognized the new arrivals from the walls. They came from very far;
+some there were who had marched more than a month to reach Saguntum, and
+they pointed out the Lusitanians, athletic of figure, of whom horrible
+tales of ferocity were told; the Galicians, who lived on fish and by
+washing and melting the gold of their rivers; the Asturians, who worked
+in iron; and the gloomy Basques whose language other nations could not
+understand. Mixed with them came fresh tribes from B�tica, who had been
+slow in answering the Carthaginian's call; agile infantry, of olive
+skin, their hair hanging down their backs, dressed in short white skirts
+with broad purple borders, and carrying large round shields which served
+them as floats in crossing streams. The camp stretched along the river
+and spread over the extensive valley, scattering finally in groups of
+tents and huts as far as the eye could see. It was a veritable city,
+larger than Saguntum, which advanced and advanced as if it would swallow
+her walls.
+
+The day following their courageous sally the Saguntines noticed great
+activity in the besieging camp--the funeral honors to the queen of the
+Amazons. They saw Asbyte's body borne in parade on a shield by the
+women-warriors; then, in the centre of the camp rose a column of smoke
+from the enormous pyre which consumed her remains.
+
+The beleaguered people guessed the mood of the enemy. Hannibal was
+lying on his couch, and the army seemed depressed by the hero's
+suffering. The wizards came and went through the tent, examining the
+wound, and then they searched the surrounding mountains for mysterious
+herbs to compound miraculous poultices.
+
+In Saguntum some of the most daring urged another sally to take
+advantage of that moment of depression for falling upon the enemy and
+putting them to flight. But the besieging camp was well guarded;
+Hannibal's brother with the principal captains were on the watch to
+avoid a surprise; the army lay behind earthen breastworks thrown up
+around the camp as in a strong city, and they took advantage of this
+opportunity to accomplish new work for protecting it from the danger of
+attack. On the other hand the city was no less disheartened by the loss
+of the priest of Hercules. The people could not explain to themselves
+how the African chieftain had put the gigantic Theron to death before
+the eyes of all Saguntum, and the more superstitious saw in this a
+celestial sign, the omen that the tutelary gods of the city were about
+to abandon it.
+
+The same determination as at the beginning was still displayed; all were
+resolved to defend themselves; but the mocking joviality of the early
+days of the siege had disappeared. They believed that they scented
+adversity round about them, and the ever swelling numbers of the enemy
+dispirited them. Each morning they beheld the besieging camp increased.
+When would Hannibal's allies cease to come?
+
+The merry Grecian city of rich merchants and of pompous Panathenaic
+festivals presented the solemn aspect of every beleaguered town. The
+people from the fields who had sought refuge in the city camped in the
+streets and squares, distilling the odor of a sick and suffering flock.
+In the temples the wounded dragged themselves to the bases of the
+columns, groaning; above, on the Acropolis, a funeral pyre smoked day
+and night consuming the bodies of those who had died on the walls, or
+had fallen in the streets victims of strange diseases engendered by the
+congestion of the population.
+
+There were still enough provisions, but there was lack of fruits and
+vegetables; and the rich, divining the future, gathered in all they
+could, seeing days of want ahead.
+
+In the poor wards they killed the horses and beasts of burden, roasting
+the meat over flames kindled in the streets for the roofless refugees.
+
+On the walls, as well as on the Acropolis, all gazed impatiently out to
+sea. When would the auxiliaries come from Rome? What were the legates
+from Saguntum to the great Republic doing?
+
+Frequently impatience caused the whole city to be cruelly deceived. Some
+mornings the lookouts posted in the tower of Hercules on the Acropolis
+raised a furious clangor of cymbals on spying sails upon the horizon.
+The people rushed to the crest of the hill, following with anxious eyes
+the course of the white or red sails over the blue surface of the
+Sucronian gulf. It was they! The Romans! The advance ships of the
+succoring fleet bound for the port! But after hours of anguishing
+expectancy, their hopes were crushed on seeing that they were passing
+merchant ships from Massilia or Emporion, or hostile triremes which
+Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, was sending from New Carthage with
+provisions for the army.
+
+Each disappointment increased the melancholy of the Saguntines. The
+enemy's ranks were ever swelling, and the allies failed to come! The
+city would be lost! The enthusiasm of the defenders was revived only
+when they found old Mopsus on the walls, who because of his sure aim at
+Hannibal was the hero of the city, and the valorous Act�on, who with the
+light spirits of an Athenian, jesting and merry in the presence of
+danger, knew how to inspire fresh courage.
+
+S�nnica also appeared among them at the points of combat. She ran along
+the walls amidst the hissing arrows, and the poor citizens marveled at
+the bravery of the opulent Greek woman who scorned the missiles of the
+enemy.
+
+Love for Act�on and hatred of the besiegers made her bold. She was
+enraged at the Carthaginians. From the height of the Acropolis one
+afternoon she had seen the flames pouring from the roof of her villa.
+She saw the red tower of the dovecote topple, the beautiful groves which
+surrounded her house cut down, leaving nothing but a mound of rubbish
+and charred trunks; and she longed to be avenged, not for her lost
+riches, but for the destruction of the secluded retreat sacred to her
+love, and of the sumptuous dwelling crowded with memories. Moreover, she
+was nervous from the insufferable deprivation of this new life within
+the beleaguered city, where she was obliged to eat coarse food and to
+sleep in a room in her warehouse among the valuables piled together in
+the disorder of flight, almost mingling with her slaves, and deprived of
+her bath. There was no water in the city, except that in the cisterns
+which the magistrates distributed with great parsimony, foreseeing an
+approaching scarcity.
+
+This wretched life excited her, making her distinguished for warlike
+audacity. Occasionally she saw her lover, the soul of the defense;
+sometimes on the walls directing the slaves who were repairing them, at
+others on the Acropolis with Mopsus to examine the situation of the
+enemy. He wished to take advantage of the lull caused by Hannibal's
+wound to put the city into a better state of defense, and meanwhile
+S�nnica strolled along the wall talking with the young men, promising
+handsome rewards to those who most distinguished themselves, and
+exciting them to make an extraordinary sally in which the city should
+hurl itself en masse beyond the walls, crushing the enemy and sweeping
+them onward into the sea.
+
+She went everywhere escorted by Erotion and Rhanto. Life in the narrow
+limits, and a community of danger, had drawn her to the two children,
+and they followed in her wake listening to her words with enthusiastic
+smiles, and applauding the rich woman's warlike suggestions.
+
+Rhanto was no longer a shepherdess. One after another her goats had been
+devoured in S�nnica's house, and with no other occupation than following
+her mistress, clinging always to Erotion's hand, she regarded the
+situation as one of joy, and had no desire that it should ever cease.
+Even the frowning Mopsus, the father of her beloved, unprotesting found
+them together, and often smiled at seeing them tranquil and happy,
+walking along the walls without fear of the besiegers.
+
+Danger had developed kindness in the people. Rich merchants elbowed
+slaves as they shot their arrows from the cover of the merlons; more
+than one opulent Grecian woman was seen to tear her linen tunic to bind
+the wounds of rude mercenaries, and S�nnica the rich, she who used to
+scorn the women of the city, now talked of forming a troop like that of
+the Amazons who followed Hannibal. Rhanto, content with this new
+situation, so blinded by joy that she could not see the anguish and
+misery which the town endured, pulled her lover away in moments of
+combat, snatched the bow from his hands, and dragging him from the
+battlements, they hid beneath the hollow of a stairway at the foot of
+the rampart, and made love with fresh ardor, their pleasure seeming the
+more intense because threatened by the singing arrows and the cries and
+exclamations of pain and fury overhead.
+
+The respite lasted only twenty days. Breaking the silence of the camp
+the carpenters' hammers rung ceaselessly and the besieged saw gradually
+rising a great wooden tower several stories high, taller than the walls
+of the city.
+
+Hannibal regained his strength, and was eager to continue the siege. In
+his desire that the enemy should see him without delay, he left his
+tent, in spite of his still open wound, he mounted his horse, and rode
+out of the camp to gallop along the walls, followed by his captains.
+
+The Saguntines were dazed at the sight of him. He shone like a coal of
+fire upon his black horse; the sun wrapped him in a splendor which
+blinded, as if he were a divinity. He wore the cuirass and helmet made
+of gold from the rivers which the Galician tribes had brought him as a
+present. The chieftain preferred the bronze armor which he had ever
+worn in his battles, but his parade around Saguntum was like a
+resurrection, and he wished the besieged to behold him dazzling and
+majestic as a god.
+
+With the reappearance of Hannibal the siege began fiercer than before.
+The Saguntines understood from the first moment that the besiegers had
+taken advantage of the cessation of hostilities to augment their
+offensive power. With great effort they dragged up the enormous wooden
+tower which they had constructed. Archers were stationed in the
+different stories to shoot through the loopholes in the sides. The upper
+platform dominated the wall in such wise that its catapult hurled great
+stones over the merlons, sowing death among the defenders.
+
+Hannibal seemed everywhere at once, irritated by the tenacity of the
+Saguntines, and eager to terminate the siege without delay.
+
+It was impossible to remain uncovered on the walls. The tower had been
+placed near the projecting part of the city which Hannibal considered
+the weakest. Darts and stones fell ceaselessly and while the defenders
+sought refuge behind the merlons, unable to step out into the crenels,
+the battering-rams pounded at the base under the protection of the
+tower, hammering against the walls, and gradually weakening them; and
+the Africans who had outlived the first assault now attacked the blocks
+of stone with more security, little by little opening a breach.
+
+The Saguntines, pale with the rage of impotence, endeavored in vain to
+stay the destruction. The besieging tower, rolling over a level tract
+impelled by men hidden behind it, moved from place to place, scattering
+death, and at times it drew so near that the besieged could hear the
+voices of the bowmen who shot through the loopholes. Meanwhile, down
+below, at the base of the walls, the slow and obstinate work of
+undermining continued.
+
+The more excitable citizens, raging with indignation at seeing their
+walls destroyed with impunity, leaned out into the crenels to shoot at
+those who operated the battering-ram and worked with pickaxes; but no
+sooner did they appear than a stone fell upon them, or they tumbled over
+with their bodies pierced by an arrow. The wall was strewn with the dead
+and dying. The wounded dragged themselves along contemplating with
+clouded gaze the shaft of the arrow sunk in their flesh.
+
+In vain the besieged shot against the tower. Stones rebounded from its
+walls of logs with hollow clatter but without piercing them. It was
+bristling with arrows, moving like a monstrous elephant, insensible to
+wounds, and in vain the phalarics whistled through the air with their
+trail of sparks and smoke, for they could not set fire to the wet hides
+with which the upper part of the tower was covered.
+
+The more prudent fled from those places where the besiegers concentrated
+their efforts, and the more audacious took their places ignorant how to
+repel the enemy, but with the stubborn determination of dying before he
+should advance a step.
+
+Mopsus, the bowman, was the only one in the difficult situation who
+inflicted damage upon the Carthaginians. With drawn bow he thrust his
+head outside the merlons for an instant and shot, managing to send his
+arrows into the loopholes of the tower, scattering death among the
+soldiers who thought themselves secure. Erotion was at his side. Seeing
+his father in a place of danger he repelled Rhanto at the foot of the
+steps leading to the wall, paying no heed to her tears, and grasping his
+bow he tried to imitate the old archer, challenging the men in the
+tower.
+
+But with the imprudence of youth he exposed almost his entire body
+beyond the merlon, and when he managed to plunge an arrow into the tower
+he laughed, standing in the open crenel insulting the besiegers with his
+boisterous peals of boyish laughter.
+
+A stone from a catapult in the tower came whizzing and struck his head
+with a mournful crash. Blood and torn flesh spattered over those nearest
+him, and the boy, doubling up as if made of rags, rolled through the
+crenel and fell outside the wall. The arrows from his quiver struck
+roundabout his body with a metallic ring.
+
+"Mopsus! Mopsus!" shouted Act�on, striving to restrain the bowman.
+
+The old man had rushed out upon the wall, wholly unprotected, his eyes
+glassy, his gray beard quivering, impotent from grief and rage.
+
+Three times he tried to draw his bow to shoot at the platform in the
+tower which held the catapult, but in spite of his efforts he could not
+bend his weapon. Grief, surprise, despair, at being unable to
+exterminate his enemies with a single blow deprived him of his strength.
+
+While he stood struggling with the rigid bow which seemed to rebel
+against him, the enemy's projectiles were hissing around his head.
+Finding himself powerless, aged in an instant by grief, gazing down upon
+the mangled body of his son, and unable to avenge him, he uttered a
+moan, and summoning all the strength of his will he sprang outside the
+wall, and fell upon the corpse of Erotion. His head struck against the
+stones with a resounding thud, a stream of blood ran from it, and father
+and son formed a motionless pile a short distance from the assailants,
+who continued pounding with the battering-rams, and digging at the base
+of the wall.
+
+The unequal struggle lasted almost throughout the day. The Saguntines
+defending this part of the wall could not repulse the advance of the
+enemy. They felt the dull thud of the pickaxes, the wall seemed to reel
+beneath their feet, and they could do nothing to prevent the progress of
+the besiegers.
+
+Slowly the defenders began to retire. Act�on, saddened by the tragic
+death of his compatriot, and convinced that it was useless to remain at
+that point, advised them to retreat into the interior of the city. He
+fell back with some of his men, and soon a tower, eaten away at its base
+by the battering-ram, tottered and fell to the ground with a great roar
+of rubbish, and filled the air with dust. After this two other towers
+were battered down, and a long stretch of wall collapsed, burying in the
+d�bris the most obstinate defenders who had remained at their posts
+until the last moment.
+
+An awe-inspiring acclamation, a howl of savage joy from without greeted
+the overthrow of the walls. From the city streets the desolated fields
+and one end of the camp could be seen through the open breach. Arms
+glittered in the dense atmosphere, reddened by the dust of the shattered
+walls; dark bodies of troops could be seen advancing, and trumpet blasts
+resounded.
+
+"The assault! The Carthaginians are coming!"
+
+From all sides of the city armed men gathered. The narrow streets near
+the wall vomited groups and more groups who came shouting and
+brandishing swords and axes, with the determined mien of those who had
+decided to die. Clambering over the rubbish they began to take position
+in the breach, and this open space, this broad gash in the city's girdle
+of stone, was protected by a motley crowd which flourished weapons and
+formed a solid unbreakable mass.
+
+Act�on was in the first rank; near him he saw the prudent Alcon, who had
+exchanged his staff for a sword, and many of the peace-loving merchants
+whose astute faces seemed ennobled by the heroic resolution to die
+rather than give passage to the enemy.
+
+When the besiegers advanced to the assault they had to clash with the
+entire city. The walking-tower, the battering-rams, and the catapults,
+availed them nothing; the struggle was hand to hand, and the besieged no
+longer used the phalaric, but the sword and the axe.
+
+Hannibal, on foot, guided the phalanxes, which marched with lowered
+lance or lifted sword. He was fighting like a soldier, anxious to end
+this siege which was delaying his plans, believing this to be the
+decisive moment, and that a supreme effort might make him master of the
+city. With sharp words he encouraged the soldiers in the different
+idioms of their tribes, reminding them of the great riches within the
+city, of the beauty of the Greek women, of the large numbers of slaves
+inside those walls, and the Balearians attacked with lowered head,
+holding before them their wooden spears with points hardened by fire;
+the Celtiberians roared their war songs, beating on their breasts as on
+sonorous drums, drawing their sharp two-edged swords, and the Numidians
+and Mauritanians, dismounting from their horses, moved from place to
+place, cautious and sly, hurling upon the besieged the missiles which
+they carried in their girdles hidden beneath their white vestments.
+
+All in vain. The breach was a narrow throat. The Carthaginian army, in
+spite of superior numbers, had to contract its front to fight in such a
+constricted space, and in this equalizing of forces, the Saguntines
+retained an advantage, repelling the besiegers as often as they tried to
+climb over the mound formed by the fallen wall. Swords sunk into flesh
+producing atrocious wounds characteristic of ancient warfare; breasts
+were torn open by the brutal force of lances; combatants clinched
+entwining their arms like tendrils, linking their legs, making their
+panting chests wheeze like bellows, and rolling on the ground biting
+each other in the face. Often when the victor arose he proudly displayed
+a piece of bleeding flesh between his teeth.
+
+Hannibal's troops rushed up the mound like a hurricane, and on its
+approach the mass of defenders swayed, but none fell back; they must die
+firm at their post, for behind them was a compact multitude which forced
+them to be valiant, leaving no space for retreat.
+
+Thus the battle raged for hours. The mounds of dead between besieged and
+besieger made the advance difficult. The sun had sunk low in the west,
+and Hannibal was exasperated by the stubborn resistance which mocked his
+efforts. Still trusting in his lucky star he ordered the trumpets
+sounded for the final assault; but at that instant an unheard of thing
+occurred which disconcerted the chieftain and sowed confusion among his
+troops.
+
+Act�on did not know for a certainty whence came the voice. Perhaps it
+was an hallucination produced by faith; perhaps the invention of some
+enthusiast tired of being on the defensive.
+
+"The Romans!" shouted a voice. "Our allies are coming!"
+
+The news spread with the credulity born of danger. From one to another
+the story ran that the lookouts in the tower of Hercules had sighted a
+fleet bound for the port, and none asked who had brought the inspiring
+news to the breach in the walls. Everyone accepted it, adding by their
+own invention fresh details, and eyes shone with joy, blanched faces
+flushed, and even the wounded, dragging themselves over the rubbish
+heap, waved their arms exclaiming:
+
+"The Romans! The Romans are coming!"
+
+Suddenly, without command, by common instinct, as if impelled by an
+invisible force, they flung themselves through the breach, down the
+incline, falling like an avalanche upon the besiegers who were massed
+for the final assault.
+
+The unexpectedness of the shock, the force of the surprise, the cry of
+"The Romans! The Romans!" which the Saguntines raised with such
+conviction, wrought disruption among Hannibal's barbarian tribes. They
+defended themselves, but the whole city fell upon them; even the women
+and children fought as on that morning when Theron died, and Hannibal's
+soldiers, broken into scattered groups, neither seeing nor hearing their
+chiefs, fled precipitately toward their camp.
+
+Hannibal ran bellowing with rage, maddened at seeing that the besieged
+repelled his troops for the second time. Such was the blindness of his
+anger that he rushed in among the enemy, and several times came near
+falling beneath their blows.
+
+The day was almost ended. The Saguntine soldiers reached the vicinity of
+the camp, while the unarmored citizens scattering throughout the battle
+field dispatched the wounded and tried to set fire to the besieging
+engines. They would have destroyed them all had it not been for
+Maherbal, Hannibal's lieutenant, who came out of the camp with some
+cohorts of cavalry. The besieged, unable to resist the cavalry on open
+ground, began slowly to retire. When night closed in they reoccupied the
+breach, commenting with joyful shouts upon the victory which mitigated
+their disappointment over the non-appearance of the Romans.
+
+Act�on, with those Saguntines who had most distinguished themselves in
+the battles, set to work fortifying the city. He explained to the old
+men of the Senate how difficult it would be long to defend the opening.
+It was impossible to repeat the prodigy of that afternoon many times;
+and by the light of torches the people spent the whole night working
+behind the breach, throwing down tiled roofs and demolishing walls.
+
+Merchants and slaves, rich city dames and women from the suburbs, all
+mingled together, wielding pickaxes, rolling stones and carrying baskets
+of clay. Even the Ancients of the Senate took part in this titanic work,
+which lasted throughout the night and a great part of the following day.
+
+Euphobias the philosopher, who remained idle in spite of the insults of
+those who worked, ironically recalled the memory of the primitive
+founders of the city, the Cyclopes who moved stones as big as mountains
+and had thrown up the base of the Acropolis.
+
+The labor was not finished until the next afternoon, and at the same
+moment the besieging army began to stir. It marched solidly to the
+assault, silently, sullenly, revealing the fixed determination of taking
+possession at the first onset of that breach which had put them to shame
+the day before.
+
+They passed through the clouds of stones and arrows which the besieged
+hurled at them, and the cohorts leading on a run climbed up the pile of
+d�bris, struggling with the more audacious Saguntines, who still
+disputed passage through the breach. After a short conflict the
+besiegers made themselves masters of the entrance to the city, and they
+burst into exclamations of triumph.
+
+Hannibal marched intrepidly at the head of his soldiers; but on gaining
+the crest of the pile in the breach he stepped backward with an
+expression of disgust.
+
+Before him stretched a broad waste of demolished houses, and beyond the
+hills of d�bris rose a second monstrous wall, constructed in haste, as
+if an enormous broom had swept the desolated structures of the interior
+to the entrance of the city. Great, square-hewn stones, chunks of
+masonry, broken columns, were laid with the regularity of blocks in a
+wall, and the interstices were chinked with fresh clay. This wall
+quickly raised by a supreme effort of the whole city was taller than the
+previous one, and in the form of a curve it joined with the two curtains
+of the ancient walls which were still standing.
+
+Hannibal paled with wrath on seeing that all his efforts had served only
+to make him master of a pitiful little piece of ground covered by heaps
+of ruins and that by prodigious skill the walls which he had battered
+down had risen again beyond in a single night. Saguntum would destroy
+her houses to refortify herself with new barriers, cutting off his
+passage! He would have to conquer the ground inch by inch, street by
+street, and it might cost him months and years to narrow it down, first
+around the Forum, then up to the hill of the Acropolis, before he could
+succeed in making it surrender.
+
+On the summit of their new wall the Saguntines showed themselves as
+resolute as the day before, and their bows and slings prevented the
+assault of the enemy, who ended by falling back, remaining under cover
+of the d�bris at the breach.
+
+Hannibal stood outside the city wall, contemplating the heights of the
+Acropolis. He realized that he might gradually sacrifice his whole army
+if he continued attacking Saguntum on the level and weaker side where
+the besieged defended the ground so tenaciously. Calling Maherbal and
+his brother Mago, he laid before them the necessity of capturing a
+position on the hill, and of assaulting a portion of the immense
+Acropolis to attack the city from that direction, obliging it to
+surrender.
+
+Several days went by without resumption of hostilities on the side
+toward the river. The engines of war had been moved over to the foot of
+the hill, and they directed their heavy projectiles against the farthest
+walls of the Acropolis. These were old and had not been repaired, since
+the Saguntines trusted in the impregnability of the steeps.
+
+Moreover the number of defenders was insufficient to garrison the
+extensive precincts of Saguntum, while the besieger had at his disposal
+an immense armed multitude which could hurl itself against several
+places at once.
+
+One night in the Forum, Act�on encountered S�nnica, who was seeking him,
+followed by Alcon the Prudent.
+
+"The Elders have need of you," said the beautiful Greek woman, with a
+tone of sadness. "Behold Alcon, who wishes to speak with you."
+
+"Listen, Athenian," said the Saguntine gravely. "The days are passing
+and our needed succor does not come from Rome. Is it because our legates
+have been unable to reach the territory of the allied nation, and that
+the Senate of the great Republic is ignorant of our situation? Is it
+because Rome imagines that Hannibal, repenting of his audacity, has
+raised the siege? We need to know what our ally thinks concerning us. We
+wish the Senate of Rome to know in detail what Saguntum is doing, and
+the Ancients, at my suggestion, have thought of you."
+
+"Of me? And what do they wish?" asked Act�on in surprise, looking at the
+mournful S�nnica.
+
+"They wish you to start for Rome this very night. Here is gold! Take
+also these tablets which will serve as credentials, so that the Senate
+shall recognize you as an embassador extraordinary from Saguntum. We are
+not sending you to a festival. The exit is difficult, and it will be
+even more difficult to find, on these enemy-infested shores, anyone to
+convey you to Rome. You should start to-night; this moment, if possible;
+letting yourself down from the walls of the Acropolis, on the side
+toward the mountains where there are fewer enemies; to-morrow may be
+too late. Fly, and return soon with the aid which we await with
+anguish!"
+
+Act�on took the gold and the tablets which Alcon offered him, but not
+without making excuses, realizing the gravity of the undertaking.
+
+"No one can perform the mission better," said the Saguntine; "that is
+why I have turned to you. Your life has been spent running over the
+world; you speak many tongues; and you are not lacking in finesse and
+valor. Are you acquainted with Rome?"
+
+"No, my father's father made war against her, under orders of Pyrrhus."
+
+"Then go to her now as a friend, as an ally, and may the gods grant that
+some day we shall bless the moment in which you came to Saguntum!"
+
+Act�on was not eager to start. It seemed to him a shameful act to
+abandon the city at that critical moment, to leave S�nnica within a
+besieged town.
+
+"I am a stranger, Alcon," he said simply. "No tie of blood unites me to
+your fate. Are you not afraid that I shall flee forever, leaving you
+abandoned?"
+
+"No, Athenian, I know you, and that is why I have stood responsible for
+your fidelity to the Elders. S�nnica also has sworn that you will return
+if you do not fall into the power of the enemy."
+
+The Greek looked at his beloved as if asking her whether he should go,
+and she bowed her head, resigned to the sacrifice. Act�on then expressed
+himself as ready.
+
+"Farewell, Alcon! Tell the Elders that the Athenian Act�on will be
+crucified in Hannibal's camp or he will appear before the Senate of Rome
+presenting your suit."
+
+He kissed S�nnica on the eyes again and again, and the beautiful Greek
+woman, restraining her tears, pleaded to be allowed to follow him along
+with Alcon as far as the summit of the Acropolis, that she might see him
+a few moments longer.
+
+The three walked in the dark across the esplanades of the ancient city,
+along the walls of the Acropolis. They had blown out their torch in
+order not to attract the attention of the besiegers, and they went on,
+guided by the diffused light of the stars, which seemed to shine with
+more brilliancy, as if intensified by the cold of the night which was
+one of the first of winter.
+
+Alcon was searching for a place on the wall of which he had been told by
+some of the Elders who were more familiar with the Acropolis. When they
+had found it the Saguntine groped in the dark until he reached the end
+of a heavy rope fastened to a merlon, and he flung it over into space.
+
+The departure took place in absolute secret. The very Elders who had
+planned the journey for their ambassador and had arranged his flight,
+concealed themselves and did not witness it. S�nnica embraced Act�on,
+sobbing, and clinging to his neck.
+
+"Go quickly, Athenian," said the Saguntine impatiently. "This first hour
+of the night is the best; many groups of soldiers are still stirring
+around the camps before going to sleep. You can pass through now without
+being observed, while later, in the silence of the night, the sentinels
+will challenge you."
+
+Act�on freed himself from S�nnica's arms, and leaning over the walls he
+grasped the rope in the darkness.
+
+"Have confidence in our gods," said Alcon, as a parting word. "Although
+it may seem as if they have abandoned us, they ever watch over Saguntum.
+Not long ago a fugitive slave from the camp revealed before the Elders
+that the Vacc�i and the Carpetani, exasperated by the robbery of the
+detachments which Hannibal sent to gather supplies, have revolted
+against him, and have beheaded his emissaries. It seems that Hannibal,
+with a part of his army, will have to abandon the siege and go to punish
+them. We shall have fewer enemies before us, and if you return with the
+legions from Rome, Saguntum will be for the Carthaginians what the
+�gates Islands were for them in Sicily. Ah! How much better is peace!"
+
+With this melancholy exclamation Alcon said farewell to the Greek, who
+descended the rope in silence. His feet soon rested upon a part of the
+rock on which the wall stood. He let go the rope and began groping his
+way down, catching hold, in his precipitous descent, of the scrawny
+olive trees which twisted over the heights as if complaining of the
+asperity of the rocks.
+
+At the feet of the Greek, in the black solitude of the plain, glittered
+the light of camp fires. Perhaps they were advance guards of the camp
+watching that part of the mountain, or marauders who followed the army,
+and had established themselves there out of Hannibal's sight.
+
+Act�on watched the plain and picked his way cautiously, crouching along
+by a stony ridge, stopping often to listen, holding his breath. He
+thought he was being shadowed, that someone was skulking behind him.
+Not far away blazed a great fire, and against its lurid smoke
+silhouettes of men and women were outlined.
+
+When he stood erect to explore the dark fields in order to circle away
+from the fire, someone suddenly caught him by the shoulders, and a
+hoarse voice murmured in his ears, between peals of loud and stupid
+laughter:
+
+"Now I have you at last!----You can not hide yourself from me!"
+
+Act�on squirmed from the clutching hands, and tugging at the broad knife
+he wore in his belt sprang in front of the unknown in an attitude of
+defense. It was a woman! By the dim starlight the Greek beheld her
+gesture of indecision and surprise.
+
+"Are you not Geryon the slinger?" she murmured, holding her hands out to
+the Athenian.
+
+They stared at each other, their faces almost meeting in the darkness,
+and the Greek recognized in the woman the unhappy _lupa_ who had fed him
+the first night of his arrival in Saguntum. She seemed even more
+surprised than the Athenian at the meeting.
+
+"Is it you, Act�on? It seems as if the gods put me in your path,
+although you scorn me. You are running away from the city, are you not?
+You must be tired of S�nnica the rich; you do not want to die like those
+merchants whom Hannibal the invincible will put to the knife! You are
+doing well! Fly! Fly far away!"
+
+She glanced apprehensively at the camp fire as if she feared the
+approach of the soldiers who were warming themselves around it, laughing
+and drinking with a group of _lupas_ from the port.
+
+The miserable harlot, in lowered voice, told the Greek why she was
+there. She was the favorite of Geryon, a Balearic slinger. He had left
+his companions a moment before, and had got out of her way so as not to
+have to give her the wages he had just received, and in searching for
+him she had stumbled upon Act�on. He might return, or his companions
+might approach, attracted by their voices; it was dangerous for Act�on
+to remain where he was.
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"I want to reach the coast, and follow along it until I find a fishing
+smack which will take me to Emporion or to Denia. I have money to pay my
+passage. Afterward I will look for a ship to take me away, very far
+away."
+
+"You will not return, will you? I do not wish you to return. If you only
+knew how often I have thought of you while men were killing each other
+on the walls! I shall never see you again, but I would rather not see
+you than have you remain in the city or become the slave of my lover the
+slinger. Hannibal will finish all of them! Ah, cruel city! And how I
+long to see all those rich women fall before Hannibal's troops--those
+women who used to have us beaten when we came near them at the port!"
+
+The poor harlot, extending her hand to the Greek, began to guide him
+through the fields.
+
+"Come!" she murmured; "I will conduct you to the beach, and from there
+you can continue on your way without other help than that of the gods.
+Seeing you with me they will think you are a Celtiberian soldier with
+his woman, looking for a place to spend the night. Come! I fed you the
+first night you came here, and I will save you on this last."
+
+They drew near the shore. As they passed several camp fires they were
+hailed by obscene calls from the soldiers and the women who thought them
+an amorous pair in search of a hiding-place. Some armed groups allowed
+them to pass without the slightest suspicion.
+
+The murmur of the waves on the sand grew louder. They were walking
+through the rushes, sinking into the warm and oozy bottom of the lagoon
+formed by the overflow of the tide.
+
+The poor _lupa_ stood still.
+
+"Here I leave you, Act�on. If you wished I would follow you as your
+slave! But you do not wish it; I know what I am----I can be nothing to
+you! You are going away forever, but I am content because you are
+fleeing from S�nnica. Before we part, kiss me, my divinity! No, not on
+the eyes----on the mouth----thus!"
+
+The Athenian, with tender commiseration, moved by the kindness of the
+miserable creature, kissed the dry and flaccid lips, from which escaped
+the insufferable odor of the wine of the Balearic slingers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE ROME OF FABIUS THE DELAYER
+
+
+When the sun's first rays reddened the walls of the Capitol the life of
+Rome had been astir for more than an hour.
+
+The Romans arose from their couches by the light of the morning stars.
+Carts from the Campagna rolled in the darkness through the tortuous
+streets, slaves awakened by the crowing of the cock trudged along
+carrying baskets and farm utensils, and by the hour of dawn all the
+houses had their doors thrown open, and the citizens not employed in the
+fields gathered in the Forum, that centre of traffic and of public
+business, that had begun to be adorned with the earlier temples, but
+still retained broad barren spaces upon which in later centuries were to
+rise the architectural glories of Rome, mistress of the world.
+
+Act�on had been in the great city for two days, lodged in an extramural
+inn established by a Greek. He never ceased to marvel at this austere
+Republic, existing almost in poverty, a hardy nation of farmers and
+soldiers who filled the world with their fame while they endured greater
+privation than any hamlet on the outskirts of Athens.
+
+Act�on expected to appear before the Senate that very day. The majority
+of the Fathers of the Republic lived in the country, in rustic villas
+with walls of unseasoned adobe roofed with branches, overseeing the work
+of their slaves, guiding the plow like Cincinnatus and Camillus; when
+affairs of state called them to the Senate they came into Rome in their
+carts, drawn by oxen, riding among baskets of vegetables and sacks of
+grain, and with their toil-calloused hands they arrayed themselves in
+the toga before entering the Forum, transfigured by the majesty lent by
+their flowing vestments.
+
+The Greek arrived at the Forum by sunrise, encountering the customary
+crowd--venerable Romans wrapped in their togas discoursing before the
+young men and their clients on the art of prudently placing money upon
+good security, the chief attainment of every citizen; and hungry Greek
+pedagogues scheming ever, in search of a situation among that sombre
+people more apt in war than in culture; old legionaries, their gray
+military cloaks covered with patches, their thoughts yearning back to
+the by-gone wars against Pyrrhus and Carthage, persecuted by debts and
+threatened with slavery by their creditors, in spite of the cicatrices
+all over their bodies; and the plebe, with no other clothing than the
+_lacerna_--a short cape of coarse cloth finished with the _cucullus_ or
+pointed hood--the multitudinous Roman plebe, exploited and oppressed by
+the patricians, ever dreaming, as a remedy for their ills, of new
+divisions of the public lands which, by means of usury, gradually fell
+into the hands of the rich.
+
+On the steps of the Comitium the members of a tribe were gathered to
+probate the will of one of their people who had just died. Near the
+military tribune veteran centurions wearing greaves and helmets of
+bronze stood leaning on staves of vine-wood, the badge of their
+military rank, discussing the siege of Saguntum and the audacity of
+Hannibal, eager to march immediately against the Carthaginian.
+
+On the huge blocks of blue stone which paved the Forum the vendors of
+hot drinks established their great craters, beating on them with ladles
+to attract the people, and at the foot of the steps of the temple of
+Concord some Etruscan buffoons, wearing hideous masks, began their
+grotesque pantomime, attracting the children and the idle from all sides
+of the quadrangle.
+
+It was cold; a damp and icy wind was blowing off the Pontine marshes;
+the sky was gray; and from the crowd stirring about the Forum rose a
+continuous and melancholy buzzing. Act�on compared this square with the
+bright Agora of Athens, and even with the Forum of Saguntum in its days
+of peace. The Grecian joyousness was lacking in Rome, the sweet and
+gladsome lightness of an artistic people, careless of riches, and if
+engaging in commerce doing so only that it may live more expansively.
+This was a people cold and sad, devoted to lucre and to the laying up of
+money, disdainful of ideals, with no other industry than agriculture and
+war, squeezing the last grain of wheat from their lands, and robbing the
+enemy; methodical, lacking initiative and youthfulness.
+
+"This people," said the Athenian to himself, "seems never to have been
+as young as twenty. Even the children seem to be born old."
+
+Act�on with his Grecian sagacity thought over what he had seen within
+the two days; the cruel discipline of the family, of the religion, and
+of the State, which held the citizens in subjection; their absolute
+ignorance of poetry and art; that stern training, sad, based only on
+duty, which obliged every Roman to a long and painful obedience so that
+he might some day be able to command.
+
+The father, who in Greece was a friend, in Rome was a tyrant. For the
+Latin city there existed no other member of the family than the father;
+the wife, the children, the clients, were almost on the level of slaves;
+they were instruments of toil, without rights and without name. The gods
+heard only him; in his house he was priest and judge; he could kill his
+wife, sell the children three times over, and his authority over the
+offspring persisted down the years; the conquering consul, the
+omnipotent senator, trembled when in his father's presence; and in this
+gloomy and despotic organization, more stern even than that of Sparta,
+Act�on divined a latent force cradled in mystery which some day should
+burst its bonds, clasping the world as in an embrace of iron. The Greek
+detested this gloomy nation, but it held his admiration.
+
+Its stamina, the tough and bellicose spirit of the race, were revealed
+in the Forum. The Capitol on the summit of the sacred mount was a
+veritable fortress, with naked and gloomy walls, destitute of such
+decorations as made the citadel of Athens glow with an eternal smile.
+The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, with its low roof and its row of
+flattened, tower-like columns, barely rose above the city ramparts.
+Below, in the Forum, prevailed a similar grave and gloomy ugliness. The
+buildings were low and heavy; they seemed rather constructions of war
+than temples of the gods and public buildings. The great network of
+highroads starting from the Forum was the only embellishment in which
+Rome interested herself, and that because of their usefulness in
+transporting her legions and in the hauling of farm products. From the
+Forum the Appian Way could be seen stretching in a straight line, paved
+with blue stone, with its two rows of tombs which loomed up in the
+suburbs of the city, fading in the distance through the Campagna in the
+direction of Capua; and at the opposite extreme led off the Flaminian
+Way, which ran by the coast, extending into Cisalpine Gaul. Upon the
+immense Campagna rose like fluttering red banners the first aqueducts
+constructed during the reign of Appius Claudius to supply the city with
+fresh water from the mountains, combating thus the malaria of the
+Pontine marshes.
+
+But aside from these crude monuments, the extensive, gigantic city,
+which of itself could arm over a hundred and fifty thousand men,
+presented a savage and wretched aspect, almost like that of those tribes
+which Act�on had seen on his trip through Celtiberia.
+
+There were few houses of more than a single story; the majority were
+great cabins of round walls of stone or clay, and conical roofs of
+boards and logs. After the Gauls burned Rome the city had been
+reconstructed in a year, haphazard, with precipitate celerity. In some
+wards the houses were huddled so closely together that they barely gave
+room for a man to pass between them, while in others they stood apart as
+if they were country villas surrounded by small fields inside the city
+walls. Streets did not exist; they were but tortuous prolongations of
+the roads which led to Rome; arteries formed at random, twisting hither
+and thither, following the sinuosities of a disorderly construction, and
+suddenly broadening into wide, untilled lands where the refuse of the
+houses was accumulating in piles, and where crows croaked by night,
+pecking at the carrion of dead dogs and asses.
+
+The crude simplicity of this city of farmers, money lenders, and
+soldiers, was reflected in the appearance of its inhabitants. Patrician
+matrons spun wool and hemp at the doors of their houses, clad only in
+tunics of coarse weave, and wearing bronze ornaments on their breasts
+and in their ears. The first coinage of silver had taken place
+subsequent to the war with the Samnites; the clumsy and heavy copper as
+was the current money, and the rich Grecian objects of virtu brought by
+the legions after the war with Sicily almost received adoration in the
+homes of the patricians, but were viewed askance by many as amulets
+which might corrupt the old sturdy Roman customs. Senators who owned
+extensive territories and hundreds of slaves, paraded their togas
+covered with patches in civic pride through the Forum. In all Rome there
+existed but a single table-service of silver, the property of the
+Republic, which passed from the house of one patrician to that of
+another when an envoy arrived from Greece, an ambassador from Sicily, or
+an opulent merchant from Carthage, habituated to Asiatic refinements and
+in whose honor banquets had to be given.
+
+Act�on, accustomed to philosophic arguments in the Athenian Agora, to
+dialogues on poetry or on the mysteries of the soul wherever two
+unoccupied Greeks chanced to meet, strolled through the Forum listening
+to the conversations carried on in that rude and inflexible Latin which
+wounded an Athenian's ears. In one group they were discussing the
+health of the flocks and the price of wool; in another they were closing
+the sale of an ox in the presence of five adult citizens who served as
+witnesses. The purchaser placed the bronze, the value of the purchase,
+in a balance, and touching the ox with his hand he said in solemn
+accent, as if reciting an oration:
+
+"This is mine, according to the law of the Quirites. I have paid for it
+with this metal duly weighed."
+
+Farther on, a legionary with hungry face was adjusting a loan with an
+old man, offering as security his helmet and his greaves, and
+pronouncing the formulas of the law in such a case:
+
+"_Dari spondes?_" (Do you promise to give?) the soldier asked.
+
+"_Spondeo_" (I promise), replied the lender.
+
+The bargain was closed with these sober words, the alteration of a
+single syllable in which was sufficient to annul the operation, for the
+Romans professed a superstitious respect for the letter and formula of
+their laws.
+
+In another group they were discussing the points which a slave must have
+in order to be useful to his master and to be maintained by him; and
+throughout the entire Forum this grave people, austere, and without
+ideals, talked only of possessions, and of the manner of increasing
+them.
+
+The attention of the Greek was attracted by a youth who, although barely
+twenty years of age, displayed the gravity of an old man. His hair was
+red and close-cropped; his steady gaze gave him an expression of
+intelligence and penetration. He was walking slowly beside a boy who
+was listening to him attentively, as to his master.
+
+"Although your father is consul," said the red-headed man, "you must not
+forget, Scipio, that in order to be a good citizen and to serve the
+Republic, it is necessary not only to know how to use the lance and to
+manage a horse, but to know how to till the soil, and to be familiar
+with the secrets of cultivation. Some day you may command our armies,
+and you will not only have to conquer lands for Rome, but cultivate
+them, so that they will produce abundantly. Do you realize that?"
+
+"Yes, Cato," said the youth.
+
+"Every day you should learn a month of the calendar which our
+forefathers made. With that well fixed in your memory it will be easier
+for you to command your slaves promptly and well in their work in the
+fields. Yesterday I taught you the month of May; repeat it, Scipio."
+
+"Month of May," recited the boy wrinkling his brows in order to better
+concentrate his mind. "Thirty-one days. The nones fall on the seventh
+day. The day has fourteen and a half hours; the night nine hours and a
+half. The sun is in the sign of Taurus; the month is under the
+protection of Apollo. Wheat should be weeded. Sheep should be shorn. The
+wool should be washed. Young steers should be put under the yoke. The
+vetch should be mown in the meadows. The lustration of the crops should
+be performed. Sacrifices to Mercury and to Flora."
+
+"You remember it well, Scipio. Our ancestors neither had nor desired any
+other science; they were satisfied with knowing what they should do in
+each month throughout the year, and with this, and with valor and
+audacity to hold their fields, and to take possession of the lands of
+their neighbors, they founded our city, which grows and will grow until
+it becomes the greatest in the world. We are not charlatans like the
+Greeks, who kneel in admiration before marble puppets and argue like
+buffoons about what comes after death. We are not madly ambitious like
+the Carthaginians, who base their life on commerce and risk all their
+wealth upon the sea. Our life is spent on the land; we are ruder but
+more solid than other people; we advance more slowly, but we shall go
+farther. On the soil which we tread for the first time we do not set up
+a tent as do others; we plunge in the plow, and that is why what Rome
+takes none wrests from her. Do not forget that, Scipio!"
+
+The Athenian followed not far behind. The words of that man, old at
+twenty years, taught him more than his observations. Rome seemed to
+speak through his mouth in that lesson given to the son of one of her
+consuls.
+
+"You should know also," continued Cato, "the domestic rules of every
+good citizen. When our fathers wished to eulogize a worthy man they
+called him 'a good husbandman.' This was the highest praise. At that
+time they lived on the land itself, in rustic tribes, the most honorable
+of all, and they only saw Rome on market days and on days of _comitia_.
+There are still good citizens who lead the sane life of Cincinnatus and
+Camillus, and only come when the Senate gathers; but war, with its
+expeditions to new countries, has corrupted many, who wish only to live
+in the city, and they have substituted for the old Roman home, with its
+roof of boards and its simple penates, houses crowded with columns as
+if they were temples, and adorned with gods and goddesses which they
+order from Greece."
+
+The austere gesture of Cato displayed immense scorn for the imported
+refinements which had begun to break down the sturdiness of his native
+land.
+
+"In the country the good citizen should not lose a day. If the weather
+prevent his going out he should entertain himself cleaning the stables
+and barnyards, fixing up the old utensils, and seeing that the women
+mend the clothing. Even on feast days something can be done; irrigate
+the young vineyards, wash the sheep, go to the city to sell oil or
+fruit. No time should be lost in consulting haruspices and augurs, nor
+in devotion to cults which oblige the citizen to abandon his house. The
+gods of the household or of the nearest cross-road are sufficient. The
+lares, the manes, and the silvani are sufficient to protect a good
+citizen. Our fathers had no others, but nevertheless they were great."
+
+The youthful Scipio listened attentively, but his eyes were fixed on two
+young men from the Campagna, who with the _cucullus_ fallen over their
+shoulders, were having a boxing match close to a vendor of mulled wine.
+The young man's cheeks flushed with emotion seeing the blows exchanged
+by the athletes with quivering muscles.
+
+"If the citizen dwell in Rome," continued Cato, without noticing this
+incident which failed to disturb the gravity of the Forum, "he should
+open the door of his house at dawn of day to explain the law to his
+clients, and to place his money prudently, teaching the young men the
+art of increasing their savings and how to avoid ruinous follies. The
+father of the family should turn everything into money and waste
+nothing. If he give new garments to his slaves, he should recover the
+old ones for other uses. He should sell the oil and the wine and the
+wheat which are left over at the close of the year. Let him also sell
+the old oxen, the calves, lambs, the wool, the hides, the unserviceable
+carts, the rusty iron, the old, infirm, and sick slaves. Let him be ever
+selling. The father of the family should be the seller, not the buyer.
+Note that well, Scipio!"
+
+But Scipio was restless and scarcely heard him.
+
+The rustics had ceased boxing, and the youth, eager to be off, glanced
+far away toward the river.
+
+"Cato, this is the time for athletics. I must go to the bank of the
+Tiber to train myself in running and in pugilism, and to take an hour
+for swimming afterward."
+
+"Go when you will, and heed my advice. After the lesson, athletics and
+the cold bath, which harden the body, are excellent. The citizen who
+wishes to serve his country must not only be prudent but strong."
+
+The boy walked away, and Cato retracing his steps met the Greek who was
+following him. Act�on's appearance attracted him, and he approached.
+
+"Greek," he said, "what do you think of our city?"
+
+"It is a gloomy town, but a great one. I have been in Rome only three
+days."
+
+"Are you, perchance, the messenger from Saguntum, who will appear before
+the Senate to-day?"
+
+Act�on replied in the affirmative, and the Roman leaned on his arm with
+grave familiarity, as if he were an old friend.
+
+"You will accomplish very little," he said. "The Senate is suffering
+with a sickness just now--an excess of prudence! I detest mad deeds; I
+do not believe that Hannibal is a great captain, since I see him commit
+such an audacity as the siege of Saguntum; but I cannot tolerate in
+silence the faint-heartedness with which Rome proceeds in her affairs.
+She wishes to avail herself of all means to keep the peace. She fears
+war, while war with Carthage is inevitable. She and our city will not
+fit in the same sack. The world is too small for the two. I am always
+saying, 'Let us destroy Carthage!' and they laugh at me. Some years ago,
+when the war of the mercenaries broke out, we could have crushed her
+with ease. By sending to Africa a brace of legions the revolted
+Numidians and the mercenaries would have finished with Carthage; but we
+were afraid; after her victory Rome occupied herself only in healing her
+wounds. We feared the uprising of the soldiery of all countries, so we
+saved Carthage, helping her to destroy her revolted mercenaries."
+
+"It is different now," said Act�on, with energy. "Saguntum is an ally,
+and if Hannibal makes war upon her it is on account of the love which
+the city professes for Rome."
+
+"Yes; that is why we Romans are interested in her fate; but do not hope
+for much from the Senate. It is more anxious about the pirates of the
+Adriatic who harrow our coasts, that rebellion of Demetrius of Pharos in
+Illyria, against whom we are about to send an army under command of the
+consul Lucius �milius."
+
+"But what of Saguntum? If you abandon her how will you resist the
+audacious Hannibal, who leads the most warlike tribes of Iberia? What
+will those unfortunates say of the seriousness with which Rome observes
+her alliances?"
+
+"Try to convince the Senate with your arguments. I am convinced; I see
+in Carthage the sole enemy of Rome. Would that they were all of my mind!
+They would then accept the audacious challenge of the son of Hamilcar
+and would declare war against Carthage, going to meet her in her own
+territory! Happen what may, we are invincible. Italy is a compact mass,
+and as advance sentinels of our camp, we have in the Orient Illyria, on
+the side which looks into Africa we have Sicily, and in the Occident is
+Sardinia, while the lands which Carthage dominates form an extensive
+belt of nine hundred leagues which runs along a great part of the coasts
+of Africa and all those of Iberia; but so narrow, and peopled by so many
+different races, that it can easily be broken. Though Rome might lose a
+hundred battles, she will always be Rome, but one defeat for Carthage is
+enough to dissolve the nation."
+
+"If only they all thought as you do, Cato!"
+
+"If the Senate thought as I do it would scorn Demetrius of Pharos, and
+its legions would have been in Saguntum days ago. Perhaps by such means
+a danger would be avoided, because who knows where that young African
+will go, and what he may not dare if he succeed in conquering without
+hindrance a city allied to Rome! That is why I, a free citizen, give
+lessons as a pedagogue, as you have just witnessed. That boy is the son
+of the consul Publius Cornelius Scipio, and all the virtues of his
+family are revived in him. Perhaps he may be the one destined to bar
+Hannibal's way, to destroy the insolent power of that Carthage against
+whom we are ever clashing."
+
+They continued strolling through the Forum discussing the customs of
+Rome, and arguing warmly as they contrasted them with those of Athens.
+Then the austere Roman, having to hold conference with various
+patricians in regard to private affairs, to which he attended with great
+scrupulousness, said farewell to the Greek.
+
+On being left alone Act�on realized that he was hungry. It would be some
+time before the Senate would assemble, and wearied of the noisy stir in
+the Forum he passed on, walking around the base of the Capitoline,
+following a street broader than the others, lined with stone buildings,
+which displayed through their open doors the relative abundance of
+patrician families.
+
+He entered a bakery and rapped on the stone of the deserted counter with
+an _as_. A plaintive voice answered from a kind of cavern. The Greek
+peered into the gloomy grotto and saw a mill for grinding wheat, and
+yoked to it a man, who was turning it with great effort.
+
+The slave came out almost naked, wiping off the sweat which was
+streaming down his forehead, and taking the money offered by the Greek
+handed him a round loaf. Then he stood looking Act�on over with
+curiosity.
+
+"Do you own the bakery?" Act�on asked.
+
+"I am nothing but a slave," he replied sadly. "My master had to go to
+the Forum to see the dealers in wheat. You are a Greek, are you not?"
+
+Before Act�on deigned to answer, he hastened to add with melancholy
+pride:
+
+"I have not always been a slave. I have been in this condition but a
+short time, and before I lost my freedom my fervent desire was to visit
+your country. O Athens! The city where poets are gods!"
+
+He recited in Greek some verses from the Prometheus of �schylus,
+astonishing Act�on by the purity of his accent and by the expression
+which he communicated to his words.
+
+"Can it be that here in Rome your masters dedicate you to poesy?" asked
+the Athenian, laughing.
+
+"I was a poet before I became a slave. My name is Plautus."
+
+Glancing around as if fearing to be surprised by some member of his
+master's family he continued talking, happy at being able to free
+himself from the torment of the mill.
+
+"I have written comedies. I tried to establish the theatre in Rome,
+which is almost a cult among your people. The Romans have little
+sensibility to poetry. They love farces; a tragedy that would move the
+Hellenes to tears, leaves them cold; one of Aristophanes' comedies would
+put them to sleep. They, Athenian, enjoy only the Etruscan buffoons,
+those grotesque comedians of the farces which they call Atellan�, and
+the hideous maskers with sharp teeth and deformed heads who stalk in the
+triumphal processions growling their obscenities. They would stone the
+heroes of your tragedies, while on the other hand, they howl with
+enthusiasm at the entry of a victorious consul when the soldiers pass
+disguised in rams' skins, wearing tufts of bristling horsehair, and they
+laugh at seeing them avenge themselves for their humble condition by
+insulting the conqueror behind his triumphal car. I wrote comedies for
+these people, and I write them still in moments when my master ceases
+beating me to make me turn the mill. The patricians, the free citizens,
+do not enjoy seeing themselves personated in the scene. Here they would
+rend Aristophanes to pieces, he who represented upon the stage the most
+prominent men of Athens. My heroes are slaves, foreigners, and
+mercenaries, and they make the audience laugh. I have finished a comedy
+there within that den, ridiculing the fanfare of the warriors. I would
+recite it if I did not fear that my master might return at any moment."
+
+"But how have you fallen into such a wretched situation after having
+been the entertainer of your people?"
+
+"I committed the madness of founding the first theatre in Rome, in
+imitation of those in Greece. It was a wooden enclosure on the outskirts
+of the city. I borrowed money; I contracted debts; the populace came to
+laugh, but they gave little. I was ruined, and the wise laws of Rome
+condemn him who cannot pay to become the slave of his creditor. This
+baker who used to laugh at my comedies, and who gladly loaned me sacks
+of copper, is now getting even for his former show of admiration by
+making me turn his mill, because I cost less than an ass. Every peal of
+laughter in the past is transformed into a blow with a stick dealt
+across my back. The fate of poets! You Greeks also thanked �schylus for
+his verses by pelting him with stones, yet he was ever a freeman."
+
+Plautus became silent, but after a melancholy smile he added:
+
+"I trust in the future. I shall not always have to be a slave; perhaps I
+shall find someone who will give me back my liberty. The Romans who make
+war and see new countries return with milder customs and with a love of
+art. I shall be free, I will found a new theatre, and
+then,----then----"
+
+Hope shone in his glance, as if he saw the realization of the dreams
+with which he embellished his gloomy den, while, panting like a beast,
+he turned the enormous cone of stone.
+
+A noise was heard from within the house, and before his master's
+children could see him Plautus ran to yoke himself again to the
+mill-spindle, while the Greek left the place, astounded by this episode.
+
+What a people this, which converted its debtors into slaves and turned
+its poets into beasts of burden!
+
+The Greek sauntered back through the Forum munching his loaf of bread.
+He was waiting for the Senate to assemble, and to pass away the time he
+climbed to the crest of the Palatine Hill, the sacred ground which was
+the cradle of Rome. He visited the Lupercal Grotto where Romulus and
+Remus had been suckled by the she-wolf. At the entrance to the narrow
+cave, denuded by the winter, the Ruminal fig tree extended its naked
+branches, the famous tree in the shade of which the twin founders of the
+city had frolicked. Near it on a granite pedestal stood the wolf, in
+dark and lustrous bronze, the work of an Etruscan artist, with the
+hideous half-open fauces, and her belly bristling with a double row of
+gleaming teats to which two naked children clung, sprawling on the
+ground.
+
+From this height Act�on looked down upon the broad city, a wave of roofs
+between the seven hills, invading the heights and dispersing through the
+deep valleys. Almost at the side of the Palatine rose the Capitolium,
+the great fortress of Rome, on the naked crags of the Tarpeian rock, and
+the Greek passed from the summit of one to that of the other to examine
+the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, more famous than beautiful.
+
+He turned his back on the rude temple of Mars, which occupied the
+highest point of the Palatine, and following a path between abrupt rocks
+he crossed to the Capitoline. On his way he met the priests of Jupiter,
+walking with sacerdotal rigidity as if ever offering sacrifices to their
+god. He saw the vestals wrapped in their flowing white veils, marching
+with a sturdy tread. Some _milites_ were climbing up to the temple of
+Mars, their broad breasts encased in overlapping bands of copper, their
+bare thighs covered by strips of wool hanging from the waist; one hand
+resting on the pommel of their short swords while they talked with
+enthusiasm of the coming Illyrian campaign, without thought of the
+situation of their allies in Iberia.
+
+Act�on entered the sacred precincts of the Capitoline, surrounded by
+frowning ramparts. It was the ancient mount Tarpeius, with its two
+summits united by an extensive flat. The higher part which lay toward
+the north was occupied by the Arx or citadel of Rome; on the south was
+the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, surrounded by massive columns.
+
+The Greek entered the citadel, famous for its resistance during the
+invasion of the Gauls. On the margin of a pool before the temples
+huddled within the strong enclosure he saw the sacred birds--the geese
+which with their cackling in the silence of the night had protected Rome
+from the surprise of the invaders. Then he crossed the depression which
+divides the hill into two parts, and approached the great fane of Rome.
+
+A stairway of a hundred steps led to the temple, constructed in the
+time of the last Tarquin in honor of the three divinities of
+Rome--Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. The building consisted of three
+_cell�_ or parallel sanctuaries, with three doors opening beneath the
+same pediment. The one in the centre was sacred to Jupiter, and the
+smaller ones on either side to the two goddesses. A triple row of
+columns sustained the pediment, which was decorated with prancing horses
+coarsely sculptured. Two rows of columns ran down the sides of the
+temple forming a portico, in the shade of which the eldest Roman
+citizens strolled, discussing the affairs of the city.
+
+The temple had been built by artists called from Etruria, and under the
+colonnade were statues acquired by the expeditions to Sicily and as a
+result of the many wars carried on by Rome. This rude nation was
+incapable of producing artists, but it had soldiers to supply it with
+art by means of war and loot.
+
+The Athenian entered the sanctuary in the centre dedicated to Jupiter,
+and he saw the image of the god in terra cotta, holding a golden lance
+in his right hand. Before him continually smoked the Altar of
+Sacrifices. On leaving the temple he glanced at the gnomon or sundial,
+which at that height marked the time for all Rome.
+
+It was now the hour to go to the Senaculum, the ancient building at the
+foot of the Tarpeian peak between the Capitolium and the Forum, which
+many years later was converted into the temple of Concord. On the steps
+which gave access to the temple Act�on met the two legates sent by
+Saguntum before the siege began; two old farmers who had gone away from
+home for the first time, and who seemed to be dazed by their long
+months of waiting in Rome, with their audiences which never terminated,
+and with their interviews and resultless supplications. The two
+perturbed Saguntines, impotent before a city which never responded
+definitely to their words, followed like automata the self-confident
+Greek who went everywhere as if he were in his own house, and who spoke
+many languages as if the entire world were his country.
+
+The senators began to arrive. Some came from their business in the city
+and presented themselves garbed in the white toga with purple border,
+followed by their clients who turned their gaze in all directions as if
+to attract public attention to their majestic protector. Others came
+from the country, drawing up their carts before the steps of the
+Senaculum, and, handing the reins to a slave, ascended to the temple
+with their togas flung over their arms, dressed in the short cloak of
+coarse wool worn by farmers, and emitting the odors of their stables and
+crops. They were mature men who displayed in the firmness of their
+strong muscles the activity of their life of continued struggle with the
+soil and with enemies; old men with long beards and wizened faces,
+tremulous with age, who still revealed in their unflinching eyes
+reliance on their departing strength. The crowd from the Forum, surging
+toward the steps of the Senaculum, watched them with admiration and
+respect. They were the fathers of the Republic, the heads of Rome.
+
+The two legates from Saguntum walked up the temple steps. Under the
+columns which sustained the pediment were numberless piles of loot from
+the last wars, deposited by the conquerors as they paraded through the
+Forum before the multitude, which had hailed them, waving branches of
+laurel. Act�on saw shields pierced by iron swords, rusted by blood;
+war-chariots with broken tongues, the gilded wheels bespattered with the
+mud of battles. They were spoils from the war with the Samnites. Farther
+on, standing along the wall, a row of hideous wooden dwarfs, dyed red
+and blue, stripped from the prows of Carthaginian ships after the great
+victory at the �gates Islands; iron bars which had closed the gates of
+many cities conquered by the Romans; the golden standards decorated with
+fantastic animals which led the troops of Pyrrhus; the enormous tusks of
+the elephants which this descendent of Achilles had marched against the
+legions of Rome; the horned or eagle-winged helmet of the Ligurians; the
+darts of Alpine tribes, and, beside the door, as a trophy of honor, the
+armor of the glorious Camillus, paraded in triumph by the city after
+this great Roman had driven the Gauls from the Capitol. Along the walls,
+as a strange decoration, hung a long dark tissue, crisp as parchment. It
+was the skin of the great serpent which for a whole day held back the
+army of Atilius Regulus, when on his expedition to Africa he was
+marching to the conquest of Carthage. The horrible monster, insensible
+to arrows, devoured many soldiers before it succumbed beneath a shower
+of stones, and Regulus sent the reptile's skin to Rome as a testimony of
+the adventure.
+
+The envoys from Saguntum had a tedious wait before a centurion ushered
+them into the Senaculum.
+
+The Greek, sweeping his glance over the semicircle, was perturbed by the
+majesty of the assemblage. He recalled the entrance of the Gauls into
+Rome; the stupefaction of the barbarians in the presence of those
+Elders, firm in their marble chairs, wrapped like phantoms in their
+snowy garments which left uncovered only their silvery beards; their
+ivory staves held with a divine majesty, revealed again in the gleam
+from their steady eyes. None but barbarians intoxicated with blood-lust
+would dare to assault men of such patriarchal dignity.
+
+They numbered more than two hundred. Between them were vacant seats of
+senators unable to attend, and over the concentric rows of marble chairs
+the white togas spread out like newly fallen snow upon a crust of ice.
+Behind them stood a row of columns in a semicircle, sustaining the
+cupola through which filtered a crepuscular light which seemed to favor
+meditation and concentration of the mind. A low stone balustrade
+surrounded the semicircle, and beyond it were grouped important citizens
+who had not the investiture of senators. In the centre the barrier was
+broken by a square pedestal sustaining the bronze she-wolf with the
+twins hanging to her dugs, and on the base in great letters, the device
+of supreme authority in Rome: "S.P.Q.R." A tripod sustained a brazier
+before the pedestal, and over the embers floated a blue cloud of
+incense.
+
+The three legates seated themselves in marble chairs near the image of
+the wolf, before the triple row of white and motionless men.
+
+Some rested their chins in their hands as if to hear better.
+
+They might speak; the Senate would hear them; and Act�on, moved by the
+supplicating glances of his two companions, arose. In his mind
+impressions did not linger long; he had recovered from the emotion
+produced at first by the majesty of the assemblage.
+
+He spoke deliberately, taking care, after the manner of a true Greek, to
+avoid lapses of style in expressing himself in that rude tongue,
+endeavoring to give to his words the emotion which he wished to inspire
+in the representatives of Rome. He described the desperate resistance of
+Saguntum, and her confidence in the support of the Republic, that blind
+faith which had inspired her people to hurl themselves outside the walls
+and repulse the enemy at the mere announcement that the Roman fleet had
+appeared upon the horizon. When he left the city it still had supplies
+for subsistence and courage to defend itself. But much time had elapsed
+since then--nearly two whole months. The ambassador had been compelled
+to make his way amidst adventures and perils, sometimes by sea, taking
+advantage of the routes of the merchant ships, again on foot along the
+coasts, and at this moment the situation of the city must be desperate.
+Saguntum would fall if they did not go to her succor, and what a
+responsibility for Rome if she abandoned her prot�g� after the latter
+had drawn Hannibal's enmity upon her for wishing to be Roman! How could
+other nations rely on the friendship of Rome when they knew the sad end
+of Saguntum!
+
+The Greek ceased speaking, and the painful silence which fell over the
+Senate revealed the profound impression his words had made.
+
+Then Lentulus, an aged senator, arose to speak. The sharp voice of the
+old man penetrated the silence as he told of the origin of Saguntum,
+which if it were Grecian on account of the merchants of Zacynthus having
+established their factories there, was also Italian on account of the
+Rutulians from Ardea who had gone thither in remote times to found a
+colony. Moreover Saguntum was the friend of Rome. To be more faithful to
+her she had beheaded some of her citizens who had worked in the cause of
+Carthage. What audacity for that young man, a son of Hamilcar, to ignore
+the treaties of Rome with Hasdrubal, and to dare to raise his sword
+against a city friendly to the Romans! If Rome looked with indifference
+upon this offense Hamilcar's lion-cub would grow in temerity, for youth
+knows no bridle when it sees its imprudence crowned by success.
+Moreover, the great city could not tolerate such daring. Outside, at the
+door of the Senaculum were the glorious trophies of war as a
+demonstration that he who revolted against Rome should fall conquered at
+her feet. They must be inexorable with the enemy and faithful to the
+ally; they must carry the war into Iberia and destroy the reckless one
+who defied Rome.
+
+All the choler of the gloomy city, warlike and severe, spoke through the
+mouth of the aged man, who extended his rigid arm above his companions'
+heads, threatening the invisible enemy. The soldierly vigor of the
+veteran of ancient wars against the Samnites and against Pyrrhus, was
+aroused for a moment in the weak old man, and thrilled his muscles and
+caused his eyes to flash.
+
+Act�on's two companions, who did not understand the Latin tongue,
+nevertheless divined Lentulus' words, and they were filled with emotion
+by the eulogy of the self-abnegation of their city. Tears streamed from
+their eyes, they rent the dark mantles in which they were clad as solemn
+messengers, and throwing themselves to the floor to express the
+vehemence of their grief after the custom of the ancients, they shouted,
+sobbing:
+
+"Save us! Save us!"
+
+The desperation of the two old men, and the dignified attitude of the
+Greek, who, frowning and silent, seemed the personification of Saguntum
+awaiting the fulfillment of pledges, moved the Senate and the multitude
+that surged outside the balustrade of the she-wolf. All were agitated
+and were exchanging words of indignation. Beneath the cupola of the
+Senaculum resounded a disorderly buzzing, the echo of a thousand mingled
+voices. They clamored for the Senate to declare instant war against
+Carthage, to call out the legions, to make ready the ships, to embark an
+expedition in the port of Ostia, and to hurl Rome against the camp of
+Hannibal.
+
+A senator called for silence that he might speak. It was Fabius, one of
+the most famous patricians of Rome, the descendent of those three
+hundred heroes of that famous gens destroyed in a single day fighting
+for Rome on the banks of the Cremera. Prudence spoke through his mouth;
+his counsels were ever followed as being wisest; on this account the
+Senate recovered its calmness as soon as it saw that he had arisen to
+his feet.
+
+With reposeful language, after lamenting the situation of the allied
+city, he said that it was not known whether it were Carthage that had
+broken into hostilities against Saguntum, or whether Hannibal had done
+so on his own account. A war in Iberia would be a grave matter for Rome,
+now that she was going to begin a nearer struggle with the rebel
+Demetrius of Pharos. It would be advisable to send an embassy to
+Hannibal in his camp, and if the African refused to raise the siege, let
+it go to Carthage to ask if its rulers approved the chieftain's conduct,
+and to demand that the latter be turned over to Rome in punishment for
+his audacity.
+
+This solution seemed to please the Senate. Those who a few moments
+before had shown themselves warlike and uncompromising bowed their heads
+as if approving the words of Fabius. The thought of the insurrection in
+Illyria counseled prudence to the most violent. They remembered the
+enemy who was rising almost at their doors across the Adriatic, and who,
+with their fleets given over to piracy, might attempt an invasion of
+Roman territory. Egoism caused them to look upon this enterprise as more
+important than any oath, and in order to deceive themselves and to hide
+their own weakness, they exaggerated the importance of the embassy to
+Hannibal's camp declaring that the African would raise the siege and ask
+pardon of Rome as soon as he saw the Senatorial legates arrive.
+
+Act�on received this change on the part of the assemblage with visible
+signs of impatience.
+
+"I know Hannibal well," he shouted. "He will not obey you; he will scoff
+at you! If you do not send an army the journey of your legates will be
+useless!"
+
+But the senators, eager to conceal the weakness to which their egoism
+drove them, protested loudly against the words of Act�on. Who spoke of
+scoffing at the Republic of Rome? Who imagined that Hannibal would
+scorn the envoys of the Senate? Let the stranger maintain silence--he
+who was not even a son of the city in whose name he spoke.
+
+Act�on bowed his head. Then, turning to his aged companions, who did not
+understand the resolution of the Senate, he murmured: "Our city is lost!
+Rome fears to declare war against Hannibal and delays the clash of arms.
+When they become ready to help us Saguntum will no longer exist!"
+
+The three Saguntine legates received an order to retire. The senators
+were about to appoint two patricians who should go as envoys of Rome.
+
+As they left the Senaculum the eldest of the senators addressed Act�on:
+
+"Tell your companions to prepare for the journey. To-morrow at sunset
+you will embark with the legates of the Senate in the port of Ostia."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE HUNGRY CITY
+
+
+The trireme conveying the Roman legates had been on her voyage more than
+fifteen days.
+
+She had sailed up the coasts of the Tyrrhenian Sea; she had then crossed
+the Sea of Liguria, bound by abrupt coasts, and had passed before
+Massilia, the prosperous Grecian colony, also allied to Rome. Then,
+audaciously crossing the broad gulf, she had turned her prow toward
+Emporion, and had skirted the coasts of Iberia.
+
+The ambassadors from Rome were the patricians Valerius Flaccus, one of
+those who desired to maintain the peace with prudent words, and B�bius
+Tamphilus who enjoyed the love of the Roman plebs because of his
+sympathy for their sufferings.
+
+Act�on displayed impatience to reach Saguntum. He wished to confer with
+his friends and avoid the useless sacrifice of the city, explaining to
+them the mood of Rome so that they should not persist in a useless
+defense. For seven months Saguntum had held out in strenuous resistance.
+Autumn had not yet commenced when Hannibal's army had appeared before
+the city, and it was now near the end of winter.
+
+The Greek reflected sadly upon the fond illusions he had cherished while
+making his adventurous and perilous way to Rome. He had hoped that his
+presence in the great city, and his story of the sufferings of the
+faithful ally, would arouse the Romans, and that the legions would shout
+for vengeance----but he was returning without soldiers, in a ship with
+ambassadors feigning interest in Saguntum but not deeply moved by her
+misfortunes----returning without other support than high-sounding,
+impotent words, and a bronze wolf on the end of a staff proclaiming the
+dignity of the embassy.
+
+What of the enthusiastic and credulous multitude fighting on the walls,
+filling the yawning breach with their unflinching breasts, and who to
+gather fresh courage only needed to imagine the coming of the
+Romans!----What would they say? Then, with a sudden turn of thought,
+what of S�nnica, she so brave, sending him that he might save the city!
+How could she, accustomed to a life of luxury and ease, live in the
+misery and horror of that siege, which had endured until the stores of
+the city must be consumed, and the energy of its defenders exhausted!
+
+The ship left the mouth of the Ebro, and struggling against contrary
+winds, at length, one morning, sighted the Acropolis of Saguntum. From
+the tall tower of Hercules shot up a cloud of smoke in greeting! They
+had recognized the vessel by the square rigging of the Roman men-of-war.
+
+The sun was in the zenith when the ship, with reefed sails, and driven
+by the triple bank of oars, stood into the channel which gave entrance
+to the port of Saguntum. Within the harbor, above the reeds waving in
+the marshes, rose the masts of Carthaginian vessels anchored in the
+triple port.
+
+The crew of the Roman ship beheld great troops of horsemen galloping
+along the beach. They were squadrons of Numidians and Mauritanians,
+waving their lances and uttering war cries as when charging in battle.
+
+One horseman, with bronze armor and uncovered head, had called to them
+to heave to. Advancing alone, he urged his horse into the channel,
+approaching the ship until the waters rose to the animal's belly.
+
+Act�on recognized him.
+
+"That is Hannibal," he said to the two legates standing beside him on
+the poop, who were watching with astonishment the bellicose character of
+their reception before they had even cast anchor in the port of
+Saguntum.
+
+Fresh squadrons continued to arrive, as if the news of the coming ship
+had spread alarm through the camp, attracting all the troops to the
+port. Behind the cavalry came the fierce Celtiberians at full speed, the
+Balearic slingers, all the foot-soldiers, of diverse races who figured
+in the besieging army.
+
+Hannibal, even at the risk of drowning, pressed his horse forward into
+the waters of the channel to make himself heard on the ship, and
+ordering them to stop he held up his hand so imperiously that in an
+instant the oars dropped motionless along the hull.
+
+"Who are you? What do you want?" he asked in Greek.
+
+Act�on interpreted between the Romans and the Carthaginian chief.
+
+"They are legates from Rome, coming to see you in the name of the
+Republic."
+
+"Who are you, speaking to me in a voice that I seem to know?"
+
+He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked keenly until he recognized
+the Greek.
+
+"Is it you, Act�on? Always you, restless Athenian! I thought you were
+within the city, yet you have managed to slip away to bring these men to
+me. Well and good! Tell them it is too late. Why waste words? A
+chieftain who lays siege to a city only receives ambassadors after he is
+inside the walls."
+
+The Greek repeated Hannibal's words to the Romans, translating their
+replies.
+
+"Listen, African!" said Act�on to Hannibal. "The envoys from Rome remind
+you of the friendship which they have contracted with Saguntum. In the
+name of the Senate and the Roman people they call upon you to raise the
+siege and to respect the city."
+
+"Tell them that Saguntum has offended me, and that she was first in
+declaring war by sacrificing my friends and by refusing to respect my
+allies, the Turdetani."
+
+"That is not true, Hannibal."
+
+"Greek, repeat what I say to the Romans."
+
+"The legates wish to land. They must speak to you in the name of Rome."
+
+"It is useless. They cannot make me desist from my enterprise. Moreover,
+the siege has lasted long, the troops are excited and a camp like mine,
+composed of ferocious peoples from many countries, who are only
+restrained when in my presence, is no safe place for ambassadors from
+Rome. We had a battle only a few hours ago, and they are still fuming
+with wrath."
+
+As he said this he turned toward his troops, and, as if taking the
+movement for an order, or perhaps divining in the eyes of their
+chieftain his hidden purpose, they advanced into the water as if to
+attack by swimming against the ship. Horsemen threatened with lances
+still dyed in the blood of recent battle; they raised their shields, on
+which the more savage Africans had hung as trophies the scalps of
+Saguntines killed in the last sally. The Balearians showed their white
+teeth in stupid grins, and taking clay balls from their pouches, they
+directed sling-shots against the Roman vessel.
+
+"Do you see?" shouted Hannibal with satisfaction. "It is impossible to
+receive the legates in my camp. It is too late to talk. There is nothing
+left but for Saguntum to give herself up to me in punishment for her
+crimes."
+
+The legates, scorning the projectiles from the slings, leaned over the
+side of the ship, thrusting forward their bodies covered by their togas,
+with an arrogance which seemed to defy the savage warriors.
+
+Indignation at being received with such scorn blanched their cheeks.
+
+"African!" shouted one of the legates in Latin, heedless that Hannibal
+could not understand, "since you will not receive the envoys from Rome
+we shall go on to Carthage to demand that they turn your person over to
+us for breaking the treaties of Hasdrubal. Rome will punish you when you
+become our prisoner!"
+
+"What does he say? What does he say?" growled Hannibal enraged at the
+incomprehensible words in which he surmised a threat.
+
+When Act�on explained, the chieftain burst into a loud laugh of
+derision.
+
+"Go, Romans!" he shouted. "Go thither! The rich hate me and they would
+be glad to grant your demands and turn me over to the enemy; but the
+people love me, and there is no man in Carthage who dares to come into
+the bosom of my army to make me prisoner."
+
+Arrows rained around the ship; clay balls rebounded from her sides, and
+the Roman pilot gave the order to recede. The oars moved and the vessel
+slowly began to put about, and dropped down the channel.
+
+"But are we going to Carthage?" asked the Greek.
+
+"Yes, in Carthage they will hear us better," replied one of the legates.
+"After what has taken place, either the Senate there will turn Hannibal
+over to us, or Rome will declare war on Carthage."
+
+"You may go, Romans, but my duty lies here."
+
+Before the two senators and the legates from Saguntum, who had witnessed
+the former scene with astonishment, could interfere, the Athenian flung
+one leg over the rail and sprang head first into the channel. He swam
+under water for some time, then came up, floating near the bank, to
+which the cavalry and foot-soldiers had rushed to take him prisoner.
+
+Before his feet touched ground Act�on was surrounded by a horde of
+slingers who rushed into the water up to their middles to take
+possession of his clothing without having to divide it among their
+comrades. In an instant they tore off his Celtiberian sword, the pouch
+hanging from his belt, and a gold chain which he wore on his breast in
+memory of S�nnica. They were about to strip him of his traveling tunic,
+leaving him naked, and he had begun to receive blows from the barbarous
+and cruel crowd, when Hannibal rode up and recognized him.
+
+"You have preferred to stay! I am glad of that. After having wrought me
+so much damage from the walls of Saguntum you have repented and you have
+come to join with me. I ought to leave you in the hands of these
+barbarians who would rend you to pieces; I ought to crucify you outside
+my camp so that that Greek woman whom you love could shudder at you; but
+I remember the promise I made you, and I shall keep it, and welcome you
+as a friend."
+
+He ordered one of his officials to cover the Greek's wet garments with
+an _endromis_, a military cloak of long hair with a hood, worn by
+soldiers over their armor in winter. Then he bade him mount a Numidian's
+horse.
+
+They took up their march toward the camp. The troops who had rushed to
+the entrance of the port slowly returned, while the ship fast dropped
+the land, spreading her glowing sails. On the Acropolis the smoke had
+dissipated, leaving only a few light clouds floating in the breeze. From
+afar one could guess the disappointment felt in the city by the
+unexpected flight of the Roman ship. With her seemed to vanish the last
+hope of the besieged. Hannibal's troops, as they retired, commented on
+the scene at the entrance to the port between their chief and the envoys
+from Rome. They did not understand the words which had been exchanged;
+but the energetic accent of the Roman as he spoke to Hannibal seemed to
+them a threat. Some, pretending that they had understood the ambassador,
+repeated an imaginary discourse in which the threat was made in the name
+of Rome to cut the throats of the whole army and to stretch Hannibal on
+a cross. They repeated these threats, each swelling them with inventions
+of his own, and when the troops met other detachments on the Road of
+the Serpent or in different parts of the valley, all declared they had
+seen the chains which the Roman legates displayed from the ship, and in
+which they expected to take their chieftain prisoner, and a howl of rage
+arose from the hosts of Hannibal.
+
+The African was flattered at the flood-tide of indignation surging
+around him. The soldiers, barring his way, acclaimed him with greater
+enthusiasm; he heard voices in every tongue crying death to Rome,
+calling upon the chieftain to make the final assault upon the city, to
+take possession of it before the ambassadors should reach Carthage and
+plot the downfall of the youthful hero.
+
+"Take care of yourself, Hannibal!" said an old Celtiberian planting
+himself before his horse. "Your enemies in Carthage, Hanno's faction,
+will unite with Rome to work your ruin."
+
+"The people love me," said the chieftain, arrogantly. "Before the
+Carthaginian Senate hears the Romans, Saguntum will be ours, and the
+Carthaginians will acclaim our triumph."
+
+With saddened heart Act�on beheld the desolation of the fields which
+used to be so joyous and so fertile. There were no other ships in the
+port but men-of-war from New Carthage. The seamen slept in the fane of
+Aphrodite after having rifled the temple of its valuables. The
+warehouses had been pillaged and destroyed; the wharves covered with
+filth; in the fields not a vestige of the ancient villas remained. The
+ferocity of the barbarian tribes from the interior, their hatred for the
+Greeks of the coast, had incited them to even tear up the multicolor
+pavements and to scatter the fragments. The whole valley was an immense,
+desolated plain. Not a tree was standing. To combat the cold of winter
+they had felled the groves of fig trees, the broad plantations of
+olives, the stocks of the grapevines of the vineyards, destroying even
+the houses to warm themselves with the rafters from the roofs. Nothing
+remained standing but ruined walls and low shrubbery. A fungoid
+vegetation which grew rapidly, fertilized by bodies of men and animals,
+extended over the valley, obliterating the ancient roads, creeping up
+the ruins, and choking the beds of the streams which, their irrigating
+ditches broken, scattered their waters until the low fields were
+converted into ponds.
+
+It was the devastating work of a continually swelling army composed of a
+hundred and eighty thousand men and of many thousands of horses. In a
+short time they had devoured the Saguntine domain. The soldiers after
+destroying all that was not of immediate use, extended their rapacity to
+surrounding zones, constantly broadening their radius of destruction as
+the siege was prolonged.
+
+Supplies now came from a distance of many days' journey; sent by remote
+tribes in the hope of a reward of booty which Hannibal knew how to
+instill into their minds, telling them of the riches of Saguntum. The
+elephants had been sent to New Carthage some months before, as they were
+useless in the siege and difficult to maintain in this devastated
+region.
+
+Over the domain flew crows in undulating black clouds. From the thicket
+rose the stench of rotting horses and mules. By the roadsides, their
+members pinned to the ground by rocks, lay the bodies of barbarians put
+to death because of hopeless wounds, and whose bodies their compatriots,
+according to the customs of their race, left abandoned to the birds of
+prey. The immense agglomeration had vitiated the atmosphere of the
+valley. They lived in the open, and yet, the filth of the multitude, and
+the vapors of death, seemed disseminated between the mountains and the
+sea as a heavy atmosphere replete with sickness and death.
+
+Act�on, coming from a distance, was the more sensitive to this stench of
+the camp, and he thought of the beleaguered people with sadness. Looking
+toward the city he guessed the horrors hidden behind those reddish walls
+after a resistance of seven months.
+
+They approached the camp. The Greek saw that this concentration of
+military forces had assumed the aspect of a permanent city. Few tents of
+canvas or of skins were left. The winter, which now was drawing to a
+close, had compelled the besiegers to construct stone huts with thatched
+roofs, and wooden houses which looked like towers and served as supports
+to the earthworks thrown up roundabout the camp.
+
+Hannibal, as if reading Act�on's thought, smiled savagely while his eyes
+swept the work of destruction wrought by his army outside the city.
+
+"You find all this greatly changed, eh, Act�on?"
+
+"I see that your troops have not been idle while you were off punishing
+the rebels in Celtiberia."
+
+"Maherbal, my chief of cavalry, is an excellent aide. When I returned he
+showed me two of the walls of Saguntum destroyed, and a part of the
+city in our power. Do you see that citadel near the Acropolis, inside
+the walled district? Well, that is ours. The catapults, which you can
+see from here, shoot into Saguntum, which has become reduced to half its
+former size--and they still dream of defending themselves! They still
+hope for auxiliaries from Rome! Stubborn brutes! They have constructed a
+line of walls for the third time, and thus they have gone on losing
+ground and persisting in the defense until nothing is left to them but
+the Forum, where I shall knife every man, woman, and child whom I find
+alive--O, proud and indomitable city! I will make you my slave!"
+
+The African turned to his old-time companion and changed the
+conversation.
+
+"Your eyes are opened at last, and you have come to me. Are you going to
+follow me with enthusiasm? Will you join me in that series of
+enterprises of which I spoke to you one day at sunrise here on this very
+road? Perhaps you will become a king because of having followed
+Hannibal, as did Ptolemy following Alexander. Are you resolved?"
+
+Act�on hesitated a moment before replying, and Hannibal read indecision
+in his eyes--the desire to deceive.
+
+"Do not lie, Greek; lies are for enemies, or for preserving life. I am
+your friend, and I have promised to respect your safety. Can it be that
+you do not mean to follow me?"
+
+"Well, of a truth, I do not," said the Greek with resolution. "I wish to
+return to the city, and if you truly have affection for the companion of
+your youth, let me go."
+
+"But you will perish inside that city! Do not expect mercy if we force
+our entrance through the breach!"
+
+"I shall die," said the Athenian simply, "but there, inside those walls,
+are men who received me as a compatriot when I was wandering hungry over
+the world; there is a woman who took me in when I was poor, and gave me
+love and riches. They sent me to Rome that I might bring them a word of
+hope, and I must return, even though it be only to give them sorrow and
+pain. What does it matter if you set me free? To-morrow perhaps you can
+kill me. I shall be one more mouth to feed, and surely hunger must reign
+in Saguntum. Perhaps when I tell them the truth, when they see me return
+without assistance, their courage may weaken and they may give up the
+town to you. Let me pass through the lines, Hannibal; with this, it may
+be that without desiring to do so, I shall forward your plans."
+
+Hannibal looked at him in surprise.
+
+"Madman! I never believed an Athenian capable of such a sacrifice. You
+are such a light-hearted people, so given to perfidy, so false when you
+wish to satisfy your egoism! You are the first Greek I ever found
+faithful to the city which adopted him. Carthage had worse luck with the
+mercenaries from your country! It is impossible to make anything of you;
+you are only half a man! Love overmasters you; you are not satisfied as
+I am with the woman who wanders around the camp, or whom one takes when
+a city is assaulted and afterwards turns over to the soldiers. You bind
+yourself to a woman, you become her slave, and you seek an inglorious
+death in a dark corner of the world, like a mercenary in the service of
+a handful of merchants, merely for the sake of seeing her again. Go,
+madman, go! I give you your liberty--I wish to hear no more about you. I
+was ready to make you a hero and you answer me like a slave. Go in to
+Saguntum, but know that the protection of Hannibal abandons you from
+this moment. If you fall into my hands inside the city you will be my
+prisoner, never my friend!"
+
+Digging his heels into his horse's ribs, Hannibal dashed into his camp,
+contemptuously turning his back upon the Greek. In a moment a young
+Carthaginian approached, who, without a word, nor even a glance at him,
+grasped his bridle-reins and proceeded toward Saguntum.
+
+As they gained the outposts of the besieging army the Carthaginian
+pronounced a word and Act�on passed on amid the hostile gaze of the
+soldiers who had heard of the scene at the port, and were clamoring with
+rage, thinking of the chains which the legates from Rome had the
+insolence to show to their chief. That Greek who was about to enter the
+besieged city must have been a companion of the legates, and many placed
+an arrow in the bow to shoot at him, but were restrained by a cold and
+haughty glance from the young Carthaginian who spoke in the name of
+Hannibal.
+
+They arrived at the ruins of the first walled quarter. The van of the
+besieging army was within the shelter of the walls. The Greek
+dismounted, and breaking a thorny branch from a bush he walked on,
+holding it aloft as a signal of peace.
+
+He stood before the wall which had been built under his direction one
+night to hold back the invader. Upon it he saw the helmets of only a few
+defenders. The besieger was directing his attacks against the upper
+part. That side of the city where the early battles had taken place was
+almost abandoned. The guardians on the wall greeted Act�on with loud
+shouts of surprise and joy, and they lowered a rope of esparto to help
+him climb up by means of the rough places on the wall, until he could
+enter through a crenel near the top. All surrounded the Greek eagerly.
+It seemed as if he were in the presence of spectres. Their bodies
+appeared ready to slip out of their ample armor; their faces, sad,
+yellow, parchment-like, were hidden beneath the visors of their helmets;
+their fleshless, wrinkled hands could barely sustain their weapons, and
+a strange, golden effulgence glowed in their eyes.
+
+Act�on parried their flood of questions with kind words of
+encouragement. He would speak opportunely; he must first render an
+account of his mission to the Elders of the Senate. They must be calm;
+before night they should know all. Filled with commiseration in the
+presence of these heroes, he lied mercifully, declaring that Rome would
+not forget Saguntum, and that he had come in advance of the legions sent
+by the allies.
+
+From the houses nearby, from the streets close to the wall, issued men
+and women drawn by news of the arrival of the Greek. They surrounded
+him, they questioned him; all wished to be first to receive the news to
+scatter it through the city. Defending himself from them, Act�on gazed
+with horror at their lean, yellow faces, their earthy skin outlining the
+prominent sutures of their skulls; their sunken eyes in their black
+orbits shining with an unearthly light, like fading stars reflected in
+the depths of a well, and their emaciated arms, which creaked like
+canes as they moved them with nervous emotion.
+
+He started onward, escorted by the multitude, preceded by boys
+absolutely nude, horrible to look at, with skins ready to break from the
+pressure of their ribs outlined one above the other, with enormously
+large heads above their fleshless necks. They staggered painfully, as if
+their tottering, thread-like limbs could not bear the weight of their
+bodies; some, to lessen their suffering, dragged themselves along the
+ground, lacking the strength to stand.
+
+Act�on beheld a deserted corpse lying in a corner, the face covered with
+strange flies which glinted in the sunshine with metallic reflections.
+Farther on at a cross street, some women were trying to raise to his
+feet a naked youth beside whom lay his abandoned bow. The Greek noted
+with horror his sunken, inward-curving abdomen, a palpitating whirlpool
+of skin between the protruding hip bones which threatened to burst from
+the body. It was a mummy still showing a flickering spark of life in the
+eyes, opening and shutting its parched and blackened lips as if feeding
+on the unnourishing air.
+
+He continued on his way down the lengthy streets, but no more people
+joined the group. The doors of many houses remained closed, despite the
+clamor of the crowd, and Act�on contrasted this solitude with the great
+multitude of people during the early days of the siege. Dead dogs lying
+in the gullies, as emaciated as the people themselves, polluted the
+atmosphere. At street crossings lay skeletons of horses and mules, clean
+and white, holding not even a scrap of flesh to satisfy the repugnant
+insects buzzing in the atmosphere of the doomed city.
+
+With his gift of keen observation, the Greek's attention was fixed by
+the warriors' weapons. He saw only cuirasses of metal; those made of
+leather had disappeared. The shields displayed their texture of osier or
+bull-tendon, destitute of their coverings of hide. In one corner he saw
+two old men fighting over a black and stringy morsel; it was a bit of
+crow boiled in water. Many two-storied houses had been demolished to
+obtain stones for use in the new wall which barred the advance of the
+enemy.
+
+Desolating hunger had swept everything with cruel touch. Even the most
+fetid and repugnant matter had been turned to account. It was as if the
+besiegers had already broken into the city and had carried off
+everything of worth, leaving nothing but the buildings behind as silent
+witnesses to their rapine. Hunger and death stalked hand in hand beside
+the desperate Saguntines.
+
+On approaching the Forum a woman pushed her way through the people
+toward the Greek and flung her arms around his neck.
+
+"Act�on, my love!" cried S�nnica.
+
+The privations of the siege had left deep marks upon her. She did not
+present the appearance of extreme emaciation as did most, but she was
+thin and pale, her nose sharpened, her cheeks transmitting an interior
+light, the arms which clung to him thin and hot with fever. A blue
+circle surrounded her eyes, and her rich tunic hung loose in empty
+folds; her body, in growing thinner, seemed to have gained in height.
+
+"Act�on----my love!" she cried again, "I had lost hope of ever seeing
+you! Bless you, bless you for coming back!"
+
+She walked beside him, one of her arms around his neck. The multitude
+looked upon S�nnica with veneration; she had sacrificed herself for the
+poor, sharing with them each day the shrinking supplies of her
+store-houses.
+
+Act�on recognized Euphobias the philosopher in the crowd, his garments
+more ragged than ever, almost naked, but with an appearance of relative
+vigor which contrasted strangely with the starving appearance of the
+majority. Lachares and the elegant young friends of S�nnica bowed to him
+from a distance with a distraught expression. They had the look of
+starving men, but they concealed their pallor beneath rouge and other
+cosmetics, and they wore their richest vestments as if to console
+themselves for their privations with the pomp of useless luxury. The
+young slave boys who accompanied them moved their emaciated limbs,
+covered by gold-embroidered garments, and gazing at their pendants of
+pearls, they yawned painfully. The crowd halted in the Forum. The Elders
+had gathered in the temple near the quadrangle. Above, on the Acropolis,
+the Carthaginians who occupied a part of the hill, kept up a continual
+bombardment, and great stones from the catapults fell constantly. Some
+of these reached the Forum, and the roofs of many houses and walls were
+pierced and shattered by the enormous projectiles.
+
+Act�on entered the temple alone. The number of Ancients had diminished.
+Some had died, victims of hunger and pestilence; others, with juvenile
+ardor, had rushed forth to defend the walls, and there encountered
+death. The prudent Alcon seemed to enjoy great ascendancy, and he
+figured at the head of the assembly. Events had justified the prudence
+which had caused him in other days to declare against the warlike
+enterprises of the city and their fondness for alliances.
+
+"Speak, Act�on," said Alcon. "Tell us the truth, the whole truth! After
+the misfortunes the gods have already sent us, we can bear even
+greater."
+
+The Greek looked at the men, wrapped in their flowing mantles, holding
+their tall staves of authority, awaiting his words with an anxiety which
+they made an effort to conceal behind majestic calmness.
+
+He related his audience by the Roman Senate; he told of the caution
+which had impelled it to favor conciliatory measures; of the arrival of
+the legates off Saguntum; of their extraordinary reception by Hannibal,
+and of the departure of the ambassadors for Carthage to demand the
+punishment of the chieftain and desistance from the siege of Saguntum.
+
+As the sad tale proceeded the calmness of the Elders gradually
+dissipated. Some, more violent, arose to their feet and rent their
+garments, crying aloud with grief; others, in their excitement, beat
+their foreheads with clenched fists, raging with fury on hearing that
+Rome had not sent her legions; and the eldest among them, without
+sacrificing their dignity, wept unashamed, allowing their tears to
+stream down their fleshless cheeks into their snowy beards.
+
+"They have forsaken us!"
+
+"It will be too late when help arrives!"
+
+"Saguntum will perish before the Romans can reach Carthage!"
+
+The assemblage remained long in a state of desperation. Some, motionless
+in their seats from weakness, implored the gods to let them die ere they
+should behold the downfall of their people.
+
+It seemed as if the hordes of Hannibal were already clamoring at the
+temple doors.
+
+"Restrain yourselves, Elders!" admonished Alcon. "Remember that the
+citizens of Saguntum stand waiting outside these walls. If they suspect
+your despair, discouragement will spread abroad, and this very night we
+will become the slaves of Hannibal!"
+
+Slowly the Elders recovered their composure, and silence reigned. All
+awaited the counsel of Alcon the Prudent. He spoke.
+
+"You do not entertain the thought of immediate surrender of the city, do
+you?"
+
+A roar of indignation from the Senate answered him.
+
+"Never, never!"
+
+"Then, in order to keep hearts beating with hope, to prolong the defense
+a few more days, you must lie; you must inspire in the Saguntines a
+deceptive confidence. Provisions are exhausted; those who man the walls,
+weapons in hand, have eaten the flesh of the last horses that remained
+in the city. The plebs are perishing of hunger. Every night hundreds of
+corpses are gathered and burned on the Acropolis for fear of their being
+devoured by wandering dogs pressed by hunger, which have turned into
+veritable wild beasts that attack even the living. There is a complaint
+that some of the foreigners sheltered in the city, in company with
+slaves and mercenaries, lie in wait by night near the walls to eat
+whatever bodies they find. The cisterns of the city are almost dry;
+there is but little water left, and that is thick with mud; and yet no
+one in Saguntum talks of surrender, and the defense must be continued.
+We all know what awaits us if we fall into the hands of Hannibal."
+
+"I have talked with him," said Act�on, "and he is inexorable. If he
+enters Saguntum every man of us will become his slave!"
+
+The assembly stirred again with indignation.
+
+"We will die first!" shouted the Elders.
+
+Hastily they agreed upon what must be said to the people. They swore by
+the gods to conceal the truth. They would prolong the sacrifice in the
+hope that aid from Rome might come in time. Composing their countenances
+so that none should divine their despair, the Elders walked out of the
+temple. Swiftly the news flashed through the city. The legates had
+proceeded to Carthage to waste no time in the camp; there they would
+demand the punishment of Hannibal. The legions which Rome was sending to
+the support of the Saguntines would arrive at any moment.
+
+The crowd received this specious fabrication with cold insensibility.
+The sufferings of the siege had deadened their feelings. Besides, they
+had been fired so many times with hope of the coming of the Romans that
+they doubted and would not believe until they saw the fleet itself.
+
+Act�on mingled with the starving crowd searching for S�nnica. He found
+her surrounded by Lachares and the young gallants. Near them stood
+Euphobias, smiling at S�nnica, but not venturing to approach.
+
+"The gods have protected you on your journey, Act�on," said the
+parasite. "You look better than we who have remained in the city. One
+can plainly see that you have fed."
+
+"But you, philosopher," said the Greek, "are not so lean and emaciated
+as the others. Who maintains you?"
+
+"My poverty. I was so accustomed to hunger in times of plenty that now I
+scarcely notice the famine. Observe the advantages of being a
+philosopher and a beggar!"
+
+"Trust not the words of that monster," said Lachares with repugnance.
+"He is as beastly as a Celtiberian. He eats daily; but he should be
+crucified in the middle of the Forum as a warning. He has been seen at
+night wandering near the walls with a band of slaves in search of dying
+men."
+
+The Greek turned from the parasite with disgust.
+
+"Do not believe it, Act�on," said Euphobias. "Now they envy me my
+beggar's parsimony, as in other times they jeered at it. Hunger is my
+ancient companion, and she respects me."
+
+All drew away from the parasite, and Act�on followed S�nnica to her
+house. The beautiful Greek woman was living almost alone. Many of her
+servants had been killed on the walls; others had perished in the
+streets, victims of pestilence. Some slaves, unable to resist the
+torments of hunger, had run away to the besieging camp. Two aged
+slave-women lay groaning in a corner, amidst stacks of luxurious
+furniture and chests filled with riches. The great warehouses in the
+lower story were empty. A gang of boys had taken possession, and passed
+the time watching cat-like in hopes of some stray rat issuing from a
+corner, that they might fall upon it as an animal of inestimable value.
+
+"Tell me of Rhanto!" the Greek said to his beloved.
+
+"Poor child! I see her only occasionally. She will not stay here; I have
+her brought to me so that I can watch over her, but at the first
+opportunity she slips away. Grief over Erotion's death has caused her to
+lose her reason. Day and night she wanders along the walls. She goes
+where the battle rages fiercest, and she passes among flying missiles as
+if she does not see them. By night I hear from afar the strange dirges
+which she chants to her Erotion; sometimes she appears crowned with a
+wreath of those flowers which grow on the walls, and she asks for the
+son of Mopsus, as if he were hidden among the defenders. The people
+believe that she is in communication with the gods, and they look upon
+her with awe and ask her what will be the fate of Saguntum."
+
+The two spent the night amidst the piled up riches in the warehouse
+wrapped in costly tapestries, insensible to their surroundings, as if
+they were still in the rich villa on the domain, at the end of one of
+those banquets which had so scandalized many of the Saguntines.
+
+Days passed. The city was growing weaker, but the people, still firm in
+their resolution, continued the defense, with stomachs faint from
+starvation. The besiegers made no violent assaults. Hannibal guessed the
+condition of the city, and, desirous of avoiding further shedding of
+the blood of his troops, he allowed time to pass, maintaining only a
+rigid blockade, waiting for hunger and pestilence to complete his
+triumph.
+
+The mortality in the streets increased. There was no longer any one left
+to gather up the dead; the crematory fire on the Acropolis had gone out.
+Corpses, abandoned in the doorways of their homes, were covered with
+loathsome insects, and birds of rapine audaciously came down by night
+into the heart of the city disputing the prey of vagabond dogs which
+prowled the streets with lolling tongues and flaming eyes.
+
+Vile smelling people of savage aspect, possessed by the delirium of
+starvation, dragged themselves cautiously through the streets armed with
+clubs, stones, and missiles. They went foraging as soon as night fell.
+Euphobias guided them, giving counsel with majestic emphasis, as if he
+were a great captain commanding his army. When they managed to kill a
+crow or a savage dog they carried it to the Forum and roasted it over a
+bonfire, quarreling violently over the noisome morsels, while the rich
+citizens stood aloof, faint with hunger but nauseated by such horrors.
+
+Spring had set in. It was a gloomy springtime, revealed to the besiegers
+by little flowers growing up among the weeds in the crevices of the
+towers and on the roofs of the houses. Winter was over, and yet it was
+cold in Saguntum, with a tomb-like chill which the besieged felt in the
+very marrow of their bones. The sun shone, but the city seemed obscured
+by a fetid mist which imparted to people and to houses a leaden color.
+
+One morning, on his way to the upper part of the mount where the defense
+continued, Act�on met the prudent Alcon in the Forum. This loyal
+citizen revealed discouragement in his dejected appearance.
+
+"Athenian," he said, with a mysterious expression, "I am resolved that
+this must end. The city can resist no further. She has waited long
+enough for aid from Rome. Let Saguntum fall, and let Rome be filled with
+shame because of her infidelity to her allies. This day I shall go to
+Hannibal's camp and sue for peace."
+
+"Have you considered it carefully?" exclaimed the Greek. "Do you not
+fear the indignation of your people when they see you treating with the
+enemy?"
+
+"I love my city well, and I cannot remain impassive and witness its
+sacrifice, its interminable agony. Few are aware of the actual
+conditions, but I can tell you, Act�on, because you are discreet. We are
+much worse off than the people realize. There is not a scrap of meat
+left for those who are defending our walls. This morning there was
+nothing but mud in the bottom of the cisterns. We have no water. A few
+days more of resistance and we shall be forced to eat dead bodies like
+those soulless creatures who feed by night. We shall have to kill the
+children to placate our thirst with their blood."
+
+Alcon was silent for a moment; he passed his hand over his forehead with
+a gesture of pain as if to obliterate terrible recollections.
+
+"No one knows better than we Elders what occurs in the city," he
+continued. "The gods must shudder with horror when they see the deeds
+done in Saguntum since they abandoned her. Listen and forget, Act�on,"
+he said in a low voice and with an accent of fear. "Yesterday two women,
+maddened by hunger, drew lots to choose which one of their children
+they should devour. We Elders have closed our eyes and our ears; we have
+not desired to see nor to hear, understanding that punishment would only
+serve to increase the horrors. The men who are fighting on the walls are
+chewing the leather from their weapons to deceive hunger. Their flesh is
+loosened from their bones, they weaken and fall as if wounded by an
+invisible stroke from the gods. We have resisted for nearly eight
+months; two-thirds of the city no longer exists. We have done enough to
+demonstrate before heaven and before man how Saguntum fulfills her
+oaths."
+
+The Greek bowed his head, convinced by Alcon's arguments.
+
+"Moreover the valor of the city is breaking down," continued the Elder.
+"Faith is dying. The omens are all against us. There are people who,
+during the night, have seen globes of fire rise from the Acropolis and
+fly toward the sea, plunging into the waters like shooting stars which
+cut through the blue of heaven with a stream of light. The people
+believe that they are the penates of the city, who, divining the coming
+destruction of Saguntum, are abandoning it to go and establish
+themselves on the other side of the sea whence they came. Last night,
+those who were watching up there in the temple of Hercules saw a serpent
+glide from beneath the tomb of Zacynthus, hissing as if it were wounded.
+It was blue, with golden stars--the serpent which bit Zacynthus and was
+the cause of the foundation of the city around the tomb of the hero. He
+crawled between the feet of the astonished watchers; he fled down the
+mount, and crept off across the plain in the direction of the sea. He
+also has abandoned us; the sacred reptile which was like the tutelary
+god of Saguntum."
+
+"It may not be true," said the Greek. "It may be the hallucinations of a
+people tormented by hunger."
+
+"That may be; but observe the women and you will find them weeping; in
+addition to their misery they are lamenting the flight of the serpent of
+Zacynthus. They believe the city defenseless, and many men on the walls
+will feel weaker to-day when they hear of the strange disappearance.
+Faith is the staff on which the people lean."
+
+The two men remained silent for a while.
+
+"Go," said the Greek, at last: "Speak to Hannibal, and may the gods
+incline his heart toward clemency!"
+
+"Why do you not come with me--you who have traveled so much, and who
+possess the eloquence of conviction? You can help me."
+
+"Hannibal knows me. I have refused his friendship, and he hates me. Go
+and save the city. My fate is sealed. The African will never abate his
+anger. He will pardon anyone but me. I will die rather than become his
+slave, or suffer myself to be put to death on a cross."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE LAST NIGHT
+
+
+Fighting on the walls with the defenders of the upper part of the city
+late in the afternoon Act�on saw Rhanto coming down a street near the
+ramparts.
+
+He had not seen the shepherdess since his return to Saguntum, and now he
+noticed the changes wrought by the sufferings of the siege, and by the
+grief which was breaking her reason.
+
+She walked absorbed, with bowed head, unconscious of her surroundings,
+and in her tangled hair were little faded flowers which at every step
+dropped their withered petals. Her torn and dirty tunic gave glimpses of
+her emaciated body, which still preserved the grace and freshness
+admired by the Greek. Her breasts had developed somewhat, as if pain had
+matured her figure; her eyes dilated by dementia, seemed to fill her
+whole face, shedding a mysterious light about her, an aureole of fever.
+
+She advanced slowly, raising her head at times, looking up at the men on
+the wall, and finally stopping at the foot of the stone steps she
+murmured in a supplicating voice, like the convulsive sobbing of a
+child:
+
+"Erotion! Erotion!"
+
+Behind the mantelets of the besiegers the defenders noticed fresh
+activity, as if a new attack against the city were being attempted, but
+in spite of it the Greek came down from the wall in his eagerness to see
+the girl.
+
+"Rhanto, shepherdess, do you know me?"
+
+He addressed her tenderly, taking one of her hands, but she tried to
+spring away from him, as if she had been startled from a sleep. Then she
+grew faint, and fixing her enormous, frightened eyes on the Greek, she
+exclaimed:
+
+"You! Is it you?"
+
+"Do you recognize me?"
+
+"Yes, you are the Athenian; you are my master; the lover of S�nnica the
+rich. Tell me, where is Erotion?"
+
+The Greek did not know how to answer, but Rhanto continued speaking
+without awaiting his reply.
+
+"They tell me he is dead; even I saw him lying at the foot of the walls;
+but it is not true; it was a bad dream. It was his father, Mopsus the
+archer, who died. Since then he runs away from me as if he wishes to
+weep alone for his father's death. He hides from me by day. I see him
+from afar, upon the walls, among the defenders, but when I climb up to
+search for him I find none but armed men, and Erotion disappears. He is
+only faithful to me at night. Then he seeks me, he comes to me. Scarcely
+do I conceal myself at the foot of the stairway and rest my head upon my
+knees than I see him coming, looking for me in the darkness, strong and
+loving, with his quiver at his side and his bow slung across his
+shoulders. When he comes the ferocious dogs which slink through the
+shadows, sniffing in my face and staring at me with their gloomy eyes,
+are frightened away. He comes to me, he sits beside me; he smiles, but
+he is ever silent. I speak to him and he answers me with a tender
+glance, but never with a word. I seek his shoulder, to lean my head upon
+it as in other days, and he flees, he disappears as if dissolved in
+shadow. What does it mean, good Greek? If you see him, ask him why he
+hides from me. Tell him not to run away!----He loves you so much, so
+much! How often has he talked to me of you and of your country!"
+
+She was silent a moment, as if these words had aroused within her a
+whole past of recollections. With a painful effort, which was reflected
+in her face, she caught at them and arranged them in her mind. Slowly
+surged through her memory again the image of those happy days before the
+siege when she and Erotion ran hand in hand through the valley and had
+for their house all the groves of the Saguntine domain.
+
+She smiled at Act�on, looking at him affectionately, and she recalled
+their several meetings; their first interview on the Road of the Serpent
+when he had just disembarked, poor and unknown. Then, the touch of
+paternal protection with which he greeted them when he found them in the
+fields climbing the cherry trees and quarreling playfully over the red
+fruit, and that surprise beneath the leafy fig trees, when she, in her
+virginal beauty, was acting as a model for the young sculptor. Did he
+remember? Had the Greek forgotten those days of peace and joy?
+
+Act�on did indeed cherish them in his memory. He still retained the
+impression caused by the vision of the lovely shepherdess, and at the
+same moment his eyes searched the tattered tunic, seeking with an
+artist's delight the warm tones of her amber skin.
+
+But Rhanto's mind, after evoking these recollections, began again to
+wander. Where was Erotion? Had Act�on seen him? Was he up there with the
+defenders? The Greek held her back catching her by the hand to prevent
+her climbing to the top of the wall.
+
+The defenders were shouting wildly, shooting their arrows and throwing
+darts and stones. The besiegers had begun the attack. Projectiles came
+hurtling from outside the walls, passing over the merlons like
+dark-colored birds, as if the Africans were covering an assault with
+battering-rams and pickaxes to open a breach.
+
+Act�on, who since his return to Saguntum had again assumed control of
+the work of defense, must go up on the wall.
+
+"Run away, Rhanto," he said hastily. "You will be killed here. Go to
+S�nnica's house----I will take you to Erotion. But fly! Hide yourself!
+See how the missiles are falling around us!"
+
+He shoved her from the stairway with an energetic push which nearly
+drove her to her knees.
+
+The Greek ran up hastily, hearing the ceaseless and deadly hisses
+rending the air about his head. Before he reached the merlons he heard a
+faint groan at his back, a gentle cry which recalled to Act�on's mind
+the bleating of a fawn when pierced by the huntsman's arrow. Turning he
+saw Rhanto half way up the steps, wavering, ready to fall backward, her
+breast covered with blood and pierced by a long feather-tipped shaft,
+still quivering from the swiftness of its flight.
+
+She had started to follow him up the wall, but an arrow had caught her.
+
+"Rhanto! Poor Rhanto!"
+
+Obeying an impulse of grief which he could not explain to himself, but
+which was stronger than his will, he forgot the defense of the wall, the
+attack of the enemy, everything, to run toward the girl, who sank down
+with the gentle flutter of a wounded bird.
+
+He took her in his strong arms and laid her at the foot of the steps.
+Rhanto sighed, moving her head as if trying to rid herself of the pain
+which had taken possession of her.
+
+The Greek supported her by the shoulders, calling tenderly:
+
+"Rhanto! Rhanto!"
+
+In her eyes, enlarged by pain, the light seemed to condense. The
+expression of her face had now become sane; it lost, at moments, the
+vagueness of dementia. Pain seemed to have restored her reason, and in
+this supreme moment of lucidity the whole past arose clear in her mind.
+
+"Do not die, Rhanto," murmured the Greek, impulsively, "wait; I will
+draw out that iron; I will carry you on my back to the Forum so that
+they shall cure you."
+
+But the girl shook her head sadly. No, she wished to die. She wished to
+join Erotion, near the gods, among the clouds of rose and gold where
+wandered the Mother of Love, followed by those who had loved each other
+devotedly on earth. She had roamed for weeks like a shadow among the
+horrors of the besieged city, believing that Erotion still lived,
+searching for him everywhere; but Erotion was dead; she remembered it
+well now; she herself had seen his corpse.
+
+"Since he is dead why should I live?"
+
+"Live for me!" cried Act�on, stung with grief, unconscious of his
+surroundings, deaf to the cries of the defenders on the wall and to the
+footsteps of someone approaching on the street.
+
+"Rhanto, shepherdess, listen to me! Now I understand why I longed to see
+you; why your memory came to me so often in Rome whenever I thought of
+Saguntum. Live and be to Act�on the last spring of his existence! I love
+you, Rhanto! You are my last love; the flower which blooms in the winter
+of my life! I love you, Rhanto! I have loved you since that day when I
+saw you revealed like a goddess. Live and let me be your Erotion!"
+
+The girl, her face clouded by the shadow of death, smiled, murmuring:
+
+"Act�on, good Greek, thank you, thank you!"
+
+Her head slipped from between Act�on's hands and fell heavily on the
+ground. The Athenian remained motionless, mutely gazing at the body of
+the girl. The silence which suddenly fell on the wall seemed to arouse
+him from his painful stupor. The besiegers had suspended the attack. The
+Greek stood up, but he knelt again to press kisses on the still warm
+mouth of the shepherdess and upon her unquivering wide-open eyes, in
+which the red splendor of the setting sun was reflected as in quiet
+waters.
+
+As he arose he was startled by S�nnica standing quietly before him, with
+cold, ironic stare.
+
+"S�nnica! You!"
+
+"I came to tell you to hasten to the Forum. A messenger from the hostile
+camp has presented himself at the gates of the city asking to speak to
+the Elders. The people are gathered in the Forum."
+
+Despite the importance of the news Act�on did not stir. He was
+transfixed by S�nnica's cold rigidity.
+
+"How long have you been here?"
+
+"Long enough to see how you bade my slave farewell forever!"
+
+She was silent for a moment, then as if impelled by a sentiment stronger
+than her will, she approached him with flashing eyes and with
+outstretched hands.
+
+"Did you really love her?" she asked bitterly.
+
+"Yes," he replied, faintly, as if ashamed of the confession. "I know now
+that I loved her----but I love you also."
+
+They stood motionless, their eyes fixed upon the body which lay between
+them. It was like a cold intervening wall, suddenly risen and separating
+them forever.
+
+Act�on was shamed by the grief which his words caused her who had so
+loved him. S�nnica seemed stunned by his immense deception, and she
+gazed frigidly at the body of the slave with the eyes of an implacable
+Nemesis.
+
+"Go, Act�on!" she said. "They are waiting for you in the Forum. The
+Elders are calling for you to serve as interpreter for the messenger
+from Hannibal."
+
+The Athenian advanced a few steps, and then stopped, gently imploring
+mercy for the body.
+
+"It will be deserted. Night is coming on, and----the hungry dogs----the
+soulless men who look for corpses----"
+
+He chilled with horror to think that the beautiful body which had
+thrilled him with admiration might be devoured by the beasts.
+
+S�nnica replied with a gesture. He might go. She would stay on guard,
+and, mastered by her chill hauteur, he turned and hastened toward the
+Forum.
+
+As he reached the quadrangle it was growing dark. In the centre burned
+the great fire which was lighted every night to combat the mortal
+springtime chill.
+
+The Elders brought their ivory chairs to the foot of the temple steps to
+receive Hannibal's messenger in the presence of the populace. The news
+had circulated throughout the city, and the people flocked to the Forum,
+eager to hear the propositions of the besieger. New groups poured in
+each moment along the streets leading to the great square where the
+waning life of the city was concentrated.
+
+Act�on placed himself near the Elders. He glanced around for Alcon, but
+failed to see him. The aged senator was still in the hostile camp, and
+the coming of this emissary must be in consequence of his interview with
+Hannibal.
+
+A senator explained the circumstances. An unarmed enemy had presented
+himself before the walls, waving an olive branch. He asked to speak to
+the Senate in the name of the besiegers, and the assembly of Elders
+thought it wise to summon the whole city to participate in this supreme
+deliberation.
+
+Orders to admit the messenger had been given, and soon an armed group
+was seen approaching, making its way through the crowd, conducting a man
+with uncovered head, unarmed, and carrying a branch in his right hand as
+a symbol of peace.
+
+As he passed before the fire the ruddy glow of the flames fell full upon
+his face and the Forum reverberated with a clamor of indignation. They
+had recognized him:
+
+"Alorcus! It is Alorcus!"
+
+"Traitor!"
+
+"Ingrate!"
+
+Many hands reached for their swords to fall upon him; above the heads of
+the multitude menacing arms brandished spears; but the presence of the
+Elders, and the sad smile of the Celtiberian restrained them. Moreover,
+the people felt the weakness of hunger; they had little strength left
+for indignation, and they were eager to hear the messenger, to learn the
+fate reserved for them by the enemy.
+
+Alorcus advanced until he stood before the Elders, and the great
+concourse subsided into profound silence, interrupted only by the
+crackling of the wood in the fire. All eyes were fixed on the
+Celtiberian.
+
+"Alcon the prudent is not with you?" he began.
+
+They glanced around in surprise. It was true; until then the absence of
+the man who was first in all public acts, had not been noticed.
+
+"You look for him in vain," continued the Celtiberian. "Alcon is in the
+camp of Hannibal. Heart-broken over the condition of the city, realizing
+that it is impossible to persist longer in the defense, he has
+sacrificed himself for you, and at the risk of his life he came to
+Hannibal's tent a few hours ago to beg him, with tears, to have
+compassion upon you."
+
+"And why has he not returned with you?" asked one of the Elders.
+
+"He was afraid and ashamed to repeat Hannibal's words to you----the
+conditions which he imposed for the surrender of the city."
+
+The silence grew more oppressive. The multitude divined in the terror of
+the absent Alcon the frightful demands of the conqueror which made all
+hearts beat fast with dread even before hearing them.
+
+Fresh groups of people kept straggling in to the Forum. Even the
+defenders of the city abandoned the walls, attracted by the event, and
+stood at the entrances of the streets around the quadrangle, the flames
+from the bonfire glinting on their bronze helmets and on their shields
+of varied shapes, round, rectangular, and oval. Act�on also saw S�nnica
+make her way through the crowd and seat herself near the group formed by
+the elegant young gallants who admired her.
+
+Alorcus continued speaking:
+
+"You know me well. A moment ago I heard threats, I saw menacing gestures
+when you recognized me. I understand your indignation at seeing me
+before you. Perhaps I am an ingrate; but remember that I was born in
+other lands, and that my father's death placed me at the head of a
+people whom I have to obey and to lead in their alliances. Never have I
+forgotten that I was the guest of Saguntum; I cherish the memory of your
+hospitality, and I am as interested in the fate of this city as if it
+were my native land. Ponder well your situation, Saguntines! Valor has
+its limits, and no matter how much you exert yourselves the gods have
+decreed the ruin of heroic Saguntum. They show it by having forsaken
+you, and your courage is all in vain before their immutable will."
+
+The vague words of Alorcus augmented the dread of the people. They
+feared the conditions set by Hannibal, and they read their harshness in
+the Celtiberian's hesitation in pronouncing them.
+
+"The conditions! Tell us the conditions!" they shouted from all sides of
+the Forum.
+
+"The proof that I have come in your sole interests," continued Alorcus,
+as if he did not hear their cries, "lies in the fact that as long as you
+were able to resist with your own strength, and while you expected
+assistance from the Romans, never did I come to counsel your submission.
+But your walls can no longer defend you; every day hundreds of
+Saguntines perish from hunger; the Romans will not come; they are far
+away, and occupied with other wars; in place of sending you legions they
+send you legates, and thus I, seeing that Alcon hesitated to return,
+face your indignation to bring you a peace rather necessary than
+advantageous."
+
+"The conditions! The conditions!" demanded the multitude, with a
+formidable howl which shook the Forum.
+
+"Remember," said Alorcus, "that what the conqueror offers you is a gift,
+for to-day he is master of everything you possess--your lives and your
+estates."
+
+This terrible truth, falling upon the multitude, produced silence.
+"Saguntum, which, for the greater part is already in ruins, and whose
+extremes his troops already occupy, he takes from you as a punishment;
+but Hannibal will permit you to build a new city in the place which he
+will designate. All your riches, those in the public treasury as well as
+those in your houses, shall be turned over to the conqueror. Hannibal
+will respect your lives and those of your wives and children, but you
+must depart from Saguntum to a place which he will indicate, unarmed,
+and with but two garments each. I understand that these terms are stern,
+but your misfortune commends them to you, for it is worse to die, and to
+have your families fall as booty of war into the hands of a triumphant
+army."
+
+Alorcus ceased speaking, but still the Forum remained in silence, a
+silence profound, threatening, like the leaden calm which precedes the
+tempest.
+
+"No, Saguntines! No!" shouted a woman.
+
+Act�on recognized the voice of S�nnica.
+
+"No, no!" answered the multitude, with a thundering echo.
+
+They swayed and surged from place to place; compact masses crowded
+against each other, possessed with fury, as if they would rend
+themselves in pieces to give vent to the wrath produced by the
+conditions of the conqueror.
+
+S�nnica had disappeared; but Act�on saw her return to the Forum followed
+by a cordon of people, slaves, women, soldiers, bearing upon their backs
+the rich furniture from the villa which had been stored in the
+warehouse; the chests of jewels, the sumptuous tapestries, ingots of
+silver, and boxes of gold dust. The multitude observed this procession
+of riches without guessing S�nnica's purpose.
+
+"No! No!" repeated the Greek woman, as if talking to herself.
+
+She was infuriated at the conqueror's proposals. She imagined herself
+departing from the city with no other fortune than the tunic she wore
+and another over her arm, compelled to beg along the highway, or to
+labor in the fields as a slave, persecuted by the fierce soldiers of
+many nations!
+
+"No! No!" she repeated energetically, making her way through the crowd
+to the fire in the centre of the Forum.
+
+She was magnificent with her auburn hair loosened in her excitement, her
+tunic rent by struggling through the multitude, her eyes flashing with
+the expression of a Fury who found an acrid satisfaction in destruction.
+Of what use were riches? Of what use was life? Her desperate energy was
+spurred by the bitterness which she had tasted an hour ago before the
+body of her slave.
+
+She gave the signal by hurling into the bonfire an image of Venus in
+jasper and silver which she carried in her arms, and which disappeared
+in the flames as if it were a clod. The wretched and starving crowd
+which followed imitated her with intense relish. The destruction of so
+many riches made them howl with joy, and they danced in their
+gladness--they, so poor, who had passed their lives in the deprivation
+of slavery! Into the flames fell dainty caskets of ivory, cedar, and
+ebony, and as they clashed against the firewood they burst open,
+spilling treasures within--collars of pearls, clusters of topazes and
+emeralds, diamond earrings, the whole scale of precious stones, which
+sparkled for an instant against the half-burnt wood like gleaming
+salamanders. Then came the tapestries, the silver-embroidered veils,
+the tunics of spun-gold flowers, the golden sandals, the chairs with
+lion claws, the couches with metal clamps, mirrors, lamps, bottles of
+perfume, rich inlaid marble tables, all the splendors of S�nnica the
+rich. The poverty-stricken multitude, transported by this sacrifice,
+applauded with bellowing enthusiasm as it saw the fire grow and grow
+with so much fuel, until the flames mounted to a great height and
+scattered ashes and sparks over the roofs of the houses.
+
+"Hannibal wants riches!" shouted S�nnica in a hoarse voice which
+resembled a howl. "Come, pile here your treasures, and let the African
+lay siege to the fire for them!"
+
+No need of urging them to imitate her! Many of the Elders who had
+withdrawn at the first moment of confusion now returned to the Forum
+carrying chests beneath their white mantles, and flung them into the
+fire. They were the hoarded treasures from their houses.
+
+Above the heads of the multitude furniture and rich fabrics passed from
+hand to hand until they tumbled into the immense furnace, which whirled
+its flames higher and higher, crowned by a white and luminous smoke.
+
+It was a holocaust in honor of the dead and silent gods on the
+Acropolis. Houses seemed to turn themselves inside out to fling their
+adornments and riches upon the fire. The men pursued their work of
+destruction silently and gloomily; but the women seemed mad, and they
+danced around the huge bonfire, disheveled, screaming, their eyes
+bulging from their sockets, hypnotized, caressing the flames with their
+garments, intoxicated by the glare, scratching their faces unconscious
+of their acts, and bellowing curses with mouths foaming with rage.
+Crazed by the infernal round, unable to resist the fascination of the
+lambent flames, one of them sprang and fell into the fire. Her hair and
+clothing blazed for an instant like a torch, and she sank among the
+white-hot coals. Another hurled into the roaring crematory, as if it
+were a ball, the babe she had borne in her arms clinging to her empty
+breast, and then, as if repentant for her crime, she followed the child
+into the burning pile.
+
+The conflagration had extended to the wooden roofs of the houses around
+the Forum. A chaplet of flame began to inwreathe the square. The heat
+and smoke were stifling, and the furniture seemed to travel
+automatically above the heads of the crowd toward the incandescent kiln
+through the dense sooty atmosphere. Lachares and his elegant friends
+began to talk of death. Those effeminate beings discussed with sublime
+tranquility the manner of their end. They did not wish to follow
+S�nnica, who had just armed herself with sword and shield to sally forth
+against the besieging camp and die fighting. It was repugnant to them to
+think of struggling with rude, half-savage soldiers, to inhale their
+wild-beast odors, and to fall with their painted faces cleft by a blow,
+covered with blood, and wallowing in gore like a beheaded ox; neither
+did it please them to stab themselves--that was a means reserved for
+heroes. They preferred to die in the flames; they recollected the
+sacrifice of the Asiatic queens who perished in a fire of perfumed
+woods. What a pity that this fire smelled so ill! But it was not a
+moment for refinements; drawing their mantles over their eyes, shoving
+their little slaveboys before them with their depilated and perfumed
+arms, one after the other the elegant young gallants walked into the
+fire with tranquil step, as if still dwelling in those days of peace
+when they strolled through the Forum, gratified by the scandal caused by
+their feminine adornments.
+
+S�nnica gathered her tunic around her waist in order to run with greater
+freedom, leaving disclosed the resplendent whiteness of her limbs.
+
+"We are going to die, Euphobias," she said to the philosopher, who stood
+absorbed in contemplation before this spectacle of destruction.
+
+For the first time the philosopher failed to display his insolent and
+ironic manner. He was grave and frowning; gazing at the people whom he
+had so often ridiculed, beholding the heroism of their death.
+
+"Die?" he exclaimed. "Must we die? Do you think so, S�nnica?"
+
+"Yes; he who is not willing to be a slave must die. Get a sword and
+follow me!"
+
+"No, if I must die I will avoid the fatigue of running and the exertion
+of striking blows. I will die placidly in the sweet indolence which ever
+embellished my life."
+
+Slowly, deliberately, he walked over to the fire, covered his face with
+his patched and mended mantle, and laid himself in the flames as calmly
+as he used to drop down on the porticos of the Forum in the old days of
+peace.
+
+On the steps of the temple the Elders were stabbing themselves in their
+breasts with a dagger. Before breathing his last, each passed the weapon
+on to his nearest companion, and they died trying to maintain
+themselves erect in their chairs of state. Groups of women caught up
+torches lighted at the great fire, and scattered like furious bacchantes
+throughout Saguntum, setting fire to doors, and flinging burning brands
+upon the wooden roofs.
+
+Suddenly from the direction of the citadel where the attacks of the
+besiegers had been concentrated, arose an appalling commotion, as if
+half a mountain had toppled over. The walls had been abandoned by the
+defenders who had gathered in the Forum, and a tower which the
+Carthaginians had undermined some days before had fallen. A cohort of
+Hannibal's army, seeing the city destitute of the usual outposts and
+guards, rushed through the breach, and made a signal for Hannibal to
+enter with his hosts.
+
+"Come on! come on!" shouted S�nnica with a hoarse voice. "This is our
+last night! I will not die in the fire! I choose to die fighting! I want
+blood!"
+
+She flew from the Forum like a Fury, followed by Act�on who ran beside
+her calling her name, trying to gain a look from her. But the beautiful
+Greek woman was insensible in her rage, as if she had at her side
+someone she had never seen before. They were followed by a discordant
+crowd, armed citizens, women brandishing knives and darts, naked youths
+with no other defense than a spear. They poured out like a stampeded
+herd, their bronze corselets and their helmets with broken crests
+shimmering in the firelight, their weapons dyed in blood, and displaying
+through the tatters of their clothing emaciated limbs which seemed to
+dance in their loose skin, dried and wrinkled by hunger.
+
+They passed out of Saguntum on the lower side, marching in the glare of
+the burning city straight upon the camp of the besieger.
+
+A cohort of Celtiberians hurrying toward Saguntum was routed, put in
+disorder, harried by this troop of desperate beings who ran with lowered
+head, striking blindly at everything before them. Farther on they
+encountered other troops who advanced in battle form to meet the sally,
+and they collided with the line of shields, unable to stand in a
+struggle hand to hand.
+
+The Saguntines, debilitated by the long siege, their strength exhausted
+by hunger and sickness, could not withstand the clash. The Celtiberians
+wounded mercilessly with their two edged swords, and the company of sick
+men, women, and children, fell rapidly beneath their blows.
+
+Act�on, fighting with his shield before his face and his sword raised
+against two vigorous soldiers, saw S�nnica receive a stab in the head
+and drop her weapons, doubling up in agony.
+
+"Act�on! Act�on!" she cried, forgetting her bitterness, the fire of her
+old love returning to her with death.
+
+She fell face downward on the ground. The Greek started toward her, but
+at the same instant his ears buzzed as if an immense mass had crashed
+upon his head; in his side he felt the chill of the steel perforating
+his flesh; everything turned black, and he sank to the ground, as if
+falling into a dark and gloomy pit the bottom of which he would never
+reach.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Greek awoke. His chest was weighted down by a form as heavy as a
+mountain. He was not sure whether he really existed. His members refused
+to obey him. Only with a painful effort could he open his eyes and
+understand confusedly why he was there.
+
+Gradually he realized that the something which oppressed his breast was
+the corpse of a gigantic soldier. Act�on thought he remembered having
+plunged his sword into the body of the warrior the instant that he fell
+into the dense and mysterious night.
+
+He looked around. A ruddy glow, as of an endless aurora, scintillated on
+the abandoned weapons and outlined silhouettes of the bodies lying in
+heaps or scattered over the field contracted in weird postures by their
+final convulsions.
+
+In the background a city was burning. The blackened and shapeless
+structures stood out against the curtain of flames, and through their
+restless splendor the walls of the Acropolis trembled.
+
+Act�on remembered all that had happened. That city was Saguntum; the
+conquerors could be heard howling through the streets; they were covered
+with blood; setting fire to the houses still untouched; cursing a people
+which only gave itself up after consuming its riches; killing in their
+fury whatever living thing they encountered in their way, and stabbing
+the wounded.
+
+As he realized this he knew that he was not dead, but that he was going
+to die. He knew it by the terrible weakness which overpowered him, by
+the mortal cold creeping up to his heart; by his mind which was growing
+dull, and was now but a flickering light.
+
+What of S�nnica? Where could he find S�nnica? His last thought was to
+reach her body, which must be near. He wished to kiss her as her slave;
+to render her that tribute before he died. But as he made a supreme
+exertion, raising his head from the ground, a wave of warm and sticky
+liquid covered his face. It was his last blood.
+
+Then he seemed to see, with the vagueness of a vanishing dream, a kind
+of black centaur, galloping over the slain, and looking at the blazing
+city, laughing with malevolent joy.
+
+He passed near. His horse's hoofs ploughed into the body of the
+Celtiberian lying on his breast. The dying Greek recognized the horseman
+by the light of the conflagration.
+
+It was Hannibal, his head uncovered, possessed by the fury of triumph,
+galloping on his jet-black horse which seemed to have caught the
+ferocity of the rider, whinnying, treading on the fallen bodies, lashing
+his tail above the litter of battle. To the Greek he appeared an
+infernal demon coming for his soul.
+
+Dimly, like a blurred vision, he saw the face of Hannibal animated by a
+smile of pride, of cruel satisfaction--the majestic and ferocious visage
+of one of those gods of Carthage who showed clemency only when human
+sacrifices were smoking upon their altars.
+
+Hannibal laughed on seeing that at last the city which had detained him
+eight months before her walls, was his. Now he was free to go on working
+out his audacious dreams!
+
+The Greek saw no more. He sank finally into eternal night.
+
+Hannibal galloped on around the city, and beholding the purplish glow of
+the coming day breaking over the sea, he reined in his horse, he looked
+into the East, and extending his arm, impatient to stretch it across the
+blue expanse bounded by the horizon, he shouted threateningly, as if
+challenging an invisible enemy before falling upon it:
+
+"Rome!----Rome!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of S�nnica, by Vicente Blasco Ib��ez
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+  <head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+<title>
+  The Project Gutenberg eBook of S�nnica, by Vicente Blasco Ib��ez.
+</title>
+<style type="text/css">
+ p {margin-top:.75em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.75em;text-indent:2%;}
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of S�nnica, by Vicente Blasco Ib��ez
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: S�nnica
+
+Author: Vicente Blasco Ib��ez
+
+Translator: Frances Douglas
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2010 [EBook #31821]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK S�NNICA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="c"><img src="images/ill_cover.jpg"
+alt="image of book's cover"
+width="346"
+height="550"
+/></div>
+
+<h1>S�NNICA</h1>
+
+<h3 class="top5">BY<br />
+VICENTE BLASCO IB��EZ</h3>
+
+<p class="c">Translated from the Spanish by<br />
+FRANCES DOUGLAS</p>
+
+<div class="c"><img src="images/ill_logo.png"
+alt="image of book publisher's logo"
+width="75"
+height="118"
+/></div>
+
+<p class="c">NEW YORK<br />
+DUFFIELD &amp; COMPANY<br />
+1919</p>
+
+<p class="c">COPYRIGHT 1912<br />
+By DUFFIELD &amp; COMPANY<br />
+</p>
+
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+
+<table summary="toc"
+cellpadding="4"
+cellspacing="0">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="left"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span></td><td align="right"><span class="smcap">Page</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">At Aphrodite's Temple</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_3">3</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Saguntum</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_45">45</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Dancing Girls from Gades</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_95">95</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Greek and Celtiberian</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_143">143</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Invasion</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_174">174</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Asbyte and Hannibal</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_200">200</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Walls of Saguntum</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_234">234</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Rome of Fabius the Delayer</span> &nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_258">258</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Hungry City</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_285">285</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Last Night</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_311">311</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><a name="page_2" id="page_2"></a></p>
+
+<p><a name="page_3" id="page_3"></a></p>
+
+<h2>S�NNICA</h2>
+
+<h3 class="top5"><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+<p class="head">AT APHRODITE'S TEMPLE.</p>
+
+<p class="nind">W<span class="smcap">hen</span> the ship of Polyanthus, the Saguntine pilot, arrived off the port
+of his native land, the mariners and fishermen, their vision sharpened
+by ever watching the distant horizon, had already recognized his
+saffron-dyed sail and the image of Victory, which, with extended wings,
+and holding a crown in her right hand, stretched along the prow until it
+dipped its feet in the waves.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Polyanthus' ship! It is the Victoriata returning from Gades and
+New Carthage!"</p>
+
+<p>To obtain a better view they rushed out upon the stone breakwater
+surrounding the three basins of the port of Saguntum, which were
+connected with the sea by a long canal.</p>
+
+<p>The low marshy land, overgrown with reeds and tangled aquatic plants,
+extended as far as the Gulf of Sucro, which bounded the horizon by its
+curving blue belt, and over which the fishermen's smacks skimmed like
+dragon flies. The trireme slowly advanced. The colored sail fluttered in
+the breeze without filling, but the triple banks of oars, with rhythmic
+movement along its flanks caused the vessel to spring over the white
+foam lashing the entrance of the canal.<a name="page_4" id="page_4"></a></p>
+
+<p>Night was falling. On the hill near the port the temple of Venus
+Aphrodite reflected from the polished surface of its pediment the fire
+of the setting sun. A golden atmosphere wrapped the columns and the blue
+marble walls, as if the father of day, before sinking to rest, were
+greeting the goddess of the waters with a kiss of light. The chain of
+dark mountains, covered with pines and shrubbery, swung around the sea
+in a gigantic semicircle, embracing the fertile valley in which lay the
+Saguntine gardens, the white villas, the rustic towers and the hamlets
+rising among the clustering green trees of the fields. At the other
+extreme of this mountain barrier, dimmed by the distance and the haze of
+the landscape, could be seen the city, the ancient Zacynthus, with its
+dwellings compressed within walls and citadels upon the fold of the
+hill. Far above was the Acropolis, with cyclopean ramparts above which
+rose the high-roofed temples and public buildings.</p>
+
+<p>The port was enlivened by the stir of labor. Two ships from Massilia
+were loading with wine in the big basin. One from Liburnia was taking on
+a cargo consisting of Saguntine pottery and dried figs, to be sold in
+Rome, while a galley from Carthage contained in its hold great bars of
+silver brought from the mines of Celtiberia. Other ships, with sails
+furled and their banks of oars fallen against their sides, swung at
+anchor near the wharf, like great sleeping birds gently nodding their
+prows with figureheads of crocodiles or of horses, used by the navy of
+Alexandria, or displaying on the stern a hideous red dwarf resembling
+that which decorated the vessel of the Ph&oelig;nician Cadmus in his
+astounding voyages over many seas.<a name="page_5" id="page_5"></a></p>
+
+<p>The slaves bending under the weight of amphor� and silver ingots,
+wearing no other clothing than a loin-cloth and a white hood, their
+fretted and sweating bodies bare, passed like an endless rosary along
+the boards leading from the mole to the ships, as they carried the
+merchandise from where it lay piled on the wharf into the concave holds
+of the vessels.</p>
+
+<p>In the centre of the great middle basin rose a tower guarding the
+entrance to the port; a solid structure with its stone foundations laid
+in the deepest water. Moored to the rings which adorned its walls lay a
+ship of war, a Liburnian galley, high of stern, the prow a sheep's head,
+the great square sail furled, an armored fore-castle near the mast, and
+on the gunwales, forming a double row, the shields of the <i>classiarii</i>,
+soldiers destined for marine combats. It was a Roman vessel which at
+daybreak next morning was to set sail, bearing the ambassadors sent by
+the great Republic to settle the political disorders which agitated
+Saguntum.</p>
+
+<p>In the second basin, a tranquil square of water where boats were
+constructed and repaired, sounded the hammers of the calkers striking
+against the wood. The dismasted galleys lay on the bank like sick
+monsters, showing through their lacerated flanks their strong frames and
+their pitch-blackened interiors. In the third and smallest, a lake of
+filthy waters, the fishermen's barks were anchored. Flocks of gulls
+whirled around them, darting down upon the spoils which floated on the
+water, while along the bank crowded women, old men, and boys, awaiting
+the arrival of the barks with fish from the Sucronian Gulf, which were
+sold in the interior to the more advanced tribes of Celtiberia.<a name="page_6" id="page_6"></a></p>
+
+<p>The arrival of the Saguntine ship had drawn all the people of the port
+away from their tasks. The slaves worked lazily while their overseers
+were preoccupied by the entrance of the trireme, and even phlegmatic
+citizens seated on the mole, rod in hand, trying to capture corpulent
+eels which abounded in the basin, forgot their fishing while they
+watched the advance of the Victoriata. She had by this time come into
+the canal. Her hull could not be seen. The mast, with its motionless
+sail, rose above the tall reeds which bordered the entrance to the port.</p>
+
+<p>The afternoon silence was interrupted by the hoarse cry of innumerable
+frogs croaking in the marshes and the chattering of birds which
+fluttered in the olive trees near the fane of Aphrodite. The
+hammer-blows of the arsenal rung more and more slowly; the people of the
+port were silent, watching the progress of the ship of Polyanthus. As
+the Victoriata rounded the sharp bend of the canal the gilded image of
+the prow hove into sight, and then the first oars quickly followed, like
+enormous red talons, clutching the glossy surface of the water with a
+force which flung aloft the white spray.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd, amid which chafed the eagerly watching families of the
+mariners, burst into acclamations as the ship swung into the port.</p>
+
+<p>"Greeting, Polyanthus! Welcome, son of Aphrodite! May S�nnica, your
+mistress, overwhelm you with riches!"</p>
+
+<p>Naked, brown-skinned boys dived head-first into the basin, swimming
+around the ship like a swarm of young Tritons.</p>
+
+<p>The people of the port praised their compatriot Polyanthus,<a name="page_7" id="page_7"></a>
+exaggerating his skill. According to them his ship lacked nothing; well
+might the rich S�nnica be satisfied with her freedman. Forward on the
+vessel stood the <i>proreta</i>, motionless as a statue, watching with swift
+glances to discover the presence of obstacles; the crew, naked, their
+sweaty backs glistening in the sun, bent over the oars, and on the poop
+the <i>gubernator</i>, Polyanthus himself, insensible to weariness, wrapped
+in his ample red mantle, the tiller firmly held in his right hand, and
+in his left a white staff which he waved rhythmically, marking the swing
+of the rowers. Near the mast stood men in strange costumes, and
+motionless women wrapped in flowing mantles.</p>
+
+<p>The ship glided into the port like an enormous crustacean, parting the
+dead and silent waters with her prow, which but recently had been
+fretting the waters of the gulf.</p>
+
+<p>As she cast anchor near the mole and threw out her gang-plank, the
+rowers were forced to club back the multitude which crowded forward
+eager to board the ship.</p>
+
+<p>The pilot gave orders from the poop; his red robe moved from place to
+place like a flame kindled by the setting sun.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh! Polyanthus! Welcome, navigator! What cargo do you bring?"</p>
+
+<p>The pilot saw two young horsemen on the bank. The one who addressed him
+was wrapped in a white mantle; one of its corners covered his head,
+leaving exposed his beard done into curls and lustrous with pomatum. The
+other clung to the back of his steed with his strong bare legs; he wore
+the sagum of the Celtiberians, a short<a name="page_8" id="page_8"></a> wool tunic over which the
+broadsword hung from his shoulder, and his hair, as thick and
+dishevelled as his beard, outlined a brown and manly countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"Greeting, Lachares! Greeting, Alorcus!" replied the pilot with an
+expression of respect. "Shall you see S�nnica, my mistress?"</p>
+
+<p>"This very night," answered Lachares. "We sup at her country-seat. What
+bring you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her that I have argentiferous lead from New Carthage, and wool
+from B�tica. Excellent voyage!"</p>
+
+<p>The two youths tugged at their horses' reins.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Wait a moment," added Polyanthus. "Tell her that I have not
+forgotten her instructions. I am bringing what you so greatly desire,
+the dancing girls from Gades."</p>
+
+<p>"We are all grateful to you," said Lachares, laughing. "Hail,
+Polyanthus; may Neptune favor you!"</p>
+
+<p>The two riders set off at a gallop, becoming lost to view among the
+hovels grouped around the base of the temple of Aphrodite.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile one of the ship's passengers landed, making his way through
+the crowd. He was a Greek. All knew his origin by the <i>pilos</i> which
+covered his head, a conical leather helmet, after the fashion of that
+worn by Ulysses in Greek paintings. He was clad in a short, dark tunic,
+adjusted around his waist by a leather belt, from which hung a pouch.
+His chlamys, which did not reach his knees, was fastened at the right
+shoulder by a copper brooch; worn and dusty laced shoes covered his
+stockingless feet, and his sinewy arms, carefully freed from hair,
+rested on a great dart which was almost a lance. His hair, short and
+arranged in thick curls,<a name="page_9" id="page_9"></a> hung beneath the <i>pilos</i>, forming a hollow
+crown around his head. It was black, but silvery threads shone in it and
+also in his broad short beard. His upper lip was carefully shaved in the
+Athenian style.</p>
+
+<p>He was a strong and agile man, in the prime of life, healthy and
+vigorous. His eyes had an ironic glance, and in them sparkled something
+of that fire which reveals men born for warfare and for contact with the
+world. He walked at ease about the unfamiliar port, like a traveler
+accustomed to all manner of contrasts and surprises.</p>
+
+<p>The sun began to sink, and work at the port had ceased. The crowd which
+had swarmed on the wharf was gradually scattering. Bands of slaves
+stretching their aching limbs and wiping off the sweat, passed near the
+stranger. Controlled by the clubs of their guards, they were about to be
+locked up until the next morning in caves in the nearby hill, or in the
+oil mills situated beyond the mariners' taverns, the inns, and the
+brothels, with their mud walls and broad roofs, which as a complement to
+the port were grouped at the foot of the hill of Aphrodite.</p>
+
+<p>The merchants also left in search of their horses and chariots to ride
+to the city. They passed in groups, looking over the records on their
+tablets, and discussing the operations of the day. Their diverse types,
+dress, and bearing, showed a great mixture of races in Zacynthus, a
+commercial city to which in ancient times flocked the vessels of the
+Mediterranean, and whose traffic was in rivalry with that of Emporion
+and Massilia. The Asiatic or African merchants who imported ivory,
+ostrich feathers, spices, and perfumes for the rich of<a name="page_10" id="page_10"></a> the city, were
+distinguished by their majestic step, their tunics with flowers and
+birds embroidered in gold, their green buskins, their tall embroidered
+tiaras, and their beards falling over their breasts, curled so as to lie
+in horizontal waves. The Greeks laughed and talked incessantly, jesting
+over their business affairs, and overwhelming with volubility the grave,
+bearded, diffident Iberian exporters dressed in coarse wool, who, with
+their silence seemed to protest against the stream of useless words.</p>
+
+<p>The wharves were deserted one after another, the life of the place
+flowing along the road toward the city. Horses galloped, raising clouds
+of dust, chariots rolled along, and little African donkeys passed with a
+short trot, bearing on their backs some corpulent citizen or other,
+seated like a woman.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek walked slowly along the mole behind two men clad in short
+tunics, wearing buskins and little conical hats with drooping brims,
+like those of the Hellenic shepherds. They were two artisans from the
+city. They had spent the day fishing, and were returning to their
+houses, gazing with ill dissimulated pride at their baskets in which
+writhed and wriggled barbels and eels. They were talking in Iberian,
+frequently mixing Greek and Latin words in their conversation. It was a
+not unusual dialect in that ancient colony, which was in continual
+contact through commerce with the principal peoples of the earth. The
+Greek, as he followed them down the wharf listened to their conversation
+with the curiosity of a stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"You will come in my cart," said one of them. "My donkey awaits me at
+Abiliana's inn. The beast as you<a name="page_11" id="page_11"></a> know is the envy of all my neighbors.
+We shall yet reach the city before the gates are closed."</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you, neighbor. It is not prudent to travel alone when the
+country is swarming with adventurers whom we take as hirelings for the
+wars with the Turdetani, and all the people who fled from the city after
+the last revolt. Day before yesterday, as you know, the dead body of
+Acteio, the barber of the Forum, was found in the road. He was
+assassinated and robbed as he was returning from his little
+country-house at night-fall."</p>
+
+<p>"They say that we shall live more tranquilly now since the Roman
+intervention. The legates from Rome have ordered a few heads cut off;
+and they affirm that after this we shall have peace."</p>
+
+<p>The two men stopped a moment and turned their heads to look at the Roman
+liburna, which could barely be distinguished near the tower in the port,
+wrapped in the shadows of evening. Then they walked slowly onward, as if
+in deep thought.</p>
+
+<p>"You know," continued one of them, "that I am only a shoemaker who has
+his shop near the Forum and has been able to save a sack of silver
+victoriati in order to live at ease in his old age, and to spend the
+afternoons at the port, rod in hand. I do not know as much as those
+rhetoricians who stroll up and down outside the city wall disputing and
+shouting like Furies, nor do I worry my brain as do the philosophers who
+gather on the porticos of the Forum to quarrel amid the jests of the
+merchants as to whether this or that one of the men who occupy
+themselves there in Athens with such matters is in the right. But, with
+all my ignorance, I ask<a name="page_12" id="page_12"></a> myself, neighbor, why this strife between us
+men who live in the same city who should deal with one another like good
+brothers? Why?"</p>
+
+<p>The shoemaker's comrade replied with vigorous nods of assent.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand," continued the artisan, "that from time to time we shall
+be at war with our neighbors the Turdetani. Sometimes on account of a
+question of irrigation, again on account of pasture-grounds, but mainly
+because of boundary lines, and to keep them from enjoying this beautiful
+port, I understand that the citizens take up arms and seek battle, going
+out to destroy their fields and burn their huts. But those people are
+not of our race, and that is how a great city makes itself respected.
+Besides, war yields slaves, which often are scarce, and what would we
+men, we citizens, do without slaves?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am poorer than you, neighbor," said the other fisherman. "I do not
+earn as much making saddles as you do making shoes; but in spite of my
+poverty I can afford to have a Turdetan slave, who helps me very much,
+and I desire war, because it brings in considerably more work."</p>
+
+<p>"War with our neighbors&mdash;that is welcome. The young men are restless,
+and seek ways of distinguishing themselves, the Republic acquires
+importance in consequence, and, after tramping through valleys and
+mountains, all will buy shoes and have their saddles mended. Very well;
+that enlivens business. But why have we been at work for over a year
+converting the Forum into a battlefield and turning every street into a
+fortress? At best you are in your shop extolling to a citizeness<a name="page_13" id="page_13"></a> the
+elegance of a pair of papyrus sandals of Asiatic fashion, or of Greek
+buskins of great majesty, when you hear in the nearest plaza the clash
+of arms, shouts, death cries, and you rush to shut the door so that a
+stray missile will not nail you to your seat! And why? What reason is
+there for living like cats and dogs in the bosom of this Zacynthus,
+which used to be so tranquil and so industrious?"</p>
+
+<p>"The pride and riches of the Greeks"&mdash;&mdash;began his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know that reason. The hatred between Iberians and Greeks; the
+belief that the latter, by their riches and wisdom, dominate and exploit
+the former&mdash;as if in the city there actually existed Iberians and
+Greeks! Iberians are those who are behind those mountains which mark off
+our horizon; a Greek is he whom we have seen disembark, and who is
+following our footsteps; but we are only sons of Zacynthus or of
+Saguntum, as they wish to call our city. We are the product of a
+thousand encounters by land and by sea, and Jupiter himself would be
+driven into a corner to tell who our grandparents were. Who can
+enumerate the people that have come here and have remained, in spite of
+others having come afterward to wrest from them the dominion of these
+lands and mines, since Zacynthus was bitten by the serpent in these
+fields, and our father Hercules raised the great walls of the Acropolis?
+Hither came the peoples of Tyre with their red sailed ships for the
+silver from the interior; the mariners from Zante fleeing with their
+families from the tyrants of their country; the Rutulian race from
+Ardea, people from Italy, who were powerful in the times when Rome<a name="page_14" id="page_14"></a> did
+not as yet exist; Carthaginians of the epoch in which they thought more
+of commerce than of arms&mdash;and how do I know how many other peoples? You
+should hear the pedagogues when they explain our history on the portico
+of the temple of Diana! And I, do I know, perchance whether I am Greek
+or Iberian? My grandfather was a freedman from Sicily who came to take
+charge of a pottery and married a Celtiberian from the interior. My
+mother was a Lusitanian who came here on an expedition to sell gold dust
+to merchants from Alexandria. I call myself a Saguntine like all the
+rest. Those who consider themselves Iberians in Saguntum believe in the
+gods of the Greeks; the Greeks unconsciously adopt many Iberian customs;
+they think themselves different because they have divided the city in
+half and live separate; but their feasts are the same, and in the next
+Panathen�a you will see, together with the daughters of the Hellenic
+merchants, those of the citizens who cultivate the earth and who dress
+in coarse cloth and let their beards grow to more closely resemble the
+tribes of the interior."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but the Greeks dominate everywhere, they are masters of
+everything, they have taken possession of the life of the city."</p>
+
+<p>"They are the wisest, the bravest; they have something almost divine
+about them," said the shoemaker sententiously. "See if that is not true
+of the one who is following us. He is poorly dressed; perhaps he has not
+an obolus in his pocket for supper; perhaps he will sleep beneath the
+open sky, and yet, it seems as if Zeus had come down from the heavens in
+disguise to visit us."<a name="page_15" id="page_15"></a></p>
+
+<p>The two artisans turned their gaze instinctively to look at the Greek,
+and continued on their way. They had arrived near the huts which formed
+an animated town around the port.</p>
+
+<p>"There is another reason," said the leather-worker, "for the war which
+divides us. It is not only the hatred between Greeks and Iberians, it is
+because some want us to be friends of Rome and others of Carthage."</p>
+
+<p>"We should not affiliate with either," said the shoemaker tersely.
+"Tranquilly carrying on our commerce as in other times is the way in
+which we should prosper best. I reproach the Greeks of Saguntum for
+having allied us with Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"Rome is the conqueror."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but Rome is very far away, and the Carthaginians are almost at our
+doors. Troops from New Carthage can come here by a few days' journey."</p>
+
+<p>"Rome is our ally and she will protect us. Her legates, who leave
+to-morrow, have put an end to our strifes, beheading the citizens who
+disturbed the peace of the city."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but those citizens were friends of Carthage and old-time prot�g�s
+of Hamilcar. Hannibal will not easily forget his father's friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Bah! Carthage wants peace and wide commerce to enrich herself. Since
+her defeat in Sicily she fears Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"The senators may be afraid, but Hamilcar's son is very young, and, for
+my part, I am afraid of these boys converted into chiefs, who forget
+wine and love to dream only of glory."</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_16" id="page_16"></a>The Greek could hear no more. The two artisans had disappeared among
+the huts, and the echo of their argument was lost in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger was alone in the unfamiliar port. The wharves were
+deserted; lights began to glisten on the poops of the ships, and in the
+distance, over the waters of the bay, rose the moon like an enormous
+honey-colored disk. Only in the small fishermen's ports lingered
+animation. The women, naked from above the waist, tucking between their
+legs the rags which served them as a tunic, walked into the water up to
+their knees to wash the fish, and then putting them into broad baskets
+on their heads they took up their journey, dragging their big-bellied,
+naked youngsters after them. From the silent and motionless ships came
+groups of men who traveled toward the wretched settlement spread around
+the foot of the temple. They were sailors going in search of taverns and
+brothels.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek knew those customs well; it was a port like many others he had
+seen&mdash;the temple on the hill to guide the navigator, and below, wine in
+abundance, easy love, and the sanguinary fight as a termination of the
+feast. He thought for a moment of starting on the journey to the city,
+but the way was long, he did not know the road, and he preferred to
+remain, sleeping where he could until sunrise.</p>
+
+<p>He had entered one of the winding lanes formed by the hovels thrown
+together at hazard, as if they had fallen in confusion from the sky,
+with their walls of earth and roofs of reeds and straw, with narrow
+slits for light, and with only a few rags sewn together or a bit of
+threadbare tapestry, for a door. In some, with less wretched exteriors,
+dwelt the modest traders of the<a name="page_17" id="page_17"></a> port, ship chandlers, dealers in grain,
+and those who, with the assistance of slaves, brought casks of water
+from the springs in the valley to the vessels; but the majority of the
+hovels were taverns and lupanars.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the houses had alongside the doors signs in Greek, Iberian, or
+Latin, painted with red ochre.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek heard some one calling him. It was a little, bald, fat man
+beckoning from the door of his dwelling.</p>
+
+<p>"Greeting, son of Athens!" he said, to flatter him with the name of the
+most famous city of Greece. "Come in! Here you will be among your own,
+for my forefathers also came from Athens. See the sign on my tavern, 'To
+Pallas Athene'. Here you will find wine from Laurona, as excellent as
+that from Attica; if you wish to try the Celtiberian beer, I have it
+also, and if you desire, I can serve you with a certain flask of wine
+from Samos, as authentic as the goddess of Athens which adorns my
+counter."</p>
+
+<p>The Greek answered with a smile and a shake of his head, while the
+loquacious tavern-keeper went into his hut, lifting the tapestry to
+allow a group of mariners to enter.</p>
+
+<p>After a few steps he stopped, attracted by a faint whistle which seemed
+to be calling him from the interior of a cabin. An old woman, wrapped in
+a black mantle, stood in her doorway making signs to him. Within, by the
+light of an earthen lamp hanging by a slender chain, he could see
+several women squatting on mats in the attitude of placid beasts, with
+no other sign of life than a fixed smile which displayed their shining
+teeth.<a name="page_18" id="page_18"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I am in haste, good mother," said the stranger, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay awhile, son of Zeus!" urged the old woman in the Hellenic idiom,
+disfigured by the harshness of her accent and by the hiss of breathing
+between toothless gums. "The moment I saw you I knew you for a Greek.
+All who come from your country are gay and beautiful; you look like
+Apollo seeking his celestial sisters. Enter! Here you will find
+them&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Approaching the stranger, and catching him by the border of his chlamys,
+she enumerated the charms of her Iberian, Balearic, or African wards;
+some majestic and grand like Juno, others small and graceful like the
+het�r� of Alexandria and Greece; and seeing that the customer released
+his garment from her clutch and continued on his way, she raised her
+voice, believing that she had not divined his taste, and she spoke of
+white youths with long hair, beautiful as the Syrian boys who were
+contended for by the gallants of Athens.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek had passed out of the winding lane, but he could still hear
+the voice of the old woman, who seemed to become shamelessly intoxicated
+crying her infamous wares. He was now in the country, at the beginning
+of the high road to the city. On his right rose the hill of the temple,
+and at its base, opposite the flight of stone steps, he saw a house
+larger than the others, an inn with doors and windows illuminated by
+lamps of red earthenware.</p>
+
+<p>Seated on stone benches were sailors from all countries, demanding food
+in their several languages&mdash;Roman soldiers wearing corselets of bronze
+scales, short swords hanging from their shoulders; at their feet
+helmets<a name="page_19" id="page_19"></a> topped by a crest of red horsehair in the form of a brush;
+rowers from Massilia, almost naked, their knives half hidden among the
+folds of the rag knotted around their waists; Ph&oelig;nician and
+Carthaginian mariners with wide trousers, wearing tall caps in the form
+of mitres with heavy silver pendants; negroes from Alexandria, athletic
+and slow of movement, displaying their sharp teeth as they smiled,
+making one think of frightful cannibalistic scenes; Celtiberians and
+Iberians with gloomy dress and tangled hair, looking suspiciously in all
+directions, and instinctively raising their hands to their broad knives;
+some redmen from Gaul, with long mustaches and coarse red hair tied
+behind and falling down their necks; people, in fine, who had come, or
+had been flung by the hazards of war and the sea, from one point of the
+known world to another, one day victorious warriors, and slaves the
+next, now sailors and anon pirates, acknowledging no law nor
+nationality; with no other respect than the fear of the master of the
+vessel who was quick to order them to the whip or the cross; with no
+other religion than that of the sword and the strong arm; testifying by
+the wounds which covered their bodies, in the long cicatrices which
+furrowed their muscles, by cuts on their ears covered by matted hair, to
+a past mysterious with horrors.</p>
+
+<p>Some ate standing by the counter, behind which were ranged the amphor�
+corked with fresh leaves; others seated on the stone benches along the
+walls held earthenware plates on their knees. Most had thrown themselves
+down on the floor upon their bellies, like wild beasts devouring their
+prey, reaching into their plates with their hairy claws, crunching the
+food in their<a name="page_20" id="page_20"></a> jaws as they talked. They had not yet upset their wine
+nor asked for the women. They ate and drank with the appetite of ogres
+tormented by the deprivations of the long voyages, and morally starved
+by the brutal discipline on shipboard.</p>
+
+<p>Finding themselves huddled together in a small space, filled with smoke
+from the lamps and with vapors from the food, they felt the necessity of
+communicating with each other, and between mouthfuls, each spoke to his
+neighbor, paying no heed to difference of idiom, making themselves
+understood finally by a language composed more of gestures than of
+words. A Carthaginian was telling a Greek about his last voyage to the
+islands of the Great Sea, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, through a gray
+body of water covered with fog, until they arrived at an abrupt coast
+known only to the pilots of his country, where tin was found. Farther
+down the bench a negro, with grotesque mimicry, was describing to a
+couple of Celtiberians an excursion down the Red Sea, until they reached
+mysterious shores, deserted by day, but covered by night with moving
+fires and inhabited by hairy men as agile as monkeys, the skins of some
+of whom they stuffed with straw and carried to the temples of Egypt to
+offer to the gods. The older Roman soldiers, paying no attention, in
+their insolence as conquerors, to the humiliated Carthaginians who were
+listening, told of their great victory on the �gates islands which drove
+the Carthaginians out of Sicily, ending the first Punic War. The Iberian
+shepherds mixed in among the navigators wished to off-set the effect of
+these maritime adventures, and they bragged of the horses belonging to
+their tribe, and of their marvelous<a name="page_21" id="page_21"></a> swiftness, while a little Greek,
+lively and keen, in order to overwhelm the barbarians and to demonstrate
+the superiority of his race, began to declaim fragments of some ode
+learned in the port of Pir�us, or he intoned a lyric poem, slow and
+sweet, which was lost amid the noise of conversation, of crunching jaws,
+and of clattering plates.</p>
+
+<p>They called for more light. The smoky atmosphere of the inn was
+constantly growing denser, and the frames of the lamps were scarcely
+more distinctly visible than drops of blood on the soot-blackened walls.
+From the kitchen floated an odor of piquant sauces and smoky wood which
+made many of the customers cough and weep. Some were drunk soon after
+beginning dinner, and they asked the slaves for crowns of flowers to
+adorn themselves as in the banquets of the rich. Others growled applause
+as they saw the den illuminated by the lurid flame of the candlewood
+which the proprietor lighted. The slaves passed behind the stone counter
+overturning great amphor�, and ran into the kitchen only to rush back
+again immediately, red with suffocation, bearing great platters. Wine
+ran across the floor as a crater was overturned. When there appeared at
+the window the painted faces of some of the prostitutes&mdash;she-wolves of
+the port&mdash;who were awaiting the moment for making an irruption into the
+inn, the mariners greeted them with hoarse laughter, imitating the howl
+of the beast after whom they were nicknamed, and throwing them a portion
+of their food, over which the women fought, scratching and shrieking.</p>
+
+<p>The food was all thirst-giving, so that each mouthful should be
+accompanied by a sip. The Greeks ate snails<a name="page_22" id="page_22"></a> floating in a sauce of
+saffron; fresh sardines from the gulf appeared arranged in circles
+around the dishes, festooned with laurel leaves; birds' heads were
+served covered with green sauce; the Iberian shepherds were satisfied
+with dried fish and hard cheese; the Romans and Gauls devoured great
+chunks of lamb dripping blood, and eels from the basins of the port
+decorated with hard-boiled eggs. All these dishes and many others were
+loaded with salt, pepper, and herbs of acrid odor, to which the
+strangest qualities were attributed. Everybody was eager to spend his
+money, to satisfy his hunger and thirst, and to roll on the floor drunk,
+consoling himself thus for the hard life of privation which awaited him
+on shipboard. The Romans who were to sail the next day had collected
+their back pay and were determined to leave their sestertii in the port
+of Saguntum; the Carthaginians boasted of their Republic, the richest in
+the world, and other mariners praised their masters, ever generous when
+they touched that port where business was excellent. The innkeeper was
+continually throwing into an empty amphora coins of all kinds, those
+from Zacynthus, bearing the prow of a ship, with Victory flying above
+it; those from Carthage with the legendary horse and the frightful
+Cabiric deities; and Alexandrian coins with their elegant Ptolemaic
+profile.</p>
+
+<p>The meanest of the rowers felt the caprices of a potentate, the itch to
+imitate the opulent for a night that they might console themselves with
+its memory in future days of hunger; and they asked for oysters from
+Lucrinus, which an occasional ship brought packed in amphor� with sea
+water as a delicacy for the great merchants of Saguntum, or the
+<i>oxygarum</i>, salted fishmilt,<a name="page_23" id="page_23"></a> prepared with vinegar and spices as an
+appetizer for which the patricians of Rome paid a great price. Black
+wine from Laurona and the pink wine from the Saguntine vineyards were
+scorned by those who had money. The wine from Massilia they despised
+also, sneering at the rosin and gypsum employed in its preparation, and
+they called for wines from the Campagna, Falerno, Monte Massico, or
+C�cubum, which, in spite of the price, they drank in capacious
+cymbas&mdash;boat-shaped drinking vessels of Saguntine clay. Hungry for the
+fresh products of the field after their long sojourn on the sea, these
+men devoured immense quantities of vegetables and fruits, in addition to
+the hot dishes and a great variety of drinks ranging from Celtiberian
+beers to foreign wines. They fell greedily upon the plates of mushrooms;
+they ate handfuls of radishes dressed with vinegar; leeks, beets,
+garlic, and heaps of fresh lettuce from the gardens of the Saguntine
+domain disappeared down their throats, while they littered the floor
+with green, muddy leaves.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek stood in the doorway with a few of the mariners who could not
+find room within, and contemplated the spectacle. As he gazed on the
+rude banquet the stranger remembered that he had not eaten since
+morning, when the master of the rowers on Polyanthus' ship had given him
+a piece of bread. The novelty of disembarking in an unknown land had
+quieted his stomach, accustomed as it was to privations; but now in
+sight of so many different foods he felt the pangs of hunger, and
+instinctively set one foot within the tavern, drawing it back
+immediately. What was the use of going in? The pouch hanging from his
+shoulder held papyri<a name="page_24" id="page_24"></a> testifying to his past achievements; tablets for
+memoranda; even pincers for extracting his beard; a comb; all the small
+objects of which a good Greek, addicted to the scrupulous care of his
+person, would not deprive himself, but search in it as he might he could
+find not a single obolus. The pilot, who respected the Greeks of Attica,
+had given him free passage on the ship when he met him wandering along
+the wharves at New Carthage. He was hungry and alone in a strange land,
+and if he should enter the hostelry to eat without offering money, he
+would be treated like a slave, and be driven out with a club.</p>
+
+<p>Mocked by the odor of the viands and sauces, he turned to flee, tearing
+himself away from this torture of Tantalus, but as he drew back he
+bumped against a tall man clad only in a dark sagum and sandals with
+straps crossed to the knees. He resembled a Celtiberian shepherd; but
+the Greek, as he collided with him, received the impression in a hasty
+exchange of glances that this was not the first time he had looked into
+those imperious eyes which recalled to his mind the eyes of the eagle
+perched at the feet of Zeus.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek shrugged his shoulders with indifference. What he desired was
+to satiate his hunger and to sleep if possible until sunrise. Turning
+his back on the wretched suburb, illuminated and noisy, he sought a
+place where he might rest, and he took the road toward the fane of
+Aphrodite. The temple, situated on the crest of the hill, was approached
+by a broad stairway of blue marble, its first step rising from the quay.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek seated himself on the polished stone, proposing to await there
+the coming of the day. The moon<a name="page_25" id="page_25"></a> illuminated the whole upper part of the
+temple; the sounds from the houses near the port, the murmur of the sea,
+the whisper of the olive trees, and the monotonous croaking of the frogs
+hidden in the marshes, floated to him muffled, as if lulled by the great
+calm of night.</p>
+
+<p>Again and again the Greek heard a strident, dismal cry, like the howl of
+a wolf. Suddenly it whined behind him, he felt a warm breath on his
+back, and as he turned he saw a woman bending toward him, her hands on
+her knees, her mouth rent by a stupid smile which displayed gums, in
+places lacking teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Greeting, handsome stranger! I saw you flee from the tumult. You must
+be sad here all alone. I have come to make you happy.&mdash;&mdash;What! Can it
+not be?"</p>
+
+<p>The Greek recognized her immediately&mdash;a "she-wolf" from the port, a
+wretched woman such as he had seen swarming around the wharves in many
+countries; miserable, cosmopolitan strumpets, flames for a single night
+of men of all colors and races, with no other ambition than to earn a
+few oboli, slinking near a stone or in the shadow of a boat, old het�r�
+sunk in brutality, fugitive slaves seeking liberty in obscenity and
+drunkenness; females who represented all that cruel men of the sea knew
+of love; poor beasts, weakened in their youth by excessive caresses, and
+destined to be treated with blows in their old age.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger looked at the woman, who was still young, and detected some
+traces of beauty. But she was wasted, her eyes lachrymose, her mouth
+disfigured by broken teeth. She was wrapped in an ample mantle which
+must have been of beautiful weave but was now dirty and threadbare; her
+feet were naked, and her<a name="page_26" id="page_26"></a> tangled hair, in which the unhappy creature
+had thrust a branch of wild flowers, was held by a copper comb.</p>
+
+<p>"You are wasting your time here," said the Greek with a kindly smile. "I
+have not so much as an obolus in my pouch."</p>
+
+<p>The man's gentle accent seemed to intimidate the poor unfortunate. She
+was accustomed to blows; man to her represented brutal assault,
+gratification revealed with bites, and in the presence of the Greek's
+tender manner she seemed disconcerted and shy, as if she suspected
+danger.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you no money?" she said with humility, after a long silence. "It
+matters not; here I am. You please me; I am your slave. Among all those
+people rioting at the hostelry my eyes have turned to you."</p>
+
+<p>She bent over the Greek, caressing his curly hair with her calloused
+hands, while he regarded her with compassionate eyes, seeing her
+shrunken breast and hollow form. Hungry and alone in an unknown land he
+felt attracted by the kindness of the unhappy creature; there was the
+fraternity of misery between them.</p>
+
+<p>"If you desire company, stay near me," he said; "talk as much as you
+wish, but do not caress me. I am hungry; I have eaten nothing since
+dawn, and at this moment I would exchange all the joys of Cytherea for
+the pittance of any mariner."</p>
+
+<p>The harlot stood up straight, so great was her surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"You hungry? You faint with hunger, when I thought you nourished on the
+ambrosia of Zeus?"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes displayed astonishment such as she would have felt had she seen
+Aphrodite, the nude, white, goddess<a name="page_27" id="page_27"></a> who was guarded up there in her
+temple, descend from her marble pedestal and offer herself with open
+arms to the rowers of the port for an obolus.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait, wait!" she cried with resolution, after a moment's reflection.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek saw her running toward the huts, and when at last weariness
+and weakness began to close his eyes, he felt her near him again,
+touching his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Take this, my master! It has cost me dear to obtain it. The cruel Lais,
+an old woman as horrible as the Pare�, who helps us to live through days
+of privation, has agreed to give me her supper, after making me take
+oath that by the time the sun rises I will hand her two sestertii. Eat,
+my love; eat and drink!"</p>
+
+<p>She placed upon the steps a loaf of brown bread, made in the form of a
+disk, some dried fish, half a Saguntine cheese, tender and oozing whey,
+and a jar of Celtiberian beer.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek fell upon the food, and began to devour it, followed by the
+gaze of the <i>lupa</i>, which sweetened at times, and acquired an almost
+maternal expression.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to be as rich as S�nnica, a woman who they say began like
+any one of us, and is now mistress of many of these ships, and has
+gardens as wonderful as Olympus, troops of slaves, potteries, and half
+the domain of the commonwealth as her own property. I should like to be
+rich if only for to-night, to regale you on the best there is in the
+city; to give you a banquet like one of S�nnica's, which last till dawn,
+and where, crowned with roses, you should drink the Samian wine from a
+golden cup."<a name="page_28" id="page_28"></a></p>
+
+<p>The Greek, touched by the simplicity and ingenuousness with which she
+spoke, gazed at her tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not thank me," she continued. "It is I who should be grateful for
+the joy of feeding you. What is this? I know not. Never has a man
+approached me before without giving me something; some give me copper
+coins, others a piece of cloth or a patera of wine; most of them blows
+and bites; all have given me something, and I have accepted, though I
+detested them. But you, who come poor and hungry, who do not seek me but
+reject me, who give me nothing, just your being near me has made a new
+pleasure surge through my body. As I give you food I feel intoxicated,
+as if I were fresh from a banquet. Tell me, Greek, are you really a man,
+or are you the father of the gods, descending to earth to honor me?"</p>
+
+<p>Exalted by her own words, she arose, standing half way up the marble
+steps, and extending her rigid arms toward the temple, bathed in
+moonlight, exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"Aphrodite! My goddess! If some day I manage to get together the price
+of two white doves, I will present them on thy altar, adorned with
+flowers and fire-colored ribbons, in memory of this night."</p>
+
+<p>The Greek drank the bitter liquid from the jar and offered it to the
+woman, whose lips sought the same spot on the rim which had been touched
+by his.</p>
+
+<p>She did not taste the supper which the Greek held out to her; she
+continued drinking, and the wine made her more talkative.</p>
+
+<p>"If you only knew what it has cost me to get all this! The lanes are
+full of drunken men, who wallow in the mire and drag themselves along on
+their hands, tearing<a name="page_29" id="page_29"></a> one's clothing and biting one's legs. Wine runs
+out of the doorways of the inns. They were fighting on the wharf a
+little while ago. Some Africans were holding one of their companions
+head down in the water to cure his broken skull; a Celtiberian had
+opened a great gash in it with his clenched fist. Others amused
+themselves by catching Tuga, an Iberian girl, by the feet, and thrusting
+her head in the biggest vat in the tavern as long as they dared. She was
+half drowned when they pulled her out. It is their usual diversion. I
+saw poor Albura, a friend of mine, seated on the ground covered with
+blood, holding in the palm of her hand one of her eyes which a drunken
+Egyptian had knocked out with a fisticuff. This kind of thing happens
+every night! And yet, all at once, I have become afraid. I have only
+just met you, and still it seems to me as if I were living in a new
+world, and that for the first time I give heed to my surroundings."</p>
+
+<p>She told him the story of her life. They called her Bacchis, and she was
+uncertain what was her native land. No doubt she was born in some other
+port, for she vaguely remembered in her childhood a long voyage in a
+ship. Her mother must have been a <i>lupa</i> also, and she herself the
+result of a meeting with a mariner. The name of Bacchis, which had been
+given her when she was little, had been borne by many famous courtesans
+of Greece. No doubt she had been sold to some old woman by the pilot who
+had brought her to Saguntum, and, while still a child, long before
+coming to maturity, was visited in the old woman's hut by aged merchants
+of the port or libertines of the city.</p>
+
+<p>When her owner died she became a <i>lupa</i>, and passed<a name="page_30" id="page_30"></a> into submission to
+mariners, fishermen, shepherds from the mountains, and to all the brutal
+horde which swarmed around the port. She was not yet twenty, but she was
+aged, disfigured, wasted by excesses and by blows. She had always seen
+the city from a distance. She had only entered it twice. The <i>lupas</i>
+were not tolerated there. They were allowed to remain near the fane of
+Aphrodite, as a guarantee of the security of Saguntum, that thus the
+rabble which came to the port from all lands might be held at a
+distance, but in the city the Iberians of cleanly habits became
+indignant at the mere sight of the wantons, and the corrupt Greeks were
+too refined in their tastes to feel pity for those sellers of the body
+who fell like beasts beside the roadway for a bunch of grapes or a
+handful of nuts.</p>
+
+<p>There in the shadow of the temple of Aphrodite she had spent her life,
+ever awaiting new ships and new men, hairy and obscene, brutal as
+satyrs, made ferocious by the abstinence of the sea, to be at last
+assassinated in some mariners' fight, or found the victim of hunger,
+dead beside some abandoned boat.</p>
+
+<p>"And you&mdash;who are you?" Bacchis asked at last. "What is your name?"</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Act�on; my native land is Athens. I have traveled over the
+world; in some parts I have been a soldier, in others a navigator; I
+have fought, I have trafficked, and I have even written verses, and
+discussed with philosophers things which you do not understand. I have
+been rich many times, and now you give me food. That is all my story."</p>
+
+<p>Bacchis looked at him with eyes full of admiration, divining through his
+concise words a past crammed with<a name="page_31" id="page_31"></a> adventures, with terrible dangers and
+prodigious changes of fortune. She thought of the deeds of Achilles, and
+of the adventurous life of Ulysses, so often heard in the verses
+declaimed by Greek mariners when they were drunk.</p>
+
+<p>The courtesan, reclining on the Greek's breast, fondled his hair. The
+Greek, grateful, smiled fraternally on Bacchis, with indifference, as if
+she were a child.</p>
+
+<p>Two mariners came out from among the huts, and began to stagger along
+the wharf. A penetrating howl, which seemed to cleave the air, sounded
+close to Act�on's ears. His companion, impelled by habit, with the
+instinct of the vendor who sees a customer in the distance, had arisen
+to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"I will return, my master. I had almost forgotten the terrible Lais. I
+must give her her money before the sun rises. She will beat me as she
+has done before if I do not fulfill my promise. Wait for me here."</p>
+
+<p>Repeating her wild howl, she went in search of the sailors, who had
+stopped, hailing the "she-wolf's" cries with loud laughter and obscene
+words.</p>
+
+<p>When the Greek found himself alone, his hunger placated, he felt a
+certain disgust in thinking of his recent adventure. Act�on the
+Athenian, he for whom the richest het�r� of the beautiful city used to
+dispute in the Cerameicus, protected and adored by a strumpet of the
+port! To avoid meeting her again he hurriedly left the temple steps,
+losing himself in the streets by the harbor.</p>
+
+<p>Again he stopped before the hostelry in the doorway of which he had
+experienced the torment of hunger. The sailors were in the midst of an
+orgy. The tavern<a name="page_32" id="page_32"></a> keeper could barely command respect behind the
+counter. The slaves, terrified by blows, had taken refuge in the
+kitchen. Some amphor� lay broken on the floor letting the wine escape
+like streams of blood, and the drunken men wallowed in the gurgling
+liquid as it soaked into the earthen floor, calling for drinks of which
+they had vaguely heard on distant voyages, or for fantastic dishes
+conceived by the little tyrants of Asia. One Herculean Egyptian was
+running on all fours imitating the growl of the jackal, and biting the
+women who had entered the tavern. Some negroes were disporting with
+feminine movements, as if hypnotized by the whirling of the umbilical
+dance. In the corners, on the stone benches, men and women embraced in
+the crude light of the torches; the smell of bare and sweaty flesh
+mingled with the aroma of wine; in the atmosphere of viands and of
+wild-beast odor, seamen, forgetting shame, committed crimes peculiar to
+the aberration of the epoch.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of this disorder a few men stood motionless near the
+counter, arguing with apparent calmness. They were two Roman soldiers,
+an old Carthaginian mariner, and a Celtiberian. The torpid slowness of
+their words, which in their anger acquired flute-like tones, their
+inflamed and blood-shot eyes, and their hawk-like noses, seeming to grow
+sharper as they talked, revealed that terrible drunkenness, stubborn and
+quarrelsome, which culminates in murder.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman was telling of his presence in the combat on the �gates
+islands, fourteen years before.</p>
+
+<p>"I know you," he said insolently to the Carthaginian. "You are a
+republic of merchants born for lying and bad faith. If someone who knows
+how to sell at top<a name="page_33" id="page_33"></a> prices and cheat the buyer is wanted, I agree that
+you stand first; but talking of soldiers, of men, we are the best, we
+sons of Rome, who grasp the plow in one hand and the lance in the
+other."</p>
+
+<p>He proudly raised his round head with its close-cropped hair and shaven
+cheeks, on which the chin-straps of his helmet had worn hard calloused
+lines.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on looked through the window at the Celtiberian, the only one of the
+group who remained silent, but who had his glittering eyes fastened upon
+the bare neck showing above the Roman legionary's bronze corselet, as if
+attracted by the coarse veins outlined beneath the skin. Surely the
+Greek had seen those eyes before; they were like an old acquaintance
+whose name one cannot recall. There was something artificial about his
+person, which the Greek divined with his keen perception.</p>
+
+<p>"I would swear by Mercury that that man is not what he pretends to be.
+He looks something more than a shepherd, and the bronze color of his
+face is not that of the Celtiberians, no matter how sunburned they may
+be. Perhaps that long hair which falls around his shoulders is
+false&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was unable to observe him longer because of the dispute between the
+legionary and the old Carthaginian, who gradually approached each other
+to hear better in the midst of the clamor which reigned in the tavern.</p>
+
+<p>"I also was on that sad expedition to the �gates," said the
+Carthaginian; "there is where I received this wound that crosses my
+face. It is true that you conquered us; but what does that show? Many
+times did I see your ships flee before ours, and more than once I
+counted Roman corpses by the hundred on the fields<a name="page_34" id="page_34"></a> of Sicily. Ah, if
+Hanno had not arrived too late that day of the combat at the islands! If
+Hamilcar had only had reinforcements!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hamilcar!" disdainfully exclaimed the Roman. "A great chief who had to
+sue for peace! A merchant turned warrior!"</p>
+
+<p>And he laughed with the insolence of the strong, not fearing the anger
+of the old Carthaginian, who began to stammer an answer.</p>
+
+<p>The Celtiberian, who had remained silent, laid his hand upon the old
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"Silence, Carthaginian! The Roman is right. You are peddlers incapable
+of measuring up with them in war. You love money too much to dominate by
+the sword. But Carthage is not made of those of your breed; there are
+others born there who will know how to stand up before those peasants of
+Italy!"</p>
+
+<p>The Roman, seeing the rustic intervene in the dispute, became still more
+arrogant and insolent.</p>
+
+<p>"And who can that be?" he shouted scornfully. "The son of Hamilcar? That
+youngster who they say had a slave for a mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Those who founded your city, Roman, were sons of a prostitute, and the
+day is not far distant when the horse of Carthage shall trample under
+foot the wolf of Romulus!"</p>
+
+<p>The legionary arose trembling with fury, feeling for his sword, but he
+suddenly gave a savage growl and fell, pressing his hands against his
+throat.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on had seen the Celtiberian introduce his right hand into the sleeve
+of his sagum, and, drawing a knife, stab the legionary in the thick neck
+he had been staring<a name="page_35" id="page_35"></a> at with the fixity of a wild beast while the fallen
+man mocked at Carthage.</p>
+
+<p>The tavern shook with the strain of the combat. The other Roman seeing
+his companion down, hurled himself at the Celtiberian with raised sword,
+but quick as a flash he received a thrust in the face and was blinded by
+a stream of blood.</p>
+
+<p>The agility of the man was astounding. His movements had the elasticity
+of the panther; blows seemed to rebound from his body without doing him
+harm. Around him fell a shower of jars, of broken amphor�, of swords
+hurled through the air; but with extended arm, and knife held before
+him, he made a spring toward the door and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"After him! After him!" clamored the Romans, starting in pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>Attracted by the brutal joy of a man hunt, all who were sober enough to
+retain mastery of their legs followed him out of the hostelry. The horde
+of men, fired by the sight of blood, sprang over the bodies of the dying
+Roman and the drunken sailors who lay snoring near him. The Greek saw
+them break up into groups, running in all directions after the
+Celtiberian, who had disappeared a few steps distant from the hostelry
+as if dissolved into the shadow of the night.</p>
+
+<p>The port thrilled with the ardor of the chase. Lights flashed along the
+wharves and through the village streets; the lupanars and taverns were
+subjected to a brutal overhauling by the Romans who were mad with fury;
+a fresh fight started at the door of every hut; blood was about to flow
+anew, when the Greek, fearing to become involved in a riot, fled to the
+temple. Bacchis<a name="page_36" id="page_36"></a> had not returned, and the Greek climbed up the steps
+and stretched out on the portico, a broad terrace paved with blue
+marble, over which the fluted columns supporting the pediment flung
+oblique bars of shadow.</p>
+
+<p>When Act�on awoke he felt the warmth of the sun on his face. Birds were
+singing in the olive trees, and he heard voices near. As he arose he was
+surprised to see that day had dawned, for it seemed but a few minutes
+had passed since he fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>A woman, a patrician, stood not far away, smiling upon him. She was
+robed in a flowing white linen mantle which fell to her feet in graceful
+folds like the drapery of statues. A few curls of blonde hair fell over
+her forehead. Her lips were painted red, and her black eyes, velvety,
+and with a silky caress in their gaze, were surrounded by blue circles
+suggesting a night of fatigue. Moving her arms beneath her mantle,
+hidden ornaments jingled with silvery tones, and the toe of her sandal,
+peeping from beneath the border of her garment, shone like a jewelled
+star.</p>
+
+<p>She was followed by two slender Celtiberian slaves, their brown,
+swelling breasts almost bare, their limbs wrapped in multicolored cloth.
+One carried a pair of white doves, the other bore on her head a basket
+of roses.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on recognized Polyanthus, the Saguntine pilot, and also the perfumed
+young gallant who had been on the wharf with another horseman when the
+ship came in, standing near the handsome patrician.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek arose, amazed at the beautiful apparition smiling upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Athenian," she said in Greek of the purest accent, "I am S�nnica, the
+mistress of the ship which brought<a name="page_37" id="page_37"></a> you hither. Polyanthus is my
+freedman and he has done well in giving you passage, for he is aware of
+my interest in your people. Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am Act�on, and I ask the gods to shower blessings upon you for your
+kindness. May Venus guard your beauty while you live."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you a navigator? Are you engaged in commerce? Are you traveling
+about the world giving lessons in rhetoric and poetry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am a soldier, as were all my ancestors. My grandfather died in Italy
+covering with his body the great Pyrrhus who wept for him as for a
+brother. My father was a captain of mercenaries in the service of
+Carthage, and was cruelly assassinated in the war called 'inexorable.'"</p>
+
+<p>He was silent a moment as if overcome by this recollection. His voice
+choked, but presently he added: "I fought until recently under the
+orders of Cleomenes, the last Laced�monian. I was one of his companions,
+and when the hero suffered defeat I accompanied him to Alexandria,
+afterward traveling over the world because I could not endure the
+inactivity of exile. I have also been a merchant in Rhodes, a fisherman
+on the Bosphorus, a farmer in Egypt, and a satirical poet in Athens."</p>
+
+<p>The handsome S�nnica approached him smiling. He was an Athenian
+possessed of all the qualities so loved by her; one of those adventurers
+accustomed to rapid changes of fortune, rounders of the world, who
+frequently chronicle their achievements when they have reached old age.</p>
+
+<p>"And why have you come hither?"<a name="page_38" id="page_38"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I have come by chance. Your pilot offered to bring me to Zacynthus, and
+I came. I felt stifled in New Carthage. I might have enlisted in
+Hannibal's army; it would have been sufficient perhaps to have revealed
+my origin to meet with welcome. The Greeks are paid great prices in
+every army. But a war is in progress here also, and I prefer to go
+against the Turdetani, to serve a city which I do not know, but which
+has never done me any harm."</p>
+
+<p>"And did you sleep here last night? Could you not find a bed in any of
+the inns?"</p>
+
+<p>"What I could not find was an obolus in my pouch. If I appeased my
+hunger, it was due to the charity of a forlorn harlot who shared her
+meagre supper with me. I am poor, and I was faint for food. Do not pity
+me, S�nnica. Do not look upon me with eyes of compassion. I have given
+banquets which lasted from sunset until dawn. In Rhodes, at the hour of
+the songs, we used to throw the metal plates out of the windows to the
+slaves. The life of a man should be thus, like Homer's heroes, a king in
+one place and a beggar in another."</p>
+
+<p>Polyanthus looked upon the adventurer with interest, and the elegant
+Lachares, who had at first opposed S�nnica when she wished to awaken so
+ill-dressed a Greek, approached him, recognizing Athenian refinement
+beneath his humble exterior, thinking to make a friend of him in the
+hope of receiving lessons to his advantage.</p>
+
+<p>"Come to my villa at sunset to-day," said S�nnica. "You shall dine with
+us. Anyone can guide you to my house. One of my ships has brought you to
+this land, and I wish you to find hospitality beneath my roof.<a name="page_39" id="page_39"></a>
+Farewell, Athenian. I also am from Athens, and seeing you I imagine that
+the golden lance of Pallas on the height by the Parthenon still shines
+before my eyes."</p>
+
+<p>Bidding the Athenian farewell with a smile, S�nnica turned toward the
+temple, followed by the slaves.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on overhead the conversation of Lachares and Polyanthus outside the
+temple. They had spent the night before at S�nnica's house. They had
+left the table at dawn. Lachares still wore his banquet crown, but the
+roses were withered and falling to pieces. When S�nnica heard of the
+arrival of the dancing girls from Gades, whom she had so impatiently
+awaited to present at her suppers, she took a fancy to see Polyanthus
+and his ship, and she wished to make a sacrifice to Aphrodite in
+passing, as she did whenever she went to the port. She had come in her
+great litter, accompanied by Lachares and the two slaves, proposing to
+sleep on the way back, for she generally stayed in bed until well past
+the hour of noon.</p>
+
+<p>The pilot withdrew and went toward his ship to disembark the troop of
+dancers, and Act�on walked with Lachares to the entrance of the open
+temple.</p>
+
+<p>The interior was simple and beautiful. A great square space remained
+roofless to allow the light to enter, and the sun's rays descending
+through this opening gave the changing bluish green of sea-water to the
+azure columns with their capitals representing shells, dolphins, and
+cupids grasping the oar. At the lower end in a soft penumbra, laden with
+the perfumes of the sacrifices, stood the goddess, white, arrogant, and
+proud in her nudity as when she first emerged from the waves before the
+astonished eyes of men.<a name="page_40" id="page_40"></a></p>
+
+<p>The altar was near the door. Before it stood the priest in a full linen
+mantle, held to his head by a crown of flowers, receiving the offerings
+to the goddess from the hands of S�nnica herself.</p>
+
+<p>Coming out upon the peristyle she swept with a loving glance the expanse
+of whitecapped sea, the port glistening like a triple mirror, the
+immense green valley, and the distant city, gilded by the first rays of
+the morning sun.</p>
+
+<p>"How beautiful! Look at our city, Act�on! Greece is not more exquisite."</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the great stone steps was her palanquin, which was a
+veritable house closed by purple curtains, decorated at their four
+corners with plumes of ostrich feathers. It was borne by eight athletic
+slaves with swelling muscles.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica ordered her women to enter this ambulatory dwelling; she pushed
+in Lachares, whom she treated as an inferior, and whose familiarity was
+tolerated as one of her caprices; and, turning toward the Greek, who
+stood on an upper step of the temple, she smiled once more, bidding him
+farewell with a wave of a hand covered to the fingernails with rings,
+which at every movement traced streams of light through the air.</p>
+
+<p>The litter swiftly disappeared along the city road, when suddenly Act�on
+became aware of hands caressing his neck.</p>
+
+<p>It was Bacchis, looking still more wasted and ragged in the light of
+day. She had one eye blackened, and bruised spots on her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"I could not come before," said the slave humbly. "They only let me
+loose a little while ago. What people!<a name="page_41" id="page_41"></a> They barely gave me enough to
+pay Lais. I have been thinking of you all night, god of mine, while they
+were tormenting me, blowing in my face like tired satyrs."</p>
+
+<p>Act�on turned away, shrinking from her caresses. He perceived the odor
+of wine on the wretched woman, drunk and exhausted after the adventures
+of the night.</p>
+
+<p>"You run away from me? Yes, I understand! I saw you talking with S�nnica
+the rich, she whom her friends call the most beautiful woman in
+Zacynthus. Are you going to be her lover? Oh, I know that she will adore
+you. But she is only another like myself. Tell me, Act�on, why do you
+not take me with you? Why do you not make me your slave? My price will
+be only one night with you."</p>
+
+<p>The Greek pushed aside the thin arms which tried to embrace him, in
+order to see the road where trumpets were blaring, and helmets and
+lances were gleaming, in the midst of a great cloud of dust.</p>
+
+<p>"Those are the legates from Rome who are leaving to-day," said the
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>Attracted by the charm which men of war exercised upon her childish
+mind, she ran down the steps to obtain a closer view of the ambassadors
+and their retinue.</p>
+
+<p>In advance marched the trumpeters of the Roman ship, blowing their long
+metal tubas, their cheeks bound by broad woolen bands. An escort of
+citizens of Saguntum surrounded the ambassadors, making their shaggy
+Celtiberian horses caracole, waving their lances, their heads covered
+with triple-crested helmets which still bore the dents from blows
+received in their latest skirmishes with the Turdetani. Some old men of
+the Saguntine<a name="page_42" id="page_42"></a> senate rode sedately on heavy horses, their long beards
+covering their breasts. Their dark mantles, held upon their heads by
+embroidered tiaras, swept to their stirrups in heavy folds. The Roman
+ensign, over-topped by the wolf, was carried by a strong <i>classiarius</i>,
+and behind it rode the legates, their round, shaven heads uncovered. One
+was obese, and had a fat, triple chin; the other was spare, nervous,
+with a sharp aquiline nose; both wore embossed bronze cuirasses; their
+legs were covered with metal greaves, and over their protuberant thighs
+hung skirts the color of wine-lees, trimmed with loose strips of gold
+which quivered at the slightest movement of their steeds.</p>
+
+<p>As the procession reached the wharf, where swarmed groups of sailors,
+fishermen, and slaves, they met a band of women wrapped in their
+mantles, who were walking along guided by an old man with insolent eyes
+and sunken mouth, wearing that repulsive aspect acquired by eunuchs who
+live perpetually in the company of enslaved women. They were the dancing
+girls from Gades, who, as they left Polyanthus' ship, passed unnoticed
+in the hubbub of the leave-taking.</p>
+
+<p>Some women, issuing from the fish-wharves, offered the legates crowns of
+flowers gathered from the neighboring hills, and lilies from the
+lagoons. Acclamations arose throughout the entire length of the quay,
+witnessed by groups of indifferent sailors from all countries.</p>
+
+<p>"Hail to Rome! May Neptune protect you! The gods accompany you!"</p>
+
+<p>Act�on heard a mocking laugh behind him, and as he turned he saw the
+Celtiberian shepherd who had killed the legionary in the tavern the
+night before.<a name="page_43" id="page_43"></a></p>
+
+<p>"You here?" the Greek exclaimed with surprise. "Are you alone, and do
+you not hide from the Romans who seek you?"</p>
+
+<p>The imperious eyes of the shepherd, those strange eyes which aroused in
+the Greek confused and inexplicable memories, looked at him with
+arrogance.</p>
+
+<p>"The Romans! I hate and despise them! I would go without fear even to
+the deck of their ship! Mind your own affairs, Act�on, and don't meddle
+in mine."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know my name?" exclaimed the Athenian with growing
+amazement, wondering also at the perfection with which the rude shepherd
+used the Greek tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"I know your name and your life. You are the son of Lysias, a captain in
+the service of Carthage, and, like all of your race, you wheel around
+the world, without finding contentment in any part."</p>
+
+<p>The Greek, so strong and sure of himself on most occasions, felt
+intimidated in the presence of this enigmatic man.</p>
+
+<p>Absorbed in the contemplation of the cort�ge which had come to bid
+farewell to the legates, he had turned his back on Act�on. His eyes
+expressed hatred and scorn as he saw the bronze wolf of the Roman
+standard flash in the sunlight, hailed with enthusiasm by the
+Saguntines.</p>
+
+<p>"They think themselves strong; they think themselves safe, because Rome
+protects them. They imagine Carthage dead, because her Senate of
+shopkeepers is afraid to provoke an issue with an ally of Rome. They
+have beheaded the Saguntine friends of the Carthaginian, those who of
+old were friends of the Barcas, and used<a name="page_44" id="page_44"></a> to go out to greet Hamilcar
+when he passed near the city on his expeditions. They do not know that
+there is one who will not sleep as long as peace exists. The world is
+not wide enough for these two peoples; either the one or the other!"</p>
+
+<p>As if the acclamations of the multitude shouting farewells toward the
+small boat in which the legates were being borne to the liburna and the
+trumpet blasts which burst forth from the poop of the vessel, were
+whiplashes to the shepherd, with clenched teeth and eyes red with fury,
+he shook his sinewy arms at the ship and muttered in menacing tones:</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_45" id="page_45"></a>"Rome!&mdash;&mdash;Rome!"</p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<p class="head">SAGUNTUM</p>
+
+<p class="nind">T<span class="smcap">he</span>
+sun was high in the heavens when Act�on walked toward the city along
+the thoroughfare called the Road of the Serpent.</p>
+
+<p>On his way he overtook wagons laden with leather bottles of oil and
+amphor� of wine. The files of slaves bending under the weight of heavy
+burdens, their feet covered with dust, drew to one side of the road to
+give him passage, displaying that submission and shrinking which a
+freeman always inspired. The Greek paused a moment before the oil mills,
+watching the enormous stones revolved by chained slaves; then he
+continued on his way skirting the bases of the hills, on the crests of
+which rose the <i>specul�</i>, little red watchtowers, which, with their
+fires, announced to the Acropolis of Saguntum the arrival of ships, or
+any activity observed on the opposite slope where began the territory of
+the hostile Turdetani.</p>
+
+<p>The fertile fields of the immense domain were flooded by a golden shower
+of morning sunshine. From the villages, from the country-houses, from
+the innumerable dwellings scattered throughout the extensive valley,
+streamed people to the Road of the Serpent, traveling toward the city.</p>
+
+<p>The majority of the Saguntine people lived in the<a name="page_46" id="page_46"></a> country, cultivating
+the soil. The city was relatively small. In it dwelt only the rich
+agriculturists, the magistrates, and foreigners. When some danger
+threatened, when the Turdetani attempted an incursion into the Saguntine
+territory, all the people streamed to the city, seeking the shelter of
+its walls, and the rustics, driving their flocks before them, mingled
+with the artisans of Saguntum, and took refuge within these precincts
+which they only visited when they came to town to sell their wares.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on guessed, by the great number of people met along the way, that
+this must be market day in the Forum. The country folk strode along in
+single file, carrying on their heads baskets covered with leaves, clad
+only in a dark tunic which hung far down their bodies, outlining their
+forms at every step. The peasants, sun-browned, sinewy, their single
+garment a skirt of skins or of coarse cloth, guided oxen drawing carts,
+or asses laden with bundles, and up and down the road sounded the
+incessant jingling of bells from flocks of goats, and the gentle lowing
+of cattle, as they trotted along in clouds of red dust raised by their
+sharp hoofs.</p>
+
+<p>Some families were already returning from market, displaying with pride
+the articles for which they had bartered their fruits at the booths in
+the Forum, and their friends stopped them to admire the new fabrics, the
+red terra cotta cups, fresh and brilliant, the rudely wrought feminine
+ornaments of solid silver, and their inspection was followed by a
+"salve!" of congratulation, which made their possessors flush with
+childish pride.</p>
+
+<p>Brown girls with firm, spare limbs and high foreheads, their hair
+hanging loose in Celtiberian fashion,<a name="page_47" id="page_47"></a> marched in pairs carrying from
+their shoulders long poles on which hung branches of flowers for the
+ladies of the city. Others carried enormous bunches of red cherries,
+wrapped in leaves to preserve them from the dust, and at intervals they
+sprang and shouted between outbursts of noisy laughter, mimicking the
+voices and gestures of the rich youths of Saguntum, who, to the great
+scandal of the city, gathered in S�nnica's garden to imitate before the
+statue of Dionysus the picturesque follies of Greece.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on admired the beauty of the landscape; the groves of fig trees,
+which lent fame to Saguntum, just beginning to put forth new leaves,
+forming upon their ancient branches canopies of verdure which swept the
+ground; the vines, like waves of emerald, spreading over the plain and
+climbing the far off hills to the forests of pine and holly; and the
+olive orchards planted symmetrically in the red soil, forming colonnades
+of twisted branches with capitals of silvery leafage. The sight of this
+splendid landscape moved him, recalling to mind memories of his
+childhood. The valley was as beautiful as that of Mother Greece; here he
+would remain if the gods did not urge him forward again on his restless
+pilgrimage about the world.</p>
+
+<p>He walked almost an hour, keeping ever before him the red mountain with
+the city at its base, and on its summit the innumerable constructions of
+the Acropolis. At a turn of the road he saw the people stop before a
+shrine&mdash;a long altar of stone, upon which an enormous serpent of blue
+marble extended its scaly rings. The rustics deposited flowers and
+earthen cups of milk before the motionless reptile, which with head
+lifted and venomous<a name="page_48" id="page_48"></a> jaws open seemed to threaten them. In this place
+the unfortunate Zacynthus had been bitten by the serpent as he was
+returning to Greece with the red cattle stolen from Geryon. His body was
+burned on the Acropolis, and the city grew around the spot. The simple
+people worshipped the reptile as one of the founders of their <i>patria</i>,
+and with affectionate words they surrounded it with offerings, which
+mysteriously disappeared, causing many to believe that it came to life
+in the dark, and they imagined that they heard its frightful hissing for
+great distances on stormy nights.</p>
+
+<p>As Act�on drew nearer to Saguntum he saw the tombs which rose on both
+sides of the road, attracting the attention of the traveler by their
+inscriptions. Behind these extended gardens enclosed by thick hedges
+over which peeped the branches of fruit trees belonging to the
+country-houses of the rich. Some slave women were watching nude children
+of pronounced Grecian type who played and wrestled. A corpulent old man,
+wrapped in a purple chlamys, stood in a garden gateway observing the
+passing of the flood of wretched people with the cold arrogance of a
+merchant newly risen to affluence. On the terrace of a villa Act�on
+fancied that he saw a gold-dyed coiffure in Athenian style interlaced
+with red ribbons, and near it a waving fan of multicolored feathers of
+Asiatic birds. These were the villas of the rich patricians of Saguntum
+who had retired from business.</p>
+
+<p>Upon nearing the river, the B�tis-Perkes, which divided the city from
+the champaign, the Greek noticed that he was walking beside a girl,
+almost a child, driving a flock of goats before her. Slender,
+well-formed,<a name="page_49" id="page_49"></a> with spare limbs, her skin a brown and velvety color, she
+would have looked like a boy had it not been that her short tunic, open
+on the left side, afforded glimpses of her slightly rounded breast, with
+a gentle cup-like curve, as it were a bud beginning to expand with the
+vigor of youth. Her black eyes, moist and large, seemed to fill her
+whole face, bathing it with a mysterious effulgence, and through her
+lips, dry and cracked by the wind, shone her white teeth, strong and
+regular. Her hair knotted behind her neck she had adorned with a garland
+of poppies plucked in the wheat. She carried over her shoulder with
+masculine ease a heavy net filled with white cheeses as round as loaves
+of bread, fresh, and still oozing whey. With her disengaged hand she was
+caressing the white fleece of a straight-horned goat, her favorite,
+which rubbed against her limbs, ringing a little copper bell worn on its
+neck.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on was charmed contemplating her girlish figure, so sturdy for
+labor, in which the freshness of youth triumphed over fatigue. Her
+slenderness, with lines erect and harmonious, reminded him of the
+elegance of the Tanagra figurines on the tables of the het�r� of Athens;
+of the imperious virility of the canephor� painted in black around Greek
+vases.</p>
+
+<p>The girl cast furtive glances at him, and then smiled, showing her teeth
+with juvenile confidence on feeling herself admired.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a Greek, are you not?"</p>
+
+<p>She spoke like the people of the port, in that strange idiom of a
+maritime city open to all peoples, a mixture of Celtiberian, Greek, and
+Latin.</p>
+
+<p>"I am from Athens. And you&mdash;who are you?"<a name="page_50" id="page_50"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I am called Rhanto, and my mistress is S�nnica the rich. Have you not
+heard of her? Her ships are in every port, she has slaves by the
+hundred, and she drinks from cups of gold. Do you see above those olive
+trees, on the side toward the sea, that small rose-colored tower? It is
+the villa where she lives as soon as the passing of winter allows her to
+leave the city. I belong at the villa, and I am in her service during
+the open season. My father has charge of her flocks, and she often comes
+down to our stables to play with the goats."</p>
+
+<p>Act�on was surprised at the frequency with which he had heard of S�nnica
+since setting foot on Saguntine soil. The name of that opulent woman,
+whom some called "the rich," and others "the courtesan," was in every
+mouth. The shepherdess, who evinced a certain attraction toward the
+stranger, continued:</p>
+
+<p>"She is good. Sometimes she seems sad; she says she languishes with
+tedium in the midst of her riches; she is indifferent to everything, and
+in that mood she is capable of letting all her slaves be crucified
+without interfering. But when she is happy she is as kind as a mother,
+and she will not allow us to be punished. Her overseer in charge of the
+slaves is a cruel man, an Iberian freedman, who watches us, and at every
+instant threatens us with the lash and the cross. He has whipped my
+father several times on account of a lost ewe, or a goat which had
+broken its leg, or because a little milk was spilled in the
+cheese-making season. I would have received his blows myself had it not
+been for the respect he feels for me on account of having seen me
+caressed sometimes by S�nnica."</p>
+
+<p>Rhanto spoke of the terrible situation of the slaves<a name="page_51" id="page_51"></a> with the
+naturalness of a creature accustomed from birth to witnessing such
+severities.</p>
+
+<p>"In winter," she continued, "I go to the mountain with my father, and I
+await with impatience the coming of the season when my mistress will
+return to the villa, and I can come down to the plain where there are
+flowers. Then I can spend the whole day in the shade of a tree
+surrounded by my goats."</p>
+
+<p>"And how have you learned something of Greek?"</p>
+
+<p>"S�nnica speaks it with rich people of the city, who are her friends,
+and with the slaves who serve her. Besides&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated, and her pale cheeks flushed.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," she persisted, with animation, "my friend Erotion, the son of
+Mopsus, the archer who came from Rhodes, speaks it. He is a friend who
+helps me watch the goats when he is not working in the pottery, which
+also belongs to S�nnica."</p>
+
+<p>She pointed to the great works near the river, the famous Saguntine
+potteries, which revealed, between clay walls, the cupolas of its ovens
+like enormous red bee-hives.</p>
+
+<p>From one side of the road among the trees, sounded mellow notes, wild
+and joyous flute-tones, and Act�on saw a boy spring into the highway. He
+was about the same age as Rhanto, tall, slender, barefooted, clad only
+in a soft goat-skin which hung over his left shoulder, leaving his right
+exposed, and was tied together at the waist. His eyes were like live
+coals, his black hair had bluish tones and, forming short ringlets,
+shook like a heavy mane with the nervous movements of his head. His
+arms, thin but strong, with the skin stretched<a name="page_52" id="page_52"></a> by the tension of veins
+and tendons, were stained to the elbow by the red potter's clay.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on, as he contemplated the short, correct profile of the handsome
+youth, and the nervous vivacity of his body, was reminded of the
+apprentices to the sculptors at Athens, artistic youths who in the broad
+glare of day, before returning to the studios, scandalized the
+well-behaved citizens by their frolics in the promenade of the
+Cerameicus.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Erotion," said Rhanto, who smiled sweetly as she saw her
+friend. "Although born in Saguntum, he is a Greek like yourself,
+stranger."</p>
+
+<p>The youth did not glance at the girl; he stood looking at the stranger
+respectfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you from Athens, really?" he said with admiration. "You cannot deny
+it. You look like Ulysses when he was wandering about the world, passing
+through the adventures related by Father Homer. I have seen just such as
+you on vases and in reliefs, resembling in figure and dress the husband
+of Penelope. Greeting, son of Pallas!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you&mdash;are you also one of S�nnica's slaves?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," the boy hastily answered with pride. "Rhanto is a slave, but
+perhaps some day she will not be. I am free; my father is Mopsus, a
+Greek from Rhodes, and the chief archer of Saguntum. He came from there
+with no other fortune than his bow and arrows, and now he is rich, since
+his recent expedition against the Turdetani, and he figures as the first
+in the militia of the city. I work in the pottery for S�nnica, who is
+very fond of me. She it was who gave me the name of Erotion, because
+when I was little I looked like a cupid. I am not one<a name="page_53" id="page_53"></a> of those who
+mould clay, nor turn the wheel to shape the vases. They call me the
+artist; I make decorations of foliage, I model animals, I can make the
+head of Diana from memory, and no one can engrave in clay the great seal
+of Saguntum as I can. Do you know what it is like? A ship without sails,
+with three banks of oars; above it flies Victory in long draperies,
+depositing a crown on the prow. I could, if you wish, model your
+figure&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But he stopped, as if ashamed at these last words, and added sadly:</p>
+
+<p>"How you must be laughing at me, stranger! You come from <i>there</i>, from
+that marvelous country of which my father so often talks. You must have
+seen the Parthenon and Athene Promachos which navigators distinguish far
+out at sea long before they can descry Athens; the wonderful procession
+of horses in the metopes; the prodigious works of Phidias. How I long to
+see all that! When a ship comes into port from Greece I run away from
+the pottery and spend whole days in the taverns with the mariners. I
+drink with them, I give them presents of figurines in lewd attitudes,
+which make them laugh, just for the sake of getting them to tell me what
+they have seen&mdash;the temples, the statues, the paintings; and their
+stories, instead of calming me, excite my longing.... Ah, if S�nnica
+would allow it!... If only she would let me go in one of her ships when
+they set sail for Greece!"</p>
+
+<p>Afterward, he added earnestly:</p>
+
+<p>"This girl you see here, my sweet Rhanto, is all that sustains me. If
+she did not exist I should long ago have sought the <i>gubernator</i> of a
+ship, should have sold myself<a name="page_54" id="page_54"></a> to him as a slave, if necessary, to
+travel over the world, to see Greece, and to become an artist like those
+to whom you render there the same honors as to the gods."</p>
+
+<p>The three walked on in silence for some time behind the cloud of dust
+raised by the goats. The boy gradually recovered his serenity at the
+side of Rhanto, who had taken one of his hands in hers.</p>
+
+<p>"And you&mdash;why do you come here?" he asked Act�on.</p>
+
+<p>"I came as did your father. I am a Greek without fortune, and I wish to
+offer my arms to the Saguntine Republic in its wars with the Turdetani."</p>
+
+<p>"Speak to Mopsus. You will find him in the Forum, or above on the
+Acropolis near the temple of Hercules, where the magistrates gather. He
+will be glad to see you; he adores those of your race, and he will stand
+sponsor for you before the city."</p>
+
+<p>Again silence fell. The Greek noticed the loving glances exchanged
+between the two young people, the fervid pressure of their clasped
+hands, the tender inclination of their healthy young bodies, which
+seeking each other, clung together. Erotion, as if obeying an unspoken
+request from his beloved, drew from his bosom a flute made of a hollow
+reed, and began to blow upon it softly, producing tender, pastoral
+music, to which the goats responded with bleating.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek realized that his presence was becoming undesirable to the
+happy lovers, for they gradually slackened their pace.</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, children! Travel without haste; youth is on time whenever it
+arrives. We shall meet again in the city."<a name="page_55" id="page_55"></a></p>
+
+<p>"May the gods protect you, stranger," replied Rhanto. "If you need
+anything you will find me in the Forum where I have to sell these
+cheeses and some others which were brought in the farmer's cart at
+dawn."</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, Athenian! Speak to my father, but do not tell him with whom
+you saw me."</p>
+
+<p>Act�on crossed the river, picking his way between the carts which were
+immersed in the water up to their axles, and stood before the ramparts
+of the city, admiring their strength, the bases of undressed stone,
+fitted closely without mortar, supporting wall and towers of strong
+masonry.</p>
+
+<p>At the gate of the Road of the Serpent, which was the main entrance, he
+was detained by a jam of men, wagons, and horses in the narrow tunnel.
+Inside the city, and almost against the wall, was the temple of Diana, a
+shrine known throughout the world for its antiquity, and which gave not
+a little fame to the Saguntines. Act�on paused to admire the roof of
+juniper planks of venerable age, but, eager to see the city, he
+continued on his way.</p>
+
+<p>There was to be seen down at the end of a straight street, where the
+buildings widened out, forming an enormous right-angled space, a great
+square plaza with beautiful structures sustained by arches, beneath
+which the people were swarming. It was the Forum. Above the roofs at the
+lower end could be seen houses and more houses with white walls climbing
+up the mountain slope; and in the background the walls of the Acropolis,
+the colonnades of the temples sustaining the friezes consisting of
+enormous carved stones.<a name="page_56" id="page_56"></a></p>
+
+<p>Act�on, following the road leading to the Forum, was reminded of the
+maritime suburb of the Pir�us. This was the merchants' district,
+inhabited mainly by Greeks. The stir of traffic could be seen through
+the windows of the lower stories; slaves were piling up bales; young men
+with curly hair and aquiline noses were tracing on their wax tablets
+their complicated business accounts, and samples of their wares were
+exposed on small tables before the doors of the houses; there were piles
+of wheat or wool and heavy rough pieces of marble from the quarries. The
+merchants, standing in their doorways and leaning against the jambs,
+talked with their customers, gesticulating and with smooth accent
+calling upon the gods as witnesses that they were being ruined in their
+business.</p>
+
+<p>In some shops, the proprietors, in vestments embroidered with golden
+flowers, wearing tall mitres and purple sandals, with light, sphinx-like
+eyes, and stroking the curls of their perfumed beards, listened in
+silence to their customers. They were traders from Africa and Asia,
+Carthaginians, Egyptians, Ph&oelig;nicians, who dealt in costly
+merchandise&mdash;trinkets of gold, tusks of ivory, ostrich feathers, and
+pieces of amber. Before their doors paused rich women clad in white
+mantles, followed by slaves, and as they talked they peeped their rosy
+faces into the shop, fascinated by the exotic aroma of stimulating
+spices from Asia and mysterious perfumes from the Orient. Rare birds
+brought from the East strode majestically among the bales with strident
+calls, trailing their multicolored plumage like a royal mantle.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on, after hastily examining these shops, entered the Forum. It was
+market day, and the life of the city<a name="page_57" id="page_57"></a> streamed to the great square.
+Farmers spread out their garden stuff near the porticos; shepherds from
+the public domain piled their cheeses in pyramids in front of little
+pitchers of milk, and women of the port, brown and almost naked, called
+attention to their fresh fish, arranged upon beds of leaves in flat rush
+baskets. At one end shepherds from the mountain, dressed in esparto,
+ferocious of aspect, and armed with lances, watched over cattle and
+horses offered for sale. These were Celtiberians, of whom it was told
+with horror that they sometimes ate human flesh, and they seemed to feel
+imprisoned inside the plaza, contemplating with hostile eyes that
+bee-like activity, so different from the independent solitude they
+enjoyed in their wandering life. The riches excited their appetites for
+robbing and horse-stealing, and, grasping their lances, they stared with
+ferocious eyes at the group of armed mercenaries in the service of the
+city, who at the lower end of the Forum, on the steps of the temple,
+guarded the senator charged with dispensing justice on market days.</p>
+
+<p>In the centre of the square swarmed the multitude, buying and dickering,
+dressed in a thousand colors, and speaking diverse tongues. The virtuous
+women of the city, simply dressed in white, passed along, followed by
+slaves who deposited in netted sacks the provision for the week; the
+Greeks, in long, saffron-colored chlamydes investigated everything,
+haggling tediously before making an insignificant purchase; the
+Saguntine citizens, Iberians who had lost their primitive rudeness
+through infinite intermarriages, imitated the manner and bearing of the
+Romans who were at the moment the people in highest esteem. Mingled with
+these were natives from<a name="page_58" id="page_58"></a> the interior, bearded, begrimed, with long
+dishevelled hair, attracted by the market in spite of their dislike for
+the city, and particularly for the Greeks on account of their refinement
+and riches.</p>
+
+<p>Some Celtiberians, chiefs of the tribes nearest to Saguntum, remained on
+horseback in the centre of the Forum, without putting aside their
+lances, and still clinging to their shields of woven bull-sinews. They
+wore triple-crested helmets and leather cuirasses, as if they were on
+hostile soil and feared treachery. Meanwhile their women, agile, brown,
+and masculine, moved from place to place, their ample vestments,
+embroidered in gayly colored flowers, fluttering as they walked, and
+anon they stopped with childish admiration before the table of some
+Greek selling crystal beads and coarsely engraved necklaces and trinkets
+of bronze.</p>
+
+<p>Mantles of finest linen and costly purple brushed against the naked
+limbs of slaves or against the Celtiberian sagum of black wool buckled
+at the shoulder. Coiffures in Grecian style with red ribbons plaited in,
+the tuft of curls at the back of the head resembling the flame of a
+torch, the forehead small as a sign of supreme beauty, mingled with
+coiffures of the Celtiberian women, who wore their foreheads shaven and
+shiny to make them larger, their hair curled around a little stick
+placed on their heads, forming a sharp horn from which hung a black
+veil. Other Celtiberian women wore strong steel collars with little
+wires which were brought together above the coiffure, and from this
+cage, which enclosed the head, hung the veil, proudly displaying their
+enormous foreheads, brilliant and luminous as the moon in her first
+quarter.<a name="page_59" id="page_59"></a></p>
+
+<p>Act�on lingered wondering at the costumes of these women, and at their
+masculine and warlike aspect. His quick Grecian perceptions divined
+danger as he contemplated the barbarians motionless on their steeds in
+the centre of the Forum, from that height dominating with looks of
+hatred this nation of merchants and farmers. They were like birds of
+prey that were compelled to come down to the plain as thieves in order
+to find food for existence in their arid mountains. Saguntum surrounded
+by such peoples would some day have to struggle for supremacy against
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek pondering this, entered the colonnades where the idle of the
+city were gathered before the shops of barbers, money changers, and
+vendors of wines and refreshments. Act�on could imagine himself still in
+the Agora of Athens. Although smaller, this was the same world as his
+native city. Sedate citizens had themselves carried by a slave in a
+wicker chair to take seats before the door of some shop to learn the
+news. Newsmongers circulated from group to group spreading the most
+stupendous lies; parasites seeking an invitation to dine flattered the
+rich whom they chanced to meet, and spoke ill of everything that
+happened; unemployed pedagogues disputed in loud tones over a point in
+Greek grammar, and youthful citizens grumbled against the old senators,
+declaring that the Republic needed newer blood.</p>
+
+<p>The recent expedition against the Turdetani, and the great victory
+gained over them, was much discussed. They would no longer dare to raise
+their heads; their king Artabanes, a fugitive in the most remote of
+their territories, must be punished for the late defeat. And<a name="page_60" id="page_60"></a> the young
+Saguntines looked proudly at the trophies of lances, shields, and
+helmets, hanging from the pilasters of the porticos. They were the arms
+of some hundreds of Turdetani killed or taken prisoner on the last
+expedition. Furniture and ornaments stolen in the villages of the enemy
+by the warriors of Saguntum were offered for sale at low prices in the
+barber-shops. Nobody wanted them. The city was filled with such spoils.
+The Saguntine soldiers had returned, dragging in their wake a veritable
+army of loaded wagons and an interminable horde of men and beasts. As
+they thought of the triumph they smiled with the grim ferocity of
+ancient warfare, incapable of forgiving, and in which the greatest of
+mercies for the conquered was slavery.</p>
+
+<p>The slave-market was situated near the temple where justice was
+administered. The slaves squatted on the ground in a circle, covered
+with rags, their hands clasped around their feet, their chins resting
+between their knees. Those born into slavery awaited the new master with
+the passivity of beasts, their limbs emaciated by hunger, their heads
+shaved and covered by a white cap. Others, more closely watched by the
+slave dealer, were bearded, and over their filthy hair wore crowns of
+branches to indicate their condition as slaves taken in war. They were
+Turdetani who had not given ransom. Astonishment and fury at finding
+themselves reduced to slavery still showed in their glowering eyes. Many
+of them wore chains, and on their bodies the cicatrices of the recent
+war were still fresh. They glared at the hostile people, contracting
+their mouths as if with desire to bite and some of them restlessly moved
+their right arms which terminated in mere formless stumps. Their hands<a name="page_61" id="page_61"></a>
+had been cut off in wars with tribes of the interior, whose custom it
+was to thus render their prisoners useless.</p>
+
+<p>The Saguntines looked indifferently upon these enemies converted into
+chattels, into beasts, by the cruel law of conquest, and forgetting the
+presence of the Turdetani they discussed the city's quarrels, the
+rivalry of factions, which seemed to have been stifled by the
+intervention of the Roman legates. On the steps of a temple close at
+hand the bloodstains of those beheaded because of their friendship for
+Carthage could still be seen, and the adherents of Rome, who were in the
+majority, discoursed bravely and praised the energetic counsel of the
+envoys of the great Republic. The city would now live in peace and
+security under the protection of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on, while listening to the conversation of these various groups,
+glanced toward the temple and thought that he saw in the crowd streaming
+up and down the steps the Celtiberian shepherd who had killed the Roman
+legionary the night before. It was a swift vision; his dark sagum
+vanished in the multitude, and the Greek was uncertain if it were really
+he.</p>
+
+<p>The morning advanced. Act�on had spent a long time in the market, and he
+thought that now the hour had come for occupying himself with other
+matters. He must see Mopsus the archer, up on the Acropolis, and he
+began the ascent following winding streets paved with cobbles, and lined
+with white houses, where in the doorways sat women spinning and weaving
+wool.</p>
+
+<p>As the Greek approached the Acropolis, he admired the cyclopean walls of
+great stones laid with rare art, solidly fitted without mortar-joints.
+Here was the cradle<a name="page_62" id="page_62"></a> of the city, relic of the companions of Zacynthus
+as they established themselves among the rude indigenes.</p>
+
+<p>He passed through a long archway, and found himself on the extensive
+esplanade upon the eminence, surrounded by ramparts which could shelter
+a population as great as Saguntum. On this immense plain, scattered at
+random, rose the public buildings, recalling the epoch when the city
+stood on the summit and had not yet descended, spreading toward the sea.
+From its walls one could take in the immensity of the fertile domain,
+the territories belonging to the Republic, reaching out of sight to the
+south along the shore toward the boundary of the lands occupied by the
+Olcades; the innumerable villages and estates, grouped on the banks of
+the B�tis-Perkes, and the city opening like a great white fan down the
+slope of the mount, enclosed by walls over which the close-packed houses
+seemed to spring and scatter through the orchards.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on, turning his gaze toward the enclosed quarter of the Acropolis,
+noticed the temple of Hercules; near it the portico on which the Senate
+gathered; the mint where money was coined; the temple where the treasure
+of the Republic was stored; the arsenal where the citizens were armed;
+the barracks of the mercenaries; and, dominating all these buildings,
+the tower of Hercules, an enormous cyclopean structure which at night
+answered with its lights to the <i>specul�</i> on the shore and on the hills
+around the port, spreading alarm or giving tranquility throughout the
+whole of the Saguntine territory. In another quarter a band of slaves,
+directed by a Grecian artist, was putting the final touches on a small<a name="page_63" id="page_63"></a>
+temple which S�nnica the rich was having raised on the Acropolis in
+honor of Minerva.</p>
+
+<p>The Saguntines who were climbing up to the citadel for a quiet stroll,
+proudly viewing their city and taking a look at the mercenaries who were
+burnishing their swords and their bronze cuirasses at the doors of their
+barracks, glanced curiously at the Greek.</p>
+
+<p>A prosperous looking Saguntine, wrapped in a red toga in Roman fashion,
+and leaning on a long staff, approached to speak to him. He was a middle
+aged man, strong, with gray hair and beard, and a kindly expression in
+his eyes and in his smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, Greek," he asked sweetly, "why have you come hither? Are you a
+merchant? Are you a navigator? Do you seek for your country the silver
+which the Celtiberians bring us?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I am a poor man wandering about the world, and I have come to offer
+myself to the Republic as a soldier."</p>
+
+<p>The Saguntine made a gesture of distress.</p>
+
+<p>"I should have guessed it by the arm which serves you as a staff....
+Soldiers! Always soldiers! In other times not a sword nor a dart could
+be seen in the city. Foreigners used to come in ships loaded with
+merchandise; they took what we had, and in return they gave us what they
+brought, and we lived in that peace of which the poets sing. But now,
+those who come, whether Greek or Roman, African or Asiatic, present
+themselves armed; ferocious dogs who come to offer themselves as guards
+for the flock which used to frolic in peace without fear of enemies. As
+I behold all this warlike preparation, as I contemplate the youths of
+Saguntum rejoicing<a name="page_64" id="page_64"></a> and boasting over their recent expedition against
+the Turdetani, I tremble for the city and the fate in store for my
+people. To-day we are the strongest, but will not someone come stronger
+than we, and clap upon our necks the chains of slavery?"</p>
+
+<p>Over the top of the walls he looked down at the city with tender
+solicitude.</p>
+
+<p>"Stranger," he continued, "my name is Alcon, and my friends call me 'the
+Prudent.' The old men of the Senate give heed to my counsels; but the
+young men will not listen to them. I have been a merchant, I have run
+over the world, I have a wife and children maintained in comfortable
+circumstances, and I am convinced that peace means felicity for the
+people and should be maintained at any cost."</p>
+
+<p>"I am Act�on, a son of Athens. I used to be a navigator, but my ships
+were wrecked. I was a trader, but I lost my fortune. Mercury and Neptune
+have ever treated me like harsh and merciless fathers. I have enjoyed
+much, I have suffered still more, and to-day, almost a beggar, I come
+here to sell my blood and brawn."</p>
+
+<p>"You do wrong, Athenian. You are a man, and you seek to turn yourself
+into a wolf. Do you know what I most admire in your race?... that you
+jest at Hercules and at his deeds; that you worship Pallas Athene! You
+scorn force, and you worship intelligence and the arts of peace."</p>
+
+<p>"The strong arm is as valuable as the head in which Zeus kindled the
+divine spark."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but that arm impels the head to death."</p>
+
+<p>Act�on was impatient at Alcon's words.<a name="page_65" id="page_65"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Do you know Mopsus the archer?"</p>
+
+<p>"There he is, near the temple of Hercules. You may recognize him by his
+weapons, which he never lays aside. He is another of those who drew
+hither the evil spirit of war."</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, Alcon."</p>
+
+<p>"May the gods protect you, Athenian!"</p>
+
+<p>Act�on recognized the valorous Greek by his bow and by the quiver
+hanging from his shoulders. He was a robust, long-bearded man, who wore
+bound around his gray locks a bull's tendon to renew the one which
+served to string his bow. His strong muscular arms revealed in the
+elasticity of their sinews the high tension to which they were subjected
+in bending the strong bow and in shooting the arrows.</p>
+
+<p>He welcomed Act�on with the sympathetic respect which the Athenians
+inspired in the island-Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>"I will speak to the Senate," he said, on learning Act�on's aspirations.
+"My word will be sufficient to have you received among the mercenaries
+with all merited distinction. Tell me more about your military
+exploits."</p>
+
+<p>"I have made war in Laced�mon, under the orders of Cleomenes."</p>
+
+<p>"A famous captain! The renown of the deeds of the Spartan king has even
+reached these shores. What news of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I left him when, conquered but not mastered, he took refuge in
+Alexandria. There he dwelt as an exile under the protection of Ptolemy;
+but, according to what I heard not long ago in New Carthage, he got into
+trouble through a palace intrigue. The Egyptian monarch ordered his
+execution, and Cleomenes, with his<a name="page_66" id="page_66"></a> twelve companions, died fighting.
+When he fell, a pile of corpses lay before him."</p>
+
+<p>"Worthy end for a hero! Where did you learn the military art?"</p>
+
+<p>"I began in Sicily and Carthage, in the camps of the mercenaries, and I
+finished my education in the Prytaneum of Athens. My father was Lysias,
+captain in the service of Hamilcar, put to death afterwards by the
+Carthaginians in their war with the mercenaries, which is called the
+'Inexpiable War.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Famous schools, and an excellent father! His name also came to my ears
+in the epoch when I was running over the world, before taking service in
+Saguntum. You are welcome, Act�on! If you wish to enlist in the
+hoplites, you shall figure in the first rank of the phalanx with the
+heavy armor and the long spear. But, no, you Athenians prefer to fight
+light-armed. You are more to be feared in the onset than on account of
+the force of your blows. You shall be a peltast, with javelin and light
+shield; you shall fight unhampered, and surely great deeds will be
+related of you."</p>
+
+<p>Some old men whom the archer greeted respectfully passed near.</p>
+
+<p>"Those are senators," Mopsus said, "assembling because it is market day.
+Many of them come from their villas on the public domain, and ride up to
+the Acropolis in their litters. They meet on that portico."</p>
+
+<p>Act�on saw them taking their seats on wooden chairs with curved
+claw-legs supporting the head of the Nemean lion. Their countenances and
+dress denoted the great diversity of races existing in the city. The men
+of Iberian origin came from their country-houses, bearded,<a name="page_67" id="page_67"></a> grimy, with
+linen cuirass lined with heavy wool, a two-edged short sword hanging
+from the shoulder, and a hat of hardened leather equivalent to a helmet.
+The Grecian merchants presented themselves with faces shaven, wrapped in
+white chlamys, from which the right arm emerged bare; a fillet was bound
+around the hair in fashion of a crown, and they were leaning on long
+staves tipped by the design of a pine cone. They resembled the kings of
+the Iliad gathered before Troy.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on noted among them a giant with black beard and short curling hair
+which lay around his head like a mitre of wool. His enormous limbs, with
+protuberant muscles and elastic sinews which seemed bursting with
+strength, peeped from below the openings of the red mantle in which he
+was wrapped.</p>
+
+<p>"That is Theron," said the bowman, "the great priest of Hercules; a
+prodigious man, who could conquer a crown in the Olympic games. He kills
+a bull with a single blow on its neck."</p>
+
+<p>Again the Greek thought he recognized among the people gathered near the
+Senate portico, the Celtiberian shepherd, studying intently the gigantic
+priest of Hercules; but the archer addressed Act�on, compelling him to
+turn his gaze away.</p>
+
+<p>"The council is about to sit, and I must be at the foot of the steps
+awaiting orders. Go, Act�on, and tarry for me in the Forum. There you
+will find my boy. Did you not say that you met him on the road? No doubt
+he was with that slave girl who herds S�nnica's goats. Don't hesitate,
+Act�on; don't tell a falsehood. I guess it. Ah, that boy! That vagabond,
+who, instead of working, races through the fields like a fugitive
+slave!"<a name="page_68" id="page_68"></a></p>
+
+<p>In spite of the grievousness with which the archer complained, a thrill
+of tenderness was observable in his accent, the note of preference over
+his other sons for that wandering and capricious artist who often
+abandoned the paternal roof to roam about the port and through the
+mountains for weeks at a time.</p>
+
+<p>The two Greeks bade each other adieu, and Act�on returned to the Forum,
+not without thinking that he saw again, strolling about the Acropolis,
+the mysterious Celtiberian shepherd. As he entered the porticos he heard
+hisses and shouting; the crowds were agitated, laughing and jeering;
+people rushed from the barber-shops and perfumeries. The Greek saw a
+group of luxuriously dressed young men passing with scornful smiles
+regardless of the tempest of hisses and sarcasm raised by their
+presence.</p>
+
+<p>They were the gallants of Saguntum; the rich youths who imitated the
+fashions of the Athenian aristocracy, exaggerated by distance and by
+their lack of taste. Act�on also smiled, with the cynical smile of an
+Athenian, as he observed the crudeness with which these young fops
+copied their distant models.</p>
+
+<p>At their head strode Lachares, the gallant who had accompanied S�nnica
+on her morning visit to the temple of Venus. They were dressed in
+transparent cloth of screaming colors and subtle weave, disclosing the
+body, like the tunics worn by the het�r� at banquets. Their cheeks,
+carefully plucked free of hair, were tinted with soft vermilion and the
+eyes were enlarged with black lines. The hair, curled, and perfumed with
+fragrant ointments, was confined by a fillet. Some wore large hoops of
+gold in their ears, and hidden bracelets<a name="page_69" id="page_69"></a> jingled as they walked. Others
+were indolently leaning on the shoulders of small slave boys with white
+backs, and with hair hanging in heavy curls, resembling girls in the
+plumpness of their forms. As if deaf to the insults and sarcasms of the
+people, they talked with affected serenity of some Greek verses which
+one of them had composed; they discussed their merit, the manner of
+accompanying them with the lyre, and only stopped to caress the cheeks
+of their small slaves or to greet acquaintances, well pleased at heart
+over the scandal their presence caused in the Forum.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not tell me that they imitate the Greeks," shouted an old man with
+malicious face, clad in the patched and filthy mantle of an unemployed
+pedagogue. "The fire of the gods shall be hurled upon the city. It is
+true that in a moment of emotion our father Zeus carried off the
+beautiful Ganymede; but how about Leda and all the innumerable beauties
+touched by the fire of the Lord of Olympus? A fine place the world would
+be if men were to imitate the gods and were to behave as do these fools,
+dressing themselves like women! Do you wish to see a Greek? Well, there
+is one for you. That is a true son of Hellas."</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to Act�on, who found himself the target for curious glances
+from the assembled people.</p>
+
+<p>"How you must laugh, stranger, at seeing those miserable creatures who
+stupidly believe they are copying your country," the beggarly phrenetic
+continued shouting. "I am a philosopher; do you know that? The only
+philosopher in Saguntum, and by the same token you will guess that these
+ungrateful people are quite willing to let me starve to death. As a
+young man I<a name="page_70" id="page_70"></a> lived in Athens; I attended the schools; I gave up the life
+of a mariner, and ceased running over the world, to seek truth within
+myself. I have invented nothing, but I know all that man has said about
+the soul and the world, and if you wish I will recite from memory entire
+paragraphs from Socrates and Plato, and all the answers of the great
+Diogenes. I know your country, and I am ashamed of my city when I see
+such fools as those. Do you know who is to blame for these follies that
+dishonor us? S�nnica, that S�nnica whom they call 'the rich,' an
+old-time courtesan who will succeed in making Saguntum a reproach,
+destroying the traditions of the city, and the simple, healthful customs
+of other times."</p>
+
+<p>On hearing the name of S�nnica a murmur of protest arose from the group.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see?" shouted the philosopher, becoming more abusive. "They are
+adulatory slaves who tremble at the truth. The name of S�nnica produces
+in them the same effect as that of a goddess. Do you see that one
+running away? Well, not long ago S�nnica lent his father a great sum
+without interest, that he might buy wheat in Sicily, and so he thinks he
+must run away from any place where things are said against her. See that
+one turning his back? The courtesan freed his father, who was a slave,
+and he does not wish to hear anything said that might annoy S�nnica. And
+these others, who are more valiant, and remain staring as if they would
+devour me, have all received favors from her, and would like to beat me
+for my words as they have done before. They are slaves who defend her as
+if she were a beneficent divinity. There are many others like them in
+Saguntum, and that is why the magistrates dare not punish<a name="page_71" id="page_71"></a> that Grecian
+woman, who with her mad extravagances scandalizes the city. Come, beat
+me, shopkeepers! Beat the only one in Saguntum who does not lie!"</p>
+
+<p>The crowd slunk away, leaving the philosopher shaking his fist and
+hurling epithets of indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"What you ought to do," said one of the latter scornfully as he retired,
+"is to show more gratitude. If you ever get anything to eat, it is at
+S�nnica's table."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall eat to-night, then!" shouted the philosopher insolently. "And
+what do you prove by that? I will tell her to her face the same that I
+say here! And she will laugh as usual, while you will be eating swill in
+your houses and thinking of her banquet!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ingrate! Parasite!" exclaimed the man, turning his back contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>"Gratitude is the condition of the dog. Man shows his superiority by
+speaking ill of those who favor him. If you do not wish Euphobias the
+philosopher to be a parasite, maintain him in exchange for his wisdom."</p>
+
+<p>By this time Euphobias was talking to empty space. They had all left,
+and had mingled with the moving crowd on the street. Only Act�on
+remained, examining him with interest, as if marveling at finding in a
+far-away city a man so like those who in Athens swarmed about the
+Academy, forming a class of hungry and obscure philosophic plebs.</p>
+
+<p>The parasite, seeing himself with no other audience than the Greek,
+caught him by the arm.</p>
+
+<p>"You alone deserve to hear me. One can easily perceive that you are from
+<i>there</i>, and that you know how to distinguish merit."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that S�nnica whose customs so anger you?<a name="page_72" id="page_72"></a> Do you know the story
+of her life?" asked the Athenian, desirous of hearing the history of a
+woman who seemed to fill the whole city with her name.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I know it? A thousand times she has told me in her hours of
+melancholy and weariness, which out-number all the rest. When I cannot
+manage to make her laugh with my wit, when she feels the need of
+un-burdening her mind, then she tells of her past with as much abandon
+as though she were talking to a dog; but it is a long story."</p>
+
+<p>The philosopher paused and winked one eye, pointing to a door near at
+hand, within which was a perforated counter holding a row of amphor�.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be more comfortable in Fulvius' house. He is a most honorable
+Roman who swears that he has quarreled with water. Day before yesterday
+he received a famous wine from Laurona. I smell its perfume even here."</p>
+
+<p>"I have not a single obolus in my pouch."</p>
+
+<p>The philosopher sniffed as if inhaling the vapor of the new wine, and
+made a gesture of disappointment. Then he looked at the Greek
+affectionately.</p>
+
+<p>"You are worthy to hear me; poor, like myself, surrounded by these
+merchants who stock their vaults with silver! Since there is to be no
+wine for us, let us take a walk. That clears the brain. I will treat you
+as Aristotle treated his favorite pupils."</p>
+
+<p>Strolling along the portico Euphobias began to relate what he knew of
+S�nnica's life.</p>
+
+<p>She was believed to have been born in Cyprus, the isle beloved of
+mariners. On those shores where the poets made the triumphant beauty of
+Aphrodite spring<a name="page_73" id="page_73"></a> from the foam, the women of the island run by night in
+search of mariners to offer themselves in memory of the goddess. S�nnica
+was the fruit of one such alligation with a rower. She vaguely
+recollected the early years of her childhood, running about the deck of
+a ship, springing from one bank of rowers to another, fed and scorned
+like the cats on shipboard, visiting many ports populated by people
+diverse in dress, customs, and language, but seeing it all from afar,
+and vaguely, like images in a dream, never setting foot on terra firma.</p>
+
+<p>Before she became a woman she was the mistress of the owner of the ship,
+a pilot from Samos, who, grown tired of her, or tempted by money, sold
+her one night to a B&oelig;otian who maintained a <i>dicterion</i> in the
+Pir�us. She was not yet twelve years of age, and little S�nnica
+attracted special attention among the <i>dicteriadai</i> who swarmed by night
+in the Pir�us, the chief centre of Athenian prostitution.</p>
+
+<p>The floating population of the city, composed of foreigners, gamblers,
+and young men thrown out of their homes by severe fathers, congregated
+in that suburb of Athens which surrounded the ports of the Pir�us and
+Phalerum and formed the deme of Estiron. No sooner had night closed in
+than the whole noisy and corrupt world gathered in the great square in
+the Pir�us, between the citadel and the port, and prostitutes began to
+circulate, who with the coming of the shadows, were privileged to leave
+the <i>dicteria</i> in which they had been confined. On the porticos around
+the square the gamblers shook dice, wandering philosophers argued,
+vagabonds slept, mariners told of their voyages, and through this
+confusion of diverse peoples passed the <i>dicteriadai</i>,<a name="page_74" id="page_74"></a> with painted
+faces, almost nude, or wearing striped mantles of vivid colors which
+revealed an African or Asiatic origin. There the young daughter of
+Cyprus grew up and became acquainted with the world, seeking each night
+some wheat merchant from Bithynia, or some exporter of hides from Magna
+Graecia, rude and merry people, who, before returning to their native
+lands wished to spend some of their earnings on the courtesans of
+Athens. By day she was a prisoner in the <i>dicterion</i>, a house of sordid
+aspect, without other ornamentation on the fa�ade than an enormous
+phallus which served the establishment as a sign, the door standing open
+at all hours without the chained dog customary at other dwellings, and
+displaying, immediately the heavy curtain was raised, an open courtyard,
+in which, near the entrance to the rooms, squatting or lying on the
+pavement, were all the wares of the house, women worn and consumed by
+the fires of concupiscence and girls barely arrived at puberty. All were
+nude, the dark and velvety skin of the Egyptians contrasting with the
+pale countenance of the Greeks and the white and silky flesh of the
+Asiatics.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica, who was at that time called Myrrhina, wearied of the life of
+the <i>dicterion</i>. All the women there were slaves whom the B&oelig;otian
+beat when they allowed a customer to leave discontented. It disgusted
+her to take the two oboli stipulated by the laws of Solon from those
+calloused hands which wounded as they caressed, and she was nauseated by
+the dirty, brutal people from all the countries in the world who came in
+search of pleasure, and went away surfeited, being immediately replaced
+by another and another, like an incessant surging<a name="page_75" id="page_75"></a> of desires excited by
+the solitude of the sea, repeating similar caprices and identical
+demands.</p>
+
+<p>One night she visited for the last time the temple of Venus Pandemos
+raised by Solon in the great square of the Pir�us, and deposited an
+obolus as her final offering before the statues of Venus and her
+companion Peitho, the two divinities of the courtesans, before whom she
+went many times with her lemans of the moment, before giving herself
+up to them on the seashore or near the long wall constructed by
+Themistocles to unite the port with Athens. Then she fled toward the
+city, eager for liberty and joy, wishing to become one of those Athenian
+het�r� whose luxury and beauty she had admired from afar.</p>
+
+<p>She lived like the free, poor courtesans whom the Athenian youths called
+"she-wolves" on account of their howling. At first she spent whole days
+without eating, but she considered herself more happy than her former
+companions of the port of Phalerum, or in the district of Estiron,
+slaves of the masters of the <i>dicteria</i>. Her market now was the
+Cerameicus, a large district of Athens, along the wall between the gates
+of the Cerameicus and the Dipylon, in which were the garden of the
+Academy and the tombs of the illustrious citizens who had died for the
+Republic. By day the great <i>het�r�</i> went or sent their slaves to see if
+their names were written in charcoal on the wall of the Cerameicus. The
+Athenian who desired a courtesan would write her name, with the sum
+offered, and if this were to the liking of the het�ra she tarried near
+the inscription until the coming of the favored proponent. In broad
+daylight the great courtesans appeared there, almost nude, wearing<a name="page_76" id="page_76"></a>
+purple sandals, wrapped in flowered mantles, wearing crowns of fresh
+roses on their hair, powdered with gold. The poets, the rhetoricians,
+the artists, the distinguished citizens strolled through the green
+groves of the Cerameicus or along the porticos adorned with statues,
+chatting with the courtesans, having to rack their brains to keep even
+with their repartee.</p>
+
+<p>When night came on an irruption of wretched, ragged women filled the
+promenade, dispersing among the tombs of the renowned dead. It consisted
+of the dregs of Athenian gayety which lived in liberty under cover of
+the darkness&mdash;old courtesans who, trusting in the night, came out to
+conquer bread in the same place where in other times they had reigned
+with the power of beauty; fugitive <i>dicteriadai</i>, slave women who had
+run away from their owners for a few hours, and women of the plebs
+seeking alleviation of their poverty. Hiding behind the tombs, among the
+clumps of laurels, they remained as motionless as sphinxes, and scarcely
+did the steps of a man disturb the silence of the Cerameicus, than from
+all sides arose faint howls calling to the new arrival. Frequently they
+fled in mad race on recognizing the official whose duty it was to
+collect the <i>pornikontelos</i>, a tax imposed by Solon upon the courtesans
+and one which constituted the largest revenue of Athens. At midnight the
+passer-by crossing the Cerameicus on his return from a banquet, would
+hear around him the rustle and whispering of an invisible world which
+seemed to sweep over the turf and the gleaming sand. The poets jestingly
+averred that the ghosts of the great departed were groaning in their
+capacious tombs.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Myrrhina lived until she was fifteen, spending<a name="page_77" id="page_77"></a> the night in the
+Cerameicus and the day in the hut of an old woman of Thessaly who, in
+common with all her countrywomen enjoyed great fame as a witch, and
+assisted at births as well as sold love-philters, and retouched the
+faces of those who were fading.</p>
+
+<p>Innumerable things the little <i>lupa</i> learned at the side of the old
+woman, bony and ugly as a Parca! She helped her grind the white lead
+which, mixed with isinglass, filled the wrinkles of the face; she
+prepared the bean flour to anoint the breasts and abdomen, to make the
+skin tight and elastic; she filled little flasks with antimony to give
+brilliancy to the eyes; she made a liquid preparation of carmine for
+coloring with light touches the paste-filled wrinkles, and she listened
+with profound attention to the wise counsels with which the old woman
+instructed her pupils, so that they might show off their particular
+charms to the best advantage and hide their defects. The old Thessalian
+advised the girls with plump bodies to use cork soles inside their
+shoes, and the tall ones to wear light sandals, and to shrink their
+heads down between their shoulders; she made pads for the thin,
+whalebone corsets for the stout, she stained the gray hair with soot,
+and those who had good teeth she obliged to carry a stalk of myrtle
+between their lips, counseling them to smile at the slightest word.</p>
+
+<p>The young girl possessed the old witch's confidence to such an extent
+that she assisted her in the most dangerous part of her science, the
+confection of love-philters and the making of charms, which had more
+than once caused her to be prosecuted by the officials of the Areopagus.
+The richest het�r� consulted her about their desires and revenges, and
+she gave them the benefit of<a name="page_78" id="page_78"></a> her knowledge. To accomplish the impotence
+of a man or the sterility of a woman, it was only necessary to give them
+a glass of wine in which a barbel had been stewed; to attract a
+forgetful lover a cake of unleavened dough was burned in a fire made of
+branches of thyme and laurel; and to convert love into hatred it was
+only necessary to follow the man, stepping in his tracks the opposite
+way, placing the right foot where he had put his left, and murmuring at
+the same time: "I am upon you, I step on you." If one wished to cause a
+satiated lover to return, the old woman rolled a bronze ball which she
+carried in her bosom, asking Venus to cause the lover to roll in over
+the threshold of the door in the same manner, and if the conjury
+produced no effect, the wax image of the person beloved was thrown into
+the brazier while asking the gods to melt the frozen heart with love
+even as the figure melted. With these enchantments, accompanied by
+mysterious invocations, went philters composed of aphrodisiacs and
+exciting herbs, which frequently led to death.</p>
+
+<p>One moonlight spring night Myrrhina had an adventure in the Cerameicus,
+which resulted in her abandoning the den of the Thessalian. Seated
+behind a tomb, her howl soft as a lament attracted a man wrapped in a
+white mantle. By the brilliancy of his eyes and the insecurity of his
+step he seemed to be intoxicated. He wore on his head a crown of
+withered roses.</p>
+
+<p>Myrrhina divined that he was a distinguished citizen coming from a
+banquet. It was the poet Simalion, a young aristocrat who had won a
+crown in the Olympian games, and in whom Athens saw revived the
+inspiration of Anacreon. The richest het�r� sang his verses<a name="page_79" id="page_79"></a> at banquets
+to the music of the lyre, and virtuous dames murmured them in the
+solitude of the gyn�ceum, flushing with emotion. The most famous
+beauties of Athens contended for the poet, and he, already an invalid in
+his young manhood, and unable to resist the strain of worldly adoration,
+took refuge in the temple of �sculapius when the cough compelled him to
+spit blood; he went on a pilgrimage to the healing springs throughout
+Greece and the islands; and no sooner did he begin to feel stronger,
+with new blood surging through his veins, than, scorning the doctors, he
+began once more the round of banqueting with business men and artists of
+Attica, in company with famous het�r� and genteel Cyprians, rolling from
+the arms of one to another; paying for the caresses with verses which
+the city afterward repeated; ever ardent, and consuming his life like
+the torch which at the nocturnal feasts of Dionysus was passed by the
+chain of bacchantes from hand to hand until lost in the infinite.</p>
+
+<p>Coming from one of these orgies he met Myrrhina, and contemplating in
+the moonlight her youthful beauty, undimmed and almost childlike there
+in a place frequented by the filthy <i>lupas</i>, he raised his hand to his
+eyes as if he feared he were being deceived by the aberrations of
+intoxication. This must be Psyche with those firm, harmoniously curving
+breasts, round as cups; with those correct and gentle outlines which
+would have been the despair of sculptors at the Academy. The poet
+experienced the same satisfaction as when, after hours of solitary
+plodding along the wall of Themistocles from Athens to the port, he hit
+upon the culminating verse of an ode.<a name="page_80" id="page_80"></a></p>
+
+<p>She started to drag him to the old Thessalian's hut, but Simalion,
+dazzled by the marble flesh which seemed to shine through the rags, took
+her to his beautiful residence on the Street of Tripods, and there
+Myrrhina remained like a lady, with slaves and luxurious garments.</p>
+
+<p>This caprice of the poet astounded all Athens. In the Agora and in the
+Cerameicus they talked of nothing but Simalion's new love. They marveled
+at the rescue of a precious stone, forgotten and lost in the sands,
+which suddenly shone forth on the forehead of a grandee.</p>
+
+<p>The great het�r�, who had never succeeded in making complete conquest of
+the fickle poet, were amazed at seeing him devotedly attached to a young
+girl from a <i>dicterion</i>, who was remembered by many adventurers in the
+Pir�us. He took her out in his chariot, driving three horses with
+close-cropped manes, and to all the great feasts in the temples of
+Attica; in the morning he composed verses in her honor, and he awoke her
+by reciting them, while he flung a shower of rose petals upon her couch.
+He gave banquets to his artist friends that he might revel in their envy
+and admiration, when, at their conclusion, he had her exhibit herself
+nude upon the table, in all the magnificence of that perfect beauty
+which aroused a religious emotion in the Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>Faithful to Simalion from gratitude at first, and finally enamored of
+the poet and of his works, Myrrhina adored him as teacher as well as
+lover. In a short time she learned to play the lyre, to recite verses in
+all the known styles, she read in her lover's library so diligently that
+she was able to hold her own among the guests at the banquets of
+artists, and was invited out among the most brilliant het�r� of Athens.<a name="page_81" id="page_81"></a></p>
+
+<p>Simalion, constantly growing more enthusiastic over his beloved,
+dissipated his fortune and his life. He ordered for her from Asia
+transparent mantles embroidered with fantastic flowers, through which
+shone her pearly flesh; gold dust to sprinkle upon her hair, making her
+like the goddesses, which the poets and artists of Greece always painted
+blonde; he charged the navigators to buy roses in Egypt of marvelous
+freshness. He was steadily growing more emaciated, his skin more pallid,
+and his gaze glowing with fever, coughing and lying in the arms of his
+mistress, his strength slipping away.</p>
+
+<p>Thus two years passed, until one autumn afternoon, stretched on the lawn
+in his garden, his head resting on the knees of his beautiful inamorata,
+he heard his verses sung for the last time by the clear voice of
+Myrrhina, accompanied by the fluttering of her white fingers over the
+chords of the lyre. The setting sun caused Minerva's lance aloft by the
+Parthenon, dominating the city, to glow like a coal of fire; his boyish
+hand could scarce sustain the golden cup of honey and wine. He made an
+effort to kiss his mistress; the roses which crowned him fell apart,
+covering Myrrhina's breast with a shower of petals, and, uttering a
+plaint like that of a woman, he closed his eyes, falling upon that
+breast where he had lavished the last strength of his life.</p>
+
+<p>The young girl wept for him with the desperation of a widow. She cut her
+splendid hair to lay it as an offering upon his tomb. She put aside her
+dazzling costumes, she dressed in dark wool like the Athenian women of
+virtuous homes, and remained in retirement in her house, which she kept
+closed and silent as a gyn�ceum.<a name="page_82" id="page_82"></a></p>
+
+<p>The necessity of living, of maintaining the luxury to which she had
+become accustomed, of keeping a chariot and slaves and grooms, forced
+her, however, to consider her beauty, and the most celebrated het�r�
+became alarmed at the new rival. Covered with a dark red wig to hide the
+tonsure of mourning, wrapped in fine veils from which her throat emerged
+adorned with pearls, her fresh and alabastrine arms loaded to the
+shoulders with bracelets, she showed herself at an upper window of her
+house with the grave majesty of a goddess awaiting veneration. The
+richest men of Athens paused by night in the Street of Tripods to gaze
+at the poet's widow, as the women in the Ceramaeicus sarcastically called
+her. Some, more daring, or tremulous with desire, raised the index
+finger in mute question; but vainly they awaited her affirmative
+reply&mdash;the customary sigil of the het�r�, touching thumb to index finger
+as it were an annulus.</p>
+
+<p>Few managed to gain entrance to the famous courtesan's house. They
+grumbled that some nights, in moments of tedium, she had opened her door
+to young students who were modeling their first statues in the gardens
+of the Academy, or reciting their unrenowned verses to the idle in the
+Agora&mdash;youths who could only afford to spend on pleasures a few oboli,
+or at most a drachma. On the other hand the rich, who offered golden
+stateres or several min� to enter the house, were considered too poor to
+win favor. The old courtesans whispered into one another's ears, with a
+degree of respect, that a petty Asiatic king, on passing through Athens,
+had given Myrrhina two talents for one visit&mdash;as much as any republic in
+Greece would spend in a<a name="page_83" id="page_83"></a> year&mdash;and that the beautiful het�ra, unmoved by
+such a fortune, had suffered his presence only while her clepsydra
+emptied itself once, for, tired of men, she measured prurience by her
+water-clock.</p>
+
+<p>Fabulously rich merchants, on arriving at the Pir�us, sought access to
+Myrrhina's house through the good offices of friends. They heaped
+presents upon the vagabond artists who were the courtesan's familiars,
+that they might be admitted to her suppers; and more than one, arriving
+at the port with a fleet loaded with rich merchandise, hastened to sell
+everything without waiting to discharge his cargo, so that he might stay
+in the poet's house; and he returned to his country with the help of
+charity, content with his poverty when he saw the envy and respect which
+he inspired among his companions.</p>
+
+<p>Thus she met Bomaro, a young Iberian merchant from Zacynthus, who had
+come to Athens with three ships laden with hides. The courtesan was
+attracted by his sweetness, which contrasted with the rudeness of the
+other merchants brutalized by their contact with the great ports. He
+spoke little and blushed, as if the silence of his long stays at sea had
+given him the timidity of a virgin. If she forced him to relate his
+adventures as a navigator he did so with simplicity, without mentioning
+the dangers he encountered. He displayed particularly a childish
+admiration for Grecian culture.</p>
+
+<p>Myrrhina, during the supper at which she saw him for the first time,
+surprised his eyes fixed on her with the expression of tenderness and
+respect of one gazing at a goddess impossible of possession. The
+navigator, reared among barbarians, in a remote colony scarcely<a name="page_84" id="page_84"></a>
+retaining traces of its mother Greece, began to interest the courtesan
+more than the young Athenians and opulent merchants who surrounded her.
+Tremulous and hesitant he craved the grace of a single night, and spent
+it near her with more admiration than enjoyment, adoring her regal
+beauty, thrilled by her voice, put to sleep by it like a warm maternal
+lullaby, accompanied by the lyre.</p>
+
+<p>When he awoke he begged to turn over to her the entire product of his
+cargo; but Myrrhina, hardly knowing why, refused to accept it, in spite
+of his urging. He was rich; he had no parents; far away in that land of
+barbarians he possessed immense flocks, hundreds of slaves who
+cultivated his fields or worked in his mines; great potteries, and many
+ships like the three which awaited him in the Pir�us; and seeing that
+the courtesan, with kindly smile, treated him like a generous boy,
+declining to accept his money, he bought in the Street of the Goldsmiths
+a prodigious collar of pearls, the despair of the het�r�, and sent it to
+Myrrhina before he left the city.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards he came back many times. He could not decide to return to his
+country. He set sail with his flotilla, but in the next port he took on
+a cargo for Athens, paying no regard to the price, and scarcely came to
+anchor in the Pir�us before he rushed to the courtesan's house, nor
+could resolve to leave until he suspected Myrrhina's weariness of his
+presence.</p>
+
+<p>The courtesan finally became accustomed to this submissive lover, ever
+at her feet, who was ready to die for her, showing his adoration with
+the fervor of a foreigner, so different from the cynical and mocking
+courtesy<a name="page_85" id="page_85"></a> of the Athenians. She called him "little brother," and this
+word, which the het�r� used with young lovers, gradually took on her
+lips a warmth of sincere affection. When he was delayed in returning
+from the islands she longed for his presence, and when she saw him at
+the door she ran to him with outstretched arms, in a transport of joy
+such as her other friends never witnessed.</p>
+
+<p>She did not love him as she had loved the poet, but the earnest humility
+of Bomaro, his respectful and docile love, so different from the ardor
+she inspired in others, moved Myrrhina to a sentiment of gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>One night, the Iberian, who seemed preoccupied, ventured after much
+vacillation to express his inner thought.</p>
+
+<p>He could not live without her; he would never return alone to Zacynthus;
+he was resolved to abandon his fortune rather than never to see her
+more. He would sooner be a stevedore on the wharf at Phalerum; and
+finally, like one who makes a dash to more quickly overcome an obstacle,
+he abruptly proposed to make her his wife, turning his fortune over to
+her, and to take her to smiling Zacynthus with its flowery fields and
+its rose-colored mountains, so like those of Attica.</p>
+
+<p>Myrrhina smiled while listening to him and her heart was touched by the
+affectionate self-abnegation of the Iberian who, to unite with her
+forever, was willing to overlook a shameful past in the <i>dicterion</i> and
+in the Cerameicus. She rejected his proposals with an ironical smile;
+but Bomaro was persistent. Was she not tired of her mode of life, of
+seeing herself flattered as a thing of great price, but often scorned by
+coarse creatures who thought they made themselves her masters by merely
+offering<a name="page_86" id="page_86"></a> their gold? Would she not like to be a sovereign on the coasts
+of Iberia, surrounded by people who would admire her Athenian
+attainments?</p>
+
+<p>Bomaro conquered her by his loving determination, and one day Athens
+beheld with surprise that the house on the Street of Tripods was sold,
+and that Myrrhina's slaves were carrying to the port the riches gathered
+during three years of mad fortune, loading them in the ships of the
+Iberian who had unfurled from the masts his purple sails for a triumphal
+voyage.</p>
+
+<p>Myrrhina, in her desire to propitiate him who gave himself up to her so
+completely, wished to leave her whole past behind. She proposed to be a
+new woman, to put away her sinister cognomen, and begging Bomaro to
+repeat the most beautiful names of the Iberian women, she chose that of
+S�nnica as the most pleasing to her ears.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at Zacynthus, the navigator and the Greek woman were married in
+the temple of Diana before all the Senate, of which the young man was
+himself a member.</p>
+
+<p>The city felt the effects of the charm which seemed to emanate from the
+person of S�nnica. She was like a breath from distant Athens, which
+fascinated the Greek merchants in Saguntum, grown slack by their long
+stay among uncultured foreigners.</p>
+
+<p>At the banquets, at the hour of sweet wines, when she sang the hymns of
+the great masters, the Saguntine youths from the ward of the Greeks were
+impelled to fall at her feet and adore her as a goddess. After being
+married a year Bomaro realized in the growth of his fortune the
+assistance of the woman, who, in changing<a name="page_87" id="page_87"></a> her environment, began to
+interest herself in material things through her desire to prove her
+worth before the noble dames who gossipped about her.</p>
+
+<p>She watched the work in the fields, took note of the great flocks, and
+the potteries; she went to the port to greet the arrival of the ships;
+and Bomaro's enormous fortune increased. Excellent results followed the
+business ventures which she counseled, as she lay in the shade of a
+clump of laurel in her garden, speaking in a slow harmonious voice,
+caressed by a feather fan in the hands of a slave.</p>
+
+<p>Bomaro, the days of more ardent love-making ended, sailed along the
+coasts of Iberia, his mind free from business cares, and desirous of
+adding to the fortune which S�nnica administered so well. She had
+surrounded herself by a court of youths who treated her as a
+preceptress. The young Greeks born in Saguntum flocked about her to
+learn the manners and customs of Athens, which was their perpetual
+dream. The evil tongues in the city called her S�nnica the Cyprian, but
+the plebs who were the recipients of her charity, and the small
+merchants who never appealed to her without result, entitled her S�nnica
+the rich, and they were ready to fight those who spoke ill of her.</p>
+
+<p>One winter, four years after their marriage, Bomaro perished by
+shipwreck near the Pillars of Hercules, and S�nnica found herself in
+absolute possession of an immense fortune, and mistress of a whole city,
+over which she reigned by virtue of her riches and of her kindness of
+heart. She freed slaves in memory of the unfortunate navigator, she sent
+costly offerings to all the temples in Saguntum, she raised on the
+Acropolis a<a name="page_88" id="page_88"></a> cenotaph in memory of Bomaro, summoning marble-workers from
+Athens for this purpose. By her charities she won consideration,
+bringing this city of sturdy and austere customs to tolerate her bright,
+mirth-loving existence, which was a perpetuation of Athenian manners in
+the midst of Iberic sobriety.</p>
+
+<p>Having passed the period of mourning, she gave suppers in her
+country-house which lasted until dawn. She brought famous auletai from
+Attica who set the Saguntine youths wild with their flutes. She sent
+ships on voyages with no other commercial object than to bring rare
+perfumes from Asia, fabrics from Egypt, and unique adornments from
+Carthage; and her fame extended so far into the interior that kinglets
+from Celtiberia were drawn to Saguntum to behold that wonderful woman,
+as wise as a priestess, and as beautiful as a divinity. The Greeks
+admired her, observing that she strengthened the prestige of their race
+among the primitive Saguntines, who were lavish with eulogy of her
+disinterestedness. Thus she lived! No women entered her house, none but
+flute-players, dancers, and slaves; she was surrounded by men who
+yearned for her, but she held herself aloof, and treated them all with a
+masculine but distant intimacy. She was ever thinking of Athens the
+luminous, the city which held so many memories, and many of whose
+customs she sought to revive.</p>
+
+<p>Euphobias the philosopher, as he reached this point in his story,
+stoutly declared that S�nnica's life in Saguntum was above reproach, in
+spite of what the Greek women of the district of the merchants said. He
+himself, who possessed the bitterest tongue in the city, affirmed it.
+Several times she had been attracted toward some<a name="page_89" id="page_89"></a> guest at her dinners.
+Alorcus, the scion of a petty king of Celtiberia, who lived in Saguntum
+and frequented her house, had made an impression upon her with his wild,
+virile beauty, as a son of the mountains; but S�nnica held him back,
+plainly fearing to take the step and unite herself with one of a
+barbarous race. The memory of Attica wholly occupied her imagination. If
+some young Athenian had landed on those shores, some youth as beautiful
+as Alcibiades, singing verses, modeling statues, and displaying skill
+and dexterity as in the Olympian games, perhaps she might have fallen
+into his arms, but her emotions were unstirred among the arrogant
+Celtiberians who came to her feasts smelling of horses and with their
+swords girded at their sides, and among the effeminate sons of
+merchants, becurled, and shedding perfumes, caressing their small slave
+boys, who accompanied them even in the bath.</p>
+
+<p>"Athenian," continued the philosopher, "you should present yourself to
+S�nnica. She will receive you kindly. You are not an ephebus," he added,
+with a mocking smile; "your beard is turning gray, but you have in your
+figure the arrogance of a king in the Iliad; upon your forehead
+something of the majesty of Socrates; and who knows but that you may
+fall heir to Bomaro's riches! If that should come to pass, do not forget
+the poor philosopher. I will be content with a skin of wine from
+Laurona, since to-day you condemn me to thirst."</p>
+
+<p>Euphobias laughed, slapping Act�on on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"I am invited to S�nnica's banquet to-night," said the Greek.</p>
+
+<p>"You, also? Then we shall meet there. I am not invited, but I go with
+the same right as a dog belonging to the house."<a name="page_90" id="page_90"></a></p>
+
+<p>The philosopher saw Alcon, the peaceful citizen, who had just come down
+from the Acropolis, pass through the centre of the Forum.</p>
+
+<p>"There is one of the few good men of this city. He extols virtue to me,
+he counsels me to go to work, and to forget philosophy, and on top of
+all that he never fails to give me something to drink; so farewell until
+to-night, stranger."</p>
+
+<p>He hurried toward Alcon who, leaning on his staff, greeted him with a
+kindly smile.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on, finding himself once more alone wandered through the centre of
+the market. Suddenly he heard a youthful voice calling him. It was
+Rhanto, sitting on the ground among the pitchers which were now empty of
+milk, selling her last cheeses. Near her squatted the young potter. They
+were eating a hard cake with fresh, juicy onions, playfully disputing
+the mouthfuls amid merry laughter. The shepherdess offered Act�on a
+round cake, and the Greek accepted gratefully. He seemed destined to
+receive his food in Saguntum from feminine hands. Twice since he landed
+he had been succored by women.</p>
+
+<p>Seated between the young people he saw the market gradually become
+deserted. The shepherds drove their flocks toward the Gate of the Sea;
+the Celtiberian chiefs, bearing their women behind them on their horses,
+rode off at a gallop, eager to reach their villages in the mountains;
+and the empty carts rumbled slowly toward the hamlets and towers in the
+Saguntine domain.</p>
+
+<p>Again Act�on saw the Celtiberian shepherd in the colonnades, moving from
+one group of rustics to another, listening to their conversation. As he
+passed near the<a name="page_91" id="page_91"></a> Greek he gazed at him with those enigmatic eyes which
+awoke within him shadowy recollections.</p>
+
+<p>All at once the young potter arose and started to run, hiding behind the
+columns around the Forum.</p>
+
+<p>"He has seen his father," said Rhanto quietly. "There is Mopsus coming
+down from the Acropolis."</p>
+
+<p>Act�on advanced to meet the archer.</p>
+
+<p>"My word has been sufficient to have you received by the Senate. The
+city will soon need good soldiers like yourself. The elders seemed
+somewhat alarmed this morning. They fear Hannibal, that young cub of
+Hamilcar, who now leads the Carthaginians, and who will not calmly brook
+our friendship with the Romans and the execution of his sympathizers in
+Saguntum. Here, take this; it is the advance pay which the Republic
+allows you."</p>
+
+<p>He tendered Act�on a handful of coins, which the Greek put into his
+pouch. Mopsus then invited him to his house to meet his sons and to
+dine; but the Athenian was obliged to plead his previous invitation to
+S�nnica's banquet.</p>
+
+<p>When the archer had left, Act�on felt the torment of thirst, and,
+remembering the philosopher's recommendations, he entered the
+establishment of the Roman whose Lauronian wine inspired so much
+enthusiasm in Euphobias. At the counter he changed a victoriatus, and
+was given a boat-shaped terra cotta patera full of black wine crowned
+with iridescent bubbles. Two soldiers were drinking in a corner of the
+tavern&mdash;two rough mercenaries with the faces of bandits. One was an
+Iberian, the other with bronzed skin and athletic frame looked like a
+Libyan, and his cheeks, calloused by<a name="page_92" id="page_92"></a> the helmet and his neck and arms
+furrowed with cicatrices, denoted the professional paid warrior who had
+fought with indifference since childhood, now in the service of one
+nation and now in that of its adversary.</p>
+
+<p>"I am in the service of Saguntum," said the Libyan. "These merchants pay
+better than those of Carthage. But, believe me, although content to live
+in this town, I realize that they have done an unlucky thing in
+displeasing Hannibal. Rome is strong, but Rome is far away, and that
+lion's whelp prowls only a few days journey from here. You ought to have
+known him, to have seen him from boyhood as I have done when I was
+fighting under the orders of his father Hamilcar! He runs like a mare;
+he fights as well on foot as on horseback, he eats what there is to be
+had, or he eats nothing at all; he goes about dressed like a slave; arms
+are his only luxury; he sleeps on the ground, and often, at daybreak,
+his father would find him lying among the sentinels of the camp. He is
+not content to be told about things, he must see everything with his own
+eyes, and mix with the enemy to study their weak points close at hand.
+Often Hasdrubal, his sister's husband, was surprised by seeing an old
+beggar come into his shop, and he would shout with laughter when
+Hannibal pulled off his wig and his rags, under cover of which he had
+been spending hours among the enemy."</p>
+
+<p>Act�on left the tavern hastily on seeing that Rhanto, after handing her
+pitchers to a slave who loaded them into a cart, was starting on her
+walk toward S�nnica's villa.</p>
+
+<p>"I will go with you, little one. You shall be my guide to your mistress'
+house."<a name="page_93" id="page_93"></a></p>
+
+<p>The sun had begun to set. The afternoon light gilded the foliage of the
+domain, giving a transparency of amber to the leaves and vines. Along
+the highway through the champaign sounded the bells of the flock, the
+creaking of carts, and the sonorous songs of the rustics returning from
+the city.</p>
+
+<p>They arrived at S�nnica's villa, which had the aspect of a town. They
+first passed the dwellings of the slaves, where buzzed around the
+doorways a swarm of nude children with prominent abdomens, and with the
+umbilicus protruding like buttons; then the stables, from which floated
+a warm vapor vibrant with lowing and whinnying; the granaries and
+farmhouses; the dwelling of the overseer; the calabooses for rebellious
+slaves, with their breathing-holes on a level with the ground; the
+pigeon-house, a high tower of red brick around which fluttered a cloud
+of white wings amid incessant cooing; the big straw huts which served to
+shelter the hundreds of chickens; and, behind this row of buildings, the
+country-seat, S�nnica's villa, which was discussed with admiration even
+among the most remote tribes of Celtiberia. It was surrounded by
+cypresses and laurels, encircled by walls covered with gnarled grape
+vines, while rising above the great mass of foliage were its
+rose-colored walls with columns and friezes of blue marble and the
+terrace crowned by polychrome statues with enameled eyes shining in the
+sun like precious stones.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on was silent and preoccupied. Rhanto had been talking to him for
+full half an hour without receiving a reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, stranger! All those fields which your eye can see belong to
+S�nnica. See, Greek, how many chickens!<a name="page_94" id="page_94"></a> Nearly all the eggs used in the
+city come from here."</p>
+
+<p>Act�on continued oblivious to the objects pointed out by the
+shepherdess; but just as she rang the bell on the garden gate, and was
+answered from within by the barking of dogs and the sharp cries of
+hidden birds, he smote himself nervously on the forehead as if he had
+made a discovery.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I know who he is!" he exclaimed, as if awaking from a dream.</p>
+
+<p>"Who?" asked the young girl in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody," he replied with the frigidity of him who fears that he has
+said too much.</p>
+
+<p>In his own mind, however, he was satisfied with the identification.
+Recalling the words of the Libyan mercenary, overheard in the tavern,
+had brought back to his memory that enigmatic figure of the Celtiberian
+shepherd. Suddenly a light was kindled in his thought.</p>
+
+<p>Now he knew who it was! For a good reason had he been impressed from the
+first moment by the glance of that unknown man, by the eyes which never
+change in a countenance despite the passing of years. Often had he seen
+those eyes in his childhood when his father made war in Sicily with
+Hamilcar, and he himself was being educated in Carthage.</p>
+
+<p>That shepherd was Hannibal!<a name="page_95" id="page_95"></a></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<p class="head">DANCING GIRLS FROM GADES</p>
+
+<p class="nind">S<span class="smcap">�nnica</span>
+awoke two hours after midday. The oblique rays of the sun
+filtered through the gilded bars of her window over which crept the
+foliage of grapevines. Its light heightened the color of the stucco
+frames around scenes from the Olympian games painted on the wall, and of
+the columns of rose-colored marble which flanked the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>The beautiful Greek threw to the floor the covers of white S�tabis
+linen, and her first glance swept her figure, taking in the outlines of
+her body with affectionate eyes, from her swelling bosom curving in
+harmonious lines, to the tips of her rosy feet.</p>
+
+<p>Her heavy hair perfumed and falling in silky curls, hung down over her
+body, enveloping her as in a regal mantle, caressing her from throat to
+knees with a gentle kiss. The old-time courtesan, as she awoke, admired
+her body with the adoration inspired in her by the eulogies of the
+artists of Athens.</p>
+
+<p>She was still young and beautiful; she could still thrill men with
+emotion when, at the end of a banquet, she displayed herself upon the
+table nude as Phryne. Her hands eager for the thrilling touch of her
+beauty, caressed her firm round throat, the pearly globes terminating in
+a soft rose petal, testing their firm elasticity, and<a name="page_96" id="page_96"></a> the winding
+network of slender blue veins delicately outlined beneath the satiny
+skin, flowing down, down&mdash;in line with the strongly incurved waist; the
+rotund hips, the slightly rounded abdomen, like that of a crater, and the
+limbs the harmonious proportions of which had been compared in other
+times to the elephant's trunk by the Asiatic merchants who visited her
+in Athens.</p>
+
+<p>Passion had swept its fiery tongue over her without consuming her; she
+had lived in the midst of its ardor, cold, emotionless, and white, like
+a marble statue in the warmth of the sun. Seeing herself young, still
+beautiful, and with a virginal freshness, she smiled, pleased with
+herself, content with life.</p>
+
+<p>"Odacis! Odacis!"</p>
+
+<p>At the echo of her voice there entered a Celtiberian slave, tall, spare,
+strong, whom the Greek valued highly for the gentleness with which she
+combed her hair.</p>
+
+<p>Supporting herself on the shoulders of the slave, she raised up and
+sprang from the couch to enter the bath.</p>
+
+<p>Her nude form was invested by her hair like a transparent, golden veil.
+As her bare feet pressed the mosaic, which depicted the Judgment of
+Paris, the chill of the tiles with its agreeable shock brought a smile
+to her lips; her laugh deepened the dimples in her cheeks, and the
+reaction caused the curves of her body to quiver with gentle
+undulations.</p>
+
+<p>She descended three steps and threw herself into the jasper piscina
+swinging her arms and splashing the water into tiny pearls. In the green
+pool her body assumed an ideal transparency, the glow of a fantastic
+apparition, and she moved from one side of the tank to the other like a
+siren with pearly back and floating hair.<a name="page_97" id="page_97"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Who has come, Odacis?" she asked, lying deep in the bath.</p>
+
+<p>"The women from Gades, who danced last night, have arrived. Polyanthus
+has given them lodgings near the kitchens."</p>
+
+<p>"And who else?"</p>
+
+<p>"A moment ago the stranger from Athens, whom you met this morning at the
+temple of Aphrodite. I have had him go into the library, and I have
+forgotten none of the duties of hospitality. He has just come from the
+bath."</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica smiled, recalling the meeting that morning. She had slept badly.
+She attributed it to the wakeful night spent with friends on the terrace
+of the villa, and to the capricious journey to the port before sunrise;
+but she thought with some confusion of the impression made in her mind
+by the Athenian's figure, which had reappeared several times in her
+dreams. Without knowing why she associated Act�on's appearance with that
+of Zeus when he came to earth in mortal form in search of human love.</p>
+
+<p>In her moments of tedium in Athens, when she used to submit with
+repugnance to caresses for piles of gold, she experienced the vague
+desire of being loved by a god. She thought of Leda, of Psyche, even of
+the effeminate Ganymede beloved of the guests on Olympus, and she was in
+despair at the impossibility of finding a god who should transport her
+captive through a mysterious forest, or along some roadway leading to
+the unknown. She longed to contemplate her image in the depths of eyes
+animated by the splendor of the infinite;<a name="page_98" id="page_98"></a> to kiss a mouth which served
+as a portal to supreme wisdom; to feel herself imprisoned in arms
+possessed of the immense strength of omnipotence. She had experienced a
+suggestion of this joy in loving her poet, who was sometimes as majestic
+and sublime as a divine being; but the simplicity of youth prevented her
+appreciation of that joy, and now, in her maturity, she only met men
+like those she had known in Athens, some rude and brutal, others
+effeminate and captious, lacking the severe and sovereign beauty she
+admired in statues.</p>
+
+<p>She left her bath breathing with happy, childlike thrills, while her
+hair scattered a light shower at every step.</p>
+
+<p>Odacis called, and three slaves entered; they were those who assisted at
+their mistress' toilet, the <i>tractatrices</i> in charge of the massage of
+the body.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica allowed herself to be manipulated by the three women who rubbed
+her vigorously, stretching her limbs to keep them supple and agile. Then
+she seated herself in a marble chair, resting her pink elbows on the
+dolphins which formed the arms of the seat, and in this position, erect
+and motionless, she waited for the slaves to proceed with the toilet.</p>
+
+<p>One who was almost a child, wrapped in a mantle of broad stripes, knelt
+on the floor holding a great engraved bronze mirror in which S�nnica
+gazed at herself down to her thighs. Another arranged the toilet
+articles on the tables, and Odacis began to smooth her mistress'
+splendid hair with ivory combs. Meanwhile, the other slave approached
+with a bronze patera filled with a gray ointment. It was the bean-flour
+used by the Athenians of refinement to preserve the skin firm and
+elastic.<a name="page_99" id="page_99"></a> She anointed S�nnica's cheeks with this, and then the
+prominent breasts, the abdomen, the thighs, and knees, leaving nearly
+the whole body covered by a lustrous, unctuous coating. Where hair had a
+tendency to grow, she applied dropax, a depilatory paste, composed of
+vinegar and earth from Cyprus.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica passively assisted these toilet preparations, which made her
+momentarily ugly in order that she might reappear each day more
+beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Odacis continued combing her hair. She lifted the splendid tresses,
+burying both hands in the brilliant cascade; she gently wound it over
+her arms like an enormous golden serpent; then she shook it out,
+dividing it into small locks to dry it, and then she smoothed it
+lovingly with the ivory combs piled on the table near at hand, veritable
+prodigies of art, with the finest of teeth, their upper parts engraved
+with scenes representing forests, arrogant nymphs in pursuit of stags,
+and malodorous satyrs giving chase to nude beauties. After drying the
+hair the coiffeur proceeded to dye it. With a small, long-necked amphora
+she moistened it with a solution of saffron and gum arabic, and opening
+a little chest of gold dust she sprinkled it over the ample, silky
+skein, which assumed the brilliancy of the sun's rays. Then twisting the
+locks above her forehead around an iron heated over a small brazier, she
+formed tight curls which covered the Greek woman's brow almost to her
+eyes; she gathered the mass of hair at the neck, tying it with a red
+ribbon firmly interbraided, and she curled the crown of the coiffure,
+imitating the spiral flames of a torch.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica arose. Two of the slaves approached with<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> a heavy earthen
+amphora of milk, and dipping a sponge into it, they washed their
+mistress' body as she stood near the piscina, to remove the bean-paste.
+The glossy whiteness of her skin reappeared more fresh and moist.</p>
+
+<p>Odacis, with silver tweezers in her hand, carefully inspected her
+mistress' body, with the attentive and frowning brow of the artist
+preparing a great work. She had charge of the depilation; her skillful
+hand won praise for its gentleness as it obstinately sought out the
+lightest down, implacably destroying it with her tweezers, in deference
+to the Greek custom of imitating the polished smoothness of the statues.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica being again seated in her ivory chair, the touching up of the
+face began. On the table near at hand was a formidable array of bottles,
+alabaster vases, pots of bronze and of silver, little caskets of ivory
+and gold, all engraved, brilliant, covered with delicate figures,
+ornamented with precious stones, containing Egyptian and Hebraic
+essences, balsams from Arabia, perfumes and intoxicating cosmetics
+brought by caravans from the heart of Asia to Ph&oelig;nician ports, and
+thence to Greece or Carthage, bought for S�nnica by the pilots of her
+vessels in their venturesome trading voyages.</p>
+
+<p>Odacis painted her face white, and then, moistening a small wooden style
+with attar of roses, she thrust it into a bronze pot decorated with
+garlands of lotus and filled with a dark powder. It was the kohol, sold
+by Egyptian merchants at a fabulous price. The slave applied the point
+of the style to the Greek's eyelids, dyeing them an intense black, and
+tracing a fine line about the corners, which made them appear larger and
+softer.<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a></p>
+
+<p>The toilet was almost complete. The slaves were opening the innumerable
+bottles and vases arranged in rows upon the marble table, and the
+atmosphere of the room was laden with costly perfumes&mdash;spikenard from
+Sicily, incense and myrrh from Judea, aloes from India, and cumin from
+Greece. Odacis took a small glass amphora inlaid with gold, with a
+conical stopper, terminating in a fine point which served to deposit
+antimony above the eyes to brighten them, and, after finishing this
+operation, she presented to her mistress the three ointments for
+imparting color to the skin in different shades&mdash;vermilion, carmine, and
+the Egyptian red extracted from the body of the crocodile.</p>
+
+<p>The slave began delicately coloring her mistress' body with a fine
+brush. She produced a pink flush on her cheeks and dainty ears; she
+marked rose petals on her bosom, and she colored her elbows and the
+harmoniously curving relievo of her dimpled sides. Then, with Egyptian
+red, she colored one by one the nails of her fingers and toes, while
+another slave put on her white sandals with papyrus soles and buckles of
+gold. Perfumes were showered upon her, each on a different part of the
+body, so that it might resemble a bouquet of flowers in which various
+aromas were mingled. Odacis presented the jewel-casket, within which
+precious stones lay shimmering like restless and glistening fish. The
+Greek woman's pointed fingers lifted with indifference the heap of
+collars, rings, and pendants, which, like all Grecian jewelry, were more
+valuable on account of the workmanship of the artists than for the
+richness of the material. Scenes from the great poems were reproduced
+almost microscopically in carnelian cameos,<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a> onyx, and agate, and the
+emeralds, topazes, and amethysts were decorated with profiles of
+goddesses and heroes.</p>
+
+<p>The slave clasped a necklace of stones of complicated design upon
+S�nnica's uncovered breast; she loaded her fingers to the tips with
+rings, and the whiteness of her arms seemed more diaphanous girdled here
+and there by wide bracelets of gold. To add more expression to the
+countenance, Odacis decorated her mistress with small patches, and then
+she proceeded to bind around her body the fascia, or corset of the
+epoch, a broad woolen band to support the breast. S�nnica, gazing into
+the burnished bronze, smiled at her statue-like reflection, as beautiful
+as Venus in repose.</p>
+
+<p>"Which costume, my mistress?" asked Odacis. "Do you wish the tunic with
+the golden flowers brought from Crete, or the <i>kal�siris</i> veils,
+transparent as air, which you ordered bought in Alexandria?"</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica could not decide. She would choose in the vestiary; and in the
+majesty of her unveiled beauty, her papyrus sandals rustling, she walked
+from her dormitory followed by her slaves.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Act�on was waiting in the library. He had visited great
+palaces in his travels about the world, he had seen&mdash;two years before
+the earthquake which ruined it&mdash;the celebrated Colossus of Rhodes; he
+was familiar with the Serapeum and the tomb of the great conqueror in
+Alexandria; he was accustomed to elegance and splendor; yet he could not
+conceal surprise at this Grecian house in a barbarian land, more
+luxurious and artistic than those of opulent citizens of Athens.</p>
+
+<p>Guided by a slave, and leaving the garden with its<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> whispering foliage
+and its cries of exotic birds, he had passed along the colonnade which
+gave entrance to the villa. First the vestibule with its plinth of
+mosaic, on which were painted ferocious black dogs with fiery eyes,
+their fierce and foaming mouths agape, their fangs erect.</p>
+
+<p>Above the door, fastened to a lamp, hung a branch of laurel in honor of
+the tutelary gods of the house. Next to the somewhat gloomy vestibule,
+beneath the open sky, like a lung of the house, was the atrium with its
+four rows of columns supporting the roof and forming an equal number of
+cloisters, upon which opened the doors of the rooms, their three panels
+decorated with large-headed nails.</p>
+
+<p>In the centre of the atrium was the impluvium, a rectangular marble tank
+to catch and hold the waters from the roof. Great terra cotta urns
+covered with flowers stood upon pedestals between the columns; four
+marble tables sustained by winged lions surrounded the impluvium, and
+near it rose a statuette of Love which on festive days threw a spray of
+water.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on admired the graceful strength of the columns wrought in blue
+marble to match the socles of the galleries, which imparted to the light
+of the atrium a diffused radiance, as if the dwelling were submerged in
+the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward the attendant turned him over to Odacis, the favorite slave,
+and she ushered him into the peristyle, an inner courtyard much larger
+than the atrium, which astonished the Greek with its polychrome
+decoration. The columns were painted red at their bases, and the color
+changed above into blue and gold on the<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a> fluting and capitals, and was
+dispersed over the trellis-work covering the porticos. In the unroofed
+part of the peristyle was a deep piscina of transparent water in which
+fish darted like flashes of golden lightning. Around it were marble
+benches supported by Herm�; tables held by dolphins with knotted tails;
+clumps of roses, between the foliage of which peeped white or terra
+cotta statuettes in voluptuous positions, and covering the walls of the
+peristyle, between the doors of the rooms, were great paintings by
+Grecian artists&mdash;Orpheus with his heavy lyre, nude and wearing his
+Phrygian cap, surrounded by lions and panthers who listened to his songs
+with humbled heads, stifling their growls; Venus springing from the
+waves; Adonis allowing himself to be cured of his wounds by the Mother
+of Love; and other scenes eulogizing the influence of art and beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on was conducted to the bath by two young slaves, and as he emerged
+from this he again met Odacis, who bade him enter the library beyond the
+peristyle.</p>
+
+<p>It was a great room paved with mosaic representing the triumph of
+Bacchus. The young god, beautiful as a woman, nude, and crowned with
+vines and roses, was riding on a panther, waving his thyrsus. The
+pictures on the walls illustrated famous passages from the Iliad. The
+more voluminous books were ranged on shelves, and the smaller ones
+formed bundles placed in narrow willow baskets lined with wool.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on admired the richness of the library, where he counted more than a
+hundred volumes. They represented a veritable fortune. The navigators
+received from S�nnica commissions to bring her whatever notable<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> works
+they found on their voyages, and the booksellers in Athens remitted to
+her famous books of entertainment which enjoyed vogue in their city.
+They were all of papyrus, consisting of strips rolled upon cylinders of
+wood or bone, each end wrought into an artistically carved <i>umbilicus</i>.
+The sheets, written only on one side, were impregnated on the other with
+cedar oil to protect them from moths, and the title of the book, the
+name of the author, and the index, gleamed in letters of minium and gold
+on the purple outer wrapping. The copying of these books represented the
+life work of many men, productions to be acquired only at the cost of
+great sums of money, and the Greek, with the respect characteristic of
+his race for art and wisdom, recognized that he was surrounded in the
+silence of the library by the august shades of many great men, and with
+veneration he turned from the Homer in its old, time-worn papyrus, and
+the works of Thales and Pythagoras, to the contemporary poets,
+Theocritus and Callimachus, whose volumes were unrolled, denoting recent
+reading.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on's ear caught a faint rustling of sandals in the peristyle, and
+the square of pale gold thrown on the floor by the light entering the
+doorway from the courtyard was darkened by a form. It was S�nnica
+arrayed in a gauzy white tunic. The light behind her marked the artistic
+lines of her body in the diaphanous cloud of her garment.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome, Athenian!" she said, in a studied but harmonious voice. "Those
+who come from over <i>there</i> are ever masters in my house. The banquet
+to-night shall be in your honor, for no one can be king of the feast and
+direct conversation like a son of Athens."<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a></p>
+
+<p>Act�on, somewhat stirred by the presence of a beautiful woman enveloped
+by intoxicating perfumes, began to speak of her house, of his
+astonishment at its magnificence in that barbarian land, and of the
+admiration which its owner enjoyed in the city. Everyone he met had
+spoken to him of S�nnica the rich!</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they like me; yet sometimes they censure me; but let us speak of
+you, Act�on; tell me who you are. Your life must be as interesting as
+that of old Ulysses. Tell me first what new thing there is in Athens."</p>
+
+<p>For a long time the two Greeks maintained an incessant chattering. She
+was eager to know what courtesans triumphed in the Cerameicus and set
+the fashions; merry, unconsciously harking back to the life of old,
+forgetful of her princely opulence in Saguntum, as if she were still in
+the house in the Street of Tripods, and Act�on one of the poor artists
+who visited her of an afternoon to discuss affairs of the city, in the
+intimacy of comrades. She laughed at the latest witticisms of the idlers
+in the Agora, at the song in vogue the year before, when Act�on left
+Athens; and with frowning brow and the gravity of a goddess, she
+listened to a detailed relation of the recent changes of fashion and of
+the style of coiffure used by the most celebrated het�r�.</p>
+
+<p>The curiosity of the exiled Athenian being satisfied, she longed to
+penetrate the adventurous life of her guest, and Act�on told his story
+simply. Born in Athens, he had been taken to Carthage at twelve years of
+age. His father, in the service of the African republic, fought with
+Hamilcar in Sicily. In a village in the interior the selfsame slave
+attended the son of the Greek mercenary and a lion-cub of Hamilcar, who
+was<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> at that time only four years of age. It was Hannibal. The Athenian
+recalled the blows he had often dealt the savage youngster in exchange
+for bites with which the African surprised him in the midst of their
+games. The revolt of the mercenaries broke out with those horrors which
+gave it the name of "the truceless war," and his father, who had
+remained faithful to Carthage and would not take up arms with his
+companions, was despite his loyalty crucified by the Carthaginian
+populace, who, forgetting his wounds received in the service of the
+Republic, saw in him only a foreigner, a friend of Hamilcar who was
+hated by the partisans of Hanno. The son miraculously escaped these
+red-handed reprisals; and Hamilcar's faithful slave smuggled him aboard
+ship for Athens.</p>
+
+<p>There, under the protection of relatives, he received the education of
+all young Greeks. He won prizes in the Gymnasium, in wrestling, in
+running, and in throwing the discus; he learned to ride unbridled horses
+bareback, balancing himself merely by resting his toe in a groove of the
+lance; to temper the rudeness of this education he was taught to play
+the lyre and to sing verses in diverse styles, and being strong of body
+and mind, he was sent, as were all Athenian youths, to pass his military
+apprenticeship in the garrisons on the frontier.</p>
+
+<p>The monotony of this existence bored him; it was dull, and he loved
+pleasure; the blood of his forefathers, soldiers of fortune all, surged
+through his body; and he ran away from Attica to take charge of a
+fishing fleet in the Euxine Sea. Then he became a navigator, trading on
+land and sea; his caravans threaded Asia,<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a> through warlike tribes, and
+among peoples who dwelt in the lethargy of a remote and decadent
+civilization. He was a powerful personage in the court of some tyrants
+who admired him on seeing him drink at a gulp an amphora of perfumed
+wine, and overcome the giants of the guard in a boxing match with the
+agile dexterity of a true Athenian; and, loaded with riches, he built a
+palace in Rhodes near the sea, and he gave banquets which lasted three
+days and nights. The earthquake which flung down the Colossus, also
+destroyed his fortune; his ships were sunk, his warehouses full of
+merchandise disappeared beneath the waves, and he began again his
+pilgrimage roundabout the world; in some places he was a singing master,
+in others a military instructor of the young men, until, attracted by
+the Spartan war, he enlisted in the army of Cleomenes, the last Greek
+hero, accompanying him at the moment in which, vanquished, he embarked
+for Alexandria. Poor, disappointed, convinced that riches would never
+return to him, saddened at seeing the whole world filled with the names
+of Carthage and Rome, while that of Greece was sinking into oblivion, he
+had come to take final refuge in Saguntum, the small and almost unknown
+Republic, in search of bread and of peace. Perhaps, in this retired
+spot, if war did not disturb its calm, he would write the history of his
+adventures.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica followed his narrative with interest, fixing upon Act�on a
+glance of sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>"And you, who have been a hero and a potentate, have come to serve this
+city as a simple mercenary?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mopsus the archer has promised to give me a post of distinction among
+his troops."<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a></p>
+
+<p>"That is not enough, Act�on. You would have to live like the other
+soldiers, spending your life in the Forum taverns, and sleeping on the
+steps of the Temple of Hercules. No! here is your home! S�nnica will
+protect you!"</p>
+
+<p>In her sparkling eyes, enlarged by the dark circle traced about them,
+shone an almost maternal love and sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>The Athenian gazed at her with admiration as she sat erect in her chair
+like a white cloud in the dimly illuminated library, which, like all
+Grecian rooms, received no other light than that entering through the
+doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go into the garden, Act�on. The afternoon is delicious, and we
+can imagine ourselves for a moment in the groves of the Academy."</p>
+
+<p>They went out of the house and strolled along a winding avenue bordered
+by tall laurels, above which peeped the tops of banana trees, irrigated
+with wine to accelerate their growth. On the terrace two peacocks hailed
+them with strident calls, strutting along the balustrade and spreading
+their majestic tails.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on, on beholding his beautiful protectress in the light of the sun,
+felt a thrill of desire rush through his body. She wore as her only
+covering a Grecian chiton, an open tunic, fastened with metal clasps
+over the shoulders, and secured around the waist by a golden girdle. The
+arms emerged bare from the white wrapping, and the left side of the
+tunic, closed from the armpit to the knee by small brooches, half opened
+at each step, revealing her pearly nudity. The material was so delicate
+that its transparency displayed the outlines<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a> of her rosy body, which
+seemed to float in a veil of woven foam.</p>
+
+<p>"Does my dress astonish you, Act�on?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I admire you. You seem to me Aphrodite surging from the waves. It
+is a long time since I have seen the women of Athens disclosing their
+divine beauty. I am corrupted by my travels, through the rude customs of
+the barbarians."</p>
+
+<p>"It may happen so. As Herodotus says, nearly all who are not Greeks
+consider it opprobrious to appear nude.&mdash;If you only knew how
+scandalized the people of this city were in the beginning at my Athenian
+customs!&mdash;as if there existed anything more beautiful in the world than
+the human form!&mdash;as if the nude were not the supreme beauty! I adore
+Phryne, astonishing with her nude body the old men of the Areopagus;
+making the thousands of pilgrims gathered on the Eleusinian strand shout
+with enthusiasm when they saw her white form surge from among the veils,
+like the moon from behind the clouds. I believe in the promise of her
+bosom more than in the power of the gods."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you doubt the gods?" asked Act�on, with his fine Athenian smile.</p>
+
+<p>"The same as do you and all those from <i>there</i>. The gods now serve only
+as themes for artists, and if they are tolerated in old Homer, it is
+because he was skilled in celebrating their quarrels in graceful verse.
+No; I do not believe in them; they are as simple and credulous as
+children, but I love them because they are sane and beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>"In what do you believe, then, S�nnica?"<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I do not know&mdash;in something mysterious that surrounds us and animates
+life; I believe in beauty and love."</p>
+
+<p>She was silent a moment, standing in a pensive attitude; then she
+continued:</p>
+
+<p>"I hate the barbarians, not because they have no treasures of art, but
+for the odium they cast on love, which they enchain with all manner of
+laws and restrictions. They are hypocritical and deformed; they make
+reproduction a crime, and they hate the nude, hiding the body with all
+kinds of rags, as if it were an abominable spectacle&mdash;when carnal love,
+the meeting of two bodies, is the sublime love through which we are
+born, and without which the fount of existence would dry
+up&mdash;extinguishing the world."</p>
+
+<p>"That is why we are great," said Act�on with gravity. "On this account
+our arts fill the earth, and all bow before the moral grandeur of
+Greece. We are the people that has known how to honor life making a cult
+of its origin; we satisfy the impulses of love without hypocrisy, and
+because of this we understand better than others the needs of the
+spirit. Intelligence wings more truly when it does not feel the weight
+of the body tormented by pudicity. We love and study; our gods go naked,
+with no other adornment than the ray of immortal light upon the
+forehead. They do not demand blood, like those barbarian divinities
+enwrapped in clothing which only leaves uncovered their frowning
+assassin faces; they are as beautiful as human beings, they laugh like
+them, and their peals of merriment wafted around Olympus gladden the
+earth."<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Love is the most virtuous sentiment; from it emanates all greatness.
+Only the barbarians calumniate it, hiding it as a dishonest thing."</p>
+
+<p>"I know a people," said Act�on, "among whom love, the divine fusion of
+bodies, is looked upon as an impurity. Israel is an amalgamation of
+miserable tribes, occupying an arid region surrounding a temple of
+barbaric construction, copied from all peoples. They are hypocrites,
+rapacious and cruel; on this account they abominate love. If such a
+people were to attain universal influence like Greece, if it should
+dominate the world, imposing its beliefs, the eternal light which shines
+on the Parthenon would go out; humanity would grope in darkness, with
+the heart dry and the thought dead; the world would be a necropolis, all
+would be moving corpses, and centuries and more centuries would pass
+before man would again find the road, coming back to our smiling gods,
+to the cult of beauty that gladdens life."</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica, listening to the Greek, approached the tall rose bushes and
+began to pluck the flowers, smelling them with delight. She imagined
+herself in Athens, in the garden on the Street of Tripods, listening to
+her poet who had initiated her into the sweet mysteries of art and love.
+And she gazed sweetly at Act�on, with frank and sincere passion, with
+the submission of a slave, saying "I love you" with her eyes, as if only
+awaiting a word to fall into his arms.</p>
+
+<p>The breeze lightly stirred the whole garden. Bits of purple sky inflamed
+by the setting sun could be seen through the foliage. A mysterious
+penumbra began to form beneath the trees. The sounds from the fields,<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a>
+the stirring of the people outside the villa in the houses of the
+slaves, and even the cries of the exotic birds on the terrace seemed to
+come from a distant world.</p>
+
+<p>Between two clumps of rose bushes stood an image of Priapos carved from
+the trunk of a tree. The rustic god was smiling with a lewd expression,
+arching his hairy breast and thrusting his abdomen forward.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica smiled on seeing the Athenian looking at him.</p>
+
+<p>"You know that it is an ancient custom to place the gardens under the
+protection of Priapos," said S�nnica. "They say that he frightens away
+thieves. My slaves believe it firmly, and I keep the god as a symbol of
+life in the midst of these roses, which are as beautiful as those of
+P�stum. The allurements of Priapos complete the sweet charm of abounding
+Nature."</p>
+
+<p>The two Greeks walked on in silence, with slow step, along an avenue of
+slender cypresses at the end of which opened a grotto, its rocky walls
+draped with ivy, allowing a greenish, diffused light to filter through
+its openings. A white cupid spilled from a shell a stream of water like
+tender falling tear-drops, caught in an alabaster basin. There the
+luxurious S�nnica spent the warmer part of the day.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on was conscious of a soft, warm touch upon his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"S�nnica!"</p>
+
+<p>Caressing her around her gold-encircled waist, her white and satiny arms
+knotted themselves responsive about his neck like ivory serpents; her
+head fell upon the shoulder of the Greek, who, looking down, saw fixed
+upon him a pair of violet eyes moist with ecstatic emotion.<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a></p>
+
+<p>"You are Athens come back to me!" She murmured sweetly, with bated
+breath. "When I met you this morning on the steps of Aphrodite's temple
+I thought you must be Apollo descended to earth. I felt the Olympian
+fire, impossible to resist. Long have I scorned love, but at last the
+little god is avenged, and&mdash;and&mdash;I love you!"</p>
+
+<p>Like a soft glow the beauty of the Greek shone in the twilight of the
+grotto.</p>
+
+<p class="top5">Nine guests were bidden to S�nnica's banquet, and as night closed in
+they came, some in chariots, others mounted on gaily caparisoned horses,
+passing between rows of slaves holding lighted torches.</p>
+
+<p>When S�nnica and Act�on entered the festal hall, the guests stood in
+groups near the purple couches arranged about the curving table, the
+marble top of which some slaves were washing with sponges and perfumed
+water. Four enormous bronze lampadaries occupied the corners of the
+triclinium. From their brackets were suspended numberless little jars of
+perfumed oil, in which floated wicks, shedding a rich light. Garlands of
+roses and foliage hung from lamp to lamp, constituting a fragrant border
+for the banquet hall. Near a door leading to the peristyle stood carved
+wooden tables piled with gold and silver dishes and the keen-edged
+carving knives for the use of the slaves.</p>
+
+<p>Alorcus the Celtiberian stood talking with Lachares and three of those
+young Greeks who so scandalized the Saguntines in the Forum by their
+effeminate ways. The arrogant barbarian, according to the custom of his
+race, wore his sword belted to his waist until the banquet<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a> began, when
+he hung it upon the ivory <i>anaclintron</i> of the couch that he might have
+it ever within reach of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>At the other extreme of the table two citizens of advanced age, and
+Alcon the pacific Saguntine, with whom Act�on had spoken that morning on
+the esplanade of the Acropolis, were carrying on a quiet conversation.</p>
+
+<p>The two old men were long-time friends of the house, Greek merchants
+whom S�nnica had taken as partners in business, and whom she invited to
+her nocturnal feasts, appreciating the dignified air which they added to
+these occasions.</p>
+
+<p>As the devoted pair entered the banquet chamber the guests divined their
+felicity in S�nnica's tender, shining eyes, and in the abandon with
+which she inclined toward Act�on her blonde head, crowned with roses and
+violets.</p>
+
+<p>"At last we have a master," murmured Lachares with a tone of jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>"He has been more fortunate than we," replied the Celtiberian
+resignedly. "But he is an Athenian, and I can understand that S�nnica,
+the cold hearted, should have surrendered to one of her own people."</p>
+
+<p>Act�on, being presented to the guests, moved about the hall with the
+self-possession of a potentate enjoying his riches, like a man
+accustomed to princely splendors&mdash;he whom a stroke of fortune had
+suddenly lifted out of poverty to his old-time condition.</p>
+
+<p>At a signal from S�nnica the guests reclined upon the purple couches
+which surrounded the table, and four young girls entered the hall
+bearing on their heads, with the slender grace of canephor�, little
+willow baskets filled with rose-crowns. They walked with airy<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> ease, as
+if gliding over the mosaic to the sound of invisible flutes, and with
+their delicate girlish hands they crowned the guests with flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the steward appeared with an irritated countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"Mistress, Euphobias the parasite is trying to enter."</p>
+
+<p>The guests burst into cries and protests on hearing this.</p>
+
+<p>"Throw him out, S�nnica! He will make us miserable!" shouted the young
+men, recalling with anger his jeers in the Forum at their dress and
+manners.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a shame for the city to tolerate that insolent beggar," said the
+grave citizens.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica smiled, then suddenly recalling a cruel epigram which the
+parasite had dedicated to her, and had recited in the Forum a few days
+before, she said frigidly to the steward:</p>
+
+<p>"Drive him away with a club."</p>
+
+<p>The guests bathed their hands at a lavabo of perfumed water which a
+slave passed from couch to couch, and S�nnica had given the order to
+commence the banquet when the steward returned with a rough-knobbed club
+clutched in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I have beaten him, mistress, but he will not go. He suffers the blows,
+but after each one he works his way a little farther into the house."</p>
+
+<p>"And what does he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"He says that one of S�nnica's feasts is impossible without the presence
+of Euphobias, and that the blows are a sign of appreciation."</p>
+
+<p>The woman displayed compassion; the guests laughed; and S�nnica gave the
+order to admit the philosopher,<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> but before the steward had left the
+room to comply with her command Euphobias had already entered the hall,
+cringing, humble, but looking at the assembled company with insolent
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"The gods be with you! May joy ever attend you, beautiful S�nnica!"</p>
+
+<p>Turning to the steward he said loftily:</p>
+
+<p>"Brother, now that you see that I get in anyhow, try to wield a less
+heavy hand in future."</p>
+
+<p>Accompanied by the laughter of the guests he rubbed his forehead on
+which a lump had begun to rise, and with a corner of his time-worn
+mantle he wiped off a few drops of blood close to one ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Greeting, lousy one!" the gallant Lachares called to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Away from us!" shouted the other youths.</p>
+
+<p>But Euphobias paid no attention. He smiled at Act�on, seeing him
+reclining near S�nnica, and his eyes shone with a malicious expression.</p>
+
+<p>"You have arrived where I thought you would. You will master these
+effeminate creatures who surround S�nnica and who heap insults upon me."</p>
+
+<p>Paying no heed to the mocking retorts of the young gallants he added
+with a servile smile:</p>
+
+<p>"I trust you will not forget your old friend Euphobias. Now you can set
+him up to all the wine he wishes in the taverns of the Forum."</p>
+
+<p>The philosopher took the couch at the farther end of the table, and he
+refused the crown offered him by the slave.</p>
+
+<p>"I have not come for flowers; I have come to eat. I can find plenty of
+roses merely by taking a stroll in<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a> the country; but what I do not find
+in Saguntum is a crust of bread for a philosopher."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hungry?" asked S�nnica.</p>
+
+<p>"I am more thirsty than hungry. I have spent the whole day talking in
+the Forum; they all listened to me, but it never occurred to any one to
+refresh my throat."</p>
+
+<p>According to the Grecian custom an <i>arbiter bibendi</i> must be chosen, a
+guest of honor who should propose the toasts, announce the moment for
+drinking, and direct the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us choose Euphobias," said Alorcus, with the grave humor of a
+Celtiberian.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" protested S�nnica. "One night we put him in charge of the banquet
+for a joke, and we were all drunk before the third course. He proposed a
+potation at every mouthful."</p>
+
+<p>"Why choose a king?" said the philosopher. "We already have one at
+S�nnica's side. Let it be the Athenian!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, let it be he," said the elegant Lachares, "and may he not allow
+you to speak during the whole night, insolent parasite!"</p>
+
+<p>In the centre of the table stood a broad bronze crater, over the edges
+of which peeped a group of nymphs looking at themselves in the oval lake
+of wine. Each guest had a slave at his back to serve him, and they
+dipped wine from the crater to fill the glasses of the guests for the
+first libation. They were murrhine cups, brought from Asia at a great
+price, of mysterious fabrication, into which entered the dust of certain
+shells, and myrrh, hardened and tinted. They were white and opaque, like
+ivory, holding pieces of colored glass embedded,<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a> and their mysterious
+composition gave a voluptuous fragrance to the wine.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on raised himself in his couch to propose the first toast in honor
+of the chosen divinity.</p>
+
+<p>"Drink to Diana, Athenian," spoke the grave voice of Alcon; "drink to
+the Saguntine goddess!"</p>
+
+<p>But in the hand which remained free the Athenian felt another, delicate
+and beringed, clasping it with a warm caress, so he dedicated his
+libation to Aphrodite, and the young men greeted it with shouts of
+enthusiasm. Aphrodite was to be the goddess for that night! While the
+young men thought of the dancers from Gades, the great attraction of the
+banquet, S�nnica and Act�on, their elbows resting on the cushions,
+caressed each other with their eyes, while they leaned shoulder to
+shoulder, close to the edge of the table.</p>
+
+<p>Strong slaves, perspiring from standing over the fires in the kitchens,
+set upon the table the food for the first course, served in great plates
+of red Saguntine terra cotta. There were shellfish raw and broiled, all
+highly spiced. Fresh oysters, mussels, enchinoderms dressed with parsley
+and mint, asparagus, peppers, lettuce, peacock eggs, tripe seasoned with
+cumin and vinegar, and fried birds swimming in a sauce of grated cheese,
+oil, vinegar, and silphium. There was also served <i>oxygarum</i> made in the
+fisheries of New Carthage&mdash;a paste of tunny milt, loaded with salt and
+vinegar, which excited the palate, stimulating one to drink wine.</p>
+
+<p>The aroma from these dishes floated through the festal hall.</p>
+
+<p>"Talk not to me about the nest of the ph&oelig;nix!" said Euphobias with
+his mouth full. "According to the poets,<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> the ph&oelig;nix bestrews its
+nest with incense, bay, and cinnamon, but I swear by the gods that I
+would rather be in S�nnica's triclinium than in that nest!"</p>
+
+<p>"Which does not prevent your dedicating insulting verses to me, you
+rascal," said the Greek woman, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I am fond of you, and I protest against your follies. By day I
+am a philosopher; but at night my stomach compels me to come to you, so
+that your menials may beat me, and that you may give me something to
+eat."</p>
+
+<p>The slaves removed the plates of the first course, and brought on the
+second which consisted of fish and meat. A small roasted wild boar
+occupied the centre of the table; great pheasants with their plumage
+laid as a covering upon their cooked flesh, were displayed on plates
+surrounded by hard-boiled eggs and fragrant herbs; thrushes spitted upon
+reeds were arranged in form of crowns; hares, on being carved, displayed
+a stuffing of rosemary and thyme; and wild doves were brought on with
+quails and thrushes. There were innumerable dishes of fish, reminding
+the Greeks of the viands of their native land, and between mouthfuls
+they discussed the glauci from Megara, the eels from Scione, and breams
+and xiphiae from the coasts of Phalerum and from the Hellespont.</p>
+
+<p>Each guest chose his favorite food from among the different dishes, and
+regaled his friends with it, presents being carried by slaves from one
+end of the table to the other. More wines, in sealed and dusty amphor�,
+were brought up from the cellars, and overflowed the festal goblets.
+Wine from Chios, rare and<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> costly, mingled with those from C�cubum, from
+Falerno, and from Massico, in Italy, and those from Laurona and from the
+Saguntine domain. To the bouquet of these liquids was added the aroma of
+the sauces, into which entered, following the complicated recipes of the
+Grecian cuisine, silphium, parsley, sesame, fennel, cumin, and garlic.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica barely touched her food; she neglected the successive plates,
+heaped with presents from her guests, to smile at Act�on.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you," she whispered. "I feel as if a Thessalian magus had cast a
+spell over me. My whole being responds to the throb of love. Do you see
+these fishes? I am afraid to eat them; I feel that I would be committing
+a sacrilege, because roses and fishes are dedicated to Venus, the mother
+of our joy. I only wish to drink&mdash;to drink profoundly. I feel within me
+a fire which caresses, yet consumes me."</p>
+
+<p>The guests gormandized, rendering tribute to S�nnica's cook, an Asiatic,
+purchased in Athens by one of her navigators. He had cost her almost the
+price of a villa; but they considered the money well spent, and they
+admired the art with which his meditations in a corner of the kitchen
+produced these astonishing combinations, afterward executed by the other
+slaves&mdash;above all that happy invention of a mild sauce of dates and
+honey for the roasts. With such a slave it were possible to enjoy one's
+food throughout the whole of life and to ward off death for many years.</p>
+
+<p>The second course had ended. The guests were lying surfeited on their
+couches, loosening their garments. The slaves served them with wine in
+horn-<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a>shaped flagons of alabaster, which permitted a slender stream to
+gurgle from its spout, so that they need not lift themselves to drink.
+The purple drapery of the couches was stained with wine. The great
+lampadaries in the corners, with their tapers of perfumed oil, seemed to
+glow more faintly in the dense atmosphere charged with vapor from the
+steaming viands. The garlands of roses hanging in festoons from the
+lamps wilted in the heavy atmosphere. Through the open door the guests
+caught glimpses of the columns of the peristyle, and of a strip of dark
+blue sky in which twinkled many stars.</p>
+
+<p>The pacific Alcon rising up in his couch, smiled with the amiability of
+mild intoxication, gazing at the splendor of the firmament.</p>
+
+<p>"I drink to the beauty of our city!" he said, raising the horn filled
+with wine.</p>
+
+<p>"To the Grecian Zacynthus!" shouted Lachares.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, let Saguntum be Greek!" answered his friends.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation turned upon the great festival which, at S�nnica's
+initiative, the Greeks of Saguntum would celebrate in honor of Minerva
+on gathering the harvest. The Panathenaic festivals should end with a
+procession like that which took place in Athens, and which Phidias had
+immortalized in marble in his famous friezes. The young men spoke with
+enthusiasm of the horses they would ride, and of the contests for which
+they were training by persistent exercise. S�nnica patronized the
+festivals with her immense wealth, and she wished to make these as
+famous as that one which Athens celebrated on the dedication of the
+Parthenon.<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a></p>
+
+<p>The Saguntine youths would race outside the walls in the morning to
+demonstrate that they were as clever as the Celtiberian horsemen; the
+more pacific would contest in the Forum, lyre in hand, to win the crown
+offered to the one who should hymn the poems of Homer most creditably;
+afterward the procession would reveal all its magnificence through the
+streets of the city, climbing up to the Acropolis; and in the afternoon
+the race of the flaming torch would take place to divert the people, who
+would hiss at him who let his torch go out, and would whip up him who
+traveled slowly to protect the flame.</p>
+
+<p>"But do you really believe in Minerva?" Euphobias asked of S�nnica.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe in what I see," she replied. "I believe in spring, in the
+resurrection of the verdant fields, in the grain which springs from the
+ground to nourish man from its golden bearded heads; the flowers, which
+are the incense-bearers of the earth; and, above all the goddesses, I
+love Athene for the wisdom with which she endows man and makes him
+divine, and I love Minerva for her bounty which maintains them."</p>
+
+<p>The slaves laid the third course on the table, and the guests,
+half-inebriated, raised themselves in their couches to look at the
+little baskets of fruit, the plates covered with pastry toasted over the
+fire in the Cappadocian style; buns made of sesame flour, filled with
+honey, and browned in the oven; and cakes of cheese stuffed with stewed
+fruits.</p>
+
+<p>Small amphor� containing the choicest wines, brought from the uttermost
+ends of the world by S�nnica's ships, were uncorked. Wine from Byblus in
+Ph&oelig;nicia saturated<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> the atmosphere with a fragrance as penetrating as
+bottles of perfume; that from Lesbos which on being poured gave forth a
+ravishing odor of roses, and, in addition to these, cups were filled
+with cordials from Erythrea and Heraclea, strong and spiritous, and
+those from Rhodes and Chios, prudently mixed with sea-water to aid the
+digestion.</p>
+
+<p>Some slaves, to excite again the appetite of the guests, and to make
+them drink, offered plates of locusts cured in brine; radishes with
+vinegar and mustard, toasted garbanzos, and olives, prized for their
+size and flavor, swimming in a piquant sauce.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on could eat nothing, diverted by S�nnica, who, leaving her
+<i>epiclintron</i>, pressed against him, rubbing her cheek upon the
+Athenian's with mingling breath. Thus they remained in silence, each
+watching the image reflected from the pupils of the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me kiss you on the eyes," murmured S�nnica, "they are the windows
+of the soul, and I imagine that through them my caress will penetrate to
+the depths of your being."</p>
+
+<p>The arrogant Alorcus, grave as all Celtiberians when intoxicated, spoke
+of the coming festival as he gazed into his empty cup. He had five
+horses in the city, the finest his tribe could furnish, and if the
+magistrates would allow him to take part in the rejoicings, despite his
+being a foreigner, the Saguntines would have a chance to admire the
+strength and swiftness of his beautiful coursers. The crown should fall
+to him, unless some unexpected event summoned him from the city.<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a></p>
+
+<p>Lachares and his elegant friends proposed to contest for the prize in
+singing, and their effeminate hands, slender and beringed, moved
+nervously over the table as if already thrumming the lyre, while their
+painted lips sang Homeric verses in subdued tones. Euphobias, lying on
+his back on his couch, gazed aloft with dreamy eyes, with no other
+earthly desire than to reach forth his glass and call for wine; but
+Alcon and the Greek merchants became impatient at the slowness of the
+banquet.</p>
+
+<p>"The dancers! Let the daughters from Gades come!" they called with
+tremulous voices, the fiery spark of intoxication glowing in their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; let the dancing girls come!" cried Euphobias rousing from his
+stupor. "I want to see how this honorable people disturbs its digestion,
+which is the best gift to man, by the lewd steps of the daughters of
+Hercules."</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica made a sign to her steward, and in a moment the joyous sound of
+flutes was heard in the peristyle.</p>
+
+<p>"The auletai!" shouted the guests.</p>
+
+<p>Four slender girls, violet-crowned, marched into the triclinium, wearing
+a chiton open from waist to ankle, displaying the left leg at every
+step, holding to their mouths the double aulos, their agile fingers
+playing over the holes of the instrument.</p>
+
+<p>Standing in the space enclosed by the curve of the table, they began a
+sweet melop&oelig;ia, which caused the guests to sit up in their couches
+and to smile placidly. Most of them recognized the flute players as old
+acquaintances, and swinging their heads in time with the music, they
+watched with avid eyes the outlines of their<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> bodies which swayed
+rhythmically from the movement of their dancing feet.</p>
+
+<p>Several times the flutists changed the tune and measure, but at the end
+of an hour the guests became bored.</p>
+
+<p>"We are used to all this," protested Lachares; "they are the same
+flutists who always play at your banquets, S�nnica. Since you have
+fallen in love you forget your friends. Give us something else! Let us
+see the dancers!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, let the dancing girls come!" chorused the young men.</p>
+
+<p>"Have patience," said the Greek woman, lifting her head for an instant
+from Act�on's breast; "the dancers will appear, but not until the end of
+the banquet when I am overcome with sleep. I know you well, and I can
+guess what the finish of the feast will be. First I wish you to see a
+little slave who has learned from the Grecian mariners tricks like those
+of celebrated Athenian performers."</p>
+
+<p>Before the slave entered, the guests turned in alarm toward the farther
+end of the table. A beast-like growling arose from beneath it. Euphobias
+had fallen from his couch, and with his head on the mosaic was
+disgorging his dinner, accompanied by a stream of wine.</p>
+
+<p>"Give him laurel leaves!" called the prudent Alcon. "There is nothing
+better to dissipate drunkenness."</p>
+
+<p>The slaves compelled him almost by force to chew the leaves, paying no
+attention to the philosopher's protests.<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I am not drunk," shouted Euphobias. "It is the hunger which persecutes
+me. Most of the time I can find no bread, and when I am so fortunate as
+to sit at a table like S�nnica's, the food which I eat escapes me."</p>
+
+<p>"Say rather the wine which you drink escapes you," replied S�nnica,
+resting her head again on Act�on's breast.</p>
+
+<p>The contortionist had reappeared before the table, and had greeted her
+mistress by touching her hands to her face. She was a girl of about
+fourteen, with yellowish skin, wearing a pair of red trunks. Her nervous
+and agile limbs, and her lean, undeveloped chest, made her look like a
+boy. The elder guests smiled, stirred by her fresh and almost masculine
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>She uttered a shout, and doubling over with elastic vigor stood on her
+hands, and with feet in the air and her head almost touching the floor,
+she began to run swiftly about the triclinium. Then, with a powerful
+spring of her arms, she leaped upon the table, and trotted on her hands
+among the confusion of plates, amphor�, and cups, without upsetting
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The guests applauded with enthusiasm. The two Greek merchants offered
+her their goblets, pinching her cheeks while she drank, and passing
+their hands caressingly over her back.</p>
+
+<p>"Lachares," said the philosopher to his aristocratic enemy, "why have
+you and your companions not brought your beautiful slave boys who serve
+you as supports in the Forum?"</p>
+
+<p>"S�nnica will not allow it," replied the young gallant, pleased at the
+question, not suspecting the irony<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> in Euphobias' words. "She is a
+superior woman, but this is the only one of the refined customs of
+Athens which she declines to tolerate. She believes in Jupiter and Leda;
+but she spits upon the beautiful Ganymede. She is not a full-fledged
+Athenian."</p>
+
+<p>A double row of broad, sharp swords was placed along the floor by a
+group of slaves, so that the contortionist might show her greatest feat.
+The flutists began to play a slow, solemn melody, and the contortionist,
+again standing head downward, began to walk between the swords without
+disturbing them or touching their sharp edges. The guests, cup in hand,
+followed her course anxiously through the forest of keen steel blades,
+which at her slightest wavering would penetrate her body. She paused
+near a sword, extended one arm, and sustaining herself on a single hand
+she bent the elbow until she kissed the floor; then she stiffened the
+muscles, raising herself back to her first position, and throughout this
+whole maneuvre the cutting edge grazed her breast without even abrading
+the skin.</p>
+
+<p>When the girl finished her act the guests applauded vigorously. The two
+old men flung their tunics around her, while her malicious, boyish face
+peeped forth and sniffed the foods and sweetmeats.</p>
+
+<p>"But, S�nnica," protested Lachares, "when did the beautiful Greek ever
+forget her friends like this? Athenian, you have maddened her with your
+love; now intercede for us, and ask that the daughters of Gades present
+themselves quickly!"</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica appeared to be sleeping upon Act�on's breast, spellbound by his
+close, warm, throbbing heart.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a>"Bid them enter&mdash;&mdash;let my guests do what they wish&mdash;&mdash;only leave us in
+peace!"</p>
+
+<p>Footsteps, giggling, and whispering were heard in the peristyle, and the
+Gaditanian dancers entered the triclinium, crowding each other like a
+stampeding flock.</p>
+
+<p>They were girls of small stature, with supple, agile limbs; their skin a
+pale amber, their eyes large and luminous; their hair black; their
+bodies floating in vapory veils, alluring and deceptive in their
+semi-transparency. They wore on their breasts and on their arms and
+ankles strands of coins and amulets which rung with merry tinkle at the
+slightest movement, and they stared boldly at the guests like a flock
+accustomed to such feasts, who traveled from banquet to banquet, seeing
+men only in their hours of intoxication.</p>
+
+<p>The ruler of the band, a wrinkled, parchment-faced old man with an
+insolent stare, was dressed like them in feminine veils, his cheeks
+painted, his eyes encircled with black, having great hoops in his ears,
+and a cynical leer on his vermilion lips, ready for trade in the most
+infamous traffic.</p>
+
+<p>Euphobias, indifferent to the charms of the dancing girls, looked at him
+with amazement, wondering to what sex belonged those skeleton arms
+peeping from beneath the veils, painted white, and weighted down with
+jewels.</p>
+
+<p>"Brother, are you a man or a woman?" the philosopher gravely enquired.</p>
+
+<p>"I am the father of all these flowers," replied the eunuch with a
+squeaking voice, showing as he smiled his repulsive, toothless gums.</p>
+
+<p>Three of the women, squatting on the floor, began to fillip their
+castanets with lively clacking, while another beat with her hands on a
+globe-bottomed timbrel tucked under her left arm.<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a></p>
+
+<p>The eunuch rapped on the floor with his staff, and instantly four pairs
+of dancers whisked into the centre of the triclinium, and began to swing
+to the sound of clamorous barbaric music played by their companions.
+They danced with stately step, holding themselves majestically erect,
+spreading their arms as if swimming in space, their brown bodies
+wheeling in slow spirals, seeming to float on the waves of transparent
+foam which enwrapped them. Gradually their movements accelerated; they
+gracefully extended their bodies, elevating their firm chests, outlining
+their contours among the veils&mdash;contortions in which the trunk revolved
+on the hips, a whirl of forms enclosed in white and floating drapery,
+which as it flew into a thousand folds with voluptuous undulations,
+fanned up the flames of the lamps.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, at a signal from the old crone, the music stopped, and the
+dancing ceased.</p>
+
+<p>"More! More!" shouted the guests, sitting up in their couches with
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>It was merely a halt to change the time and to evoke applause by taking
+a brief rest. The music assumed a gay and noisy rhythm; the old eunuch
+marked time on the floor with the beating staff; he uttered a prolonged
+lament, sad, yet with a mild sweetness, which did not seem to come from
+his infected mouth; and then followed slow dreamy strophes of love with
+words of double meanings, which acted like aphrodisiacs, and were
+greeted with a roar of enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>The dancers sprang into the centre of the triclinium, whirling swiftly,
+as if possessed of a fever. Each song served as a lash further to excite
+their nerves, and their<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a> bare feet tripped over the mosaic like
+snow-white birds, or rose in gentle flight, trailing clouds of gauze,
+displaying well modeled limbs with tinkling ornaments which scattered
+silvery tones. Their gently curving abdomens seemed to assume a separate
+existence, moving like restless animals over their bodies which they
+held in sacerdotal rigidity, contracting in circular waves, forming a
+whirlpool of voluptuous undulations, of which the umbilicus was the rosy
+centre. They accompanied the dance with incessant snapping of fingers.
+Gathering the gauzy draperies beneath their arms and adjusting them
+around their hips, they moved their amphoral curves with seductive
+rhythm, sighing langourously, with bowed heads, as if enchanted by the
+contemplation of their own beauty. Suddenly the music grew fainter, as
+if drawing away, and the dancers, their feet together and limbs half
+opened, descended in a slow spiral, with gentle undulations, until they
+touched the floor; the instant their callipygian charms grazed the
+mosaic, they recoiled like suddenly awakened serpents, and the castanets
+clacked and the timbrel beat louder, accompanied by the howls of the
+musicians who animated them with lascivious words and exclamations of
+supreme abandon.</p>
+
+<p>The guests, red with emotion, their eyes sparkling and their mouths dry,
+had rushed into the centre of the triclinium, interrupting the dance,
+mixing with the couples and grasping them. Euphobias lay snoring at the
+foot of his couch. S�nnica had disappeared long before, leaving the
+triclinium, supported by a slave without lifting her head from Act�on's
+shoulder.<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a></p>
+
+<p>The veils of the dancing girls fell to the foot of the table; they
+devoured the sweetmeats and fruits, they drank from the amphor�, plunged
+their heads into the crater of the nymphs, and laughed on seeing their
+faces bespattered with wine. The eunuch continued singing and pounding
+furiously on the floor to mark the rhythm for his musicians. In vain!
+The girls who tried to dance could not escape from the hands of the
+guests, who at every turn slapped them on their buttocks and tore off
+their veils. The young men rolled at the foot of the lamps, maddened by
+these bacchantes wise in perversion, reared in a port to which
+navigators brought both the refinements and the corruptions of the
+entire world. Alorcus the Celtiberian, brutalized by his enthusiasm,
+walked around the triclinium making a display of his strength by
+sustaining in his sinewy hands two dancing girls, who screamed with
+fright, while outside could be noted in the darkness of the peristyle
+the movement of the slaves, men and women, from the kitchens, creeping
+near to enjoy from without the spectacle of the bacchanal.</p>
+
+<p>It was not yet dawn when Act�on awoke, wondering, no doubt, at the soft
+couch and at the perfumes of the dormitory. S�nnica was lying beside
+him, and by the light of a lamp hanging near the door he could see a
+smile of felicity flitting over her lips.</p>
+
+<p>After the intoxication of the night the Athenian felt a vehement desire
+to breathe the fresh, open air. He was stifling where he was, in
+S�nnica's room, sunk down in the couch that seemed to burn with the fire
+of their recent passion, near the form, which now lay inert<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a> and with no
+other sign of life than the gentle sighs which inflated her bosom.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek softly tiptoed out to the peristyle. The lamps were still
+burning in the triclinium, and an insufferable vapor of viands, wines,
+and sweaty bodies floated through the doorway. He saw the guests lying
+on the floor among the snoring women. Euphobias had awakened from his
+drunken sleep, and, occupying the place of honor, S�nnica's couch, was
+forging for himself the illusion of being master of the villa. Wrapped
+in his tattered mantle he was compelling two sleepy dancing girls to
+dance, contemplating their nude flesh with a disdainful stare like a man
+who considers himself above carnal desires.</p>
+
+<p>As Act�on appeared in the triclinium some slaves fled, fearing lest they
+should be punished for their curiosity. Not wishing to be seen by the
+philosopher the Greek went out of the house seeking the cool garden.
+There he noticed the same flight before his steps. Embracing couples
+fled along the avenues; from behind the clumps of foliage arose
+exclamations of surprise as he approached, and in the dissipating
+shadows of the night the garden seemed animated by a mysterious life
+beneath its leafy bowers.</p>
+
+<p>They were slaves who, excited by the feast, continued beneath the open
+sky the scenes of the triclinium.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek smiled, reflecting that the feast was destined to augment his
+mistress' wealth.</p>
+
+<p>"Let them enjoy themselves in peace. To disturb them would damage
+S�nnica's interests."</p>
+
+<p>He passed out of the garden so as not to interfere with the joy of the
+miserable flock which, forgetting<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> every trouble, sought each other
+there in the dim light of dawn.</p>
+
+<p>He crossed S�nnica's immense dominions, through groves of fig trees and
+extensive olive orchards, until suddenly he found himself in the highway
+of the Serpent. It was deserted. In the distance he heard the galloping
+of a horse and saw in the bluish light of dawn a rider who was
+undoubtedly making for the port.</p>
+
+<p>As he drew near Act�on recognized him in spite of his head being covered
+by the hood of a war mantle. It was the Celtiberian shepherd. The Greek
+dashed into the centre of the roadway and grasped the horse by the
+bridle, while the rider, checked in his race, leaned back, tugging at
+the knife which he wore in his belt.</p>
+
+<p>"Be calm!" said Act�on in a low voice. "If I stop you it is to say that
+I have recognized you. You are Hannibal, the son of the great Hamilcar!
+Your disguise may serve you among the Saguntines, but your boyhood
+friend knows you."</p>
+
+<p>The African bent his head forward with its bushy mass of hair, and his
+imperious eyes made out the Greek in the dim light.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it you, Act�on? When I met you so many times yesterday I knew that
+you would finally recognize me. What are you doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am living in the house of S�nnica the rich."</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard of her, a Greek as famous for her beauty and her talent as
+the courtesans of Athens. I was also desirous of knowing her, and I
+think I should have loved her if it were a man's mission to chase after
+women. And are you doing nothing else?"<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I am a soldier in the pay of the city."</p>
+
+<p>"You, the son of Lysias, the confidential captain of Hamilcar! You, a
+man educated in the Prytaneum of Athens, in the service of a city of
+barbarians and merchants!"</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal was silent for a moment as if wondering at the conduct of the
+Greek. At last he added resolutely:</p>
+
+<p>"Mount behind me on my horse! Come with me! In the port a Carthaginian
+ship, loading with silver, is waiting for me. I go to New Carthage to
+place myself at the head of my troops. Days of glory are coming, an
+immense and sublime enterprise, like that of the giants when, heaping
+mountain on mountain, they scaled your Olympus. Come! You are the friend
+of my childhood; I knew you before Hasdrubal and Mago, those sons of
+Hamilcar, whom the glorious captain gave me for brothers, calling all
+three of us 'my lion's brood.' I know you. You are astute and brave like
+your father; at my side you will conquer riches. Who knows but that you
+may reign as king in some fair land when, imitating Alexander, I divide
+my conquests among my captains!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Carthaginian," said Act�on gravely. "I do not hate you; I remember
+our early years with pleasure; but I will never go with you. Your
+lineage prevents it, the past record of your nation, and the bloody
+shade of my father."</p>
+
+<p>"Nationality is but a fiction; 'the people' a pretext for making war.
+What matters it to you whether you serve Carthage or any other republic,
+since you are a Greek? If my own people should abandon me I would fight
+for any country. We are men of war; we fight<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a> for glory, power, and
+riches; the needs of our people only serve to justify our victory and
+our despoiling of the enemy. I hate the merchants of Carthage, pacific
+and stuck to their shops, as much as I hate the proud Romans. Come,
+Act�on, since we have met, follow me! Fortune goes with me."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Hannibal; here shall I remain. Seeing your African soldiers I
+should remember the mob that crucified Lysias."</p>
+
+<p>"That was an unavoidable crime, a mad deed of that truceless war to
+which the mercenaries impelled us. My father lamented it a thousand
+times, remembering his faithful Lysias. With my protection I will make
+amends for that injustice of Carthage."</p>
+
+<p>"I will not follow you, Hannibal. I have bid farewell to war and booty.
+I prefer to grow old here in this sweet and tranquil life, at the side
+of my S�nnica, loving peace like any one of those Saguntines who dwells
+in the merchants' ward."</p>
+
+<p>"Peace? Peace?"</p>
+
+<p>A strident and brutal shout of laughter, like that which Act�on had
+heard on the steps of Aphrodite's temple when the Roman legates were
+embarking, broke the silence of the roadway.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen well, Act�on," said the African, recovering his gravity, "the
+proof that I still remember my boyhood affection for you lies in the
+frankness with which I speak my mind. Only to you, understand it well!
+If, sleeping in my tent, I should learn on awaking that what is in my
+mind had escaped in words, I would stab the sentinel who guarded my
+sleep. You speak of peace! Act�on, awake! If you think of growing old in
+tranquility<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a> in any part of the world, flee with that Greek woman whom
+you love, far, far away! Where I am, there shall be no peace until I
+have become the sovereign of the world! War marches ahead of my
+footsteps; he who will not submit to me must die or become my slave!"</p>
+
+<p>The Greek comprehended the significance of the threat.</p>
+
+<p>"Remember, Hannibal, that this city is Rome. The Republic has taken it
+for an ally and protects it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you imagine that I fear Rome? If I hate Saguntum it is because she
+is proud of her alliance, and that she scorns and forgets me, in spite
+of my being near. She fancies herself secure because that far-away
+Republic protects her, and she laughs at me, though I reign over all the
+Peninsula as far as the Ebro, and am encamped almost at her very gates.
+She antagonizes the Turdetani, who are my allies, as are all the Iberian
+tribes, and within her walls she beheads the citizens who love me, those
+who were friends of the great Hamilcar. Ah, blind and vainglorious city!
+How dear shall it cost thee to live near to Hannibal without knowing
+him!"</p>
+
+<p>Turning about in his saddle he glared with menacing eyes at the
+Acropolis of Saguntum, which stood forth above the fog of the early
+morn.</p>
+
+<p>"You could scarcely lay siege to her ally before Rome would fall upon
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Let her come!" replied the African arrogantly. "That is what I want, I
+hate peace! I will not submit to seeing Carthage subdued while there
+exist men like me and my friends. Either Rome or Africa! Let the final
+clash come! The sooner the better, the supreme<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a> struggle; and let that
+nation which is left standing be ruler of the world! I hate the rich of
+my country who live content in the shame of defeat because it enables
+them to traffic calmly and to cram their vaults with silver. Those are
+the wretches who, after our defeat in Sicily, dared to dream of
+abandoning Carthage and of moving wholesale to the islands of the Great
+Sea to live in tranquility. They are Carthaginians indeed; true sons of
+Ph&oelig;nicia, with no other conception of glory than trade, nor other
+aspiration than to find new ports where they can market their wares! We
+Barcas are Libyans; we descend from the gods; like them we have
+greatness of thought; we must be masters, or die! Those merchants do not
+understand that it is not enough to be rich; that one must dominate and
+instill fear; and they formed in Carthage a peace-party, which
+embittered my father's life by defeats, and they leave me with no other
+resources than those that I can procure on the Peninsula. They do not
+know the Barcas, despite the fact that we struggle to make Carthage a
+world power! My father, when he lost Sicily, foresaw the future
+extinction of our nation, and he wished to prevent it. We had lost a
+great part of our ancient commerce. We needed an army to defend us from
+ambitious Rome, and we did not have it. The citizens of Carthage are
+good, at the best, to fight on their own soil. The merchant cannot bear
+the weight of arms nor endure marches for months and years through
+hostile countries. The profit derived from booty conquered with blood,
+he can win more easily standing behind his bales of goods, and as he
+loves money he does not wish to pay it out to foreign soldiers. That is
+why Hamilcar brought us to<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a> the Peninsula, and here we have given
+Carthage new ports and markets, and the Barcas have an army gathered
+together by their own efforts. Little does it matter that the
+Carthaginian Senate, lovers of peace, refuse to send us soldiers. The
+Iberian tribes loved my father after putting his bravery to the test,
+and they will rise in arms at the voice of the Barcas against whatever
+enemy we may designate."</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal turned his gaze toward the distant mountains, as if he could
+behold the innumerable barbarian tribes who lived behind them scratching
+the earth, or pasturing their flocks. "Hamilcar fell," he said sadly,
+"just as he was beginning to see his dreams realized in a great army
+with which to enter anew into strife with Rome, with riches of his own
+to carry on the war without need of assistance from the African
+merchants. Hasdrubal, the handsome husband of my sister, frittered away
+eight years on succeeding to his authority. He was a good governor, but
+a timid commander. Perhaps it was Baal, our savage god, who guided the
+arm of his assassin that he might be succeeded by another capable of
+exterminating the eternal enemy of Carthage. That one shall be I! Listen
+well, Greek! You are the only one who shares my thought. The moment for
+fighting the final battle has come. Soon shall Rome know that there
+exists a Hannibal who defies her by taking possession of Saguntum."</p>
+
+<p>"You have scant power for that, African. Saguntum is strong, and I, who
+come from New Carthage, have seen there nothing but the elephants, the
+fragments of the army which your father brought, and the Numidian
+cavalry which your friends have sent from Africa."<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a></p>
+
+<p>"You forget the Iberians and the Celtiberians, the whole Peninsula,
+which will rise bodily and flock to the taking of Saguntum. The country
+is poor, and the city is overstocked with riches. I have noted it well.
+There is enough in it to pay an army for entire years, and even the
+Lusitanian tribes from the coast of the Great Sea will come attracted by
+the hope of loot and urged on by the hatred of rude natives for a city,
+opulent and civilized, where dwell their exploiters. It will be no great
+task for Hannibal to take possession of a republic of farmers and
+merchants."</p>
+
+<p>"And after you become master, what then?"</p>
+
+<p>The African answered nothing, but shrugged his shoulders with an
+enigmatic smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You are silent, Hannibal. But after you are master of Saguntum you will
+have gained nothing. Rome will hurl her thunder at you for violating her
+treaties, and the Carthaginian Senate will curse you; it will set a
+price upon your head; it will order your soldiers to disobey you; and
+you will die crucified, or you will wander about the world like a
+fugitive slave."</p>
+
+<p>"No! Fire of Baal!" shouted the chief arrogantly. "Carthage will attempt
+nothing against me; she will accept war with Rome, even though to-day
+she may not wish it. I have there innumerable partisans of the Barcas;
+the populace which loves war, because it yields cargoes of loot for
+distribution; the people of the out-lying districts, whose enthusiasm I
+keep at white heat by sending them riches sacked on the Peninsula, after
+having paid my troops. Hamilcar and Hasdrubal did the same. They would
+be ready to cut off the heads of the rich if anything were attempted
+against Hannibal.<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a> Since following my father for nine years, I have not
+returned to Carthage, but the people adore my name. Even those of the
+peace-party will follow me to war, if to war I drag them."</p>
+
+<p>"And how will you conquer Rome?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know not," said Hannibal with his mysterious smile. "I harbor a world
+of thoughts which would provoke the laughter of my friends if I should
+relate them. I see myself like a Titan scaling immense mountains,
+following the course of the eagle, ploughing through the snow, climbing
+to the very sky to fall upon my enemy with greater force. Ask me no
+more; I know nothing further. My will says, 'I desire,' and that is
+enough&mdash;I shall carry it through!"</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal was silent, wrinkling his brows as if fearing he had said too
+much.</p>
+
+<p>It was now daylight. Women with baskets on their heads were passing
+along the road. Two slaves carrying a great amphora hanging from a pole
+swung between their shoulders, stopped near them a moment to rest. The
+African patted his horse's neck as if preparing to leave.</p>
+
+<p>"For the last time, Greek, will you come?"</p>
+
+<p>Act�on shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I know you too well to beg you to forget that you have seen Hannibal.
+You are astute. You know that what we have spoken here must be swallowed
+in the silence of the fields, and must be repeated to no one. Be happy
+in your new love, and live in peace, since, though born to soar as an
+eagle, you choose to stay here in a barnyard. If ever you oppose me as
+an enemy and contend against me, I will not crucify you; you shall<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> not
+become my slave. I love you, although you will not follow me. I do not
+forget that you were the first who taught me to hurl a dart. May Baal
+guard you, Act�on! My men await me at the port."</p>
+
+<p>His mantle floating in the breeze, he started on a gallop, raising a
+cloud of dust, scattering the country people and slaves, who scurried to
+the sides of the road to give him passage.<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<p class="head">GREEK AND CELTIBERIAN.</p>
+
+<p class="nind">A<span class="smcap">ct�on</span>
+told no one of his meeting. Moreover, after a few days he had
+almost forgotten it. Seeing the city tranquil, busy in preparation for
+the great Panathenaic festival, trusting in its protecting alliance with
+Rome, the recollection of the interview with the African assumed the
+vagueness of a dream.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps Hannibal's words were only the arrogant boasts of youth. Hated
+by the rich of his country, and with no better followers than those he
+himself could procure, he was surely not going to attempt the audacious
+enterprise of attacking a city allied to Rome, thus violating the
+treaties with Carthage.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, the Greek was living in a period of sweet intoxications; ever
+in S�nnica's arms in the shade of the peristyle; listening to the lyres
+of the slaves and the flutes of the flute players, and watching the
+dancers from Gades, while his beloved crowned him with flowers, or
+sprinkled costly perfumes upon him.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the restless spirit of the wanderer and man of war, trained to
+action and strife, manifested itself in the midst of this effeminacy.
+Then he would flee to the city. There he conversed with Mopsus, the
+archer, and listened to the grumblers in the Forum, who, not suspecting
+that Hannibal had passed through<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> Saguntum, jested at the possibility of
+the African chief attempting anything against them, and gloated in their
+power, trusting in the strength of their walls, and still more in the
+protection of Rome, which would repeat on the coasts of Iberia their
+triumphs over the Carthaginians in Sicily.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on contracted a great friendship with Alorcus the Celtiberian. He
+admired the fiery pride of the barbarian, his nobility of sentiment, and
+the almost religious respect he displayed for the cultured Grecian
+woman. His father, now old and sick, was a petty king reigning over some
+tribes which pastured great flocks of horses and cattle in the mountains
+of Celtiberia. He was the sole heir, and some day would be obliged to
+rule that rude people with their ferocious customs, who, in perpetual
+brigandage, made war for the sake of stealing horses, and in years of
+famine came down from the mountains to despoil the farmers on the
+plains. His father had brought him to Saguntum when a child, and the
+Grecian customs produced such an effect in him that, when he had grown
+to manhood it became his most earnest desire to return to the city on
+the coast, and there he lived with a few servants of his tribe and his
+magnificent horses, deaf to the affectionate calls of the old chieftain
+drawing near to death, and being esteemed by the Saguntines as almost a
+fellow citizen.</p>
+
+<p>He was eager to figure in the festival of the Panathen�a that the Greeks
+of the city should admire him galloping in the races to conquer the
+crown of olives. He was grateful to Act�on for using his influence with
+S�nnica to secure the consent of the magistrates that the Celtiberian
+might enter among the horsemen<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a> in the great procession that would climb
+to the Acropolis carrying the first sheaves of wheat to the temple of
+Minerva.</p>
+
+<p>In those days when the Athenian languished amidst songs and perfumes,
+overwhelmed by the caresses of the Greek woman, who seemed to blaze with
+the fire of the last passion of her life, he sprang from his couch at
+dawn, slung his bow across his back, and followed by two handsome dogs
+tramped through the Saguntine domain, giving chase to the wildcats which
+came down from the surrounding mountains.</p>
+
+<p>On one of these excursions he had an adventure. It was noon; the sun's
+warm light fell upon the land, and the panting dogs halted, barking at a
+grove of ancient fig trees with branches sweeping the ground, forming
+shady canopies of dense foliage. Act�on, quieting the animals,
+approached cautiously with bow ready to draw, and as he parted the
+curtain of leaves he saw in the centre of an open space enclosed by the
+trees his two friends Rhanto and Erotion.</p>
+
+<p>The boy was seated on the ground before a pile of red clay which he was
+carefully modeling, wrinkling his brow, and whistling intently. The
+shepherdess, completely nude, with the assurance of healthy and innocent
+beauty, happy in being admired, was smiling at Erotion, her cheeks
+flushing lightly every time the artist raised his eyes from the clay to
+the model.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on drank in with his eyes the form of her vernal body. He felt the
+enthusiasm of the Greeks in the presence of beauty, intensified by the
+ardor of manhood. He admired her bosom, tender and small as buds, barely
+perceptible; her lightly curving hips; the line<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a> from her throat to her
+feet soft and undulating, which served to give more elegance to her
+chaste appearance; the grace of strong and beautiful girlhood, in
+addition to the attraction of sex. With the taste of a Greek of
+refinement he rejoiced in the freshness of her form, comparing it
+mentally with S�nnica's opulent but somewhat over-ripe charms.</p>
+
+<p>Rhanto, as she saw the Greek's head appear between the leaves, uttered a
+piercing scream and scurried behind a fig tree in search of her clothes.
+Bells tinkled among the foliage and the goats thrust forward their
+glossy muzzles, their moist eyes, and curving horns.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it you, Athenian?" said Erotion, arising with a gesture of ill
+humor. "You have frightened Rhanto by your unexpected presence."</p>
+
+<p>Then he added maliciously, "Rhanto is your slave. I am well aware of
+that. And I also know that you are the master of the pottery where I
+work. You have risen much since that morning when we met you on the
+highway of the Serpent. You have dominion over S�nnica the rich. Love
+has made her your slave."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not master of anyone," said the Greek simply. "I am your friend,
+and I do not forget that the first bread I ate in this city I received
+from your hands."</p>
+
+<p>Erotion seemed to gain confidence at these words.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you looking at, Athenian? That clay? How you must laugh at me!
+I am convinced that I am worthless as an artist. Yet there are moments
+when I feel myself capable of a great work; I conceive it; I see it in
+my mind as clearly as if I had it erected before me; but when I put my
+hands to the clay I realize<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a> my lack of skill, and I am ready to weep.
+Ah! if only I could have gone to Greece!"</p>
+
+<p>His words sounded like a lament; he stared angrily at the pile of clay
+which had crudely begun to assume the outlines of Rhanto's form.</p>
+
+<p>"If you only knew how I had to urge her before she would consent to show
+the divine nudity of her body. Do not think it strange. She comes of a
+race of barbarians. She fears the club of her grandfather, the chief
+shepherd, that would fall upon her body if he should discover her as you
+did a few minutes ago. I explained to her about our sculptors, before
+whom the most famous het�r� contended for the honor of disrobing; and
+the certainty that her mistress, S�nnica, had done the same in Athens
+was the only thing that decided her. But how can one copy her divine
+body? How imbue molded clay with the life which throbs beneath her
+skin?"</p>
+
+<p>In his despair he threatened the clay figurine as if he would crush it
+under his feet. Then he took courage, and said resolutely:</p>
+
+<p>"But I will be stronger than my untrained hands. I will work years and
+years if necessary, until I see the divine form of my Rhanto reproduced
+in all its beauty. I will not return to the pottery, although the old
+archer may kill me with blows. I began my statuette hoping that it might
+figure in the Panathenaic procession. Rhanto would carry it on her head,
+and the multitude would crowd around to see it. I only hope for a moment
+of inspiration, a fortunate moment. Who knows if to-morrow the muses may
+not breathe upon me,<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> and that I shall arise with the skill in my hands
+to execute my dream?"</p>
+
+<p>Frankly hurling himself down from the pinnacle of his imagination he
+told the Athenian his ambition.</p>
+
+<p>"If I manage to finish this statue the future will be all my own, and
+some day my name will be engraved in the Forum, and the people of the
+city will read it with admiration. I will free myself from the pottery
+forever. I will present my statue to S�nnica, after it has been admired
+by all Saguntum in the Panathen�a, and your lover, who is so generous,
+will give me passage in one of her ships. I shall see Athens. I will
+admire what you have seen, and then&mdash;then! Look, Act�on, through these
+leaves. What do you see on the hill of the Acropolis? Nothing. Walls of
+great stones, columns, roofs of temples, but not a single statue to
+proclaim from afar the glory of the city. They say that upon the
+Acropolis of Athens rises the gigantic figure of Pallas, all of bronze
+and gold, with a lance that seems to burn in the sunlight, and that it
+guides the mariners like a flame from many stadia out at sea. Is that
+true? Many, many nights have I dreamt of something like that, and I see
+Erotion returned from Athens a great artist, and raising a colossal work
+upon our Acropolis. The bulls of Geryon, enormous, gigantic, with gilded
+horns shining like flames, and behind them Hercules, covered with the
+skin of the Nemean lion, like Theron, his priest, in the great festivals
+of Saguntum, and his club, menacing on the height, shall be a signal to
+all the navigators of the Sucronian gulf. Ah! If only some day I realize
+this achievement!"</p>
+
+<p>Rhanto had come out of her hiding-place covered<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a> by a tunic, and she
+timidly approached Act�on, looking at him respectfully, and blushing at
+the same time at the recollection of the condition in which he had
+surprised her. Erotion, excited by the telling of his hopes, showed
+eagerness to resume his task. He glanced at his work, and seemed to
+disrobe the shepherdess with his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The Athenian understood that his presence disturbed the young people.</p>
+
+<p>"Work, Erotion!" he said. "Be a great artist if you can. The sculptors
+of Athens would envy you your model. Now that I know that you hide here
+I will not again annoy you with my presence."</p>
+
+<p>And so it was. He left the grove of fig trees permitting the two to work
+undisturbed in their mysterious retreat, Erotion spurred on by ambition,
+Rhanto submissive from love.</p>
+
+<p>The day of the Panathen�a came at last.</p>
+
+<p>The fame of the solemn festival had spread beyond the confines of
+Saguntum, and the rude Celtiberians assembled by caravans to witness the
+diversions of the rustic people.</p>
+
+<p>The workers from the domain abandoned the labor of the harvest, and,
+dressed in their best, began streaming into the city at sunrise to
+attend the festival of the goddess of the fields. They carried great
+sheaves of wheat, interspersed with flowers, to offer to the goddess,
+and white fleeced lambs adorned with ribbons to sacrifice on her altar.</p>
+
+<p>By sunrise the city was filled with a multicolored crowd which gathered
+in the Forum, or hurried along the river banks to see the horse races.<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a></p>
+
+<p>A great stadium had been formed near the B�tis-Perkes in which the
+principal citizens of Saguntum were to contest for the triumph. The
+senators, on long benches, and guarded by a group of mercenaries,
+presided over the festival. At one end of the race-track the sons of the
+merchants and rich agriculturists, the entire youth of Saguntum, almost
+nude, awaited the signal, leaning on their light lances, and holding the
+bridles of their barebacked horses which snorted and champed the bit,
+scenting the coming contest.</p>
+
+<p>The signal to start was given, and placing their left feet on the
+handles of their lances all sprang simultaneously upon their chargers,
+dashing forward in a compact squadron along the track. The immense crowd
+broke into acclamations at sight of the bizarre riders who leaning
+forward almost lay on their horses' necks, as if forming a single body
+with them, waving their lances, quickening their gallop with shouts, and
+wrapped in a cloud of dust through which the multitude could barely make
+out the straining legs and the bellies of the animals which were nearly
+touching the ground. The wild race lasted long. The less skillful
+riders, and those with poorer mounts, were being out-stripped; the
+squadron was diminishing visibly. He who should remain longest on the
+track, ever in advance of the others, would win the crown, and the
+people made bets on the Celtiberian Alorcus, and on the Athenian Act�on
+who figured from the first instant at the head of the riders.</p>
+
+<p>The citizens who did not wish to wait in the sun for the end of the race
+followed the river bank until they reached the walls, in the shade of
+which the youths were<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a> wrestling or engaging in boxing matches in
+competition for the prize for dexterity. Others of more pacific turn
+went to the Forum, where beneath the porticos the young aristocrats were
+competing for the laurel crown offered for the most skilled in music and
+song. Seated on ivory chairs, attended by their handsome slave boys who
+fanned them with branches of myrtle, Lachares and his friends played the
+flute or thrummed the lyre, singing Greek verses with sweet and
+effeminate intonations. In the gathering, some laughed, mimicking the
+softness of their voices, but others, indignant, compelled silence,
+overcome by the charm which art, even in this womanish guise, exercised
+over their uncultured minds.</p>
+
+<p>Late in the morning the clamor from the enthusiastic multitude filled
+the broad space of the Forum like reverberating thunder. It was the
+people returning from the races, acclaiming the victor. The arrogant
+Alorcus, dragged off the back of his horse, was borne on the shoulders
+of the most enthusiastic. The olive crown encircled his tossed and dusty
+hair. Act�on was beside him, celebrating his triumph fraternally,
+without a touch of envy.</p>
+
+<p>The singers, swept away before this wave of enthusiasm, made off with
+their chairs and instruments. The crown of laurel was bound upon
+Lachares in the midst of general indifference, and he received no other
+congratulations than those of his slaves. All the enthusiasm of the city
+was lavished upon the winner in the races; the people were inflamed with
+admiration for strength and skill.<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a></p>
+
+<p>The solemn moment had come; the <i>pompa</i> was about to begin. In the
+merchant's ward slaves hung red and green bunting from roof to roof
+which shaded the streets. The windows and terraces were draped with
+multicolored tapestries of complicated design, and slave women placed
+censers in the doorways for burning perfumes.</p>
+
+<p>The rich Grecian women, followed by their servants who carried sedan
+chairs, went in search of places where they could sit on the steps of
+the temples or in the shops at the Forum, and the people ranged
+themselves along the houses, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the
+procession which was forming outside the walls. Flocks of children
+completely nude ran through the streets waving branches of myrtle,
+shouting acclamations in honor of the goddess.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the people stirred, bursting into cries of enthusiasm. The
+pageant in honor of Minerva had entered through the gate of the Road of
+the Serpent and was advancing slowly toward the Forum, through the ward
+of the merchants, who were the organizers of the festival.</p>
+
+<p>In advance marched venerable old men with long beards, dressed in white,
+with voluminous mantles, their snowy hair crowned with green leaves, and
+carrying olive branches in their hands. Then came the more arrogant
+citizens, armed with lance and shield, the visor of the Grecian helmet
+drawn down over their eyes, proudly displaying the strong muscles of
+their arms and limbs. Next followed the most beautiful youths of the
+city, crowned with flowers, singing hymns in praise of the goddess;
+choruses of nude children, dancing<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a> with unaffected grace, clasping
+hands, forming a chain of complicated combinations. Now appeared the
+maidens, daughters of the rich, clad only in a tunic of finest linen,
+which displayed their youthful charms. They carried in their hands as
+offerings dainty willow baskets covered by veils which hid the
+instruments for the sacrifice to the goddess, and with these the loaves
+made of new wheat and the handfuls of golden ears which were to be
+deposited on her altar. To clearly mark the dignity of the rich virgins,
+slave women marched behind them bearing their sedan chairs inlaid with
+ivory, and the striped silk sunshades with gay colored tassels at the
+ends of the staves.</p>
+
+<p>A group of slave women chosen for their beauty, with Rhanto in the
+premier rank, carried on their heads great amphor� filled with honey and
+water for the libations in honor of the goddess. Behind them marched the
+musicians and singers of the city, crowned with roses, clad in flowing
+white vestments. They swept the lyre, and played the flutes, and some
+Greeks from S�nnica's pottery, who had been wandering rhapsodists, sang
+fragments from the epic of the Trojan war before the barbarian throngs,
+who scarcely understood them, but admired the harmonious cadence of
+Homer's verses.</p>
+
+<p>The people pressed forward, craning their necks to get a better view of
+the salii, the dancing devotees of Mars, who advanced nude, armed with
+sword and shield. Slung from the stick laid across their shoulders, two
+slaves were carrying a row of bronze shields, on which another slave was
+beating with a mallet, and keeping time to these harsh sounds the salii
+danced, making feigned attacks, and raining blows with their<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> swords on
+the shield of the pretended adversary, uttering ferocious shouts, and
+also performing pantomimes to recall the main episodes in the life of
+the goddess Minerva.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the clamor, which set the streets in a commotion, causing the
+populace to roar with enthusiasm excited by the warlike display, came a
+group of girls holding a peplus of finest texture on which the principal
+Grecian women of the city had embroidered the combat of Minerva with the
+Titans. It was the offering which was to remain in the new temple of the
+goddess as a perpetual token of the festival.</p>
+
+<p>Closing the procession, the sacred squadron advanced, the richest
+citizens, mounted on fiery horses, which, with their evolutions
+compelled the crowd to fall back against the walls. They presented a
+brave display, making their steeds rear on their hind feet, guided only
+by the bridle, riding bareback, pressing their knees into the horses'
+ribs. The eldest of the horsemen wore huge hats in the Athenian fashion.
+The young men wore the winged helmet of Mercury or went bareheaded,
+their short curls bound by a fire-colored ribbon. Alorcus wore the crown
+he had won, and Act�on, riding beside him on one of the Celtiberian's
+horses, smiled at the crowd, which regarded him with a certain respect
+as if he were S�nnica's husband and in possession of her enormous
+riches. The horsemen gazed with pride at the swords which hung at their
+sides and clanked against the flanks of their horses, and they took in
+with a glance the high Acropolis and the city lying at its feet, as if
+expressing confidence in their strength, and faith in the tranquility in
+which Saguntum might dwell, sure of protection.<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a></p>
+
+<p>The crowd fired with enthusiasm by the brilliant procession, acclaimed
+S�nnica. Surrounded by her slave women, she gazed down from the terrace
+of her great building in the ward of the merchants where she stored her
+merchandise. She was the organizer, the one who bore the cost of the
+peplus of Minerva, she it was who had transplanted to Saguntum the
+beautiful festival of Athens. Fragrant odors from the censers were flung
+upon the air; a shower of roses fell from the windows upon the maidens;
+arms glistened in the sunlight, and in moments when the people were
+silent the sounds of lyres and flutes floated on the breeze,
+accompanying with soft melodies the voices of the Homeric rhapsodists.</p>
+
+<p>The crude Celtiberians, gathered to witness the festival, remained
+silent in astonishment at the procession which dazzled them with its
+glitter of arms and jewels and the multicolored confusion of costumes.
+The natives of Saguntum congratulated their fellow-citizens, the Greeks,
+admiring the splendor of the festival.</p>
+
+<p>The festivity did not cease with the passing of the brilliant
+procession. In the afternoon the diversion of the populace, the festival
+of the poor, would take place. The race of the flaming torch would be
+held along the walls. Mariners, potters, laborers, all the free and poor
+people of the port and the country in wild career, would carry lighted
+torches in memory of Prometheus. He who accomplished the feat of making
+the round of the city, keeping his torch still burning, would be
+declared winner; those who let theirs go out, or who traveled slowly to
+protect the flames, would be greeted with hisses and blows by the crowd.
+Even the rich<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a> gave vent to enthusiasm over this popular festival which
+produced so much merriment.</p>
+
+<p>Near the Acropolis, when the procession was wholly within its walls,
+Alorcus discerned among the people a Celtiberian mounted on a horse
+covered with foam and sweat, beckoning him to approach.</p>
+
+<p>Alorcus, turning away from the troop of horsemen, trotted towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want?" he asked, in the harsh language of his country.</p>
+
+<p>"I am one of your tribe, and your father is my chief. I have just
+reached Saguntum after traveling three days to say to you; 'Alorcus,
+your father is dying, and he calls for you.' The ancients of your tribe
+have ordered me not to return without you."</p>
+
+<p>Act�on had followed his friend, breaking away from the sacred squadron,
+and witnessed the dialogue without understanding a word, although he
+guessed something disagreeable by the Celtiberian's pale face.</p>
+
+<p>"Bad news?" he asked Alorcus.</p>
+
+<p>"My father is dying, and he has sent for me."</p>
+
+<p>"What shall you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must go immediately. My people demand my presence."</p>
+
+<p>The two horsemen began the descent to the city, followed by the
+Celtiberian messenger.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on sympathized with his comrade's emotion. At the same time the
+curiosity of the traveler, so often aroused by the Celtiberian's tales,
+was awakened within him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you wish me to accompany you, Alorcus?"</p>
+
+<p>The young man received the proposition with a look<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a> of gratitude. Then
+he declined, saying that he must depart in haste; the Greek might wish
+to bid farewell to S�nnica; perhaps the separation would be a grief to
+her; and he desired to start on the journey at once.</p>
+
+<p>"We will omit the farewell," said the Greek in his light, happy manner.
+"S�nnica will be resigned when I make known to her through a slave that
+I shall be absent for some days. Do you wish to leave immediately? I
+will accompany you. I am curious to see that land with its strange
+customs, and its valiant and sturdy inhabitants, of whose brave deeds
+you have so often told me."</p>
+
+<p>They crossed the city. The streets were deserted. The entire population
+had gone up to the Acropolis. Act�on stopped a moment before S�nnica's
+warehouses to give the news of his journey to her slaves, and then he
+followed his friend, riding forth from the city.</p>
+
+<p>Alorcus lodged in one of the inns in the suburb, an enormous edifice
+with extensive stables and broad courtyards, where continuously rang the
+diverse tongues of the interior of the Peninsula, hoarsened and made
+strident by dickering for merchandise and the bartering of beasts. Five
+men of the tribe accompanied the young Celtiberian during his stay in
+Saguntum, taking care of his horses and serving him as free domestics.</p>
+
+<p>On learning that they were to depart these sons of the mountains shouted
+with joy. They had languished with inactivity in that rich and fruitful
+country amid customs which they detested, and they made preparations for
+the journey in haste.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was setting when they started. Alorcus and Act�on rode in
+advance, their mantles thrown over<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> their heads, padded linen
+breastplates to protect their chests after the Celtiberian fashion, and
+short broadswords, and leather shields hanging at their sides. The five
+servants and the messenger brought up the rear, armed with long lances,
+driving the mules laden with Alorcus' clothing and provisions.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the afternoon they traveled upon the roads, being still in
+the Saguntine domain, and they passed cultivated and fruitful fields,
+beautiful villas and compact little towns clinging close around the
+tower which served them as defense. When night closed in they camped
+close to a miserable village in the mountains. There the territory of
+Saguntum ended. Beyond lay the tribes which were almost constantly
+warring with the people of the coast.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning the Greek beheld a wholly different landscape. The sea and
+the green plains lay behind him, and he saw only mountains and more
+mountains, some covered with great pine forests, others red, with bluffs
+of bluish stone, overgrown with dense thickets which, brushed by the
+passing caravan, sent forth clouds of frightened birds, while terrified
+rabbits scampered under the very horses' hoofs.</p>
+
+<p>The trails were not the work of man. The beasts laboriously picked their
+way in the tracks left by former travelers; they often twisted around
+masses of rock fallen from the summits, and again they forded streams
+which ran across their path. They skirted mountains; they climbed
+heights into a silent region seldom penetrated by man, where eagles
+screamed, flapping their wings in anger at this invasion. They rode down
+into gorges, deep crevices, in which reigned a<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a> sepulchral penumbra and
+where buzzards hopped close by the dead body of some abandoned animal.</p>
+
+<p>In the distance they saw beside a stream in a little valley, a group of
+mud-walled cabins with straw-thatched roofs, with an open hole to let
+light into the dwelling and to give exit to the smoke. The women, bony
+and dressed in skins, surrounded by naked children, came out of their
+hovels to stare at the passing caravan, with wild expressions of alarm
+as if the approach of strangers could only bring misfortune. Others
+younger, barelegged, with ragged aprons hanging from their waists, were
+reaping the stunted wheat, which barely rose like a golden film above
+the sterile, whitish earth. Girls, strong and ugly, with masculine
+limbs, came down from the mountains, bearing great bundles of fagots on
+their backs, while the men sat in the shade of nut and oak trees
+braiding bull-tendons for making their shields, or they practiced
+hurling, darts and handling the lance, their tangled hair falling over
+bronzed and bearded faces.</p>
+
+<p>On the highest points along the way appeared warriors of doubtful
+aspect, a mixture of bandit and shepherd, armed with long lances and
+carrying leather shields, mounted on small horses with long and filthy
+hair. They looked the company over, and after measuring its strength,
+and seeing it would be difficult to conquer, they turned back to their
+sheep pasturing in the deep mountain gorges filled with a tangle of
+shrubbery. The innumerable flocks of lambs and herds of cattle,
+accustomed to the wild solitude, fled terrified as they heard the
+passing of the caravan. Bevies of quail ran in search of food like gray
+ants among the rosemary and<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a> thyme growing on the slopes, and flew away
+at the sound of the horses' hoofs, whirring like a hiss over the
+travelers' heads.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on was interested in the rude customs of these people. The cabins
+were made of red adobe, or of stones laid in clay, and roofed with
+branches. The women, uglier and more energetic than the men, performed
+the fatiguing labor. Only boys worked, imitating their mothers. Young
+men early grasped the lance, and under the direction of their elders
+learned to fight on foot or on horseback; they broke the colts,
+springing to the ground, and mounting again while the horse was running,
+and they trained themselves to remain kneeling motionless on the horses'
+backs with their arms free to wield the sword and shield.</p>
+
+<p>In some villages the party was received with traditional hospitality,
+and was welcomed even more affectionately on recognizing Alorcus, the
+heir of Endovellicus, the respected chieftain of the tribes of Baraeco
+which had pastured their flocks for centuries on the banks of the Jal�n.
+When night came they gave up to them their best beds of woven thongs
+covered with fluffy dried grasses; they impaled a calf on a spit,
+turning it before an enormous bonfire, for regaling the caravan, and
+during the journey the women detained them at the entrance to their
+huts, offering them in coarse earthen vessels the bitter beer brewed in
+the valleys, and the bread made of acorn flour.</p>
+
+<p>Alorcus explained the customs of his people to the Athenian. They
+gathered acorns, their chief food, exposing them to the sun until well
+dried. They husked and ground them, and stored the supply of flour for<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a>
+six months. This bread, with game, and the milk of their animals,
+constituted their principal food. At intervals pestilence robbed them of
+their flocks, the crops failed, and hunger decimated the tribes; then
+the strong devoured the weak. Alorcus remembered hearing this from the
+elders of his tribe as having occurred in remote times when Neton,
+Autubel, Nabi, and other divinities of the land, irritated against their
+people, had sent upon them these fearful punishments.</p>
+
+<p>The young Celtiberian continued telling of the customs. Some of the
+women who worked in the fields with so much vigor had perhaps given
+birth to a child the day before. As soon as born they immersed it in the
+nearest river, so that by this act, which in many cases caused death, it
+would grow vigorous and insensible to cold; and while the mother
+resolutely arose and continued her work, the husband took her place in
+the bed, lying down with the newly born child. The woman, still barely
+convalescent, took care of the two, surrounding the hale and hearty
+husband with comforts, as if in gratitude for the fruit he had given
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Several times the caravan on its march passed men lying rigid and
+groaning on couches of herbs gathered by the wayside. Flies buzzed about
+their heads in clouds; an amphora of water stood within their reach. A
+child squatted near the couch brushing away the insects with a branch.
+They were sick people whom their relatives exposed by the roadside
+according to ancient custom, partly to implore the clemency of the
+divinities by exhibiting their misery, and also in order that passing
+travelers might advise a remedy, thus transmitting prescriptions from
+distant countries.<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a></p>
+
+<p>The strong men bathed in horse urine to harden their muscles. Their only
+luxury consisted in weapons. They admired as priceless jewels the bronze
+swords brought from the north of the Peninsula, and those of steel made
+by the people of Bilbilis and tempered in the sands of their famous
+river. The flexible cuirasses, formed by several thicknesses of
+superposed linen, or those of leather, decorated with nails, were
+defensive arms which the Celtiberian never laid aside, not even when in
+bed. They slept dressed in the sagum, the metal greaves on their legs,
+and their weapons within reach of the hand, ready to fight the instant
+the slightest alarm might disturb their sleep.</p>
+
+<p>After three days of travel the caravan entered the territory belonging
+to the tribes of Alorcus. The mountains separated on both sides of the
+Jal�n, forming smiling valleys covered by tall grasses, through which
+ran herds of wild horses with curling manes and waving tails. The women
+came out of the villages to greet Alorcus, and the men, grasping lances,
+mounted their horses and joined the caravan. In the first village where
+they stopped an old man told Alorcus that his father, the powerful
+Endovellicus, was dying, and in the next through which they passed in a
+few hours, he heard that the great chieftain had died at daybreak.</p>
+
+<p>All the warriors of the tribe, herders and farmers, followed them on
+horseback. When they reached the village where the kinglet had lived,
+the escort had grown to a small army.</p>
+
+<p>In the doorway of the paternal house, a low structure of red stones
+roofed with logs, Alorcus saw his sisters in dresses made of flowers and
+wearing around their necks<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a> and over their heads cage-like collars from
+the bars of which hung mourning veils.</p>
+
+<p>The sisters of Alorcus, as well as the women who accompanied them, the
+wives of the chief warriors of the tribe, hid their grief at the death
+of the chieftain, and smiled as if it were the eve of a festival. Old
+age was a disgrace among the Celtiberians, who held life in contempt,
+and fought for diversion when not engaged in war. To die in bed was
+deemed dishonorable, and the only thing which somewhat disturbed the
+serenity of the family of Endovellicus was that so famous a warrior, the
+terror of neighboring clans, should have died with white hair, his life
+flickering out like a wasted torch, after having galloped his steed
+through so many combats, hurling his sword like a thunderbolt upon the
+enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on's dress and his countenance attracted the curious gaze of all the
+tribe. Many of the Celtiberians had never seen a Greek, and they looked
+upon this one with hostile eyes, recalling the clever tricks and sharp
+dealings of the Hellenic merchants experienced by their brethren when
+they went down to Saguntum to sell silver from the mines.</p>
+
+<p>Alorcus reassured his people.</p>
+
+<p>"He is my brother," he said, in the language of the country. "We have
+dwelt together in Saguntum. Besides, he is not a native of that city. He
+is from very far away, from a land where the men are almost gods, and he
+has journeyed hither with me to become acquainted with you."</p>
+
+<p>The women gazed at Act�on in astonishment on hearing the almost divine
+origin which Alorcus attributed to him.<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a></p>
+
+<p>The members of the caravan had dismounted, and entered the immense log
+structure which had served the chief for a palace. A vast room blackened
+by smoke, lighted only by narrow apertures like loopholes, served as a
+place of reunion and council for the warriors of the tribe. At one end
+was an enormous stone, upon which was burning a wood fire, while a great
+opening in the roof did service as a chimney. Set in one wall was a
+stone slab, with the figure of the divinity of the tribe strangling two
+lions rudely sculptured upon it. Hung along the walls were lances and
+shields, skins of wild beasts, bleached craniums and twisted horns of
+large game. A stone bench ran along the sides of the room making way
+near the fireplace for a high masonry seat covered by a bear skin. Here
+the chieftain was accustomed to sit.</p>
+
+<p>The warriors took their places on the bench as they entered.</p>
+
+<p>One old man taking Alorcus by the hand, guided him to a place of honor.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit here, son of Endovellicus. You are his only heir and you shall be
+our chief. May his valor and his prudence dwell in you."</p>
+
+<p>The other warriors assented to the elder's words with grave nods of
+approval.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is my father's body?" asked Alorcus, filled with emotion by the
+simple ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>"Since the sun set it has slept in the meadow where you learned to break
+horses and to use arms. The young men of the tribe are keeping guard
+over it. The obsequies worthy of so great a chief will take place at<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a>
+sunrise. Then, as our new king, you will give us counsel upon the great
+affairs of the tribe."</p>
+
+<p>Alorcus compelled the Greek to sit beside him. The women filed in with
+torches, since no more than a dim twilight was produced by the pale,
+diffused glow filtering through the narrow slits in the wall. The
+sisters of Alorcus, with lowered eyes, their flowery tunics floating
+about their strong, virginal forms, passed before the warriors, offering
+drinking horns filled with metheglin and beer. The men imbibed
+enormously without losing self-control. They recounted the deeds of
+Endovellicus as if he had died many years before, and they told of the
+great enterprises in which his successor would surely lead them hinting
+again and again, in mysterious words, at a subject with which they must
+deal in the council on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>Supper was brought. The Celtiberians were not accustomed to eating at
+table like the people of the coast. They remained seated on the stone
+bench. The women placed beside them a wheaten loaf, instead of the acorn
+bread which was commonly eaten, this being an extraordinary feast.
+Others passed a great vessel filled with chunks of roasted meat still
+dripping blood, and each warrior speared a piece with the point of his
+knife. Horns overflowing with liquor circulated from hand to hand, and
+Act�on accepted with graceful mien whatever his neighbors, in hospitable
+phrase which he could not understand, offered him.</p>
+
+<p>Supper being ended, the young men of the tribe came in with trumpets and
+flutes, and began to play a bizarre air which combined the joy of the
+chase with the fury of their charge upon the enemy in battle. The<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a>
+guests were aroused, and the youngest among them, springing into the
+centre of the room, began to dance with gymnastic freedom. It was the
+dance with which the Celtiberians terminated their banquets, a violent
+exercise which put their muscles to the test, and caused them to regain
+their spirit even in moments of greatest depression.</p>
+
+<p>Long before midnight the warriors retired, leaving Alorcus and Act�on
+alone in the great smoke-filled room, where sputtered the torches,
+tingeing the barbaric decorations on the walls with a blood-like hue.
+They slept on couches of aromatic herbs, without removing their
+clothing, their weapons near them, as slept all the tribe, ever fearful
+of attack from neighbors tempted by the multitude of their flocks.</p>
+
+<p>At daybreak they went down to the meadow where the body of Endovellicus
+was exposed. The whole tribe was gathered on the plain near the river;
+the young men on horseback with their lances, and in full armor; the old
+men seated in the shade of the oak trees; the women and children near
+the pyre of logs upon which lay the corpse of their chief.</p>
+
+<p>Endovellicus was arrayed in his war costume. His faded hair escaped
+beneath the borders of his triple-crested helmet; his silvery beard
+rested upon a cuirass of bronze scales; his muscular arms were naked,
+and his hands were clasped over the Celtiberian sword, short and
+slender, with broadened point, and his legs were bound by the broad
+straps of his sandals. His shield, engraved with a representation of the
+gods of the tribe struggling with two lions, served as a cushion for his
+head.<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a></p>
+
+<p>When the two young men arrived the same elder who had spoken to Alorcus
+the day before advanced. He was the wisest of the tribe, and had
+counselled Endovellicus many times before undertaking audacious
+expeditions. Under extraordinary circumstances he had laid open with his
+sacred knife the viscera of his prisoners to read the future in the
+quiverings of their entrails. Again he had cut off the hands of the
+conquered to dedicate them to the god of the tribe, nailing them to the
+chieftain's door to placate the divinity. Mystery used him as a
+mouthpiece and all the tribe regarded him with awe and fear, as if he
+were capable of changing the course of the sun and of destroying in a
+night the crops of an enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"Advance, son of Endovellicus!" he said solemnly. "Look upon your people
+who choose you as most valiant and most worthy to succeed your father!"</p>
+
+<p>He questioned the assemblage with a look, and the warriors answered by
+beating on their shields, uttering the same shouts with which they
+infuriated themselves on plunging into battle.</p>
+
+<p>"You have become our king!" continued the elder. "You shall be father
+and guardian of your people! That you may fulfill your mission receive
+the great inheritance of your father! Bring hither the shield."</p>
+
+<p>Two young men climbed to the top of the pyre, and raising Endovellicus'
+head, they brought down the shield engraved with the image of the god,
+and delivered it to Alorcus.</p>
+
+<p>"With this shield," continued the venerable warrior, "you shall protect
+your people from the blows of the enemy. Bring hither the sword!"<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a></p>
+
+<p>The young men brought down the sword, drawing it forth from the stiff
+fingers of Endovellicus.</p>
+
+<p>"Bind it upon you, Alorcus," continued the wizard. "With this you shall
+defend us, and may it fall like a thunderbolt wherever the destiny of
+your people points! Advance, youthful king!"</p>
+
+<p>Guided by the elder, Alorcus stepped forward to the pyre upon which his
+father lay. He turned away his face that he might not behold the body,
+fearing an outburst of grief which would force him to shed tears before
+his tribe.</p>
+
+<p>"Swear by Neton, by Autubel, by Nabi, by Caulece, by all the gods of our
+tribe, and of all the tribes that people this earth and hate the
+foreigners who one day came from across the sea to rob us of our riches.
+Swear to be faithful to your people and ever to obey the counsels of the
+warriors of your tribe! Swear it by the body of your father, which soon
+will be only ashes!"</p>
+
+<p>Alorcus took the oath, and the warriors pounded upon their shields
+again, uttering acclamations of joy.</p>
+
+<p>The old warrior, with extraordinary vigor, climbed upon the logs and
+searched beneath the cuirass of the corpse.</p>
+
+<p>"Take this, Alorcus!" he said, on descending. He handed the new
+chieftain a slender copper chain from which hung a disk-like case of the
+same metal. "This is the greatest inheritance from your father&mdash;the
+manumission which accompanied him at all times. There is not a warrior
+in Celtiberia who does not carry upon his person his poison so that he
+may die rather than become the slave of the conqueror. I prepared this
+for your father. I spent a whole moon extracting it from the<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a> wild
+apium, and one drop of it will kill like a lightning flash. If some day
+you fall vanquished, drink and die before your people behold their
+chieftain with a hand stricken off and serving the enemy as a slave."</p>
+
+<p>Alorcus slipped the chain over his head, concealing the heirloom in his
+breast. Then he returned to Act�on, beneath the oaks where the ancients
+of the tribe were grouped.</p>
+
+<p>The young men in the meadow, apprentices in the art of warfare, ran
+around the pyre with lighted torches. The flaming candlewood licked the
+resinous logs, and soon the smoke and flames began to enwrap the corpse.</p>
+
+<p>The warriors most famous for valor and strength advanced, making their
+horses caracole round about the fire.</p>
+
+<p>Waving their lances, they proclaimed with hoarse cries the deeds of the
+departed chief, the body of the tribe joining in the acclamation. They
+related the innumerable combats from which he had come forth victor; the
+audacious expeditions on which he had caught the enemy off their guard
+at night, burning their dwellings, and leading off interminable strings
+of captives; the flocks captured, for which there was barely
+pasture-ground in the territories belonging to the tribe; his colossal
+strength; the quickness with which he mastered the wildest colt; and the
+prudence which he demonstrated in all his counsels.</p>
+
+<p>"He covered the doors of our houses with the hands of our enemies,"
+shouted a warrior, galloping like a phantom through the smoke of the
+funeral pyre.</p>
+
+<p>The multitude shouted with an intonation of lament.</p>
+
+<p>"Endovellicus! Endovellicus!"<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a></p>
+
+<p>"All the tribes feared him, and his name was respected like that of a
+god!"</p>
+
+<p>The multitude repeated the name of the chief over and over, as if
+weeping.</p>
+
+<p>"With his hands of stone he would fell the bull in full career, and
+smite off the head of the enemy with a stroke of his sword!"</p>
+
+<p>"Endovellicus! Endovellicus!"</p>
+
+<p>Thus proceeded the last rites to the chieftain. The flames from the bier
+rose straight into the heavens clouding the blue sky with its pall of
+smoke, and the mourners tireless in heralding the deeds of their leader,
+passed and repassed like black demons crowned with sparks, making their
+horses leap over the flaming wood. The funeral pyre fell overwhelming
+the remains of Endovellicus with ashes and charring logs, while around
+the embers of the fire commenced the combat in honor of the dead.</p>
+
+<p>The warriors advanced on horseback with slack rein, the shield held
+before the breast, the sword raised high, and they fought like
+irreconcilable enemies. The closest comrades, brothers at arms, dealt
+each other tremendous blows, with the enthusiasm of a people which turns
+fighting into a diversion. They must shed blood to glorify the memory of
+the deceased with greater pomp. Horses fell at the shock of the
+encounter and the riders continued the struggle on foot, wrestling body
+to body, making the shields resound with the force of the blows. When
+some of the warriors had retired covered with blood, and the combat had
+assumed the character of a general battle, in which, aroused by the
+spectacle, the women and children participated, Alorcus<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a> ordered the
+trumpets to sound the retreat, and he hurled himself among the
+combatants to separate the more tenacious.</p>
+
+<p>Thus ended the funeral rites. The slaves of the tribe flung the remnants
+of the bonfire into a ditch, and the crowd, seeing the festival over,
+before retiring to their villages, held aloft once more their horns
+brimming with beer, to drink to the honor of the new-made king.</p>
+
+<p>The principal warriors turned toward the dwelling of the chief to hold
+council.</p>
+
+<p>The Athenian traveled beside Alorcus, manifesting astonishment at the
+barbaric and warlike customs of the Celtiberians. As he could not
+understand their language, the warriors were not alarmed at seeing him
+take a seat in the council hall near their new chieftain.</p>
+
+<p>The wizard discoursed at length to Alorcus, amid the respectful silence
+of the warriors. Act�on understood that he was giving an account of
+extraordinary events which had occurred in the tribe a few days before
+the arrival of the new king. Perhaps some call from friendly tribes,
+some fruitful expedition planned by the more venturesome.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the face of Alorcus darken, as if they were telling him something
+painful, repugnant to his feelings. The assemblage looked at him
+fixedly, betraying in their eyes enthusiasm and agreement with the old
+man's words. Alorcus recovered his composure, listening calmly to the
+wizard, and when the latter ceased talking, after a long pause, he spoke
+a few words and with his head made a gesture of assent.<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a></p>
+
+<p>His rude countrymen received the chieftain's acceptance with ardor, and
+rushed from the house in vehement haste to carry the news to those
+outside.</p>
+
+<p>When the Greek and the Celtiberian were left alone, the latter said
+sadly:</p>
+
+<p>"Act�on, to-morrow I set out with my people. I begin to serve as
+chieftain of the tribe. I must lead it to combat."</p>
+
+<p>"May I accompany you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I know not where we are going. My father had a powerful ally whom I
+dare not name to you, and this ally calls me without saying why. The
+whole tribe displays tremendous enthusiasm for this expedition."</p>
+
+<p>After a pause Alorcus added:</p>
+
+<p>"You are welcome to stay here as long as you wish. My sisters will obey
+you as if you were Alorcus himself."</p>
+
+<p>"No; since you will not be here, nothing remains for me to do. I have
+seen enough in one day to know the Celtiberians. I will return to
+Saguntum."</p>
+
+<p>"Happy man, who can return to the Grecian life, to S�nnica's banquets,
+to the sweet peace of those merchants! May it never be disturbed, and
+may I be able to return there as a friend!"</p>
+
+<p>The two preserved a long silence, as if black thoughts were whirling
+through their minds.</p>
+
+<p>"You will return from this expedition loaded down with riches," said the
+Greek, "and you will come back to Saguntum to spend them joyously."</p>
+
+<p>"May it be thus!" murmured Alorcus. "But I feel a presentiment that we
+shall never meet again, Act�on; or, if we meet, it will be to curse the
+gods that we should<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> ever have known each other. I go ignorant of my
+destination, and perhaps I must march against what I most love."</p>
+
+<p>They said no more; they feared to give expression to their thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>Greek and Celtiberian embraced tenderly. Then, after a sorrowful
+farewell, they kissed each other on the eyes in sign of fraternal
+friendship.<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<p class="head">INVASION</p>
+
+<p class="nind">S<span class="smcap">�nnica</span>
+feared that she had lost Act�on forever. His sudden departure
+seemed the caprice of a fickle Athenian&mdash;of an eternal wanderer, driven
+by the fever of seeing new lands. Only the gods could tell where that
+bird of passage might fly after his visit to Celtiberia! Perhaps he
+would remain with Alorcus; perhaps he would go to war along with those
+barbarians; perhaps, captivated by his knowledge and cleverness, they
+would go so far as to give him a kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica doubted that the Athenian would ever return. Her short
+springtime of love had been like the fugitive joy of the women adored by
+the gods when they had come down to earth. She who used to be so
+unfeeling as to mock at affection, now spent the days weeping on her
+couch, or wandering by night like a shade through the gardens, stopping
+in the grotto where the Greek had given her his first caress. The slaves
+wondered at the harsh and capricious temper of their mistress, who one
+moment groaned like a child, and the next, as if fired with sudden
+cruelty, ordered punishments for them all; but, without warning, Act�on
+presented himself before her villa one morning, riding a dusty, sweaty
+horse. He dismissed the ferocious featured barbarians who had served him
+as bodyguard, and ran with outstretched<a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a> arms toward the tremulous
+S�nnica. The whole of her immense dominions seemed resuscitated; the
+mistress smiled; the garden bloomed more beautifully; on the terrace
+shone the plumage of the rare birds with greater splendor; the
+instruments of the flute players sounded more joyful, and to the slaves,
+freed now from punishment, the air seemed sweeter and the sky more blue.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica's villa reawoke to its merry life, as if its owner had risen
+from the dead. The nights were devoted to feasting in the great
+triclinium; S�nnica's friends, the young gallants, accepted her
+invitations, and even Euphobias, the philosopher, reached his place at
+the table without having to fight his way through the blows of her
+slaves.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica was radiant, clinging to Act�on and listening to his words as to
+sweet music. The guests urged him to relate the story of his adventures
+among the Celtiberians, wondering at the customs of the tribes over
+which Alorcus reigned. Euphobias, the parasite, did not conceal his
+satisfaction at possessing so powerful a friend, and he declared that he
+would go to his kingdom to live awhile in comfort, without having to beg
+his bread from the merchants of Saguntum. Love's springtime returned for
+the Athenian. He spent his days at the villa, lying at S�nnica's feet,
+watching her spin the bright colored wool from the distaff or give the
+finishing touches to her toilette, assisted by her slaves. At the close
+of day they strolled through the garden, and night surprised them in the
+grotto, in fond embrace, listening to the song of the water falling into
+the alabaster basin with sweet, monotonous melody.</p>
+
+<p>Now and again Act�on went to the city in the morning<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a> to stroll through
+the porticos of the Forum listening to the newsmongers with the
+curiosity of a Greek accustomed to the grumblings in the Agora. He
+noticed extraordinary stir in the great Saguntine market-square. The
+idle talked of war; the more bellicose recounted with exaggeration their
+achievements on the last expedition against the Turdetani, and the
+tranquil merchants left their counters to ask for news, accepting with
+gestures of despair the possibility of a coming struggle. As Act�on came
+into Saguntum he saw on the wall hundreds of slaves repairing the
+merlons worn by time, and filled with cracks which many years of peace
+had opened in them.</p>
+
+<p>Mopsus, the archer, put him in touch with the deliberations of the
+elders. Hannibal had sent an emissary with an ultimatum to return to the
+Turdetani the conquered territories and the booty taken during their
+last expedition. The African threatened with insufferable arrogance, and
+the Saguntine Republic had answered with scorn, refusing to listen to
+his commands. Saguntum would only obey its strong ally Rome, and, secure
+in her protection, she looked with indifference upon the threats of the
+Carthaginian. However, as war seemed inevitable, and as all stood in
+fear of the youth and audacious character of Hannibal, two senators had
+embarked some days before at the port of Saguntum, setting sail for the
+coasts of Italy to relate what had taken place, soliciting the
+protection of the Roman Senate.</p>
+
+<p>This news circulated confusedly through the Forum, and the crowd jested
+at Hannibal as an impetuous youth who needed a lesson. He might come
+against Saguntum whenever he wished. These Carthaginians<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a> were the very
+same who had been driven out of Sicily, the same who had been compelled
+to abandon the coasts of Magna Grecia, being expelled by the Romans, who
+had then raised their own city beside the ruin! If they had achieved
+victories afterward in Iberia it was only against barbarian tribes
+ignorant of the art of warfare, who fell victims to their cunning! When
+they attacked Saguntum they would encounter a worthier enemy, and Rome,
+the powerful ally, would fall upon their rear and exterminate them!</p>
+
+<p>These ideas infuriated the city.</p>
+
+<p>News came that Hannibal had set forth upon his campaign and was slowly
+approaching, and with such tidings a gust of war seemed to sweep over
+Saguntum inflaming the minds of the most prudent. The peace-loving
+merchants with the mute choler of pacific-minded men who see their
+possessions endangered, stood in the doorways of their shops cleaning
+the rust from old arms, or they went down to the river bank to practise
+using them, mingling with the young men, who, since sunrise, had been
+making their horses caracole, gaining skill in the management of the
+lance, or improving themselves in archery under the direction of Mopsus.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on now began to spend his days away from the villa, deaf to the
+prayers of S�nnica, who longed to have him ever near her. The Senate had
+given him command of the peltasts, the light infantry, and at the head
+of some hundreds of young men, barefooted and with no other defensive
+arm than a cuirass of wool and a shield of osiers, he ran along the
+river bank, teaching them to hurl darts without stopping in their race,
+to wound an<a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a> enemy as they passed swiftly by his side, without giving
+him time to respond with another blow.</p>
+
+<p>This exercise over, the perspiring youths dived into the river to
+refresh themselves with a swim, while the Greek slowly returned to the
+villa, lingering in the most smiling spots of the domain.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon the Athenian met Erotion, the potter, at the foot of an
+enormous cherry tree, gazing into the tallest branches, from which fell
+a shower of red fruit shaken down by an invisible hand. They had not met
+since the day when Act�on surprised him modeling before the nude
+shepherdess.</p>
+
+<p>The youth greeted the Greek with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you no longer busy?" asked Act�on with paternal kindness. "Have you
+finished your work?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy answered with a gesture of indifference: "My work! Do not laugh
+at me, Greek. I have nothing to do."</p>
+
+<p>"And where is Rhanto?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is in the top of that tree, gathering the finest cherries for me.
+She climbs like a wood-nymph and she will not let me go with her. She is
+afraid I shall hurt myself."</p>
+
+<p>The branches of the cherry tree shook, and the shepherdess descended,
+agile as a squirrel, her limbs bare, her skirt gathered up and filled
+with cherries. She and her lover devoured them amid laughter, their lips
+ruddy with the crimson fruit-juice, and they decorated each other's hair
+or hung yokes of cherries over their ears, forming picturesque
+ruby-colored earrings.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on smiled at the strong, handsome young folks who ever sought each
+other's company and frolicked<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a> as if they were in the heart of the
+desert, giving no heed to the danger threatening the city.</p>
+
+<p>"But what about your art?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Erotion and Rhanto laughed at the recollection.</p>
+
+<p>"I smashed the figure to pieces," said the boy. "I broke the clay into
+fragments, and I have decided to touch no other than that in the
+pottery&mdash;when I make up my mind to return there."</p>
+
+<p>He flung his arms around the shepherdess and rested his head upon her
+shoulder, rubbing his cheek against her neck with an almost feline
+caress.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I work?" he added. "I spent many days kneeling before that
+accursed clay, struggling to make it take on the form of her body; but
+it is useless. Clay is clay, and it cannot become living substance. When
+the soft flesh of my Rhanto is within reach of my hand, it is folly to
+grow desperate trying to mold earth into a semblance of her life. I wish
+to dream no more, Athenian. I will be content with what I have."</p>
+
+<p>With sublime indifference he caressed his playmate in Act�on's presence.</p>
+
+<p>"One day," continued the boy, "I saw clearly, and I understood the
+truth. Rhanto stood before me. Blinded by ambition I had seen in her
+only the model, but that day I beheld the woman. Why seek glory when I
+had love before me! Even though I should mould a great statue, what
+should I gain? That people should say, after I am dead, 'Erotion the
+Saguntine made this.' I should not hear it&mdash;after having spent my life
+working and suffering. No; let us live and love. That day I kicked the
+statue to pieces, and I embraced Rhanto with an enthusiasm of joy.
+Loving each other is better<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a> than wasting time over clay puppets. Is not
+that so, Rhanto?"</p>
+
+<p>They kissed each other again, heedless of the presence of the Greek.
+Act�on observed a transformation in the pair, both in the frank devotion
+of the boy, and in the glow in the eyes of the shepherdess. The ardor of
+love seemed to have made him more manly, and to have given her a suave
+and tender grace, a sweet abandon which she had lacked before.</p>
+
+<p>"I have forgotten art, and now we are happy," continued the boy. "It
+would have been madness to have run off to Greece, leaving here a
+treasure which I had not fully appreciated. We spend our time wandering
+through the fields; we know mysterious corners in the groves sheltered
+by curtains of leaves, dark and perfumed hiding places which even
+S�nnica the rich might envy us. When we are hungry we milk Rhanto's
+goats and we rob a beehive; we climb trees in search of fruit; this is
+the glorious season of the year; the whole champaign is full of
+cherries."</p>
+
+<p>He suddenly ceased speaking, fearing lest he had said too much. Perhaps
+Rhanto reproved him with a nudge. Then he added, in a supplicating tone:</p>
+
+<p>"You are good, Athenian. Rhanto and I have looked upon you as an elder
+brother since that day we met you on the Road of the Serpent. Do not say
+anything to my father, nor to S�nnica. Let us be happy in this life of
+ours, which is worthy of the gods."</p>
+
+<p>Act�on envied the felicity of these care-free youths, who loved each
+other frankly, living beneath the trees, strong and beautiful as wild
+creatures who had no thoughts beyond their companionship.<a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Saguntum is about to be attacked. War is at our gates. Did you not know
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"We have not heard of it," said Erotion, with a scornful gesture. "I am
+interested in nothing but Rhanto."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you not interested in the fate of your city?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am more interested in the kisses of my shepherdess. As long as there
+be love, sunshine, and fruits, what does the rest of the world matter to
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you no thought for your country, you truant?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just now I have no thought for anything but these cherries, and for
+these red lips which are as fresh as they."</p>
+
+<p>They parted, and Act�on long held the memory of the meeting. The
+light-heartedness of the loving couple filled him with envy.</p>
+
+<p>The summer months passed. The vines of the domain ripened their
+clusters, the farmers rejoiced in the prospect of the coming crop hidden
+beneath the leaves, but from time to time, like a gloomy trumpet blast,
+came news of Hannibal, of his victories over the tribes of the interior
+who refused to recognize him, and of his imperious demands upon
+Saguntum.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on scented the nearness of war, and this, which had ever been his
+principal occupation, now caused him only sorrow. He had grown to love
+this beautiful land as dearly as Greece. His soul, saturated with the
+sweet peace of the fertile fields, and of the rich industrious city, was
+saddened at the thought that this life was to be paralyzed. His
+existence had been spent amid struggles and adventures; and now, rich
+and happy, when he longed for peace in a corner where he hoped to<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a> end
+his days, war, like a forgotten mistress who presents herself
+inopportunely, returned unbidden, forcing him anew to cruelty and
+destruction.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon, at the end of summer, he was pondering these things as he
+was riding toward the city. In the oblique rays of the sun the
+industrious bees, searching out the wild flowers, glistened like golden
+buttons. The vintagers were singing in the vineyards, stooping over
+their baskets. Act�on saw one of the slaves whom S�nnica kept in her
+warehouses in Saguntum come running from the direction of the city.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped panting before Act�on. He was almost speechless from fatigue,
+and his broken words revealed his alarm. Hannibal was coming from the
+direction of S�tabis! The people from the country were crowding into the
+city in terror, driving their flocks before them. They had not seen the
+invader but they ran, horrified by the tales of the fugitives who were
+fleeing from the frontiers of the Saguntine territory. The Carthaginians
+had crossed the border; they were people of ferocious aspect, who bore
+strange arms, who looted the villages, and set them on fire. He was
+running to tell his mistress that she might take refuge in the city.</p>
+
+<p>He rushed on toward S�nnica's villa. The Greek hesitated a moment; he
+deliberated whether he should go back in search of his beloved, but he
+ended by setting out on a gallop toward the city, and as he neared it,
+he rode at full speed around the walls. He went for a look at the
+highway from the mountains which gave Saguntum communication with the
+towns by a branch which led to S�tatis and Denia. As he approached he<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a>
+began to meet the refugees of whom the slave had told him.</p>
+
+<p>They flooded the road like an inundation. The flocks and herds were
+bleating and lowing under the lash, crowding in between the wagons;
+women were running, carrying great bundles on their heads, and dragging
+along the children clutching at the folds of their tunics; boys were
+driving horses laden with furniture and clothing thrown together
+haphazard in the precipitation of flight, and ewes leaped to the sides
+of the road to escape the wheels which, catching their dragging fleece,
+almost crushed them.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek, riding into the stream of fugitives, opened passage with his
+horse through the seething wave of wagons and animals, rustics and
+slaves, in which people of different towns were confusedly mingled,
+while members of scattered families were calling to one another
+desperately through the clouds of dust.</p>
+
+<p>The fleeing multitude was clearing away. Act�on was beginning to meet
+the stragglers; poor old women traveling with vacillating step, bearing
+on their shoulders some lamb which constituted their entire fortune; old
+men crushed by the weight of pots and clothing; sick people dragging
+themselves along by the aid of a staff; abandoned animals wandering
+among the olive trees near the highway, that suddenly darted forward at
+full speed through the fields as if scenting their masters; children
+seated on a stone weeping, abandoned by their kindred.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the road was empty. The last of the refugees were left behind, and
+Act�on saw before him only the narrow tongue of red earth winding along
+the mountain<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a> slopes, without a solitary being to break the monotony of
+the road with his shadow.</p>
+
+<p>The gallop of his horse resounded like distant thunder through the
+profound silence. It seemed as if Nature had expired as she guessed the
+approach of war. Even the ancient trees, the twisted olives which had
+stood for centuries, the great fig trees which rose like green cupolas
+against the mountain slopes, remained motionless, as if terrified at the
+approach of that something which caused the people to abandon their
+homes and to flee into the city.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on rode through a village. Closed doors! Silent streets! From the
+interior of a cabin he thought he heard a faint groan&mdash;some sick person
+forsaken by his kindred in their haste to escape. Then he passed a great
+closed villa. Behind the high mud walls a dog was howling in despair.</p>
+
+<p>Then once more solitude, silence, absence of life, a paralysis that
+seemed to creep over the fields. Night began to fall. From afar, as if
+diffused and mellowed by the distance, he heard a muffled booming;
+something like the surging of an invisible sea, the swelling roar of an
+inundation.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek left the road; his horse began to climb a cultivated hill, his
+hoofs sinking into the red soil of the vineyards. From the height he
+could dominate the landscape for a great distance.</p>
+
+<p>The sun's last rays dyed the mountain slopes a brilliant orange. On the
+winding red road shone like a rivulet of sparks the cuirasses of a group
+of horsemen approaching cautiously on a trot, as if exploring the way.
+Act�on recognized them; they were the Numidian cavalry with<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a> white and
+floating mantles, while, mingled with them galloped other warriors of
+less imposing stature, waving lances and making their small horses
+caracole. The Greek smiled as he recognized Hannibal's Amazons, the
+famous squadron he had seen in New Carthage, formed of the wives and
+daughters of soldiers, commanded by the valorous Asbyte, daughter of
+Iarbas, the Garamantan of Fezzan.</p>
+
+<p>Behind this group, the road was deserted for some distance. Against the
+background, like a dark monster moving with serpentine undulations,
+loomed the army, an immense girdle upon which glittered the lances like
+a line of fire broken at intervals by square bulks, which advanced like
+moving towers. These were the elephants.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a new sun seemed to rise behind the army, illuminating its
+footsteps. A lurid light filled the horizon, and upon this ruddy
+background the serrated outlines of an immense mass were traced. A
+village was in flames. Hannibal's troops, composed of mercenaries from
+all countries, and from barbarian tribes in the interior, intended to
+terrify the hostile city, hence immediately upon entering Saguntine
+territory they laid waste the fields and set fire to the dwellings.
+Act�on feared to become surrounded by the Numidians and the Amazons, and
+riding down from the height he started toward Saguntum at a desperate
+gallop.</p>
+
+<p>It was after dark when he reached the city, and he had to call his
+friend Mopsus and make himself known before the gate would open to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen them?" asked the archer.</p>
+
+<p>"Before the cock crows they will be before our walls."</p>
+
+<p>The city presented an extraordinary aspect. The<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a> streets were
+illuminated with bonfires. Pine torches burned in doorways and windows,
+and the multitude of fugitives huddled in the public squares, filling
+the porticos, and lying on the thresholds. All the Saguntines had
+streamed into the city.</p>
+
+<p>The Forum was a camp. The flocks and herds were crowded between the four
+colonnades without space to move, stamping and bellowing; sheep sprang
+about on the steps of the temples; families of rustics boiled pots on
+the Attic bases of the marble columns, and the glow of so many fires,
+flickering on the fa�ades of the houses, seemed to communicate a thrill
+of alarm to the entire city. The magistrates ordered the fugitives lying
+in the streets obstructing traffic to get up, and lodged them in the
+slaves' quarters of the dwellings of the rich, or had them conducted to
+the Acropolis to camp in its innumerable buildings. The herds also were
+driven thither by the light of torches, between a double row of almost
+naked men who beat the oxen when they tried to escape down the sides of
+the sacred mountain.</p>
+
+<p>Rising above the murmur of the multitude sounded blasts from trumpets
+and conch shells calling the citizens to form ready for defending the
+walls. Merchants, dressed in bronze loricas, their faces covered by the
+Grecian helmet crested with an enormous brush of horsehair, issued from
+their houses, tearing themselves from the arms of wives and children,
+and strode majestically through the crowds of rustics, bow in hand,
+their spears over their shoulders, and their swords clanking against
+their nude thighs, their limbs covered to the knees with the copper
+greaves. The young men dragged to the walls enormous stones to hurl
+down<a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a> upon the besiegers, and they laughed on being assisted by the
+women who were eager to take part in the combat. Old men with venerable
+beards, rich members of the Senate, opened passage, followed by slaves
+with great bundles of spears and swords, distributing the arms among the
+strongest country people, first making sure if they were freemen.</p>
+
+<p>The city seemed to rejoice. Hannibal was coming! The more enthusiastic
+had actually been anxious lest the African would not dare to present
+himself before their walls; but there he was, and all laughed, thinking
+that Carthage would perish in the fall of Hannibal here at the feet of
+Saguntum, as soon as Rome should rally to the aid of the city.</p>
+
+<p>The Saguntine ambassadors were already in Rome, and her legions would
+soon arrive and crush the besiegers at a blow. Some, in their
+enthusiastic optimism, inclined to the marvelous, believing that, by a
+miracle of the gods, the great deed would happen within a few hours, and
+that as soon as day should dawn, at the very instant when Hannibal's
+army had begun to invest Saguntum, a countless galaxy of sails would
+appear on the blue of the Sucronian gulf&mdash;the fleet convoying the
+invincible veterans of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly the entire city was on the walls. The multitude crowded upon them
+until many had to catch hold of the merlons to keep from falling.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the ramparts darkness reigned absolute. The frogs that inhabited
+the pools along the river were hushed as if terrified; the dogs that
+wandered vagabond through the champaign barked ceaselessly; they sensed<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a>
+the presence of hidden beings moving in the shadows surrounding the
+city.</p>
+
+<p>Obscurity augmented the anxious uncertainty of the watchers on the
+walls. Suddenly a point of light pierced the darkness of the plain;
+another and then another flash, in different places at a distance from
+the city. They were torches guiding the steps of the approaching army.
+Before the ruddy spot of light silhouettes of men and horses were seen
+to pass. Far off on the hilltops gleamed bonfires, serving as signals to
+straggling troops.</p>
+
+<p>These lights exasperated the more impatient. Some of the younger men
+could no longer remain inactive, and drawing their bows, began to shoot
+their arrows. Promptly came response from out the darkness. A whistling
+passed over the heads of the crowd, and from the houses near the wall
+some tiles flew off with a crash. Sling-shots from the enemy!</p>
+
+<p>Thus the night passed. When the cocks crowed announcing dawn a great
+part of the multitude had fallen asleep, wearied with straining their
+eyes into the darkness where buzzed the invisible foe.</p>
+
+<p>When the sun rose the Saguntines saw Hannibal's entire army before their
+walls, on the side toward the river. Act�on, as he noted the location of
+the troops, could not repress a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"He well knows the lay of the land. His visit to the city has stood him
+in good stead. Even in the dark he has chosen the only point from which
+Saguntum can be attacked."</p>
+
+<p>The whole side of the mountain was free of besiegers. His army had
+encamped between the river and the lower part of the city, occupying the
+orchards, the gardens<a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a> of the villas, the beautiful section of which the
+rich of Saguntum were so proud.</p>
+
+<p>Soldiers came and went through the luxurious villas, preparing their
+morning meal; they made kindling of sumptuous furniture to light their
+camp fires; they wrapped themselves in garments they had found, and they
+cut down trees to make room for setting up their tents. Across the
+river, over the immense domain, groups of horsemen scattered out to take
+possession of villages, of villas, of the innumerable buildings which
+rose above the verdure of the plain, abandoned to the mercy of the
+enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The first things to attract the attention of the Saguntines, exciting a
+childish curiosity, were the elephants. They stood in a row on the
+opposite side of the river, enormous, ashen-hued, like tumescences
+uprisen from the earth within the night, their green-painted ears
+drooping like fans, from time to time waving their trunks which seemed
+like gigantic leeches, trying to suck in the blue of the sky. Their
+drivers, assisted by the soldiers, unbound the square towers resting on
+their backs, and rolled up the heavy trappings which covered their
+flanks when engaged in battle. They set them free, as if the fertile
+plain were to them an immense stable, their drivers being convinced that
+the siege would be a lengthy undertaking, and that while it lasted they
+would not need the assistance of the terrible beasts, so appreciated in
+battle.</p>
+
+<p>Near the elephants, along the river bank, stood the engines of war, the
+catapults, the battering-rams, the movable towers, complicated
+structures of wood and<a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a> bronze, drawn by rosaries of double yokes of
+oxen having enormous backward curving horns.</p>
+
+<p>As if suffering from an eruption the fields were covered with pustules
+of diverse colors, tents of cloth, of straw, or of skins, some conical,
+others square, the majority mound-shaped like ant hills, around which
+swarmed the armed multitude.</p>
+
+<p>The Saguntines, from the top of the walls, examined the besieging army
+that seemed to fill the whole plain, and which was being joined by a
+ceaseless stream of new crowds on foot and on horseback, flowing in from
+every road, and seeming to roll down from the crests of the surrounding
+mountains. It was an agglomeration of diverse races, of different
+peoples; a bizarre collection of costumes, colors, and types, and those
+Saguntines who had been taught by travel recognized the different
+nations, and were pointing them out to their absorbed fellow citizens.</p>
+
+<p>Some horsemen who seemed to fly, lying stretched along the backs of
+their swift barbs, were Numidians, Africans of feminine aspect, covered
+with white veils, wearing women's earrings and slippers, perfumed, with
+eyes painted black, but who were impetuous in combat and fought in full
+career using their lances with great skill. Around the camp fires in the
+gardens stalked athletic negroes from Libya, with kinky hair and
+glistening teeth, smiling in stupid satisfaction as they wrapped their
+naked limbs in garments of rich weave which they had just stolen,
+shivering with cold as soon as they drew away from the fire, as if
+suffering martyrdom in the cool morning air. These dark, shiny-skinned
+men, so seldom seen in Saguntum, excited the curiosity of the<a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a> citizens
+almost as much as the Amazons who audaciously passed on a gallop close
+to the walls to obtain a better view of the city. They were young women,
+slender, their skins bronzed by exposure. Their hair floated behind
+their helmets like a barbaric decoration, and they wore no other
+clothing than a broad tunic open on the left side, displaying sinewy
+limbs clinging to their horses' ribs. Over the breast some wore
+corselets of bronze-scales, also open on the left side to give greater
+freedom in fighting, displaying the roundness of their small breasts
+made firm and hard by fatiguing exercise. They rode their wild nervous
+horses bareback, guiding them with a delicate bridle, and as they
+galloped in groups the ferocious animals bit and kicked each other, thus
+enlivening the desperate race. The Amazons approached close to the
+walls, laughing and hurling insults which the Saguntines did not
+understand; they waved their lances and shields; and when a cloud of
+arrows and stones was flung after them, they dashed away, with
+wind-swept drapery, turning their heads to repeat their mocking
+gestures.</p>
+
+<p>The besieged distinguished in the dark crowd of soldiers the cuirasses
+of certain horsemen which shone like plates of gold. They were the
+Carthaginian captains, some rich men of Carthage who followed Hannibal,
+sons of opulent merchants who marched with the army more like shepherds
+than like chiefs, covered with metal from head to foot for protection
+against blows, and, with the genius of their race, more devoted to
+administering the conquests and in sharing the booty than in seeking
+glory in combat.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to these people, those on the walls who<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a> were familiar with
+them pointed out the other troops of the besieging army. Some with skin
+the color of milk, with faded mustaches, and red horsehair tied to the
+crowns of their heads, who laid aside their military cloaks and tall
+boots of untanned leather to bathe in the river, were Gauls. The others,
+bronzed and so thin that their skeletons were outlined as if they would
+push through the skin, were Africans from the oases of the great desert,
+mysterious people, who with the beating of their small drums caused the
+moon to descend, and by playing the flute forced venomous serpents to
+dance. Mingling with them were the bulky Lusitanians, with limbs as
+strong as columns, and broad rock-like chests; those from B�tica, united
+to their horses day and night by a love which lasted all their lives;
+the hostile Celtiberians, bushy-haired and dirty, wearing their rags
+with arrogance; tribes from the North, who worshipped solitary menhirs
+as gods, and in the moonlight sought mysterious herbs for charms and
+philters; men of ferocious customs, in perpetual battle with hunger;
+barbarian people of whom horrifying tales were told, believed to devour
+the bodies of the conquered after a victory.</p>
+
+<p>The Balearic slingers provoked laughter in spite of their ferocious
+aspect. From the walls the observers commented on the extravagant
+customs which prevailed in their island home, and the multitude burst
+into laughter contemplating the almost naked youths, carrying sticks
+with charred points which served them as lances, and having three
+slings, one wound around the forehead, another about the waist, and the
+third held in the hand. One of these slings was of horsehair, one of<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a>
+esparto, and the third of bull tendon, and one or the other was used
+according to the distance they had to throw.</p>
+
+<p>They lived on their islands in caves or in the hollow spaces between
+huge masses of rock, and they were taught to use the sling while mere
+children. Their fathers set their bread some distance from them, and
+would not let them eat it until they had brought it down with a pebble.
+Their passion was drunkenness, and woman their strongest appetite. In
+combat they turned with scorn from prisoners who would bring high ransom
+to capture the women, and they not infrequently would exchange six
+strong slave men for a single slave woman. On the islands they were
+unfamiliar with gold and silver; the elders divining the evils of money,
+had prohibited the importation of coins, and the Balearic slingers in
+the service of Carthage, unable to carry their earnings to their
+country, spent their wages in drink or flung them generously into the
+hands of the loose and wretched women who followed the army. Their
+traditional customs amused the Saguntines. At their weddings, so said
+those who had visited the islands, it was customary for all the guests
+to embrace the bride in advance of the husband, and at funerals the
+corpse was beaten until the bones were crushed and converted into a
+shapeless mass which they forced into a narrow urn and buried under a
+heap of stones. Their slings were terrible. They hurled to great
+distances balls of sun-baked clay, conical at their ends, and bearing
+grotesque inscriptions dedicated to the one who received the blow, and
+in battle they flung stones weighing a pound with such force that the
+highest tempered armor failed to resist them.<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a></p>
+
+<p>In the rear of this warlike crowd ragged women of all colors scattered
+through the champaign; lean, naked children who did not know their
+parents; the parasites of war, who marched at the tail of the army to
+revel in the spoils of victory; females who at night lay down in one
+extreme of the camp and arose on the opposite in the morning, and, aged
+in the prime of their youth by fatigue and blows, died forsaken by the
+roadside; youngsters who looked upon all the soldiers of their race as
+their fathers, bearing on their backs on long marches the firewood or
+the flesh-pot of the warriors, and, in moments of fiercest struggle,
+when the fighting was hand to hand, they slipped between the
+adversaries' legs and bit them like rabid cur-dogs.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on found S�nnica on the wall, gazing at the hostile camp in the
+first streak of dawn. The beautiful Greek had taken refuge in Saguntum
+the night before, followed by slaves and flocks, moving part of her
+riches from the villa to her warehouse. She had left behind rooms filled
+with paintings and mosaics; rich furniture, sumptuous table-service, all
+which would fall into the hands of the victor. And she and her fellow
+Greek saw peeping through the distant foliage the terrace of the villa
+with its statues, the tower of the doves and the roofs of the houses of
+the slaves, over which men, barely discernible, were running like
+insects. The invaders were there; perhaps they would amuse themselves by
+shooting their arrows at the brilliantly plumaged Asiatic birds, and by
+beating the old and sick slaves abandoned in the flight. Between the
+banana trees in the garden rose the smoke of a bonfire. The Greek woman
+and her lover guessed the destruction and rapine that were<a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a> taking
+place. S�nnica grew sad, not at the loss of a part of her riches, but
+because they were rending her heart through destroying a place which had
+been witness to her first outbursts of love for the Athenian.</p>
+
+<p>Some time after sunrise the Saguntine people cried out with indignation.
+Along the Road of the Serpent appeared groups of drunken and shouting
+women embracing soldiers. They were the <i>lupas</i> of the port, the
+miserable harlots who thronged around the temple of Aphrodite by night,
+and who were denied entrance to the city. When the first Carthaginian
+horsemen passed through the port these creatures had followed them with
+enthusiasm. Accustomed to the coarse blandishments of men of all
+countries, the presence of these soldiers, so different in dress and
+nationality, did not seem strange to them. The 'wolves' of the land were
+the same as those of the sea. They adored strong men, birds of prey
+which could destroy them with their talons, and they followed the
+Carthaginians to their camp, rejoicing in their hearts at the chance to
+approach the city without fear of punishment, and at being able to mock
+the besieged inhabitants with the concentrated odium of long years of
+humiliation.</p>
+
+<p>They sang like mad women, flitting from one pair of greedy and trembling
+hands to the next which disputed for them as if in their eagerness they
+would tear them to pieces. They drank to intoxication from amphor� of
+rich wines sacked from the villas; around their shoulders they flung
+cloths with threads of gold, stolen but a moment before; the Numidians
+with their moist gazelle-like eyes, looked upon them admiringly,
+bedecking them with crowns of grass, and they in turn bursting into<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a>
+bacchanal laughter, petted the kinky hair of the Ethiopians, who giggled
+like children, displaying their sharp cannibal teeth.</p>
+
+<p>They gave themselves up to all manner of ribaldry near the long line of
+horses staked out in front of the tents, displaying their wantonness as
+a shameless insult to the besieged city, and the Saguntines who had
+witnessed undaunted the approach of the long defile of the enemy
+trembled with ire behind their merlons as they witnessed this offense of
+their courtesans.</p>
+
+<p>"The wretches! <i>Canin�!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The women of the city hissed and reviled them, pale with fury, leaning
+over the walls ready to spring into the camp to lay hold upon the
+strumpets, while they, as if the anger of the city only stimulated them,
+redoubled their laughter, adding insult to insult, and exciting the
+whole army to join with them.</p>
+
+<p>A fresh cause of indignation infuriated anew the minds of the
+Saguntines. Some thought they saw something familiar in the appearance
+of one of the Celtiberian warriors riding at the head of a troop of
+cavalry. His gallant bearing on his horse, the arrogance with which he
+galloped with firm seat in the saddle, recalled to many the sightly
+procession of the Panathenaic festival. When he dismounted and removed
+his helmet, wiping away the sweat, all recognized him, and raised a
+shout of resentment. Alorcus! Even he! Another ingrate, faithless to the
+city which had overwhelmed him with honors and distinctions! His duty as
+chieftain compelled him to ignore his fraternal reception in Saguntum.</p>
+
+<p>Blind with rage they drew their bows against him but the arrows fell
+short of the spot where the Celtiberians<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a> were encamped. The maddened
+crowd experienced one slight consolation. The groups along the wall made
+way for Theron, the priest of Hercules, who advanced with the majesty of
+a god, his eyes fixed on the enemy, insensible to the general adoration
+which surrounded him.</p>
+
+<p>The Saguntines persuaded themselves that they beheld Hercules himself,
+who perhaps had abandoned his temple on the Acropolis to come down to
+their walls. He was nude; an enormous lion skin covered his back. The
+wild beast's claws were crossed over his breast, and his head was
+covered by the cranium of the animal, with bristling whiskers, sharp
+teeth, and yellow glass eyes which shone between the tossed golden mane.
+His right hand clutched without visible effort the entire trunk of an
+oak tree which served him as a cudgel in imitation of the mace of the
+god. His shoulders towered above all other heads. His breasts were round
+and strong as shields, on which the veins and sinews were traced like
+tendrils winding round the muscles, and his columnar limbs, all excited
+admiration. His virility was the very type of sovereign power. He was so
+enormous that his head seemed small between his great shoulders,
+exaggerated in size by the cushion of his muscles; his chest heaved like
+a bellows, and instinctively all took a step backward, fearing contact
+with that machine of flesh created for strength.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica's friends, the young gallants, who, even on this extraordinary
+occasion had not forgotten to paint their faces, followed and admired
+him, ordering the crowd, to give them passage.<a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Hail, Theron!" shouted Lachares. "We will see what Hannibal will do
+when he meets you in battle."</p>
+
+<p>"Hail to the Saguntine Hercules!" replied the other youths, leaning
+weakly on the backs of their little slave boys.</p>
+
+<p>The giant looked over the encampment, in which trumpets began to sound,
+and the soldiers ran to form in rank. The slingers cautiously advanced,
+sheltering themselves behind buildings and hummocks. The attack was
+about to begin. On the walls the bowmen drew their bows, and the boys
+piled up stones to hurl with their slings. The old men compelled the
+women to retire. At the head of the stairway leading up to the top of
+the wall, Euphobias the philosopher stood haranguing in the midst of a
+group, paying no heed to the indignation of his hearers.</p>
+
+<p>"Blood is going to flow," he shouted; "you will all perish, and for
+what? I ask you what do you gain by not obeying Hannibal? You will
+always have a master, and it is just as well to be friends of Carthage
+as of Rome. The siege will be prolonged, and you will die of hunger; I
+shall outlive you all, because I know hunger from of old like a faithful
+friend. But again I ask you, what more does it profit you to be Romans
+than Carthaginians? Live and enjoy! Leave shedding of blood to the
+butchers, and before you think of putting another man to death, study
+your own selves. If you would give heed to my wisdom, if instead of
+scorning me, you would feed me in exchange for my advice, you would not
+be shut up in your city like foxes in a trap."</p>
+
+<p>A chorus of imprecations and a row of threatening fists answered the
+philosopher.<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Parasite! Slave of poverty!" they shouted. "You are worse than those
+<i>lupas</i> who throw themselves at the barbarians."</p>
+
+<p>Euphobias, whose insolence increased as the indignation blazed higher,
+opened his mouth to reply; but he hesitated, beholding a dark mass which
+shut out the sunlight. The gigantic Theron was before him, looking at
+him as scornfully as would one of those elephants that the besiegers had
+near the river. He raised his left hand carelessly, as if he were going
+to flip off an insect; he barely grazed the insolent face when the
+philosopher tumbled down the steps from the wall, his head bleeding,
+silent, bumping from step to step without a groan, like a man accustomed
+to such caresses, and convinced that pain is but a figment of the
+imagination.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment a cloud of black arrows whistled over the walls like
+a flock of birds. Tiles flew off, bits of plaster sprang from the
+merlons, and some fell from the wall with broken heads. From between the
+merlons stones and arrows leaped as an impetuous answer.</p>
+
+<p>The defense of the city had begun!<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+
+<p class="head">ASBYTE AND HANNIBAL</p>
+
+<p class="nind">H<span class="smcap">annibal</span>
+lay tossing between the bright-hued coverings of his couch,
+unable to conciliate sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The cocks had announced midnight, breaking the silence of the camp with
+their shrill voices, and the chieftain was yet awake, closing his eyes
+though unable to sleep. His rest was disturbed by the singing of a
+nightingale perched in a great tree from the branches of which hung his
+tent.</p>
+
+<p>An earthenware lamp illuminated the mass of objects strewn carelessly
+around his bed. On the floor glistened cuirasses, greaves, and helmets,
+over which were thrown rich fabrics stolen from the Saguntine villas.
+Grecian furniture, delicately wrought toilette amphor�, tapestries with
+mythological scenes, lay in a heap mingled with rawhide whips, shields
+of hippopotamus hide, and the rags of Hannibal's personal costume, for,
+though a lover of glittering arms, he was careless and dirty in his
+dress. Elegant Grecian vases he put to the vilest uses. An alabaster
+crater covered by a shield served as a seat; a huge terra cotta vase,
+decorated by a Grecian artist with the adventures of Achilles, the
+African scornfully used in a manner calculated to express the height of
+his contempt for refinement. Pieces of statues and columns destroyed
+during the tempest of invasion<a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a> were sunk in the ground, making seats
+for Hannibal's captains when a council was held in the chieftain's tent.
+It was the spoil of war, looted and thrown about in a fever of robbery.
+Only a small portion of it had reached the chief, who felt absolute
+scorn for artistic beauty except when stamped on precious metals. He
+sneered at the gods of this land as he did at those of his own country
+and of the world; he spat upon the marble forms of divinities which
+filled the camp, as if they were scraps of worthless stone, good for
+nothing but to be hurled by a catapult against the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Impelled by nervous excitement, which prevented his sleeping, he raised
+up in his couch, and the lamplight shone full upon his face. He was no
+longer the Celtiberian shepherd, dishevelled and ferocious, whom Act�on
+had met in the port of Saguntum. Divested of his disguise he showed what
+he was&mdash;a young man of medium height, with strong and well proportioned
+limbs, without display of exaggerated muscles, but revealing in his body
+the temper of steel, a vitality capable in supreme moments of the most
+stupendous achievements. His face was slightly bronzed, and his hair lay
+around his head in thick short curls like a black and lustrous turban,
+completely covering his forehead, and leaving exposed the lobes of his
+ears, from which hung great discs of bronze. His beard was thick and
+curly; his nose straight and somewhat prominent, and his eyes, large and
+imperious, always looked sidewise, with an expression of profound
+astuteness and unapproachable reserve. His muscular neck was habitually
+bent, inclining his head toward the right, as if to more clearly catch
+the sounds around him.<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a></p>
+
+<p>He wore a simple, dirty, and threadbare sagum, like any one of those
+Celtiberians who lay snoring in the tents roundabout, and, as a sign of
+command, there shone on his wrists two broad golden bracelets, which
+added strength by their confinement of the tendons and muscles of the
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>For more than a month he had been before the walls of Saguntum without
+achieving any advantage. He had spent the whole of that afternoon
+directing his engines of war without result, and now in his solitude
+this want of success irritated his nerves, and dispelled his sleep. The
+petted child of victory, he had conquered in open fight the most savage
+tribes of Iberia; he had dragged his elephants over the crests of lofty
+mountains, crossing rivers, breaking trails through forests, seeing
+warlike hordes fall prostrate before him as if he were a god, but now,
+for the first time in his life he encountered a stubborn enemy, which
+behind sheltering walls mocked at him and would not suffer him to
+advance a step.</p>
+
+<p>The city of merchants and farmers which he had studied from within,
+looking scornfully upon its opulence and effeminacy, threatened to break
+the current of his good luck, and, finding it indomitable, and
+reflecting upon his enemies in Carthage, upon the wrath of Rome, and
+realizing that time was passing while he was making no headway, the
+chieftain experienced a gust of anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>He had chosen well the vulnerable point of Saguntum. His engines of war
+were placed before the lower part of the city where the walls projected
+into the valley, upon an open, level plain, which permitted the advance
+of the battering-rams; but scarcely had the hundreds of naked men who
+dragged the heavy machines come<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a> within range than such a shower of
+arrows fell about them that those who were not pinned to the ground had
+to flee for their lives.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, under cover of the mantelets, which advanced on wheels, and
+through the loopholes of which the Carthaginian bowmen shot, they
+managed to get the battering-rams to the foot of the wall, but while
+that part of the city was the most exposed to attack, the ramparts which
+in the upper portion of Saguntum were of adobe had here a stony rock
+base, and in vain the bronze rams'-heads which formed the ends of the
+beams, pounded and pounded, operated by hundreds of arms. Showers of
+arrows and stones fell upon the besiegers, breaking the shields which
+covered them. A great tower dominated the whole area around the
+assailants, sowing death among them without exposure to the besieged,
+and not content with this, under the impulse of their passion, they
+frequently sprang forth from behind the ramparts, knifing the
+Carthaginians.</p>
+
+<p>Each of these sallies cost Hannibal's army severe losses. The Africans
+had begun to tell with superstitious dread of a naked giant, wearing a
+lion's skin, and brandishing a tree-trunk, who charged at the head of
+the Saguntines, and at each blow ploughed a broad furrow through the
+assailants. The Ethiopians saw in him a terrible and sanguinary
+divinity, like those which they worshipped in their oases; the
+Celtiberians declared that it was Hercules, descended from Olympus to
+protect the city.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal recognized him in the battles from afar. It was Theron, the
+priest whom he had seen one morning on the Acropolis, and whose
+extraordinary vigor he<a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a> had admired. But in spite of knowing his human
+origin, he could not overcome the terror of the troops at the instant
+when they saw towering above all the helmets that invulnerable lion's
+head which seemed to change the course of the arrows and stones.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover the besieged counted on the assistance of the phalaric. It was
+well known that among the merchants and agriculturists there figured men
+expert in war, who had traveled through many lands. The memory of his
+boyhood companion, Act�on, the Greek adventurer, surged through
+Hannibal's mind. He, surely, must be the introducer of the phalaric, a
+dart wrapped in tow and dipped in pitch. The shaft sped blazing through
+the air like a stream of fire, with its long iron head capable of
+piercing the shield and the cuirass, and even if the terrible missile
+should not penetrate the armor, its flames set fire to the clothing; the
+combatants threw down their arms to put out the fire, and thus stood
+exposed to the blows of the enemy. The same warriors who had fought
+against the most determined and barbaric tribes of Iberia, flung away
+their shields and fled before those meteors of fire which came from the
+walls of Saguntum whistling and scattering sparks.</p>
+
+<p>Thus time passed; the besiegers gained nothing, and Hannibal was
+dominated by a galling impatience. Fire of Baal! He, chained to these
+walls which he could not make his own, while Hanno's faction was
+conspiring in Carthage, preparing the downfall of the Barcas if he
+should fail in taking Saguntum; planning, perhaps, his delivery to Rome
+when she should demand him on finding her treaties violated. In despair
+he threw himself back once more upon his couch, seeking the oblivion<a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a> of
+sleep with the eagerness of one who must needs forget. He blew out the
+light, but lay open-eyed in the darkness. The bluish glint of the moon
+filtered through an opening in the cupola of his tent, shimmering upon
+the cuirasses which in the darkness shone like phosphorescent fishes.
+Outside, the nightingale continued singing.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal grew frantic. Accursed bird that was keeping him awake! He
+could sleep in the din of battle! Accustomed from boyhood to the camp,
+the hoarse songs of the mercenaries and the whinnying of horses would
+fail to arouse him, and the harsh trumpet-blast of war had been his
+lullaby. But the sweet song of that bird, its incessant melodious trill,
+annoyed him like the buzzing of a hornet.</p>
+
+<p>He sprang from his couch; he groped in the dark amid the litter of arms,
+fabrics, and furniture; he burst out through the doorway of his tent,
+and the fresh night soothed his tempestuous spirit.</p>
+
+<p>The moon was shining in a cloudless sky; the breeze was warm, although
+it was the end of autumn; stars scintillated; the nightingale's trills
+were answered by another and yet another bird, throughout the expanse of
+the valley. The camp lay at rest. The flames were flickering out from
+dying bonfires near which soldiers were sleeping along with women and
+children of the army, wrapped in rags and in rich stolen fabrics; the
+horses picketed to the ground, pointed their nodding heads in a straight
+line; in the distance, the beleaguered city crouched dark and silent as
+if asleep, but a faint glow escaping through loopholes in its walls
+produced the effect of half-open eyes watching while feigning sleep.<a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a></p>
+
+<p>Hannibal leaped over the trusted soldiers who slept near the door of his
+tent. They raised up as they heard his footsteps, but recognizing the
+chief, lay down on the ground again and continued snoring. They were
+veterans from Hamilcar's wars, who looked with almost religious
+veneration on the lion cub of their old captain.</p>
+
+<p>As he turned the corner of the tent he drew his bow to shoot at the bird
+hidden in the foliage; but he started in surprise on seeing a white
+figure standing near the trunk of the tree, shining in the moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>It was a woman, an Amazon. On her head and on her breast glistened the
+helmet of gold and the cuirass of scales; her white linen tunic fell
+over her limbs, outlining her form, and her strong bare arms were
+resting on her lance with its shoe driven into the ground. Her dark eyes
+were fastened on Hannibal's tent with strange, unblinking persistence,
+as if she were dreaming awake, and the night-wind lightly swayed her
+floating hair. Behind her stood a black horse with glossy coat, nervous
+legs, and eyes injected with blood, destitute of saddle or bridle, his
+mane unbound; he was bending down to lick the border of the Amazon's
+tunic and her nude feet, like a dog which followed her everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>"Asbyte!" exclaimed Hannibal, surprised at the apparition. "What are you
+doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>The queen of the Amazons seemed to awake, and seeing the chief, she
+fixed on him the moist and impassioned gaze of her large eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I could not sleep," she said with a voice languid and measured. "I
+spent the first part of the night dreaming horrible dreams. The Goddess
+Tanith will<a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a> not guard my repose, and I have seen the shade of my father
+Iarbas announcing my approaching death."</p>
+
+<p>"Death!" exclaimed Hannibal, laughing. "Who thinks of death?"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I then immortal? Do I not fight like any one of your soldiers? I
+hurl myself impetuously through forests of lances; feathered shafts hiss
+around me like a trailing mantle of invisible birds; I scorn the
+phalarics with their streams of fire&mdash;but some day I shall die; my
+dreams foretell it."</p>
+
+<p>Asbyte, as if fearing to show too great melancholy in the presence of
+Hannibal, added bitterly:</p>
+
+<p>"Let death come when it will! It does not frighten me as it does the
+merchants of Carthage who hate you. If it disturbed my sleep it was
+because when I awoke I thought of you. I cannot explain to myself why I
+thought that you also might die, and to your death, Hannibal, I cannot
+be resigned. You should live long like a god. I knew that you sleep
+alone in your tent; that, to better conceal your movements you keep no
+guards to watch while you slumber, and I felt the need of doing
+something for you, of spending the night leaning on my lance near your
+couch to prevent the treachery of an enemy."</p>
+
+<p>"What madness!" exclaimed the African, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Hannibal," said the beautiful Amazon gravely, "remember Hasdrubal, the
+husband of your sister. The dagger of a slave was enough to put an end
+to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Hasdrubal was doomed to die," said the chieftain, with the conviction
+of fatalism. "The fate of Carthage demanded his death. It was necessary
+that Hasdrubal should succumb to make way for Hannibal. But Hannibal has
+no one to replace him, and he shall live even though<a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a> he were to sleep
+surrounded by enemies. My sleep is light and my arm is sure; he who
+slips into the tent of Hannibal enters his tomb."</p>
+
+<p>Asbyte contemplated with loving admiration the young hero, who had flung
+down his bow, and while he spoke of his strength he raised his powerful
+arms, and the moon enlarged their shadow in such wise that as they moved
+he seemed to embrace the camp, the city, the whole valley, like a
+supernatural being.</p>
+
+<p>The Amazon drew near leaning her lance against the trunk of a tree. On
+laying down her weapon she seemed to throw off her warlike mien, and she
+approached Hannibal with feminine sweetness, gazing upon him with the
+moist, timid eyes of the antelopes that frisk about the oases of her
+native land.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," she murmured, "I came because I needed to be near you. To
+guard your sleep gives me indescribable joy. I feel the delight of an
+exalting sacrifice in keeping vigil over you when you know it not. I
+never have an opportunity to speak with you. By day I see you on
+horseback among the Carthaginians with their golden armor, who flock
+around you; on foot directing those who push the engines of war, helping
+them, often, to excite their enthusiasm; but I see you always from afar,
+as a chieftain, as a hero, never as a man. Do you remember those days in
+the citadel of New Carthage when I had just arrived from Africa with the
+reinforcements which caused you to utter shouts of enthusiasm?"</p>
+
+<p>"Asbyte! Asbyte!" murmured Hannibal, repelling her with a movement of
+his arms, as if the recollection annoyed him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not be angry, Hannibal; listen to me. I must<a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a> speak to you. Give me
+at least the consolation of seeing you near, of telling you what I feel.
+If not, why have I come to Iberia, joining my fate to yours?"</p>
+
+<p>The chieftain glanced around, as if fearing that someone might be
+listening to his conversation with the Amazon.</p>
+
+<p>"Fear not," said Asbyte, divining his thought. "Mago, your brother,
+sleeps far from here with Maherbal, the favorite captain. My Numidians
+are at the opposite end of the camp. You surround yourself only with
+Iberians in order to encourage their fidelity with such a proof of
+confidence, and they do not understand Ph&oelig;nician."</p>
+
+<p>Reassured by Asbyte's answer, Hannibal lowered his head and crossed his
+arms, resigned to listen.</p>
+
+<p>"You are as hard and disdainful as a god," sighed the Amazon. "The woman
+who loves you feels within her the fire of Moloch, and you will not
+deign to quench it even with a glance of kindness, nor with a smile. You
+have a heart of bronze; your eyes ever gaze aloft, and you cannot see
+those who crawl to approach you. You imagine that you have made me happy
+because you lead me from battle to battle, from conquest to conquest,
+and you consider that my happiness consists in having my hands, which
+used to be adorned with rings, calloused by the lance; my face, which in
+other times was covered with costly unguents brought from Egypt by my
+caravans, hardened by the cheek-pieces of the helmet. I have become rude
+and fierce like a man. Though I possess gardens far away where an
+eternal springtime dwells, I have suffered hunger and thirst at your
+side. I know not who I am; I doubt my<a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a> sex, seeing my body made ugly by
+fatigue. My skin, over which the hands of my slaves used to slip as if
+it were a mirror, is now as hard as that of a crocodile. If I do not
+seem as hideous as the troop of wasted females which follows your
+soldiers it is because my youth has not forsaken me. And all this for
+whom? For you who will not deign to look at me; for you who have
+forgotten our first meeting; for you who see in Asbyte only a good
+friend, an esteemed ally, who came to you bringing a strong array of
+fighters. Hannibal! Lightning-flash of Baal! You are as great as a
+demigod, but you do not know human beings. You see in me only an Amazon,
+a warrior virgin like those of whom the Grecian poets sing&mdash;but I am a
+woman!"</p>
+
+<p>Asbyte sadly and silently searched the face of the pensive Hannibal.</p>
+
+<p>"You have forgotten, perhaps, how we met," she added, presently, with
+melancholy tone. "I dwelt happy in my oasis until I rushed to your side,
+drawn by some irresistible charm that emanates from your person. I, the
+daughter of Iarbas the Garamantan, wearied of the comforts of my house,
+of the songs of my slaves, and of the splendors which the merchants
+flung from the caravans at my feet, went into the desert hunting lions
+with Iarbas, and the warriors marveled when the most savage colts
+trembled, obedient and timid, as soon as they felt me on their backs. I
+was strong, and I was beautiful. Scarcely had I grown out of my girlhood
+than the bravest of the Numidian sheikhs came seeking hospitality of my
+father that they might see me, and they told of their flocks and of
+their warriors, proposing an alliance to Iarbas. And I, indifferent,
+cold, kept my<a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a> thoughts ever on Carthage where I once had been in
+company with my father to adjust the tribute with the rich men of the
+Senate. Ah, the magnificent city, the immense city, with her temples as
+huge as towns and her gigantic gods!"</p>
+
+<p>Wandering from the trend of her ideas, she fell into enthusiastic
+reminiscence of Carthage, the great city which after all her travels and
+warlike adventures was still a vivid memory. She called to mind the
+dwellings of the rich Carthaginians, with their polychrome walls
+finished by brilliant spheres of metal and of glass; the great marble
+temples, with their mysterious groves through which resounded the lyres
+and cymbals of the priests; the temple of Tanith surrounded by rose
+gardens, perfumed hiding places which served as shelters for the sacred
+phallic rites in honor of the goddess; and then the port, the immense
+port, with a whole city of ships which poured into the metropolis a
+continual stream of riches from all over the world, tin from Brittania,
+copper from Italy, silver from Iberia, gold from Ophir, frankincense
+from Saba, amber from northern seas, purple from Tyre, ebony and ivory
+from Ethiopia, spices and pearls from India, and brilliant fabrics from
+nameless and mysterious peoples of Asia who dwelt at the uttermost
+borders of the world, wrapped in the mists of legend.</p>
+
+<p>She adored the city, not only for its splendors, but far more because it
+harbored partisans of the Barcas, the supporters of the heroic family
+whose deeds the Numidian warriors recounted in the moonlight, and of
+whom Hannibal, who added renown to his name in the wars of Iberia when
+still a boy, was the glorious descendant.<a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a></p>
+
+<p>"My people ever loved your people," continued the Amazon. "If my father
+Iarbas submitted to the domination of Carthage, it was because at the
+head of it was Hamilcar, an African, a Numidian like ourselves. I hate
+the Carthaginian merchants as bitterly as you do&mdash;those ancient
+Ph&oelig;nicians from the rock-bound Aradus who prospered and reproduced
+like worms, afterwards to cross the sea and take possession of our
+beautiful soil of Africa. I hate the ship figured upon so many of your
+coins and temples, because it is the sign of the avaricious people who
+came to exploit us, but I adore the Carthaginian charger, the Numidian
+horse, the symbol of our past."</p>
+
+<p>Then she spoke of the charm which the glory of the Barcas had exercised
+over her mind from afar. She had loved Hannibal without realizing it,
+influenced by tales of his achievements which had reached her ears. She
+imagined him fighting like a young lion at his father's side, among
+herds of bulls with flaming horns, and among burning chariots which the
+Iberians drove against the Carthaginian invader; she thought of him, mad
+with fury, before the body of Hamilcar, and then languishing from
+inaction beside the beautiful Hasdrubal, conciliatory and pacific, until
+the moment when, his brother being assassinated by the dagger of a Gaul,
+the whole army acclaimed the youth as chieftain.</p>
+
+<p>Her father Iarbas had just died, and she, now become queen of her
+tribes, heard that Hannibal, thirsting for glory and for combat, was
+isolated in the fortress of New Carthage, with no other troops than the
+remnant of the army which Hamilcar had taken to Iberia. The rich of
+Carthage, enemies of the Barcas, fearing the populace,<a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a> dared not
+deprive Hamilcar's son of the chieftancy which his soldiers tendered
+him; they confirmed it by their silence, but they kept him isolated,
+without resources, left to his own devices, so that the natives should
+put an end to him, or at the most, that he might conquer a small
+territory on the Iberian coast in which the ambition of the Barcas would
+gradually become extinguished.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I flew to your side," continued Asbyte. "I wished to know the man
+and to save the hero. I turned over a great part of my riches to the
+merchants of Carthage for the loan of their ships; I kindled the
+enthusiasm of the most warlike of my tribes to follow me; even their
+daughters imitated me, and went lion hunting, galloping all day long,
+lance in hand, drawn on by my mad adventure, and one afternoon, when
+perhaps you were weeping, believing your hopes of glory dead, you beheld
+from the height of the citadel of New Carthage a whole fleet coming from
+Africa. Do you remember? Tell me! Do you remember how you received me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and I shall never forget it," said Hannibal gently. "Those days
+are my happiest memory."</p>
+
+<p>"You received me as if I were a divinity, as if Ashtoreth, who illumines
+our nights had descended from the sky to give you her protection. You
+were oblivious to my warriors and saw only me, and scorning your
+ambitions for the moment we spent the nights lying on the terrace of the
+citadel, and the stars were witnesses to our interminable embraces. But,
+alas! that joy was like the roses from Egypt which last but a day in the
+vases of the rich women of Carthage. Soon the pride of conquest<a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a>
+returned to you, the ambition of the chieftain. You admired the training
+of my Numidians more than my beauty when, of an afternoon, outside the
+walls they astounded your old warriors by hurling darts while kneeling
+on their horses, which ran so fast that they raised the dust with their
+bellies. We went out to fight with the Olcades, the Vacc�i, all those
+Iberian tribes which yesterday you fought and which to-day follow you.
+Led by you I fought like a soldier, and I considered myself happy when
+on the long marches, imitating our horses which lovingly put their heads
+together, you bent toward me, striking your helmet against mine to kiss
+me. Finally&mdash;not even that! What am I? One warrior more in your camp; a
+friend worthy of gratitude, who brought you assistance on seeing you
+abandoned by Carthage, with no other force than a handful of veterans
+and some elephants. In the battles if you see me in danger you fly to
+defend me; but afterwards, in the camp, on the long marches, a few words
+of friendship, a cold smile as to any one of your captains. Your heart
+has closed against me. Am I not Asbyte, she whom you knew in New
+Carthage? Do you not love me when you see me made ugly and hardened by
+war? Tell me that, and I will become a woman again, I will bedeck myself
+with jewels, I will abandon my Amazons and surround myself with Greek
+slaves, I will cover myself with ointments which will change my skin
+back to its pristine freshness, and I will follow you on your marches
+lying on a litter with curtains of purple."</p>
+
+<p>"No!" Hannibal made haste to reply, with enthusiasm. "I love you as you
+are. The beloved of Hannibal<a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a> can only be an Amazon like yourself, who
+have made many warriors fall beneath your charger."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why do you flee from me? Why do you abandon me, why forget the
+sweetness of our early love? See that nightingale, at which a moment ago
+you aimed your arrow! In the midst of an army camp, before a besieged
+city, it sings and sings, calling to its mate, heedless of the horrors
+of war, unconscious of the stench of blood which rises from these
+fields. Let us be like him! Let us make war; but let us also love each
+other, and let us ride through the battles with our bodies thrilled with
+love!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Asbyte," said the African gloomily. "That felicity is impossible; I
+love you, but we cannot understand each other. You complain because I
+see in you only an Amazon, when you are a woman; you, in return, see in
+me only a man, and I am more than man. I am not the demigod you imagine;
+I am something more; I am a formidable machine of war, without heart or
+sense of pity, created only to crush men and nations who obstruct my
+passage."</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal said this with conviction, beating his firm chest,
+straightening his figure with sombre majesty as he declared his
+destructive power.</p>
+
+<p>"I would love you if I were a man capable of wasting my time in such
+sweet folly, but when have you seen the eagle spend all his time in the
+nest caressing his mate, without desire to soar aloft and fall upon the
+quarry? Those who have talons cannot caress, and I was born to make prey
+of the world, or else for the world to crush me. Love? A sweet
+occupation, I grant you! In the past, full of blood and of battles, the
+only oases of<a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a> my joy were those days in New Carthage when I believed
+that Tanith herself, with all her divine beauty, had deigned to come
+down to my arms. But that is over; Hannibal has other loves that attract
+him and dominate him; he loves his sword, he loves all that the enemy
+possesses, and he cannot sleep with tranquility for thinking of Rome,
+whom he desires to crush within these arms! How far away she is!"</p>
+
+<p>The Amazon made a gesture of despair at the passion with which the
+chieftain declared his ambitions.</p>
+
+<p>"You might complain," continued Hannibal, "if you saw that my thoughts
+were filled with the image of another woman. Whom have I loved but you?
+To draw to me those barbarians who follow me, to league them by ties of
+blood to my enterprises, I took to wife the daughter of an Iberian
+kinglet. Yes, and where is she? Does she follow me as do you? She
+remains in New Carthage, spinning her gay-colored wools, and she
+scarcely thinks of me, because never for a moment did the charms of the
+barbarian virgin move me. I love only you. Hannibal can fall tremulous
+with passion only into arms like yours, hardened by use of the lance.
+But be worthy of him! Think not as do other women; seek not new lovers;
+unite yourself to me, so that both together we can think of possessing
+and of hating, of making the world ours!"</p>
+
+<p>As if exalted by his own words, the African, with glowing eyes,
+approached Asbyte, caressing her arms, while he breathed in her face his
+ambitious plans.</p>
+
+<p>"I must be lord of the world! I want Carthage, only Carthage, to exist
+upon the earth, because Carthage is my native land! Had I been born a
+Roman, Rome<a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a> should be mistress! With my name I mean to obliterate the
+memory of Alexander the Macedonian, to be greater than he, to conquer
+wider territories, and I dream of undertakings less easy than dominating
+the Asiatics, weakened by the softening tendency of the sun and of
+riches. Rome is sturdy, she is stronger than our republic of merchants
+corroded by avarice and pleasure; her hands are calloused by the plow
+handle and the lance&mdash;then against Rome am I headed! Alexander! How weak
+is his glory! It is easy to march to the conquest of the world when one
+is the son of Philip, who leaves as inheritance an army seasoned by a
+hundred victories, when one has an obedient kingdom at one's back, and
+even in childhood has the good fortune to receive instruction from
+Aristotle. The difficult thing is to be Hannibal, abandoned by my
+country, with no other resources than those I can find for myself;
+having to face at the same time the fury of the enemy and the treachery
+and intrigue of my fellow countrymen, reared far from my father, among
+astute merchants who, keeping me as hostage, sought to avoid future
+danger by diverting my warlike instincts; with no other culture than a
+little Greek which Sosilon the Spartan taught me; but despite all this,
+Hannibal wars with fate, and he is conquering. If Alexander is admired
+for his conquests in the land of the rising sun, some day the world will
+be startled at seeing me, after having crushed men, dominating Nature
+herself by crossing the loftiest glaciers and changing the positions of
+mountains to continue on my way. Look at me well, Asbyte, and you will
+be convinced that it is as useless to try to arouse human sentiments in
+my heart as to soften the breast of the enormous<a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a> bronze Moloch which we
+have in Carthage! A moment ago, in the solitude of my tent, I felt weak
+and disheartened, but talking with you revives my strength. Look at me
+well; you are in the presence of one who fears neither men nor gods!"</p>
+
+<p>"The gods!" exclaimed Asbyte with a throb of terror. "Do you not fear
+that they will punish you?"</p>
+
+<p>A peal of laughter, sarcastic, tinged with deep scorn, answered the
+Amazon.</p>
+
+<p>"The gods!" exclaimed Hannibal. "I live among warriors of all nations.
+Each one adores his own gods, and I know so many, so many, that I do not
+believe in any of them, and I jest at them all. In Carthage I adored
+Moloch; here you have often seen me dedicate sacrifices to the Iberian
+divinities, to attract the people to me. If some day I enter as a
+conqueror that city where my thought continually dwells, the populace
+shall acclaim me, seeing me climb to the Capitol to offer thanks to
+their gods. I believe only in force and strategy. I have but one
+tutelary god&mdash;war, who makes giants of men, giving them the omnipotence
+of divinity. If on becoming lord of the earth, I find no one with whom
+to fight, I shall die, thinking the world empty!"</p>
+
+<p>The Amazon bowed her head, overcome with sadness.</p>
+
+<p>"I realize now that you will never be mine, Hannibal! You love war above
+all things else, and will be faithful to it as long as you live. You are
+indeed a bird of prey; the momentary love of a slave woman satisfies
+you; the wounded and weeping woman who falls into the power of your
+soldiers as they enter a city through a breach in its walls satiates
+you. You will never understand love and its sweetness."<a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a></p>
+
+<p>Hannibal shrugged his shoulders scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I love victory, success! The laurel which Greek heroes bound upon their
+brows in the triumph has for me a more penetrating perfume than the
+roses of the poets. Cease your laments, Asbyte; be a warrior, and forget
+that you are a woman; I will love you more. You shall be my brother in
+arms. Why think of those nights of love when I was still in misfortune
+and lacking in soldiers, now that all Iberia follows me and I see my
+dreams of world-power beginning to be realized? Look over this camp,
+where infinite tongues are spoken, and where each tribe dresses in a
+different costume. They flow in like streams which swell the torrent.
+Each day new warriors appear. How many are they? No one knows. Maherbal
+said yesterday that there were a hundred and twenty thousand; I believe
+that soon there will be a hundred and eighty thousand. Blind faith in
+Hannibal draws them on; they feel that with me they march to victory;
+perhaps their gods have told them that this is but the beginning of a
+series of achievements which will astound the world. Ponder over it,
+Asbyte! These peoples have spent their lives fighting among themselves;
+they hated each other, and yet the sword of Hannibal is a shepherd's
+crook which guides them like a common flock; and after this miracle
+would you have me waste my time loving you, staying in my tent lying at
+your feet, my head upon your knees, listening to you while you sing the
+dreamy songs of the oasis? No! Lightning of Baal! The city stands before
+us, mocking at the greatest army ever gathered together on the fields of
+Iberia, and this must stop. The hempen tent must crush the tower of
+stone. Sharpen well your lance, daughter of Iarbas; prepare your
+faithful steed, my beloved! That mysterious<a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a> breeze which I always
+perceive on the eve of a victory blows around me. This very day we shall
+enter Saguntum."</p>
+
+<p>He glanced to the east as if impatient for the coming of dawn.</p>
+
+<p>The moon shone less clearly; the sky darkened, its blue becoming more
+dense, and on the side toward the sea a broad belt of violet light
+appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"It will soon be morning," continued the African. "This night, Asbyte,
+you shall sleep in the ivory couch of some rich Greek woman, and you
+shall have at your feet the Elders of the city to serve you as slaves."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Hannibal. This day which is now beginning will never end for me. I
+still see the shade of Iarbas, as it appeared to me before the first
+cock-crow. I shall die, Hannibal!"</p>
+
+<p>"Die! Can you believe that? Before the enemy reaches you he must pass
+over Hannibal's body. You are my brother in arms! <i>I</i> will be at your
+side!"</p>
+
+<p>"Even so, I must die. My father cannot deceive me."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you afraid? Are you trembling, daughter of the Garamantan? Ah, at
+last the woman! Stay in your tent! Do not approach the walls! I will go
+and seek you when the moment arrives for you to enter the city like a
+lady!"</p>
+
+<p>Asbyte straightened her graceful figure as if she had just received a
+lashing. Her large eyes glowed with anger.</p>
+
+<p>"I will leave you, Hannibal. Day is beginning to dawn. Make preparation
+for the assault, and you will find me ready when your troops give the
+signal. Knowing that I am going to die, I wish to ask you for one<a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a> kiss,
+the last&mdash;No, do not approach me. I do not want it now; it would do me
+harm. If I fall and you can find me among the slain, you will know what
+my last thought has been."</p>
+
+<p>Leaning on her lance she moved away between the rows of tents, followed
+by the black horse, which sniffed at her footprints in faithful
+devotion.</p>
+
+<p>Day was breaking. The camp fires were nearly extinguished, and around
+the dying embers the men could be seen arising from the ground,
+stretching their benumbed limbs, and shaking out the pieces of cloth in
+which they had been wrapped. Horses whinnied, tugging at their stake
+ropes, and the soldiers set them free, driving them to the river to
+water and clean them.</p>
+
+<p>Along every road huge carts were approaching the camp laden with
+provisions and forage, and the creaking of their axles mingled with the
+songs of the soldiers, who had arisen in good spirits and recalled their
+distant homes, singing in their native tongues.</p>
+
+<p>It was a confusion of voices and cries. Each tribe camped by itself; one
+people greeted the other with joyous shouts. From every side floated
+odors of naked, sweaty flesh, and of strange stews boiling in the pots;
+the hammers of the carpenters echoed loudly as they worked upon the
+siege-engines which would soon be hurling stones and darts against the
+walls. Warriors in flowing mantles, mounted on prancing steeds, galloped
+between the city and the camp, examining the battlements of Saguntum,
+reddened by the sun's first rays, where the defenders were beginning to
+stir among the merlons. Hannibal with uncovered head was sitting on a
+remnant of a wall, the ruin of a villa demolished by the besiegers, also
+studying the city.<a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a></p>
+
+<p>He was resolved to begin the attack as soon as his army had finished
+making the morning preparations. Fifteen hundred Africans, armed with
+pickaxes, were gathering on the outskirts of the camp. They were going
+to attack that portion of the city which threw its ramparts into the
+level, open plain, thereby permitting unobstructed approach to its base.
+In other divisions of the camp the Celtiberian infantry was forming with
+long ladders to attempt the walls on many sides at once. The engines of
+war advanced, the catapults, with the thick bow tightly drawn by elastic
+cords, ready to fling the stone deposited in the groove of the long arm;
+the battering-rams vibrating on their chains as they moved. The
+walking-towers, light, with walls of interlaced osiers, trundled upon
+massive disks crowned by the shields of the besiegers who concealed
+themselves behind them to hurl their missiles.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal hurried to his tent, passing between the cavalrymen who were
+deliberately grooming their horses and polishing their weapons, knowing
+that they were not to take part in the assault until the last moment.
+The chieftain armed himself lightly. He put on a short lorica of bronze
+scales, adjusted his helmet, selected a shield, and on leaving his tent
+he met Maherbal and his brother Mago, in charge of the reserves who
+remained in the camp.</p>
+
+<p>"Your legs are unprotected," said his brother. "Are you not going to
+cover them with greaves?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied the chieftain spiritedly. "We are going to make an
+assault, and to climb over the fallen walls one must have his legs free.
+The missiles will respect me as ever."<a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a></p>
+
+<p>As he walked out of the camp he thought he saw the queen of the Amazons
+standing between two tents, following him with saddened eyes; but
+Asbyte, when her gaze met Hannibal's, moved away and turned her back
+upon him haughtily.</p>
+
+<p>Trumpets blew, and the army stirred, marching against the city.</p>
+
+<p>The mantelets rolled forward, veritable parapets of wood, through the
+interstices of which the bowmen shot. Under cover of these portable
+bulwarks the Africans armed with pickaxes advanced, while in other
+directions throughout the valley hurried the Celtiberians, carrying
+their ladders in front of them.</p>
+
+<p>In an instant the walls were manned with defenders. Over the merlons
+appeared sinewy arms hurling missiles, slings swirled discharging
+stones, and bows bent followed by sharp hisses.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal, to animate the assailants, marched behind the fifteen hundred
+Africans, laughing at the projectiles which struck the wooden sides of
+the mantelets. Several nights, dragging himself on his belly, and at the
+risk of being taken prisoner, he had reached the foot of that rampart
+which projected on the valley side, and which formed the strongest wall
+of the city. The base was composed of great stones laid in clay. The
+chieftain being convinced that it was difficult to scale the walls,
+decided to open a breach through the foundation by undermining the
+reddish rampart before which his army had been confounded.</p>
+
+<p>As they drew near it the Africans abandoned the shelter of the mantelets
+and hurled themselves furiously against the barrier of enormous stones.
+Naked, black,<a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a> shouting, raising and lowering their muscular arms which
+ended in glittering iron-pointed pickaxes, they looked like infernal
+spirits sent by the Cabiric gods of Carthage for the destruction of the
+city. Stubborn and tenacious in their work of destruction, they growled
+and picked, insensible to the blows which fell from above.</p>
+
+<p>The beleaguered people, infuriated by this audacity, scorned the
+Balearic slingers and archers who from a distance aimed over the
+merlons, and stepping into the crenels they cast down missiles and
+stones which, falling vertically, never failed to claim their victims.
+The Africans tumbled over with broken heads or crushed backs; arms and
+legs snapped like reeds beneath the weight of the stones, and more than
+one assailant was pinned to the ground by a dart which passed through
+his back. Over the palpitating bodies, the mangled flesh, the blood
+mixed with the clay from the walls, rushed fresh assailants, grasping
+the pickaxes from the hands of the dying, and taking up the work of
+destruction, pounding on the wall, beating it furiously as if it were an
+enemy standing before them. Africans, Celtiberians, Gauls, men of all
+colors and races crowded together, each cursing in his own language,
+frothing at the mouth with fury, with death hovering above them every
+instant, and surrounded by a din of howls and lamentations. Tormented by
+falling stones and blazing phalarics which set fire to their clothing
+and clung to their naked flesh, roasting them until they writhed in
+agony, they rushed to the river like animated torches.</p>
+
+<p>Now a block in the wall was giving way! Now it rolled out of place! The
+most important thing was to<a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a> remove the first; after it the others would
+follow. The besiegers burst into exclamations of savage joy; they heard
+Hannibal's voice encouraging them; but before raising their heads to
+rest a moment, a deafening howl arose among them. It was raining, but
+raining fiery, infernal drops which penetrated the bodies of the men
+like interminable knives. Up there on the walls a fire was smoking. The
+merchants were melting the great ingots of silver from their vaults,
+pouring the molten metal like a rain of death upon those who dared
+destroy the city walls.</p>
+
+<p>The assailants fell back, roaring with fury, and sought refuge behind
+the mantelets. Hannibal raised his sword, striving with his blows to
+force them back to work, but in vain he exhorted them, haranguing of
+victory and of the necessity of destroying the wall; his soldiers
+retreated without turning their backs, looking with respect at the
+chieftain who seemed invulnerable, but complaining of the atrocious
+torment of the burns. Some wallowed on the ground kicking with pain,
+their lips covered with foam.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly it seemed as if the city had burst, hurling its inhabitants
+forth in all directions. In the distance the Celtiberians were seen to
+flee, flinging away their ladders. The populace rushed out en masse
+against the besiegers. The gates were too narrow to allow passage to the
+armed multitude which swirled through them and then spread out in all
+directions like a torrent which, having run boxed in between mountains,
+suddenly inundates the plain. Many impatient ones swung from the merlons
+to fall more quickly upon the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment the whole space intervening between the<a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a> walls and the camp
+was covered by attacking Saguntines and by fleeing besiegers. Hannibal
+felt himself dragged by the flight of his soldiers. The mantelets began
+to burn, and a crowd of women and boys, grasping torches, encircled the
+walking-towers, setting fire to their osier walls.</p>
+
+<p>The Saguntines, forming in phalanxes, advanced, sweeping before them the
+besiegers who fled in disorder. Before its movable front of pikes and of
+arms flourishing broadswords, nothing could be seen but fugitive men who
+flung away their arms and leaped into the air pierced by arrows and
+lances.</p>
+
+<p>The giant Theron came out in solitary majesty, as if he alone were a
+phalanx. The lion skin, and his enormous stature, attracted the gaze of
+all. His club rose and fell, crashing into the groups of fugitives and
+opening great swaths through their ranks.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Hercules!" the besiegers shouted, with superstitious terror. "The
+god of Saguntum has come out against us!"</p>
+
+<p>The presence of the giant accelerated the dispersion even more than the
+blows of the Saguntines.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal tried to advance, to face about; in vain he lifted up his
+voice, brandishing his sword. He was swept by the torrent of flight; his
+own soldiers crowded him along, blinded by the contagion of terror; they
+tramped on his heels, they pressed against his back with their heads
+bent low in swift retreat, and he had to make strenuous efforts to keep
+from being overwhelmed and trampled down. A moment more and the
+Saguntines, having destroyed every engine of war, reached the camp.<a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a></p>
+
+<p>The chieftain was snarling curses and threats against his brother and
+Maherbal who did not come up with the reserves to stay the torrent of
+the rout. He saw the troops issuing from the camp hurriedly, but on foot
+and in disorder, with the precipitation produced by an unexpected event.
+Many of them were adjusting the straps of their cuirasses, and the
+different tribes were jostled together and minus their leaders, who in
+vain had trumpeters blow their horns to bring the hosts to order.</p>
+
+<p>The Saguntines in the blind impulse of victory clashed with this
+reinforcement and almost routed it in the first encounter. Hannibal, who
+had managed to reunite a group of the bravest soldiers, presented a firm
+front to the Saguntines.</p>
+
+<p>"This way! This way!" he shouted to those coming from the camp, who in
+their excitement did not know where to rally.</p>
+
+<p>But at the same time his cries attracted the enemy. Theron, as if guided
+by his god, turned toward Hannibal, and soon his mace began to hammer at
+the shields of the Carthaginians. He hurled himself against them with
+cool courage, breaking their lances with a blow of his club, wounding
+himself on the swords which seemed to rebound from his powerful muscles,
+dripping blood beneath his lion skin, ferocious and magnificent, like
+unto a divinity. He never raised his knotty trunk without dropping an
+enemy at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>The besiegers began to recede again before the pressure of the
+Saguntines; Hannibal was once more dragged by his men who were terrified
+by the savagery of the giant who seemed invulnerable, when an unexpected
+turn gave a new phase to the combat. The earth shook<a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a> beneath a wild
+gallop, like the reverberation of rolling thunder, and leaning over
+their horses' necks, their hair floating from beneath their helmets, and
+their white tunics streaming around their naked limbs, Asbyte's Amazons
+fell upon the enemy with the violence of a hurricane. They came
+whooping, waving their lances, calling one to another to charge upon the
+denser groups, and the assailants fell back astonished at these women
+whom they saw near at hand for the first time, and who were now favored
+by the effect of surprise.</p>
+
+<p>Looking between the heads which surrounded him, Hannibal saw Asbyte pass
+like a luminous flash, absolutely alone. The light of the sun, striking
+upon her helmet, encircled her with a nimbus of gold. Her lover's
+instinct had revealed to her where Hannibal stood surrounded by enemies,
+and she dashed to his support.</p>
+
+<p>Succeeding events were rapid, instantaneous. Through the dust of the
+charge Hannibal barely made out what occurred, as if it were the
+fleeting agony of a dream.</p>
+
+<p>The Amazon, with couched lance, rode at a gallop against the priest of
+Hercules, who in the recoil of that disordered hand to hand struggle had
+been left alone in a broad open space.</p>
+
+<p>"Ohooo!&mdash;&mdash;" shouted the Amazon, exciting her horse by her war cry.</p>
+
+<p>Pressing her legs against the animal's ribs she lifted herself upon his
+back in order to give the giant a deeper wound.</p>
+
+<p>The horse, terrified at the frightful lion's head on the forehead of the
+colossus, reared and whinnied, while at the same moment the enormous
+mace struck above his eyes with a crash like the breaking of a heavy
+amphora.<a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a></p>
+
+<p>The horse reeled backwards with a shattered skull, blood spurting from
+his eyes. The Amazon, thrown from his back, fell on her knees a few
+steps away, covering herself with her shield. If she could hold out a
+moment she would be saved. Hannibal, forgotten by his disorganized men
+who were milling like a frightened herd in the confusion of battle, ran
+to her aid. Bodies of cavalry rushed from the camp to assist the
+audacious Amazons, and the mass of the besieged retreated in disorder
+toward the city.</p>
+
+<p>Asbyte arose and advanced a step, raising her lance to thrust the giant;
+but at the same moment the enormous cudgel, brandished with both hands,
+crushed upon her like a toppling wall. Her crumpling bronze shield rung
+plaintively, her golden helmet parted on the seams, and Asbyte doubled
+up on the ground, her tunic stained with blood, like a wounded white
+bird folded in its fluttering wings.</p>
+
+<p>Theron, despite his ferocity, stood appalled, resting on his club,
+oblivious to what was taking place about him, as if repentant for the
+frightful destruction which his power had wrought upon that beautiful
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Answer <i>me</i> for that, Theron! Defend yourself, butcher of Hercules!
+Kill me if you can; I am Hannibal!"</p>
+
+<p>The priest turned and beheld a warrior, his face covered by his shield,
+his sword held in tierce, advancing with amazing agility, circling
+around him like a tiger attacking an elephant and seeking by his greater
+mobility to spring upon him at a defenceless point. The battle had
+ceased; the Saguntines fell back toward the city. The besieging cavalry
+charged close up to the<a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a> walls, leaving the two combatants alone on the
+field. A few soldiers sluggishly approached, and stood still some
+distance away, intimidated by the superstitious terror which the giant
+inspired.</p>
+
+<p>Theron did not falter on finding himself alone. Hannibal! It was
+Hannibal the great warrior, who was now to fight with him absolutely
+alone! This singular duel, in view of the whole city looking on from the
+walls, seemed arranged by his god! He was to rid Saguntum of her direst
+enemy! Hercules had reserved this glory for him; and smiling with
+satisfaction he raised the mace, striding straight toward the African.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal eluded him, stepping backward, springing aside with feline
+agility, evading the encounter, until at last the priest was weary and
+wished to end the struggle before new combatants should arrive. He
+steadied himself on his colossal legs and hurled the club at Hannibal.
+The enormous tree trunk tore through the air, while Hannibal, seeing it
+coming, sprang aside. It grazed his shield with a thundering clang, and
+fell far away amid a cloud of dust.</p>
+
+<p>The African bent his knees at the shock, but recovered himself, and
+flinging away his broken shield rushed at Theron with lifted sword.</p>
+
+<p>The priest of Hercules, finding himself disarmed, experienced a
+momentary qualm; he knew fear, believing himself in the presence of a
+superior being against whom his strength could not avail, and turning
+his back on Hannibal he fled toward Saguntum. The people on the walls
+seeing his peril called to him. Some drew their bows to stop Hannibal
+with their arrows, but they dared not shoot for fear of wounding
+Theron.<a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a> The Saguntines breathed hard at seeing their Hercules flee,
+pursued by the warrior who was heading him off so that he should not
+reach the city.</p>
+
+<p>The giant being heavy and muscular, ran with difficulty over the ground
+strewn as it was with dead and with the litter of the fight. He stumbled
+over a shield; his knees bent; he arose again; but this time completely
+nude. The lion skin had fallen from his shoulders, and lay among the
+wrack of battle.</p>
+
+<p>His pursuer caught up to him. The giant felt the cold steel sink into
+the muscles of his back, and not caring to die like a fleeing slave in
+sight of his entire city he turned quickly, extending his columnar arms
+to crush his enemy between them; but before the two muscular masses
+could encircle and mangle him, Hannibal had buried his sword again and
+again in the side of the colossus, and Theron fell, pressing his hands
+against his wounds and gazing at his dark red blood.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at Hannibal without anger, with a childlike expression of
+pain, and then he fixed his death-clouded eyes on the lofty Acropolis,
+where the roofs glistened in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>"Father Hercules!" he murmured bitterly. "Why do you abandon your
+people?"</p>
+
+<p>His enormous head raised a cloud of dust as it struck the ground.
+Hannibal bent over it and with his sword began to hew the robust neck,
+obliged to strike many blows to sever the network of corded tendons and
+stubborn muscles, which seemed to blunt the edge of the blade.</p>
+
+<p>A cloud of arrows began to plow the ground roundabout Hannibal.<a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a></p>
+
+<p>The chieftain removed his helmet, loosing his mass of curling hair; he
+grasped the head of Theron by its gory mane, and placing one foot in the
+attitude of conqueror upon the body of the priest, he showed it to the
+people on the walls.</p>
+
+<p>He was magnificent with his sword in his right hand and holding out his
+other arm which sustained the head of the giant. The dark integument of
+his eyes, brilliant as the metal disks which hung from his ears, gleamed
+with pride and icy hate.</p>
+
+<p>The Saguntines recognized the victor, and wails of surprise and peals of
+fury thundered along the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Hannibal! It is Hannibal!"</p>
+
+<p>He still stood motionless, like a statue of victory, proudly defying the
+enemy, heedless of the storm of projectiles whizzing around him, until
+suddenly he dropped the head of Theron and sank to his knees, letting
+fall his sword.</p>
+
+<p>Mopsus the bowman had shot an arrow through his leg.</p>
+
+<p>From the walls all beheld how, in an outburst of angry pain he tore out
+the arrow-shaft, broke it into splinters, and flung them away. Then they
+saw no more. A host of the besieging army rushed forward and covered
+him, and his archers and slingers began to shoot against the
+battlements.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on, fatigued by the recent sally, and hidden behind a merlon,
+watched what was taking place around Hannibal, paying no attention to
+the missiles from the slingers, who, infuriated by the wounding of their
+chief, hurled a hail of stones against the walls.<a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a></p>
+
+<p>He saw Hannibal move away supported by two Carthaginian captains in
+golden cuirasses, accompanied by a multitude.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the chieftain repelled his helpers, and limped painfully toward
+a white, bloodstained object lying on the red earth like a shapeless
+rag. He bent over the form, and the Numidians who surrounded it beheld
+the terrible Hannibal weep&mdash;for the first and last time&mdash;pressing his
+lips upon the mangled head of the Amazon Asbyte.<a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+
+<p class="head">THE WALLS OF SAGUNTUM</p>
+
+<p class="nind">T<span class="smcap">he</span>
+wounding of Hannibal gave the city some days of respite. The
+besiegers remained non-combatant in their camp, watching Saguntum from
+afar. The slingers came out in the mornings to exercise their arms by
+shooting against the wall, but aside from this, and from the arrow-shots
+with which they replied from the city, there was no further exchange of
+hostilities between the besiegers and the besieged.</p>
+
+<p>Bands of cavalry overran the domain foraging, and the immense multitude
+of ferocious tribes finished the work of destruction, sacking the villas
+and country-houses. The groves were cleared away; each day they chopped
+down new trees in order to supply the camp with wood, and in these
+denuded spaces the tiled roofs and towers could no longer be seen. Only
+smoking and blackened ruins appeared here and there through the deserted
+fields. A mosaic on a level with the ground was often the only vestige
+of an elegant villa razed to its foundations by the invaders.</p>
+
+<p>The beleaguered people saw Hannibal's army rapidly swelling. Each day
+new tribes arrived. It seemed as if all Iberia, subjugated by the
+prestige of Hannibal, were coming to camp around Saguntum, fired by the
+fame of its riches. They came on foot or on horseback, dirty,<a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a> savage,
+covered with skins or dressed in esparto, carrying crescent-shaped
+shields and short two-edged swords, eager to fight, and bringing with
+them showy presents for the African, whose glory dazzled them.</p>
+
+<p>Such of the Saguntines as had trafficked with the tribes of the interior
+recognized the new arrivals from the walls. They came from very far;
+some there were who had marched more than a month to reach Saguntum, and
+they pointed out the Lusitanians, athletic of figure, of whom horrible
+tales of ferocity were told; the Galicians, who lived on fish and by
+washing and melting the gold of their rivers; the Asturians, who worked
+in iron; and the gloomy Basques whose language other nations could not
+understand. Mixed with them came fresh tribes from B�tica, who had been
+slow in answering the Carthaginian's call; agile infantry, of olive
+skin, their hair hanging down their backs, dressed in short white skirts
+with broad purple borders, and carrying large round shields which served
+them as floats in crossing streams. The camp stretched along the river
+and spread over the extensive valley, scattering finally in groups of
+tents and huts as far as the eye could see. It was a veritable city,
+larger than Saguntum, which advanced and advanced as if it would swallow
+her walls.</p>
+
+<p>The day following their courageous sally the Saguntines noticed great
+activity in the besieging camp&mdash;the funeral honors to the queen of the
+Amazons. They saw Asbyte's body borne in parade on a shield by the
+women-warriors; then, in the centre of the camp rose a column of smoke
+from the enormous pyre which consumed her remains.</p>
+
+<p>The beleaguered people guessed the mood of the enemy.<a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a> Hannibal was
+lying on his couch, and the army seemed depressed by the hero's
+suffering. The wizards came and went through the tent, examining the
+wound, and then they searched the surrounding mountains for mysterious
+herbs to compound miraculous poultices.</p>
+
+<p>In Saguntum some of the most daring urged another sally to take
+advantage of that moment of depression for falling upon the enemy and
+putting them to flight. But the besieging camp was well guarded;
+Hannibal's brother with the principal captains were on the watch to
+avoid a surprise; the army lay behind earthen breastworks thrown up
+around the camp as in a strong city, and they took advantage of this
+opportunity to accomplish new work for protecting it from the danger of
+attack. On the other hand the city was no less disheartened by the loss
+of the priest of Hercules. The people could not explain to themselves
+how the African chieftain had put the gigantic Theron to death before
+the eyes of all Saguntum, and the more superstitious saw in this a
+celestial sign, the omen that the tutelary gods of the city were about
+to abandon it.</p>
+
+<p>The same determination as at the beginning was still displayed; all were
+resolved to defend themselves; but the mocking joviality of the early
+days of the siege had disappeared. They believed that they scented
+adversity round about them, and the ever swelling numbers of the enemy
+dispirited them. Each morning they beheld the besieging camp increased.
+When would Hannibal's allies cease to come?</p>
+
+<p>The merry Grecian city of rich merchants and of pompous Panathenaic
+festivals presented the solemn aspect of every beleaguered town. The
+people from the<a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a> fields who had sought refuge in the city camped in the
+streets and squares, distilling the odor of a sick and suffering flock.
+In the temples the wounded dragged themselves to the bases of the
+columns, groaning; above, on the Acropolis, a funeral pyre smoked day
+and night consuming the bodies of those who had died on the walls, or
+had fallen in the streets victims of strange diseases engendered by the
+congestion of the population.</p>
+
+<p>There were still enough provisions, but there was lack of fruits and
+vegetables; and the rich, divining the future, gathered in all they
+could, seeing days of want ahead.</p>
+
+<p>In the poor wards they killed the horses and beasts of burden, roasting
+the meat over flames kindled in the streets for the roofless refugees.</p>
+
+<p>On the walls, as well as on the Acropolis, all gazed impatiently out to
+sea. When would the auxiliaries come from Rome? What were the legates
+from Saguntum to the great Republic doing?</p>
+
+<p>Frequently impatience caused the whole city to be cruelly deceived. Some
+mornings the lookouts posted in the tower of Hercules on the Acropolis
+raised a furious clangor of cymbals on spying sails upon the horizon.
+The people rushed to the crest of the hill, following with anxious eyes
+the course of the white or red sails over the blue surface of the
+Sucronian gulf. It was they! The Romans! The advance ships of the
+succoring fleet bound for the port! But after hours of anguishing
+expectancy, their hopes were crushed on seeing that they were passing
+merchant ships from Massilia or Emporion, or hostile triremes which
+Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, was sending from New Carthage with
+provisions for the army.<a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a></p>
+
+<p>Each disappointment increased the melancholy of the Saguntines. The
+enemy's ranks were ever swelling, and the allies failed to come! The
+city would be lost! The enthusiasm of the defenders was revived only
+when they found old Mopsus on the walls, who because of his sure aim at
+Hannibal was the hero of the city, and the valorous Act�on, who with the
+light spirits of an Athenian, jesting and merry in the presence of
+danger, knew how to inspire fresh courage.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica also appeared among them at the points of combat. She ran along
+the walls amidst the hissing arrows, and the poor citizens marveled at
+the bravery of the opulent Greek woman who scorned the missiles of the
+enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Love for Act�on and hatred of the besiegers made her bold. She was
+enraged at the Carthaginians. From the height of the Acropolis one
+afternoon she had seen the flames pouring from the roof of her villa.
+She saw the red tower of the dovecote topple, the beautiful groves which
+surrounded her house cut down, leaving nothing but a mound of rubbish
+and charred trunks; and she longed to be avenged, not for her lost
+riches, but for the destruction of the secluded retreat sacred to her
+love, and of the sumptuous dwelling crowded with memories. Moreover, she
+was nervous from the insufferable deprivation of this new life within
+the beleaguered city, where she was obliged to eat coarse food and to
+sleep in a room in her warehouse among the valuables piled together in
+the disorder of flight, almost mingling with her slaves, and deprived of
+her bath. There was no water in the city, except that in the cisterns
+which the<a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a> magistrates distributed with great parsimony, foreseeing an
+approaching scarcity.</p>
+
+<p>This wretched life excited her, making her distinguished for warlike
+audacity. Occasionally she saw her lover, the soul of the defense;
+sometimes on the walls directing the slaves who were repairing them, at
+others on the Acropolis with Mopsus to examine the situation of the
+enemy. He wished to take advantage of the lull caused by Hannibal's
+wound to put the city into a better state of defense, and meanwhile
+S�nnica strolled along the wall talking with the young men, promising
+handsome rewards to those who most distinguished themselves, and
+exciting them to make an extraordinary sally in which the city should
+hurl itself en masse beyond the walls, crushing the enemy and sweeping
+them onward into the sea.</p>
+
+<p>She went everywhere escorted by Erotion and Rhanto. Life in the narrow
+limits, and a community of danger, had drawn her to the two children,
+and they followed in her wake listening to her words with enthusiastic
+smiles, and applauding the rich woman's warlike suggestions.</p>
+
+<p>Rhanto was no longer a shepherdess. One after another her goats had been
+devoured in S�nnica's house, and with no other occupation than following
+her mistress, clinging always to Erotion's hand, she regarded the
+situation as one of joy, and had no desire that it should ever cease.
+Even the frowning Mopsus, the father of her beloved, unprotesting found
+them together, and often smiled at seeing them tranquil and happy,
+walking along the walls without fear of the besiegers.</p>
+
+<p>Danger had developed kindness in the people. Rich merchants elbowed
+slaves as they shot their arrows from<a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a> the cover of the merlons; more
+than one opulent Grecian woman was seen to tear her linen tunic to bind
+the wounds of rude mercenaries, and S�nnica the rich, she who used to
+scorn the women of the city, now talked of forming a troop like that of
+the Amazons who followed Hannibal. Rhanto, content with this new
+situation, so blinded by joy that she could not see the anguish and
+misery which the town endured, pulled her lover away in moments of
+combat, snatched the bow from his hands, and dragging him from the
+battlements, they hid beneath the hollow of a stairway at the foot of
+the rampart, and made love with fresh ardor, their pleasure seeming the
+more intense because threatened by the singing arrows and the cries and
+exclamations of pain and fury overhead.</p>
+
+<p>The respite lasted only twenty days. Breaking the silence of the camp
+the carpenters' hammers rung ceaselessly and the besieged saw gradually
+rising a great wooden tower several stories high, taller than the walls
+of the city.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal regained his strength, and was eager to continue the siege. In
+his desire that the enemy should see him without delay, he left his
+tent, in spite of his still open wound, he mounted his horse, and rode
+out of the camp to gallop along the walls, followed by his captains.</p>
+
+<p>The Saguntines were dazed at the sight of him. He shone like a coal of
+fire upon his black horse; the sun wrapped him in a splendor which
+blinded, as if he were a divinity. He wore the cuirass and helmet made
+of gold from the rivers which the Galician tribes had brought him as a
+present. The chieftain preferred the bronze<a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a> armor which he had ever
+worn in his battles, but his parade around Saguntum was like a
+resurrection, and he wished the besieged to behold him dazzling and
+majestic as a god.</p>
+
+<p>With the reappearance of Hannibal the siege began fiercer than before.
+The Saguntines understood from the first moment that the besiegers had
+taken advantage of the cessation of hostilities to augment their
+offensive power. With great effort they dragged up the enormous wooden
+tower which they had constructed. Archers were stationed in the
+different stories to shoot through the loopholes in the sides. The upper
+platform dominated the wall in such wise that its catapult hurled great
+stones over the merlons, sowing death among the defenders.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal seemed everywhere at once, irritated by the tenacity of the
+Saguntines, and eager to terminate the siege without delay.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible to remain uncovered on the walls. The tower had been
+placed near the projecting part of the city which Hannibal considered
+the weakest. Darts and stones fell ceaselessly and while the defenders
+sought refuge behind the merlons, unable to step out into the crenels,
+the battering-rams pounded at the base under the protection of the
+tower, hammering against the walls, and gradually weakening them; and
+the Africans who had outlived the first assault now attacked the blocks
+of stone with more security, little by little opening a breach.</p>
+
+<p>The Saguntines, pale with the rage of impotence, endeavored in vain to
+stay the destruction. The besieging tower, rolling over a level tract
+impelled by men hidden behind it, moved from place to place, scattering
+death,<a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a> and at times it drew so near that the besieged could hear the
+voices of the bowmen who shot through the loopholes. Meanwhile, down
+below, at the base of the walls, the slow and obstinate work of
+undermining continued.</p>
+
+<p>The more excitable citizens, raging with indignation at seeing their
+walls destroyed with impunity, leaned out into the crenels to shoot at
+those who operated the battering-ram and worked with pickaxes; but no
+sooner did they appear than a stone fell upon them, or they tumbled over
+with their bodies pierced by an arrow. The wall was strewn with the dead
+and dying. The wounded dragged themselves along contemplating with
+clouded gaze the shaft of the arrow sunk in their flesh.</p>
+
+<p>In vain the besieged shot against the tower. Stones rebounded from its
+walls of logs with hollow clatter but without piercing them. It was
+bristling with arrows, moving like a monstrous elephant, insensible to
+wounds, and in vain the phalarics whistled through the air with their
+trail of sparks and smoke, for they could not set fire to the wet hides
+with which the upper part of the tower was covered.</p>
+
+<p>The more prudent fled from those places where the besiegers concentrated
+their efforts, and the more audacious took their places ignorant how to
+repel the enemy, but with the stubborn determination of dying before he
+should advance a step.</p>
+
+<p>Mopsus, the bowman, was the only one in the difficult situation who
+inflicted damage upon the Carthaginians. With drawn bow he thrust his
+head outside the merlons for an instant and shot, managing to send his
+arrows into the loopholes of the tower, scattering death among the
+soldiers who thought themselves secure. Erotion was at<a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a> his side. Seeing
+his father in a place of danger he repelled Rhanto at the foot of the
+steps leading to the wall, paying no heed to her tears, and grasping his
+bow he tried to imitate the old archer, challenging the men in the
+tower.</p>
+
+<p>But with the imprudence of youth he exposed almost his entire body
+beyond the merlon, and when he managed to plunge an arrow into the tower
+he laughed, standing in the open crenel insulting the besiegers with his
+boisterous peals of boyish laughter.</p>
+
+<p>A stone from a catapult in the tower came whizzing and struck his head
+with a mournful crash. Blood and torn flesh spattered over those nearest
+him, and the boy, doubling up as if made of rags, rolled through the
+crenel and fell outside the wall. The arrows from his quiver struck
+roundabout his body with a metallic ring.</p>
+
+<p>"Mopsus! Mopsus!" shouted Act�on, striving to restrain the bowman.</p>
+
+<p>The old man had rushed out upon the wall, wholly unprotected, his eyes
+glassy, his gray beard quivering, impotent from grief and rage.</p>
+
+<p>Three times he tried to draw his bow to shoot at the platform in the
+tower which held the catapult, but in spite of his efforts he could not
+bend his weapon. Grief, surprise, despair, at being unable to
+exterminate his enemies with a single blow deprived him of his strength.</p>
+
+<p>While he stood struggling with the rigid bow which seemed to rebel
+against him, the enemy's projectiles were hissing around his head.
+Finding himself powerless, aged in an instant by grief, gazing down upon
+the mangled body of his son, and unable to avenge him, he uttered a
+moan, and summoning all the strength of his will he<a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a> sprang outside the
+wall, and fell upon the corpse of Erotion. His head struck against the
+stones with a resounding thud, a stream of blood ran from it, and father
+and son formed a motionless pile a short distance from the assailants,
+who continued pounding with the battering-rams, and digging at the base
+of the wall.</p>
+
+<p>The unequal struggle lasted almost throughout the day. The Saguntines
+defending this part of the wall could not repulse the advance of the
+enemy. They felt the dull thud of the pickaxes, the wall seemed to reel
+beneath their feet, and they could do nothing to prevent the progress of
+the besiegers.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the defenders began to retire. Act�on, saddened by the tragic
+death of his compatriot, and convinced that it was useless to remain at
+that point, advised them to retreat into the interior of the city. He
+fell back with some of his men, and soon a tower, eaten away at its base
+by the battering-ram, tottered and fell to the ground with a great roar
+of rubbish, and filled the air with dust. After this two other towers
+were battered down, and a long stretch of wall collapsed, burying in the
+d�bris the most obstinate defenders who had remained at their posts
+until the last moment.</p>
+
+<p>An awe-inspiring acclamation, a howl of savage joy from without greeted
+the overthrow of the walls. From the city streets the desolated fields
+and one end of the camp could be seen through the open breach. Arms
+glittered in the dense atmosphere, reddened by the dust of the shattered
+walls; dark bodies of troops could be seen advancing, and trumpet blasts
+resounded.</p>
+
+<p>"The assault! The Carthaginians are coming!"<a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a></p>
+
+<p>From all sides of the city armed men gathered. The narrow streets near
+the wall vomited groups and more groups who came shouting and
+brandishing swords and axes, with the determined mien of those who had
+decided to die. Clambering over the rubbish they began to take position
+in the breach, and this open space, this broad gash in the city's girdle
+of stone, was protected by a motley crowd which flourished weapons and
+formed a solid unbreakable mass.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on was in the first rank; near him he saw the prudent Alcon, who had
+exchanged his staff for a sword, and many of the peace-loving merchants
+whose astute faces seemed ennobled by the heroic resolution to die
+rather than give passage to the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>When the besiegers advanced to the assault they had to clash with the
+entire city. The walking-tower, the battering-rams, and the catapults,
+availed them nothing; the struggle was hand to hand, and the besieged no
+longer used the phalaric, but the sword and the axe.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal, on foot, guided the phalanxes, which marched with lowered
+lance or lifted sword. He was fighting like a soldier, anxious to end
+this siege which was delaying his plans, believing this to be the
+decisive moment, and that a supreme effort might make him master of the
+city. With sharp words he encouraged the soldiers in the different
+idioms of their tribes, reminding them of the great riches within the
+city, of the beauty of the Greek women, of the large numbers of slaves
+inside those walls, and the Balearians attacked with lowered head,
+holding before them their wooden spears with points hardened by fire;
+the Celtiberians roared their war songs, beating on their breasts as on
+sonorous drums,<a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a> drawing their sharp two-edged swords, and the Numidians
+and Mauritanians, dismounting from their horses, moved from place to
+place, cautious and sly, hurling upon the besieged the missiles which
+they carried in their girdles hidden beneath their white vestments.</p>
+
+<p>All in vain. The breach was a narrow throat. The Carthaginian army, in
+spite of superior numbers, had to contract its front to fight in such a
+constricted space, and in this equalizing of forces, the Saguntines
+retained an advantage, repelling the besiegers as often as they tried to
+climb over the mound formed by the fallen wall. Swords sunk into flesh
+producing atrocious wounds characteristic of ancient warfare; breasts
+were torn open by the brutal force of lances; combatants clinched
+entwining their arms like tendrils, linking their legs, making their
+panting chests wheeze like bellows, and rolling on the ground biting
+each other in the face. Often when the victor arose he proudly displayed
+a piece of bleeding flesh between his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal's troops rushed up the mound like a hurricane, and on its
+approach the mass of defenders swayed, but none fell back; they must die
+firm at their post, for behind them was a compact multitude which forced
+them to be valiant, leaving no space for retreat.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the battle raged for hours. The mounds of dead between besieged and
+besieger made the advance difficult. The sun had sunk low in the west,
+and Hannibal was exasperated by the stubborn resistance which mocked his
+efforts. Still trusting in his lucky star he ordered the trumpets
+sounded for the final assault; but at that instant an unheard of thing
+occurred which disconcerted the chieftain and sowed confusion among his
+troops.<a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a></p>
+
+<p>Act�on did not know for a certainty whence came the voice. Perhaps it
+was an hallucination produced by faith; perhaps the invention of some
+enthusiast tired of being on the defensive.</p>
+
+<p>"The Romans!" shouted a voice. "Our allies are coming!"</p>
+
+<p>The news spread with the credulity born of danger. From one to another
+the story ran that the lookouts in the tower of Hercules had sighted a
+fleet bound for the port, and none asked who had brought the inspiring
+news to the breach in the walls. Everyone accepted it, adding by their
+own invention fresh details, and eyes shone with joy, blanched faces
+flushed, and even the wounded, dragging themselves over the rubbish
+heap, waved their arms exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"The Romans! The Romans are coming!"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, without command, by common instinct, as if impelled by an
+invisible force, they flung themselves through the breach, down the
+incline, falling like an avalanche upon the besiegers who were massed
+for the final assault.</p>
+
+<p>The unexpectedness of the shock, the force of the surprise, the cry of
+"The Romans! The Romans!" which the Saguntines raised with such
+conviction, wrought disruption among Hannibal's barbarian tribes. They
+defended themselves, but the whole city fell upon them; even the women
+and children fought as on that morning when Theron died, and Hannibal's
+soldiers, broken into scattered groups, neither seeing nor hearing their
+chiefs, fled precipitately toward their camp.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal ran bellowing with rage, maddened at seeing that the besieged
+repelled his troops for the second<a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a> time. Such was the blindness of his
+anger that he rushed in among the enemy, and several times came near
+falling beneath their blows.</p>
+
+<p>The day was almost ended. The Saguntine soldiers reached the vicinity of
+the camp, while the unarmored citizens scattering throughout the battle
+field dispatched the wounded and tried to set fire to the besieging
+engines. They would have destroyed them all had it not been for
+Maherbal, Hannibal's lieutenant, who came out of the camp with some
+cohorts of cavalry. The besieged, unable to resist the cavalry on open
+ground, began slowly to retire. When night closed in they reoccupied the
+breach, commenting with joyful shouts upon the victory which mitigated
+their disappointment over the non-appearance of the Romans.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on, with those Saguntines who had most distinguished themselves in
+the battles, set to work fortifying the city. He explained to the old
+men of the Senate how difficult it would be long to defend the opening.
+It was impossible to repeat the prodigy of that afternoon many times;
+and by the light of torches the people spent the whole night working
+behind the breach, throwing down tiled roofs and demolishing walls.</p>
+
+<p>Merchants and slaves, rich city dames and women from the suburbs, all
+mingled together, wielding pickaxes, rolling stones and carrying baskets
+of clay. Even the Ancients of the Senate took part in this titanic work,
+which lasted throughout the night and a great part of the following day.</p>
+
+<p>Euphobias the philosopher, who remained idle in spite of the insults of
+those who worked, ironically recalled the memory of the primitive
+founders of the city,<a name="page_249" id="page_249"></a> the Cyclopes who moved stones as big as mountains
+and had thrown up the base of the Acropolis.</p>
+
+<p>The labor was not finished until the next afternoon, and at the same
+moment the besieging army began to stir. It marched solidly to the
+assault, silently, sullenly, revealing the fixed determination of taking
+possession at the first onset of that breach which had put them to shame
+the day before.</p>
+
+<p>They passed through the clouds of stones and arrows which the besieged
+hurled at them, and the cohorts leading on a run climbed up the pile of
+d�bris, struggling with the more audacious Saguntines, who still
+disputed passage through the breach. After a short conflict the
+besiegers made themselves masters of the entrance to the city, and they
+burst into exclamations of triumph.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal marched intrepidly at the head of his soldiers; but on gaining
+the crest of the pile in the breach he stepped backward with an
+expression of disgust.</p>
+
+<p>Before him stretched a broad waste of demolished houses, and beyond the
+hills of d�bris rose a second monstrous wall, constructed in haste, as
+if an enormous broom had swept the desolated structures of the interior
+to the entrance of the city. Great, square-hewn stones, chunks of
+masonry, broken columns, were laid with the regularity of blocks in a
+wall, and the interstices were chinked with fresh clay. This wall
+quickly raised by a supreme effort of the whole city was taller than the
+previous one, and in the form of a curve it joined with the two curtains
+of the ancient walls which were still standing.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal paled with wrath on seeing that all his efforts had served only
+to make him master of a pitiful<a name="page_250" id="page_250"></a> little piece of ground covered by heaps
+of ruins and that by prodigious skill the walls which he had battered
+down had risen again beyond in a single night. Saguntum would destroy
+her houses to refortify herself with new barriers, cutting off his
+passage! He would have to conquer the ground inch by inch, street by
+street, and it might cost him months and years to narrow it down, first
+around the Forum, then up to the hill of the Acropolis, before he could
+succeed in making it surrender.</p>
+
+<p>On the summit of their new wall the Saguntines showed themselves as
+resolute as the day before, and their bows and slings prevented the
+assault of the enemy, who ended by falling back, remaining under cover
+of the d�bris at the breach.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal stood outside the city wall, contemplating the heights of the
+Acropolis. He realized that he might gradually sacrifice his whole army
+if he continued attacking Saguntum on the level and weaker side where
+the besieged defended the ground so tenaciously. Calling Maherbal and
+his brother Mago, he laid before them the necessity of capturing a
+position on the hill, and of assaulting a portion of the immense
+Acropolis to attack the city from that direction, obliging it to
+surrender.</p>
+
+<p>Several days went by without resumption of hostilities on the side
+toward the river. The engines of war had been moved over to the foot of
+the hill, and they directed their heavy projectiles against the farthest
+walls of the Acropolis. These were old and had not been repaired, since
+the Saguntines trusted in the impregnability of the steeps.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover the number of defenders was insufficient to garrison the
+extensive precincts of Saguntum, while the<a name="page_251" id="page_251"></a> besieger had at his disposal
+an immense armed multitude which could hurl itself against several
+places at once.</p>
+
+<p>One night in the Forum, Act�on encountered S�nnica, who was seeking him,
+followed by Alcon the Prudent.</p>
+
+<p>"The Elders have need of you," said the beautiful Greek woman, with a
+tone of sadness. "Behold Alcon, who wishes to speak with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Athenian," said the Saguntine gravely. "The days are passing
+and our needed succor does not come from Rome. Is it because our legates
+have been unable to reach the territory of the allied nation, and that
+the Senate of the great Republic is ignorant of our situation? Is it
+because Rome imagines that Hannibal, repenting of his audacity, has
+raised the siege? We need to know what our ally thinks concerning us. We
+wish the Senate of Rome to know in detail what Saguntum is doing, and
+the Ancients, at my suggestion, have thought of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Of me? And what do they wish?" asked Act�on in surprise, looking at the
+mournful S�nnica.</p>
+
+<p>"They wish you to start for Rome this very night. Here is gold! Take
+also these tablets which will serve as credentials, so that the Senate
+shall recognize you as an embassador extraordinary from Saguntum. We are
+not sending you to a festival. The exit is difficult, and it will be
+even more difficult to find, on these enemy-infested shores, anyone to
+convey you to Rome. You should start to-night; this moment, if possible;
+letting yourself down from the walls of the Acropolis, on the side
+toward the mountains where there are fewer enemies;<a name="page_252" id="page_252"></a> to-morrow may be
+too late. Fly, and return soon with the aid which we await with
+anguish!"</p>
+
+<p>Act�on took the gold and the tablets which Alcon offered him, but not
+without making excuses, realizing the gravity of the undertaking.</p>
+
+<p>"No one can perform the mission better," said the Saguntine; "that is
+why I have turned to you. Your life has been spent running over the
+world; you speak many tongues; and you are not lacking in finesse and
+valor. Are you acquainted with Rome?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my father's father made war against her, under orders of Pyrrhus."</p>
+
+<p>"Then go to her now as a friend, as an ally, and may the gods grant that
+some day we shall bless the moment in which you came to Saguntum!"</p>
+
+<p>Act�on was not eager to start. It seemed to him a shameful act to
+abandon the city at that critical moment, to leave S�nnica within a
+besieged town.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a stranger, Alcon," he said simply. "No tie of blood unites me to
+your fate. Are you not afraid that I shall flee forever, leaving you
+abandoned?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Athenian, I know you, and that is why I have stood responsible for
+your fidelity to the Elders. S�nnica also has sworn that you will return
+if you do not fall into the power of the enemy."</p>
+
+<p>The Greek looked at his beloved as if asking her whether he should go,
+and she bowed her head, resigned to the sacrifice. Act�on then expressed
+himself as ready.</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, Alcon! Tell the Elders that the Athenian Act�on will be
+crucified in Hannibal's camp or he will appear before the Senate of Rome
+presenting your suit."<a name="page_253" id="page_253"></a></p>
+
+<p>He kissed S�nnica on the eyes again and again, and the beautiful Greek
+woman, restraining her tears, pleaded to be allowed to follow him along
+with Alcon as far as the summit of the Acropolis, that she might see him
+a few moments longer.</p>
+
+<p>The three walked in the dark across the esplanades of the ancient city,
+along the walls of the Acropolis. They had blown out their torch in
+order not to attract the attention of the besiegers, and they went on,
+guided by the diffused light of the stars, which seemed to shine with
+more brilliancy, as if intensified by the cold of the night which was
+one of the first of winter.</p>
+
+<p>Alcon was searching for a place on the wall of which he had been told by
+some of the Elders who were more familiar with the Acropolis. When they
+had found it the Saguntine groped in the dark until he reached the end
+of a heavy rope fastened to a merlon, and he flung it over into space.</p>
+
+<p>The departure took place in absolute secret. The very Elders who had
+planned the journey for their ambassador and had arranged his flight,
+concealed themselves and did not witness it. S�nnica embraced Act�on,
+sobbing, and clinging to his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Go quickly, Athenian," said the Saguntine impatiently. "This first hour
+of the night is the best; many groups of soldiers are still stirring
+around the camps before going to sleep. You can pass through now without
+being observed, while later, in the silence of the night, the sentinels
+will challenge you."</p>
+
+<p>Act�on freed himself from S�nnica's arms, and leaning over the walls he
+grasped the rope in the darkness.<a name="page_254" id="page_254"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Have confidence in our gods," said Alcon, as a parting word. "Although
+it may seem as if they have abandoned us, they ever watch over Saguntum.
+Not long ago a fugitive slave from the camp revealed before the Elders
+that the Vacc�i and the Carpetani, exasperated by the robbery of the
+detachments which Hannibal sent to gather supplies, have revolted
+against him, and have beheaded his emissaries. It seems that Hannibal,
+with a part of his army, will have to abandon the siege and go to punish
+them. We shall have fewer enemies before us, and if you return with the
+legions from Rome, Saguntum will be for the Carthaginians what the
+�gates Islands were for them in Sicily. Ah! How much better is peace!"</p>
+
+<p>With this melancholy exclamation Alcon said farewell to the Greek, who
+descended the rope in silence. His feet soon rested upon a part of the
+rock on which the wall stood. He let go the rope and began groping his
+way down, catching hold, in his precipitous descent, of the scrawny
+olive trees which twisted over the heights as if complaining of the
+asperity of the rocks.</p>
+
+<p>At the feet of the Greek, in the black solitude of the plain, glittered
+the light of camp fires. Perhaps they were advance guards of the camp
+watching that part of the mountain, or marauders who followed the army,
+and had established themselves there out of Hannibal's sight.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on watched the plain and picked his way cautiously, crouching along
+by a stony ridge, stopping often to listen, holding his breath. He
+thought he was being shadowed, that someone was skulking behind him.
+Not<a name="page_255" id="page_255"></a> far away blazed a great fire, and against its lurid smoke
+silhouettes of men and women were outlined.</p>
+
+<p>When he stood erect to explore the dark fields in order to circle away
+from the fire, someone suddenly caught him by the shoulders, and a
+hoarse voice murmured in his ears, between peals of loud and stupid
+laughter:</p>
+
+<p>"Now I have you at last!&mdash;&mdash;You can not hide yourself from me!"</p>
+
+<p>Act�on squirmed from the clutching hands, and tugging at the broad knife
+he wore in his belt sprang in front of the unknown in an attitude of
+defense. It was a woman! By the dim starlight the Greek beheld her
+gesture of indecision and surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you not Geryon the slinger?" she murmured, holding her hands out to
+the Athenian.</p>
+
+<p>They stared at each other, their faces almost meeting in the darkness,
+and the Greek recognized in the woman the unhappy <i>lupa</i> who had fed him
+the first night of his arrival in Saguntum. She seemed even more
+surprised than the Athenian at the meeting.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it you, Act�on? It seems as if the gods put me in your path,
+although you scorn me. You are running away from the city, are you not?
+You must be tired of S�nnica the rich; you do not want to die like those
+merchants whom Hannibal the invincible will put to the knife! You are
+doing well! Fly! Fly far away!"</p>
+
+<p>She glanced apprehensively at the camp fire as if she feared the
+approach of the soldiers who were warming themselves around it, laughing
+and drinking with a group of <i>lupas</i> from the port.</p>
+
+<p>The miserable harlot, in lowered voice, told the Greek why she was
+there. She was the favorite of Geryon, a<a name="page_256" id="page_256"></a> Balearic slinger. He had left
+his companions a moment before, and had got out of her way so as not to
+have to give her the wages he had just received, and in searching for
+him she had stumbled upon Act�on. He might return, or his companions
+might approach, attracted by their voices; it was dangerous for Act�on
+to remain where he was.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want to reach the coast, and follow along it until I find a fishing
+smack which will take me to Emporion or to Denia. I have money to pay my
+passage. Afterward I will look for a ship to take me away, very far
+away."</p>
+
+<p>"You will not return, will you? I do not wish you to return. If you only
+knew how often I have thought of you while men were killing each other
+on the walls! I shall never see you again, but I would rather not see
+you than have you remain in the city or become the slave of my lover the
+slinger. Hannibal will finish all of them! Ah, cruel city! And how I
+long to see all those rich women fall before Hannibal's troops&mdash;those
+women who used to have us beaten when we came near them at the port!"</p>
+
+<p>The poor harlot, extending her hand to the Greek, began to guide him
+through the fields.</p>
+
+<p>"Come!" she murmured; "I will conduct you to the beach, and from there
+you can continue on your way without other help than that of the gods.
+Seeing you with me they will think you are a Celtiberian soldier with
+his woman, looking for a place to spend the night. Come! I fed you the
+first night you came here, and I will save you on this last."<a name="page_257" id="page_257"></a></p>
+
+<p>They drew near the shore. As they passed several camp fires they were
+hailed by obscene calls from the soldiers and the women who thought them
+an amorous pair in search of a hiding-place. Some armed groups allowed
+them to pass without the slightest suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>The murmur of the waves on the sand grew louder. They were walking
+through the rushes, sinking into the warm and oozy bottom of the lagoon
+formed by the overflow of the tide.</p>
+
+<p>The poor <i>lupa</i> stood still.</p>
+
+<p>"Here I leave you, Act�on. If you wished I would follow you as your
+slave! But you do not wish it; I know what I am&mdash;&mdash;I can be nothing to
+you! You are going away forever, but I am content because you are
+fleeing from S�nnica. Before we part, kiss me, my divinity! No, not on
+the eyes&mdash;&mdash;on the mouth&mdash;&mdash;thus!"</p>
+
+<p>The Athenian, with tender commiseration, moved by the kindness of the
+miserable creature, kissed the dry and flaccid lips, from which escaped
+the insufferable odor of the wine of the Balearic slingers.<a name="page_258" id="page_258"></a></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+
+<p class="head">THE ROME OF FABIUS THE DELAYER</p>
+
+<p class="nind">W<span class="smcap">hen</span>
+the sun's first rays reddened the walls of the Capitol the life of
+Rome had been astir for more than an hour.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans arose from their couches by the light of the morning stars.
+Carts from the Campagna rolled in the darkness through the tortuous
+streets, slaves awakened by the crowing of the cock trudged along
+carrying baskets and farm utensils, and by the hour of dawn all the
+houses had their doors thrown open, and the citizens not employed in the
+fields gathered in the Forum, that centre of traffic and of public
+business, that had begun to be adorned with the earlier temples, but
+still retained broad barren spaces upon which in later centuries were to
+rise the architectural glories of Rome, mistress of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on had been in the great city for two days, lodged in an extramural
+inn established by a Greek. He never ceased to marvel at this austere
+Republic, existing almost in poverty, a hardy nation of farmers and
+soldiers who filled the world with their fame while they endured greater
+privation than any hamlet on the outskirts of Athens.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on expected to appear before the Senate that very day. The majority
+of the Fathers of the Republic<a name="page_259" id="page_259"></a> lived in the country, in rustic villas
+with walls of unseasoned adobe roofed with branches, overseeing the work
+of their slaves, guiding the plow like Cincinnatus and Camillus; when
+affairs of state called them to the Senate they came into Rome in their
+carts, drawn by oxen, riding among baskets of vegetables and sacks of
+grain, and with their toil-calloused hands they arrayed themselves in
+the toga before entering the Forum, transfigured by the majesty lent by
+their flowing vestments.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek arrived at the Forum by sunrise, encountering the customary
+crowd&mdash;venerable Romans wrapped in their togas discoursing before the
+young men and their clients on the art of prudently placing money upon
+good security, the chief attainment of every citizen; and hungry Greek
+pedagogues scheming ever, in search of a situation among that sombre
+people more apt in war than in culture; old legionaries, their gray
+military cloaks covered with patches, their thoughts yearning back to
+the by-gone wars against Pyrrhus and Carthage, persecuted by debts and
+threatened with slavery by their creditors, in spite of the cicatrices
+all over their bodies; and the plebe, with no other clothing than the
+<i>lacerna</i>&mdash;a short cape of coarse cloth finished with the <i>cucullus</i> or
+pointed hood&mdash;the multitudinous Roman plebe, exploited and oppressed by
+the patricians, ever dreaming, as a remedy for their ills, of new
+divisions of the public lands which, by means of usury, gradually fell
+into the hands of the rich.</p>
+
+<p>On the steps of the Comitium the members of a tribe were gathered to
+probate the will of one of their people who had just died. Near the
+military tribune veteran centurions wearing greaves and helmets of
+bronze stood<a name="page_260" id="page_260"></a> leaning on staves of vine-wood, the badge of their
+military rank, discussing the siege of Saguntum and the audacity of
+Hannibal, eager to march immediately against the Carthaginian.</p>
+
+<p>On the huge blocks of blue stone which paved the Forum the vendors of
+hot drinks established their great craters, beating on them with ladles
+to attract the people, and at the foot of the steps of the temple of
+Concord some Etruscan buffoons, wearing hideous masks, began their
+grotesque pantomime, attracting the children and the idle from all sides
+of the quadrangle.</p>
+
+<p>It was cold; a damp and icy wind was blowing off the Pontine marshes;
+the sky was gray; and from the crowd stirring about the Forum rose a
+continuous and melancholy buzzing. Act�on compared this square with the
+bright Agora of Athens, and even with the Forum of Saguntum in its days
+of peace. The Grecian joyousness was lacking in Rome, the sweet and
+gladsome lightness of an artistic people, careless of riches, and if
+engaging in commerce doing so only that it may live more expansively.
+This was a people cold and sad, devoted to lucre and to the laying up of
+money, disdainful of ideals, with no other industry than agriculture and
+war, squeezing the last grain of wheat from their lands, and robbing the
+enemy; methodical, lacking initiative and youthfulness.</p>
+
+<p>"This people," said the Athenian to himself, "seems never to have been
+as young as twenty. Even the children seem to be born old."</p>
+
+<p>Act�on with his Grecian sagacity thought over what he had seen within
+the two days; the cruel discipline of the family, of the religion, and
+of the State, which<a name="page_261" id="page_261"></a> held the citizens in subjection; their absolute
+ignorance of poetry and art; that stern training, sad, based only on
+duty, which obliged every Roman to a long and painful obedience so that
+he might some day be able to command.</p>
+
+<p>The father, who in Greece was a friend, in Rome was a tyrant. For the
+Latin city there existed no other member of the family than the father;
+the wife, the children, the clients, were almost on the level of slaves;
+they were instruments of toil, without rights and without name. The gods
+heard only him; in his house he was priest and judge; he could kill his
+wife, sell the children three times over, and his authority over the
+offspring persisted down the years; the conquering consul, the
+omnipotent senator, trembled when in his father's presence; and in this
+gloomy and despotic organization, more stern even than that of Sparta,
+Act�on divined a latent force cradled in mystery which some day should
+burst its bonds, clasping the world as in an embrace of iron. The Greek
+detested this gloomy nation, but it held his admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Its stamina, the tough and bellicose spirit of the race, were revealed
+in the Forum. The Capitol on the summit of the sacred mount was a
+veritable fortress, with naked and gloomy walls, destitute of such
+decorations as made the citadel of Athens glow with an eternal smile.
+The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, with its low roof and its row of
+flattened, tower-like columns, barely rose above the city ramparts.
+Below, in the Forum, prevailed a similar grave and gloomy ugliness. The
+buildings were low and heavy; they seemed rather constructions of war
+than temples of the gods and public buildings. The great network of
+highroads starting from the<a name="page_262" id="page_262"></a> Forum was the only embellishment in which
+Rome interested herself, and that because of their usefulness in
+transporting her legions and in the hauling of farm products. From the
+Forum the Appian Way could be seen stretching in a straight line, paved
+with blue stone, with its two rows of tombs which loomed up in the
+suburbs of the city, fading in the distance through the Campagna in the
+direction of Capua; and at the opposite extreme led off the Flaminian
+Way, which ran by the coast, extending into Cisalpine Gaul. Upon the
+immense Campagna rose like fluttering red banners the first aqueducts
+constructed during the reign of Appius Claudius to supply the city with
+fresh water from the mountains, combating thus the malaria of the
+Pontine marshes.</p>
+
+<p>But aside from these crude monuments, the extensive, gigantic city,
+which of itself could arm over a hundred and fifty thousand men,
+presented a savage and wretched aspect, almost like that of those tribes
+which Act�on had seen on his trip through Celtiberia.</p>
+
+<p>There were few houses of more than a single story; the majority were
+great cabins of round walls of stone or clay, and conical roofs of
+boards and logs. After the Gauls burned Rome the city had been
+reconstructed in a year, haphazard, with precipitate celerity. In some
+wards the houses were huddled so closely together that they barely gave
+room for a man to pass between them, while in others they stood apart as
+if they were country villas surrounded by small fields inside the city
+walls. Streets did not exist; they were but tortuous prolongations of
+the roads which led to Rome; arteries formed at random, twisting hither
+and thither, following the sinuosities of a disorderly construction, and
+suddenly<a name="page_263" id="page_263"></a> broadening into wide, untilled lands where the refuse of the
+houses was accumulating in piles, and where crows croaked by night,
+pecking at the carrion of dead dogs and asses.</p>
+
+<p>The crude simplicity of this city of farmers, money lenders, and
+soldiers, was reflected in the appearance of its inhabitants. Patrician
+matrons spun wool and hemp at the doors of their houses, clad only in
+tunics of coarse weave, and wearing bronze ornaments on their breasts
+and in their ears. The first coinage of silver had taken place
+subsequent to the war with the Samnites; the clumsy and heavy copper as
+was the current money, and the rich Grecian objects of virtu brought by
+the legions after the war with Sicily almost received adoration in the
+homes of the patricians, but were viewed askance by many as amulets
+which might corrupt the old sturdy Roman customs. Senators who owned
+extensive territories and hundreds of slaves, paraded their togas
+covered with patches in civic pride through the Forum. In all Rome there
+existed but a single table-service of silver, the property of the
+Republic, which passed from the house of one patrician to that of
+another when an envoy arrived from Greece, an ambassador from Sicily, or
+an opulent merchant from Carthage, habituated to Asiatic refinements and
+in whose honor banquets had to be given.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on, accustomed to philosophic arguments in the Athenian Agora, to
+dialogues on poetry or on the mysteries of the soul wherever two
+unoccupied Greeks chanced to meet, strolled through the Forum listening
+to the conversations carried on in that rude and inflexible Latin which
+wounded an Athenian's ears. In one group<a name="page_264" id="page_264"></a> they were discussing the
+health of the flocks and the price of wool; in another they were closing
+the sale of an ox in the presence of five adult citizens who served as
+witnesses. The purchaser placed the bronze, the value of the purchase,
+in a balance, and touching the ox with his hand he said in solemn
+accent, as if reciting an oration:</p>
+
+<p>"This is mine, according to the law of the Quirites. I have paid for it
+with this metal duly weighed."</p>
+
+<p>Farther on, a legionary with hungry face was adjusting a loan with an
+old man, offering as security his helmet and his greaves, and
+pronouncing the formulas of the law in such a case:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Dari spondes?</i>" (Do you promise to give?) the soldier asked.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Spondeo</i>" (I promise), replied the lender.</p>
+
+<p>The bargain was closed with these sober words, the alteration of a
+single syllable in which was sufficient to annul the operation, for the
+Romans professed a superstitious respect for the letter and formula of
+their laws.</p>
+
+<p>In another group they were discussing the points which a slave must have
+in order to be useful to his master and to be maintained by him; and
+throughout the entire Forum this grave people, austere, and without
+ideals, talked only of possessions, and of the manner of increasing
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The attention of the Greek was attracted by a youth who, although barely
+twenty years of age, displayed the gravity of an old man. His hair was
+red and close-cropped; his steady gaze gave him an expression of
+intelligence and penetration. He was walking slowly<a name="page_265" id="page_265"></a> beside a boy who
+was listening to him attentively, as to his master.</p>
+
+<p>"Although your father is consul," said the red-headed man, "you must not
+forget, Scipio, that in order to be a good citizen and to serve the
+Republic, it is necessary not only to know how to use the lance and to
+manage a horse, but to know how to till the soil, and to be familiar
+with the secrets of cultivation. Some day you may command our armies,
+and you will not only have to conquer lands for Rome, but cultivate
+them, so that they will produce abundantly. Do you realize that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Cato," said the youth.</p>
+
+<p>"Every day you should learn a month of the calendar which our
+forefathers made. With that well fixed in your memory it will be easier
+for you to command your slaves promptly and well in their work in the
+fields. Yesterday I taught you the month of May; repeat it, Scipio."</p>
+
+<p>"Month of May," recited the boy wrinkling his brows in order to better
+concentrate his mind. "Thirty-one days. The nones fall on the seventh
+day. The day has fourteen and a half hours; the night nine hours and a
+half. The sun is in the sign of Taurus; the month is under the
+protection of Apollo. Wheat should be weeded. Sheep should be shorn. The
+wool should be washed. Young steers should be put under the yoke. The
+vetch should be mown in the meadows. The lustration of the crops should
+be performed. Sacrifices to Mercury and to Flora."</p>
+
+<p>"You remember it well, Scipio. Our ancestors neither had nor desired any
+other science; they were satisfied with knowing what they should do in
+each month throughout the year, and with this, and with valor and
+audacity<a name="page_266" id="page_266"></a> to hold their fields, and to take possession of the lands of
+their neighbors, they founded our city, which grows and will grow until
+it becomes the greatest in the world. We are not charlatans like the
+Greeks, who kneel in admiration before marble puppets and argue like
+buffoons about what comes after death. We are not madly ambitious like
+the Carthaginians, who base their life on commerce and risk all their
+wealth upon the sea. Our life is spent on the land; we are ruder but
+more solid than other people; we advance more slowly, but we shall go
+farther. On the soil which we tread for the first time we do not set up
+a tent as do others; we plunge in the plow, and that is why what Rome
+takes none wrests from her. Do not forget that, Scipio!"</p>
+
+<p>The Athenian followed not far behind. The words of that man, old at
+twenty years, taught him more than his observations. Rome seemed to
+speak through his mouth in that lesson given to the son of one of her
+consuls.</p>
+
+<p>"You should know also," continued Cato, "the domestic rules of every
+good citizen. When our fathers wished to eulogize a worthy man they
+called him 'a good husbandman.' This was the highest praise. At that
+time they lived on the land itself, in rustic tribes, the most honorable
+of all, and they only saw Rome on market days and on days of <i>comitia</i>.
+There are still good citizens who lead the sane life of Cincinnatus and
+Camillus, and only come when the Senate gathers; but war, with its
+expeditions to new countries, has corrupted many, who wish only to live
+in the city, and they have substituted for the old Roman home, with its
+roof of boards and its simple penates, houses crowded with columns<a name="page_267" id="page_267"></a> as
+if they were temples, and adorned with gods and goddesses which they
+order from Greece."</p>
+
+<p>The austere gesture of Cato displayed immense scorn for the imported
+refinements which had begun to break down the sturdiness of his native
+land.</p>
+
+<p>"In the country the good citizen should not lose a day. If the weather
+prevent his going out he should entertain himself cleaning the stables
+and barnyards, fixing up the old utensils, and seeing that the women
+mend the clothing. Even on feast days something can be done; irrigate
+the young vineyards, wash the sheep, go to the city to sell oil or
+fruit. No time should be lost in consulting haruspices and augurs, nor
+in devotion to cults which oblige the citizen to abandon his house. The
+gods of the household or of the nearest cross-road are sufficient. The
+lares, the manes, and the silvani are sufficient to protect a good
+citizen. Our fathers had no others, but nevertheless they were great."</p>
+
+<p>The youthful Scipio listened attentively, but his eyes were fixed on two
+young men from the Campagna, who with the <i>cucullus</i> fallen over their
+shoulders, were having a boxing match close to a vendor of mulled wine.
+The young man's cheeks flushed with emotion seeing the blows exchanged
+by the athletes with quivering muscles.</p>
+
+<p>"If the citizen dwell in Rome," continued Cato, without noticing this
+incident which failed to disturb the gravity of the Forum, "he should
+open the door of his house at dawn of day to explain the law to his
+clients, and to place his money prudently, teaching the young men the
+art of increasing their savings and how to avoid ruinous follies. The
+father of the family should turn everything into money and waste
+nothing. If he give<a name="page_268" id="page_268"></a> new garments to his slaves, he should recover the
+old ones for other uses. He should sell the oil and the wine and the
+wheat which are left over at the close of the year. Let him also sell
+the old oxen, the calves, lambs, the wool, the hides, the unserviceable
+carts, the rusty iron, the old, infirm, and sick slaves. Let him be ever
+selling. The father of the family should be the seller, not the buyer.
+Note that well, Scipio!"</p>
+
+<p>But Scipio was restless and scarcely heard him.</p>
+
+<p>The rustics had ceased boxing, and the youth, eager to be off, glanced
+far away toward the river.</p>
+
+<p>"Cato, this is the time for athletics. I must go to the bank of the
+Tiber to train myself in running and in pugilism, and to take an hour
+for swimming afterward."</p>
+
+<p>"Go when you will, and heed my advice. After the lesson, athletics and
+the cold bath, which harden the body, are excellent. The citizen who
+wishes to serve his country must not only be prudent but strong."</p>
+
+<p>The boy walked away, and Cato retracing his steps met the Greek who was
+following him. Act�on's appearance attracted him, and he approached.</p>
+
+<p>"Greek," he said, "what do you think of our city?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a gloomy town, but a great one. I have been in Rome only three
+days."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you, perchance, the messenger from Saguntum, who will appear before
+the Senate to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>Act�on replied in the affirmative, and the Roman leaned on his arm with
+grave familiarity, as if he were an old friend.</p>
+
+<p>"You will accomplish very little," he said. "The Senate is suffering
+with a sickness just now&mdash;an excess of prudence! I detest mad deeds; I
+do not believe that<a name="page_269" id="page_269"></a> Hannibal is a great captain, since I see him commit
+such an audacity as the siege of Saguntum; but I cannot tolerate in
+silence the faint-heartedness with which Rome proceeds in her affairs.
+She wishes to avail herself of all means to keep the peace. She fears
+war, while war with Carthage is inevitable. She and our city will not
+fit in the same sack. The world is too small for the two. I am always
+saying, 'Let us destroy Carthage!' and they laugh at me. Some years ago,
+when the war of the mercenaries broke out, we could have crushed her
+with ease. By sending to Africa a brace of legions the revolted
+Numidians and the mercenaries would have finished with Carthage; but we
+were afraid; after her victory Rome occupied herself only in healing her
+wounds. We feared the uprising of the soldiery of all countries, so we
+saved Carthage, helping her to destroy her revolted mercenaries."</p>
+
+<p>"It is different now," said Act�on, with energy. "Saguntum is an ally,
+and if Hannibal makes war upon her it is on account of the love which
+the city professes for Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; that is why we Romans are interested in her fate; but do not hope
+for much from the Senate. It is more anxious about the pirates of the
+Adriatic who harrow our coasts, that rebellion of Demetrius of Pharos in
+Illyria, against whom we are about to send an army under command of the
+consul Lucius �milius."</p>
+
+<p>"But what of Saguntum? If you abandon her how will you resist the
+audacious Hannibal, who leads the most warlike tribes of Iberia? What
+will those unfortunates say of the seriousness with which Rome observes
+her alliances?"<a name="page_270" id="page_270"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Try to convince the Senate with your arguments. I am convinced; I see
+in Carthage the sole enemy of Rome. Would that they were all of my mind!
+They would then accept the audacious challenge of the son of Hamilcar
+and would declare war against Carthage, going to meet her in her own
+territory! Happen what may, we are invincible. Italy is a compact mass,
+and as advance sentinels of our camp, we have in the Orient Illyria, on
+the side which looks into Africa we have Sicily, and in the Occident is
+Sardinia, while the lands which Carthage dominates form an extensive
+belt of nine hundred leagues which runs along a great part of the coasts
+of Africa and all those of Iberia; but so narrow, and peopled by so many
+different races, that it can easily be broken. Though Rome might lose a
+hundred battles, she will always be Rome, but one defeat for Carthage is
+enough to dissolve the nation."</p>
+
+<p>"If only they all thought as you do, Cato!"</p>
+
+<p>"If the Senate thought as I do it would scorn Demetrius of Pharos, and
+its legions would have been in Saguntum days ago. Perhaps by such means
+a danger would be avoided, because who knows where that young African
+will go, and what he may not dare if he succeed in conquering without
+hindrance a city allied to Rome! That is why I, a free citizen, give
+lessons as a pedagogue, as you have just witnessed. That boy is the son
+of the consul Publius Cornelius Scipio, and all the virtues of his
+family are revived in him. Perhaps he may be the one destined to bar
+Hannibal's way, to destroy the insolent power of that Carthage against
+whom we are ever clashing."</p>
+
+<p>They continued strolling through the Forum discussing<a name="page_271" id="page_271"></a> the customs of
+Rome, and arguing warmly as they contrasted them with those of Athens.
+Then the austere Roman, having to hold conference with various
+patricians in regard to private affairs, to which he attended with great
+scrupulousness, said farewell to the Greek.</p>
+
+<p>On being left alone Act�on realized that he was hungry. It would be some
+time before the Senate would assemble, and wearied of the noisy stir in
+the Forum he passed on, walking around the base of the Capitoline,
+following a street broader than the others, lined with stone buildings,
+which displayed through their open doors the relative abundance of
+patrician families.</p>
+
+<p>He entered a bakery and rapped on the stone of the deserted counter with
+an <i>as</i>. A plaintive voice answered from a kind of cavern. The Greek
+peered into the gloomy grotto and saw a mill for grinding wheat, and
+yoked to it a man, who was turning it with great effort.</p>
+
+<p>The slave came out almost naked, wiping off the sweat which was
+streaming down his forehead, and taking the money offered by the Greek
+handed him a round loaf. Then he stood looking Act�on over with
+curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you own the bakery?" Act�on asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am nothing but a slave," he replied sadly. "My master had to go to
+the Forum to see the dealers in wheat. You are a Greek, are you not?"</p>
+
+<p>Before Act�on deigned to answer, he hastened to add with melancholy
+pride:</p>
+
+<p>"I have not always been a slave. I have been in this condition but a
+short time, and before I lost my freedom my fervent desire was to visit
+your country. O Athens! The city where poets are gods!"<a name="page_272" id="page_272"></a></p>
+
+<p>He recited in Greek some verses from the Prometheus of �schylus,
+astonishing Act�on by the purity of his accent and by the expression
+which he communicated to his words.</p>
+
+<p>"Can it be that here in Rome your masters dedicate you to poesy?" asked
+the Athenian, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"I was a poet before I became a slave. My name is Plautus."</p>
+
+<p>Glancing around as if fearing to be surprised by some member of his
+master's family he continued talking, happy at being able to free
+himself from the torment of the mill.</p>
+
+<p>"I have written comedies. I tried to establish the theatre in Rome,
+which is almost a cult among your people. The Romans have little
+sensibility to poetry. They love farces; a tragedy that would move the
+Hellenes to tears, leaves them cold; one of Aristophanes' comedies would
+put them to sleep. They, Athenian, enjoy only the Etruscan buffoons,
+those grotesque comedians of the farces which they call Atellan�, and
+the hideous maskers with sharp teeth and deformed heads who stalk in the
+triumphal processions growling their obscenities. They would stone the
+heroes of your tragedies, while on the other hand, they howl with
+enthusiasm at the entry of a victorious consul when the soldiers pass
+disguised in rams' skins, wearing tufts of bristling horsehair, and they
+laugh at seeing them avenge themselves for their humble condition by
+insulting the conqueror behind his triumphal car. I wrote comedies for
+these people, and I write them still in moments when my master ceases
+beating me to make me turn the mill. The patricians, the free citizens,
+do not enjoy seeing themselves personated<a name="page_273" id="page_273"></a> in the scene. Here they would
+rend Aristophanes to pieces, he who represented upon the stage the most
+prominent men of Athens. My heroes are slaves, foreigners, and
+mercenaries, and they make the audience laugh. I have finished a comedy
+there within that den, ridiculing the fanfare of the warriors. I would
+recite it if I did not fear that my master might return at any moment."</p>
+
+<p>"But how have you fallen into such a wretched situation after having
+been the entertainer of your people?"</p>
+
+<p>"I committed the madness of founding the first theatre in Rome, in
+imitation of those in Greece. It was a wooden enclosure on the outskirts
+of the city. I borrowed money; I contracted debts; the populace came to
+laugh, but they gave little. I was ruined, and the wise laws of Rome
+condemn him who cannot pay to become the slave of his creditor. This
+baker who used to laugh at my comedies, and who gladly loaned me sacks
+of copper, is now getting even for his former show of admiration by
+making me turn his mill, because I cost less than an ass. Every peal of
+laughter in the past is transformed into a blow with a stick dealt
+across my back. The fate of poets! You Greeks also thanked �schylus for
+his verses by pelting him with stones, yet he was ever a freeman."</p>
+
+<p>Plautus became silent, but after a melancholy smile he added:</p>
+
+<p>"I trust in the future. I shall not always have to be a slave; perhaps I
+shall find someone who will give me back my liberty. The Romans who make
+war and see new countries return with milder customs and with a love of
+art. I shall be free, I will found a new theatre, <a name="page_274" id="page_274"></a>and
+then,&mdash;&mdash;then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Hope shone in his glance, as if he saw the realization of the dreams
+with which he embellished his gloomy den, while, panting like a beast,
+he turned the enormous cone of stone.</p>
+
+<p>A noise was heard from within the house, and before his master's
+children could see him Plautus ran to yoke himself again to the
+mill-spindle, while the Greek left the place, astounded by this episode.</p>
+
+<p>What a people this, which converted its debtors into slaves and turned
+its poets into beasts of burden!</p>
+
+<p>The Greek sauntered back through the Forum munching his loaf of bread.
+He was waiting for the Senate to assemble, and to pass away the time he
+climbed to the crest of the Palatine Hill, the sacred ground which was
+the cradle of Rome. He visited the Lupercal Grotto where Romulus and
+Remus had been suckled by the she-wolf. At the entrance to the narrow
+cave, denuded by the winter, the Ruminal fig tree extended its naked
+branches, the famous tree in the shade of which the twin founders of the
+city had frolicked. Near it on a granite pedestal stood the wolf, in
+dark and lustrous bronze, the work of an Etruscan artist, with the
+hideous half-open fauces, and her belly bristling with a double row of
+gleaming teats to which two naked children clung, sprawling on the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>From this height Act�on looked down upon the broad city, a wave of roofs
+between the seven hills, invading the heights and dispersing through the
+deep valleys. Almost at the side of the Palatine rose the Capitolium,
+the great fortress of Rome, on the naked crags of the Tarpeian rock, and
+the Greek passed from the summit of<a name="page_275" id="page_275"></a> one to that of the other to examine
+the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, more famous than beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>He turned his back on the rude temple of Mars, which occupied the
+highest point of the Palatine, and following a path between abrupt rocks
+he crossed to the Capitoline. On his way he met the priests of Jupiter,
+walking with sacerdotal rigidity as if ever offering sacrifices to their
+god. He saw the vestals wrapped in their flowing white veils, marching
+with a sturdy tread. Some <i>milites</i> were climbing up to the temple of
+Mars, their broad breasts encased in overlapping bands of copper, their
+bare thighs covered by strips of wool hanging from the waist; one hand
+resting on the pommel of their short swords while they talked with
+enthusiasm of the coming Illyrian campaign, without thought of the
+situation of their allies in Iberia.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on entered the sacred precincts of the Capitoline, surrounded by
+frowning ramparts. It was the ancient mount Tarpeius, with its two
+summits united by an extensive flat. The higher part which lay toward
+the north was occupied by the Arx or citadel of Rome; on the south was
+the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, surrounded by massive columns.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek entered the citadel, famous for its resistance during the
+invasion of the Gauls. On the margin of a pool before the temples
+huddled within the strong enclosure he saw the sacred birds&mdash;the geese
+which with their cackling in the silence of the night had protected Rome
+from the surprise of the invaders. Then he crossed the depression which
+divides the hill into two parts, and approached the great fane of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>A stairway of a hundred steps led to the temple, constructed<a name="page_276" id="page_276"></a> in the
+time of the last Tarquin in honor of the three divinities of
+Rome&mdash;Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. The building consisted of three
+<i>cell�</i> or parallel sanctuaries, with three doors opening beneath the
+same pediment. The one in the centre was sacred to Jupiter, and the
+smaller ones on either side to the two goddesses. A triple row of
+columns sustained the pediment, which was decorated with prancing horses
+coarsely sculptured. Two rows of columns ran down the sides of the
+temple forming a portico, in the shade of which the eldest Roman
+citizens strolled, discussing the affairs of the city.</p>
+
+<p>The temple had been built by artists called from Etruria, and under the
+colonnade were statues acquired by the expeditions to Sicily and as a
+result of the many wars carried on by Rome. This rude nation was
+incapable of producing artists, but it had soldiers to supply it with
+art by means of war and loot.</p>
+
+<p>The Athenian entered the sanctuary in the centre dedicated to Jupiter,
+and he saw the image of the god in terra cotta, holding a golden lance
+in his right hand. Before him continually smoked the Altar of
+Sacrifices. On leaving the temple he glanced at the gnomon or sundial,
+which at that height marked the time for all Rome.</p>
+
+<p>It was now the hour to go to the Senaculum, the ancient building at the
+foot of the Tarpeian peak between the Capitolium and the Forum, which
+many years later was converted into the temple of Concord. On the steps
+which gave access to the temple Act�on met the two legates sent by
+Saguntum before the siege began; two old farmers who had gone away from
+home for the<a name="page_277" id="page_277"></a> first time, and who seemed to be dazed by their long
+months of waiting in Rome, with their audiences which never terminated,
+and with their interviews and resultless supplications. The two
+perturbed Saguntines, impotent before a city which never responded
+definitely to their words, followed like automata the self-confident
+Greek who went everywhere as if he were in his own house, and who spoke
+many languages as if the entire world were his country.</p>
+
+<p>The senators began to arrive. Some came from their business in the city
+and presented themselves garbed in the white toga with purple border,
+followed by their clients who turned their gaze in all directions as if
+to attract public attention to their majestic protector. Others came
+from the country, drawing up their carts before the steps of the
+Senaculum, and, handing the reins to a slave, ascended to the temple
+with their togas flung over their arms, dressed in the short cloak of
+coarse wool worn by farmers, and emitting the odors of their stables and
+crops. They were mature men who displayed in the firmness of their
+strong muscles the activity of their life of continued struggle with the
+soil and with enemies; old men with long beards and wizened faces,
+tremulous with age, who still revealed in their unflinching eyes
+reliance on their departing strength. The crowd from the Forum, surging
+toward the steps of the Senaculum, watched them with admiration and
+respect. They were the fathers of the Republic, the heads of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>The two legates from Saguntum walked up the temple steps. Under the
+columns which sustained the pediment were numberless piles of loot from
+the last<a name="page_278" id="page_278"></a> wars, deposited by the conquerors as they paraded through the
+Forum before the multitude, which had hailed them, waving branches of
+laurel. Act�on saw shields pierced by iron swords, rusted by blood;
+war-chariots with broken tongues, the gilded wheels bespattered with the
+mud of battles. They were spoils from the war with the Samnites. Farther
+on, standing along the wall, a row of hideous wooden dwarfs, dyed red
+and blue, stripped from the prows of Carthaginian ships after the great
+victory at the �gates Islands; iron bars which had closed the gates of
+many cities conquered by the Romans; the golden standards decorated with
+fantastic animals which led the troops of Pyrrhus; the enormous tusks of
+the elephants which this descendent of Achilles had marched against the
+legions of Rome; the horned or eagle-winged helmet of the Ligurians; the
+darts of Alpine tribes, and, beside the door, as a trophy of honor, the
+armor of the glorious Camillus, paraded in triumph by the city after
+this great Roman had driven the Gauls from the Capitol. Along the walls,
+as a strange decoration, hung a long dark tissue, crisp as parchment. It
+was the skin of the great serpent which for a whole day held back the
+army of Atilius Regulus, when on his expedition to Africa he was
+marching to the conquest of Carthage. The horrible monster, insensible
+to arrows, devoured many soldiers before it succumbed beneath a shower
+of stones, and Regulus sent the reptile's skin to Rome as a testimony of
+the adventure.</p>
+
+<p>The envoys from Saguntum had a tedious wait before a centurion ushered
+them into the Senaculum.<a name="page_279" id="page_279"></a></p>
+
+<p>The Greek, sweeping his glance over the semicircle, was perturbed by the
+majesty of the assemblage. He recalled the entrance of the Gauls into
+Rome; the stupefaction of the barbarians in the presence of those
+Elders, firm in their marble chairs, wrapped like phantoms in their
+snowy garments which left uncovered only their silvery beards; their
+ivory staves held with a divine majesty, revealed again in the gleam
+from their steady eyes. None but barbarians intoxicated with blood-lust
+would dare to assault men of such patriarchal dignity.</p>
+
+<p>They numbered more than two hundred. Between them were vacant seats of
+senators unable to attend, and over the concentric rows of marble chairs
+the white togas spread out like newly fallen snow upon a crust of ice.
+Behind them stood a row of columns in a semicircle, sustaining the
+cupola through which filtered a crepuscular light which seemed to favor
+meditation and concentration of the mind. A low stone balustrade
+surrounded the semicircle, and beyond it were grouped important citizens
+who had not the investiture of senators. In the centre the barrier was
+broken by a square pedestal sustaining the bronze she-wolf with the
+twins hanging to her dugs, and on the base in great letters, the device
+of supreme authority in Rome: "S.P.Q.R." A tripod sustained a brazier
+before the pedestal, and over the embers floated a blue cloud of
+incense.</p>
+
+<p>The three legates seated themselves in marble chairs near the image of
+the wolf, before the triple row of white and motionless men.</p>
+
+<p>Some rested their chins in their hands as if to hear better.<a name="page_280" id="page_280"></a></p>
+
+<p>They might speak; the Senate would hear them; and Act�on, moved by the
+supplicating glances of his two companions, arose. In his mind
+impressions did not linger long; he had recovered from the emotion
+produced at first by the majesty of the assemblage.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke deliberately, taking care, after the manner of a true Greek, to
+avoid lapses of style in expressing himself in that rude tongue,
+endeavoring to give to his words the emotion which he wished to inspire
+in the representatives of Rome. He described the desperate resistance of
+Saguntum, and her confidence in the support of the Republic, that blind
+faith which had inspired her people to hurl themselves outside the walls
+and repulse the enemy at the mere announcement that the Roman fleet had
+appeared upon the horizon. When he left the city it still had supplies
+for subsistence and courage to defend itself. But much time had elapsed
+since then&mdash;nearly two whole months. The ambassador had been compelled
+to make his way amidst adventures and perils, sometimes by sea, taking
+advantage of the routes of the merchant ships, again on foot along the
+coasts, and at this moment the situation of the city must be desperate.
+Saguntum would fall if they did not go to her succor, and what a
+responsibility for Rome if she abandoned her prot�g� after the latter
+had drawn Hannibal's enmity upon her for wishing to be Roman! How could
+other nations rely on the friendship of Rome when they knew the sad end
+of Saguntum!</p>
+
+<p>The Greek ceased speaking, and the painful silence which fell over the
+Senate revealed the profound impression his words had made.<a name="page_281" id="page_281"></a></p>
+
+<p>Then Lentulus, an aged senator, arose to speak. The sharp voice of the
+old man penetrated the silence as he told of the origin of Saguntum,
+which if it were Grecian on account of the merchants of Zacynthus having
+established their factories there, was also Italian on account of the
+Rutulians from Ardea who had gone thither in remote times to found a
+colony. Moreover Saguntum was the friend of Rome. To be more faithful to
+her she had beheaded some of her citizens who had worked in the cause of
+Carthage. What audacity for that young man, a son of Hamilcar, to ignore
+the treaties of Rome with Hasdrubal, and to dare to raise his sword
+against a city friendly to the Romans! If Rome looked with indifference
+upon this offense Hamilcar's lion-cub would grow in temerity, for youth
+knows no bridle when it sees its imprudence crowned by success.
+Moreover, the great city could not tolerate such daring. Outside, at the
+door of the Senaculum were the glorious trophies of war as a
+demonstration that he who revolted against Rome should fall conquered at
+her feet. They must be inexorable with the enemy and faithful to the
+ally; they must carry the war into Iberia and destroy the reckless one
+who defied Rome.</p>
+
+<p>All the choler of the gloomy city, warlike and severe, spoke through the
+mouth of the aged man, who extended his rigid arm above his companions'
+heads, threatening the invisible enemy. The soldierly vigor of the
+veteran of ancient wars against the Samnites and against Pyrrhus, was
+aroused for a moment in the weak old man, and thrilled his muscles and
+caused his eyes to flash.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on's two companions, who did not understand the Latin tongue,
+nevertheless divined Lentulus' words,<a name="page_282" id="page_282"></a> and they were filled with emotion
+by the eulogy of the self-abnegation of their city. Tears streamed from
+their eyes, they rent the dark mantles in which they were clad as solemn
+messengers, and throwing themselves to the floor to express the
+vehemence of their grief after the custom of the ancients, they shouted,
+sobbing:</p>
+
+<p>"Save us! Save us!"</p>
+
+<p>The desperation of the two old men, and the dignified attitude of the
+Greek, who, frowning and silent, seemed the personification of Saguntum
+awaiting the fulfillment of pledges, moved the Senate and the multitude
+that surged outside the balustrade of the she-wolf. All were agitated
+and were exchanging words of indignation. Beneath the cupola of the
+Senaculum resounded a disorderly buzzing, the echo of a thousand mingled
+voices. They clamored for the Senate to declare instant war against
+Carthage, to call out the legions, to make ready the ships, to embark an
+expedition in the port of Ostia, and to hurl Rome against the camp of
+Hannibal.</p>
+
+<p>A senator called for silence that he might speak. It was Fabius, one of
+the most famous patricians of Rome, the descendent of those three
+hundred heroes of that famous gens destroyed in a single day fighting
+for Rome on the banks of the Cremera. Prudence spoke through his mouth;
+his counsels were ever followed as being wisest; on this account the
+Senate recovered its calmness as soon as it saw that he had arisen to
+his feet.</p>
+
+<p>With reposeful language, after lamenting the situation of the allied
+city, he said that it was not known whether it were Carthage that had
+broken into hostilities against Saguntum, or whether Hannibal had done<a name="page_283" id="page_283"></a>
+so on his own account. A war in Iberia would be a grave matter for Rome,
+now that she was going to begin a nearer struggle with the rebel
+Demetrius of Pharos. It would be advisable to send an embassy to
+Hannibal in his camp, and if the African refused to raise the siege, let
+it go to Carthage to ask if its rulers approved the chieftain's conduct,
+and to demand that the latter be turned over to Rome in punishment for
+his audacity.</p>
+
+<p>This solution seemed to please the Senate. Those who a few moments
+before had shown themselves warlike and uncompromising bowed their heads
+as if approving the words of Fabius. The thought of the insurrection in
+Illyria counseled prudence to the most violent. They remembered the
+enemy who was rising almost at their doors across the Adriatic, and who,
+with their fleets given over to piracy, might attempt an invasion of
+Roman territory. Egoism caused them to look upon this enterprise as more
+important than any oath, and in order to deceive themselves and to hide
+their own weakness, they exaggerated the importance of the embassy to
+Hannibal's camp declaring that the African would raise the siege and ask
+pardon of Rome as soon as he saw the Senatorial legates arrive.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on received this change on the part of the assemblage with visible
+signs of impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"I know Hannibal well," he shouted. "He will not obey you; he will scoff
+at you! If you do not send an army the journey of your legates will be
+useless!"</p>
+
+<p>But the senators, eager to conceal the weakness to which their egoism
+drove them, protested loudly against the words of Act�on. Who spoke of
+scoffing at the Republic of Rome? Who imagined that Hannibal would<a name="page_284" id="page_284"></a>
+scorn the envoys of the Senate? Let the stranger maintain silence&mdash;he
+who was not even a son of the city in whose name he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on bowed his head. Then, turning to his aged companions, who did not
+understand the resolution of the Senate, he murmured: "Our city is lost!
+Rome fears to declare war against Hannibal and delays the clash of arms.
+When they become ready to help us Saguntum will no longer exist!"</p>
+
+<p>The three Saguntine legates received an order to retire. The senators
+were about to appoint two patricians who should go as envoys of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>As they left the Senaculum the eldest of the senators addressed Act�on:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell your companions to prepare for the journey. To-morrow at sunset
+you will embark with the legates of the Senate in the port of Ostia."<a name="page_285" id="page_285"></a></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<p class="head">THE HUNGRY CITY</p>
+
+<p class="nind">T<span class="smcap">he</span>
+trireme conveying the Roman legates had been on her voyage more than
+fifteen days.</p>
+
+<p>She had sailed up the coasts of the Tyrrhenian Sea; she had then crossed
+the Sea of Liguria, bound by abrupt coasts, and had passed before
+Massilia, the prosperous Grecian colony, also allied to Rome. Then,
+audaciously crossing the broad gulf, she had turned her prow toward
+Emporion, and had skirted the coasts of Iberia.</p>
+
+<p>The ambassadors from Rome were the patricians Valerius Flaccus, one of
+those who desired to maintain the peace with prudent words, and B�bius
+Tamphilus who enjoyed the love of the Roman plebs because of his
+sympathy for their sufferings.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on displayed impatience to reach Saguntum. He wished to confer with
+his friends and avoid the useless sacrifice of the city, explaining to
+them the mood of Rome so that they should not persist in a useless
+defense. For seven months Saguntum had held out in strenuous resistance.
+Autumn had not yet commenced when Hannibal's army had appeared before
+the city, and it was now near the end of winter.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek reflected sadly upon the fond illusions he had cherished while
+making his adventurous and perilous<a name="page_286" id="page_286"></a> way to Rome. He had hoped that his
+presence in the great city, and his story of the sufferings of the
+faithful ally, would arouse the Romans, and that the legions would shout
+for vengeance&mdash;&mdash;but he was returning without soldiers, in a ship with
+ambassadors feigning interest in Saguntum but not deeply moved by her
+misfortunes&mdash;&mdash;returning without other support than high-sounding,
+impotent words, and a bronze wolf on the end of a staff proclaiming the
+dignity of the embassy.</p>
+
+<p>What of the enthusiastic and credulous multitude fighting on the walls,
+filling the yawning breach with their unflinching breasts, and who to
+gather fresh courage only needed to imagine the coming of the
+Romans!&mdash;&mdash;What would they say? Then, with a sudden turn of thought,
+what of S�nnica, she so brave, sending him that he might save the city!
+How could she, accustomed to a life of luxury and ease, live in the
+misery and horror of that siege, which had endured until the stores of
+the city must be consumed, and the energy of its defenders exhausted!</p>
+
+<p>The ship left the mouth of the Ebro, and struggling against contrary
+winds, at length, one morning, sighted the Acropolis of Saguntum. From
+the tall tower of Hercules shot up a cloud of smoke in greeting! They
+had recognized the vessel by the square rigging of the Roman men-of-war.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was in the zenith when the ship, with reefed sails, and driven
+by the triple bank of oars, stood into the channel which gave entrance
+to the port of Saguntum. Within the harbor, above the reeds waving in
+the marshes, rose the masts of Carthaginian vessels anchored in the
+triple port.<a name="page_287" id="page_287"></a></p>
+
+<p>The crew of the Roman ship beheld great troops of horsemen galloping
+along the beach. They were squadrons of Numidians and Mauritanians,
+waving their lances and uttering war cries as when charging in battle.</p>
+
+<p>One horseman, with bronze armor and uncovered head, had called to them
+to heave to. Advancing alone, he urged his horse into the channel,
+approaching the ship until the waters rose to the animal's belly.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on recognized him.</p>
+
+<p>"That is Hannibal," he said to the two legates standing beside him on
+the poop, who were watching with astonishment the bellicose character of
+their reception before they had even cast anchor in the port of
+Saguntum.</p>
+
+<p>Fresh squadrons continued to arrive, as if the news of the coming ship
+had spread alarm through the camp, attracting all the troops to the
+port. Behind the cavalry came the fierce Celtiberians at full speed, the
+Balearic slingers, all the foot-soldiers, of diverse races who figured
+in the besieging army.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal, even at the risk of drowning, pressed his horse forward into
+the waters of the channel to make himself heard on the ship, and
+ordering them to stop he held up his hand so imperiously that in an
+instant the oars dropped motionless along the hull.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you? What do you want?" he asked in Greek.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on interpreted between the Romans and the Carthaginian chief.</p>
+
+<p>"They are legates from Rome, coming to see you in the name of the
+Republic."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you, speaking to me in a voice that I seem to know?"<a name="page_288" id="page_288"></a></p>
+
+<p>He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked keenly until he recognized
+the Greek.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it you, Act�on? Always you, restless Athenian! I thought you were
+within the city, yet you have managed to slip away to bring these men to
+me. Well and good! Tell them it is too late. Why waste words? A
+chieftain who lays siege to a city only receives ambassadors after he is
+inside the walls."</p>
+
+<p>The Greek repeated Hannibal's words to the Romans, translating their
+replies.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, African!" said Act�on to Hannibal. "The envoys from Rome remind
+you of the friendship which they have contracted with Saguntum. In the
+name of the Senate and the Roman people they call upon you to raise the
+siege and to respect the city."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell them that Saguntum has offended me, and that she was first in
+declaring war by sacrificing my friends and by refusing to respect my
+allies, the Turdetani."</p>
+
+<p>"That is not true, Hannibal."</p>
+
+<p>"Greek, repeat what I say to the Romans."</p>
+
+<p>"The legates wish to land. They must speak to you in the name of Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"It is useless. They cannot make me desist from my enterprise. Moreover,
+the siege has lasted long, the troops are excited and a camp like mine,
+composed of ferocious peoples from many countries, who are only
+restrained when in my presence, is no safe place for ambassadors from
+Rome. We had a battle only a few hours ago, and they are still fuming
+with wrath."</p>
+
+<p>As he said this he turned toward his troops, and, as if taking the
+movement for an order, or perhaps divining in the eyes of their
+chieftain his hidden purpose, they<a name="page_289" id="page_289"></a> advanced into the water as if to
+attack by swimming against the ship. Horsemen threatened with lances
+still dyed in the blood of recent battle; they raised their shields, on
+which the more savage Africans had hung as trophies the scalps of
+Saguntines killed in the last sally. The Balearians showed their white
+teeth in stupid grins, and taking clay balls from their pouches, they
+directed sling-shots against the Roman vessel.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see?" shouted Hannibal with satisfaction. "It is impossible to
+receive the legates in my camp. It is too late to talk. There is nothing
+left but for Saguntum to give herself up to me in punishment for her
+crimes."</p>
+
+<p>The legates, scorning the projectiles from the slings, leaned over the
+side of the ship, thrusting forward their bodies covered by their togas,
+with an arrogance which seemed to defy the savage warriors.</p>
+
+<p>Indignation at being received with such scorn blanched their cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"African!" shouted one of the legates in Latin, heedless that Hannibal
+could not understand, "since you will not receive the envoys from Rome
+we shall go on to Carthage to demand that they turn your person over to
+us for breaking the treaties of Hasdrubal. Rome will punish you when you
+become our prisoner!"</p>
+
+<p>"What does he say? What does he say?" growled Hannibal enraged at the
+incomprehensible words in which he surmised a threat.</p>
+
+<p>When Act�on explained, the chieftain burst into a loud laugh of
+derision.</p>
+
+<p>"Go, Romans!" he shouted. "Go thither! The rich hate me and they would
+be glad to grant your demands<a name="page_290" id="page_290"></a> and turn me over to the enemy; but the
+people love me, and there is no man in Carthage who dares to come into
+the bosom of my army to make me prisoner."</p>
+
+<p>Arrows rained around the ship; clay balls rebounded from her sides, and
+the Roman pilot gave the order to recede. The oars moved and the vessel
+slowly began to put about, and dropped down the channel.</p>
+
+<p>"But are we going to Carthage?" asked the Greek.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, in Carthage they will hear us better," replied one of the legates.
+"After what has taken place, either the Senate there will turn Hannibal
+over to us, or Rome will declare war on Carthage."</p>
+
+<p>"You may go, Romans, but my duty lies here."</p>
+
+<p>Before the two senators and the legates from Saguntum, who had witnessed
+the former scene with astonishment, could interfere, the Athenian flung
+one leg over the rail and sprang head first into the channel. He swam
+under water for some time, then came up, floating near the bank, to
+which the cavalry and foot-soldiers had rushed to take him prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>Before his feet touched ground Act�on was surrounded by a horde of
+slingers who rushed into the water up to their middles to take
+possession of his clothing without having to divide it among their
+comrades. In an instant they tore off his Celtiberian sword, the pouch
+hanging from his belt, and a gold chain which he wore on his breast in
+memory of S�nnica. They were about to strip him of his traveling tunic,
+leaving him naked, and he had begun to receive blows from the barbarous
+and cruel crowd, when Hannibal rode up and recognized him.<a name="page_291" id="page_291"></a></p>
+
+<p>"You have preferred to stay! I am glad of that. After having wrought me
+so much damage from the walls of Saguntum you have repented and you have
+come to join with me. I ought to leave you in the hands of these
+barbarians who would rend you to pieces; I ought to crucify you outside
+my camp so that that Greek woman whom you love could shudder at you; but
+I remember the promise I made you, and I shall keep it, and welcome you
+as a friend."</p>
+
+<p>He ordered one of his officials to cover the Greek's wet garments with
+an <i>endromis</i>, a military cloak of long hair with a hood, worn by
+soldiers over their armor in winter. Then he bade him mount a Numidian's
+horse.</p>
+
+<p>They took up their march toward the camp. The troops who had rushed to
+the entrance of the port slowly returned, while the ship fast dropped
+the land, spreading her glowing sails. On the Acropolis the smoke had
+dissipated, leaving only a few light clouds floating in the breeze. From
+afar one could guess the disappointment felt in the city by the
+unexpected flight of the Roman ship. With her seemed to vanish the last
+hope of the besieged. Hannibal's troops, as they retired, commented on
+the scene at the entrance to the port between their chief and the envoys
+from Rome. They did not understand the words which had been exchanged;
+but the energetic accent of the Roman as he spoke to Hannibal seemed to
+them a threat. Some, pretending that they had understood the ambassador,
+repeated an imaginary discourse in which the threat was made in the name
+of Rome to cut the throats of the whole army and to stretch Hannibal on
+a cross. They repeated these threats, each swelling them with inventions
+of his<a name="page_292" id="page_292"></a> own, and when the troops met other detachments on the Road of
+the Serpent or in different parts of the valley, all declared they had
+seen the chains which the Roman legates displayed from the ship, and in
+which they expected to take their chieftain prisoner, and a howl of rage
+arose from the hosts of Hannibal.</p>
+
+<p>The African was flattered at the flood-tide of indignation surging
+around him. The soldiers, barring his way, acclaimed him with greater
+enthusiasm; he heard voices in every tongue crying death to Rome,
+calling upon the chieftain to make the final assault upon the city, to
+take possession of it before the ambassadors should reach Carthage and
+plot the downfall of the youthful hero.</p>
+
+<p>"Take care of yourself, Hannibal!" said an old Celtiberian planting
+himself before his horse. "Your enemies in Carthage, Hanno's faction,
+will unite with Rome to work your ruin."</p>
+
+<p>"The people love me," said the chieftain, arrogantly. "Before the
+Carthaginian Senate hears the Romans, Saguntum will be ours, and the
+Carthaginians will acclaim our triumph."</p>
+
+<p>With saddened heart Act�on beheld the desolation of the fields which
+used to be so joyous and so fertile. There were no other ships in the
+port but men-of-war from New Carthage. The seamen slept in the fane of
+Aphrodite after having rifled the temple of its valuables. The
+warehouses had been pillaged and destroyed; the wharves covered with
+filth; in the fields not a vestige of the ancient villas remained. The
+ferocity of the barbarian tribes from the interior, their hatred for the
+Greeks of the coast, had incited them to even tear up<a name="page_293" id="page_293"></a> the multicolor
+pavements and to scatter the fragments. The whole valley was an immense,
+desolated plain. Not a tree was standing. To combat the cold of winter
+they had felled the groves of fig trees, the broad plantations of
+olives, the stocks of the grapevines of the vineyards, destroying even
+the houses to warm themselves with the rafters from the roofs. Nothing
+remained standing but ruined walls and low shrubbery. A fungoid
+vegetation which grew rapidly, fertilized by bodies of men and animals,
+extended over the valley, obliterating the ancient roads, creeping up
+the ruins, and choking the beds of the streams which, their irrigating
+ditches broken, scattered their waters until the low fields were
+converted into ponds.</p>
+
+<p>It was the devastating work of a continually swelling army composed of a
+hundred and eighty thousand men and of many thousands of horses. In a
+short time they had devoured the Saguntine domain. The soldiers after
+destroying all that was not of immediate use, extended their rapacity to
+surrounding zones, constantly broadening their radius of destruction as
+the siege was prolonged.</p>
+
+<p>Supplies now came from a distance of many days' journey; sent by remote
+tribes in the hope of a reward of booty which Hannibal knew how to
+instill into their minds, telling them of the riches of Saguntum. The
+elephants had been sent to New Carthage some months before, as they were
+useless in the siege and difficult to maintain in this devastated
+region.</p>
+
+<p>Over the domain flew crows in undulating black clouds. From the thicket
+rose the stench of rotting horses and mules. By the roadsides, their
+members<a name="page_294" id="page_294"></a> pinned to the ground by rocks, lay the bodies of barbarians put
+to death because of hopeless wounds, and whose bodies their compatriots,
+according to the customs of their race, left abandoned to the birds of
+prey. The immense agglomeration had vitiated the atmosphere of the
+valley. They lived in the open, and yet, the filth of the multitude, and
+the vapors of death, seemed disseminated between the mountains and the
+sea as a heavy atmosphere replete with sickness and death.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on, coming from a distance, was the more sensitive to this stench of
+the camp, and he thought of the beleaguered people with sadness. Looking
+toward the city he guessed the horrors hidden behind those reddish walls
+after a resistance of seven months.</p>
+
+<p>They approached the camp. The Greek saw that this concentration of
+military forces had assumed the aspect of a permanent city. Few tents of
+canvas or of skins were left. The winter, which now was drawing to a
+close, had compelled the besiegers to construct stone huts with thatched
+roofs, and wooden houses which looked like towers and served as supports
+to the earthworks thrown up roundabout the camp.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal, as if reading Act�on's thought, smiled savagely while his eyes
+swept the work of destruction wrought by his army outside the city.</p>
+
+<p>"You find all this greatly changed, eh, Act�on?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see that your troops have not been idle while you were off punishing
+the rebels in Celtiberia."</p>
+
+<p>"Maherbal, my chief of cavalry, is an excellent aide. When I returned he
+showed me two of the walls of Saguntum<a name="page_295" id="page_295"></a> destroyed, and a part of the
+city in our power. Do you see that citadel near the Acropolis, inside
+the walled district? Well, that is ours. The catapults, which you can
+see from here, shoot into Saguntum, which has become reduced to half its
+former size&mdash;and they still dream of defending themselves! They still
+hope for auxiliaries from Rome! Stubborn brutes! They have constructed a
+line of walls for the third time, and thus they have gone on losing
+ground and persisting in the defense until nothing is left to them but
+the Forum, where I shall knife every man, woman, and child whom I find
+alive&mdash;O, proud and indomitable city! I will make you my slave!"</p>
+
+<p>The African turned to his old-time companion and changed the
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Your eyes are opened at last, and you have come to me. Are you going to
+follow me with enthusiasm? Will you join me in that series of
+enterprises of which I spoke to you one day at sunrise here on this very
+road? Perhaps you will become a king because of having followed
+Hannibal, as did Ptolemy following Alexander. Are you resolved?"</p>
+
+<p>Act�on hesitated a moment before replying, and Hannibal read indecision
+in his eyes&mdash;the desire to deceive.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not lie, Greek; lies are for enemies, or for preserving life. I am
+your friend, and I have promised to respect your safety. Can it be that
+you do not mean to follow me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of a truth, I do not," said the Greek with resolution. "I wish to
+return to the city, and if you truly have affection for the companion of
+your youth, let me go."<a name="page_296" id="page_296"></a></p>
+
+<p>"But you will perish inside that city! Do not expect mercy if we force
+our entrance through the breach!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall die," said the Athenian simply, "but there, inside those walls,
+are men who received me as a compatriot when I was wandering hungry over
+the world; there is a woman who took me in when I was poor, and gave me
+love and riches. They sent me to Rome that I might bring them a word of
+hope, and I must return, even though it be only to give them sorrow and
+pain. What does it matter if you set me free? To-morrow perhaps you can
+kill me. I shall be one more mouth to feed, and surely hunger must reign
+in Saguntum. Perhaps when I tell them the truth, when they see me return
+without assistance, their courage may weaken and they may give up the
+town to you. Let me pass through the lines, Hannibal; with this, it may
+be that without desiring to do so, I shall forward your plans."</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal looked at him in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Madman! I never believed an Athenian capable of such a sacrifice. You
+are such a light-hearted people, so given to perfidy, so false when you
+wish to satisfy your egoism! You are the first Greek I ever found
+faithful to the city which adopted him. Carthage had worse luck with the
+mercenaries from your country! It is impossible to make anything of you;
+you are only half a man! Love overmasters you; you are not satisfied as
+I am with the woman who wanders around the camp, or whom one takes when
+a city is assaulted and afterwards turns over to the soldiers. You bind
+yourself to a woman, you become her slave, and you seek an inglorious
+death in a dark corner of the world, like a mercenary in the service of
+a handful of merchants,<a name="page_297" id="page_297"></a> merely for the sake of seeing her again. Go,
+madman, go! I give you your liberty&mdash;I wish to hear no more about you. I
+was ready to make you a hero and you answer me like a slave. Go in to
+Saguntum, but know that the protection of Hannibal abandons you from
+this moment. If you fall into my hands inside the city you will be my
+prisoner, never my friend!"</p>
+
+<p>Digging his heels into his horse's ribs, Hannibal dashed into his camp,
+contemptuously turning his back upon the Greek. In a moment a young
+Carthaginian approached, who, without a word, nor even a glance at him,
+grasped his bridle-reins and proceeded toward Saguntum.</p>
+
+<p>As they gained the outposts of the besieging army the Carthaginian
+pronounced a word and Act�on passed on amid the hostile gaze of the
+soldiers who had heard of the scene at the port, and were clamoring with
+rage, thinking of the chains which the legates from Rome had the
+insolence to show to their chief. That Greek who was about to enter the
+besieged city must have been a companion of the legates, and many placed
+an arrow in the bow to shoot at him, but were restrained by a cold and
+haughty glance from the young Carthaginian who spoke in the name of
+Hannibal.</p>
+
+<p>They arrived at the ruins of the first walled quarter. The van of the
+besieging army was within the shelter of the walls. The Greek
+dismounted, and breaking a thorny branch from a bush he walked on,
+holding it aloft as a signal of peace.</p>
+
+<p>He stood before the wall which had been built under his direction one
+night to hold back the invader. Upon it he saw the helmets of only a few
+defenders. The<a name="page_298" id="page_298"></a> besieger was directing his attacks against the upper
+part. That side of the city where the early battles had taken place was
+almost abandoned. The guardians on the wall greeted Act�on with loud
+shouts of surprise and joy, and they lowered a rope of esparto to help
+him climb up by means of the rough places on the wall, until he could
+enter through a crenel near the top. All surrounded the Greek eagerly.
+It seemed as if he were in the presence of spectres. Their bodies
+appeared ready to slip out of their ample armor; their faces, sad,
+yellow, parchment-like, were hidden beneath the visors of their helmets;
+their fleshless, wrinkled hands could barely sustain their weapons, and
+a strange, golden effulgence glowed in their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on parried their flood of questions with kind words of
+encouragement. He would speak opportunely; he must first render an
+account of his mission to the Elders of the Senate. They must be calm;
+before night they should know all. Filled with commiseration in the
+presence of these heroes, he lied mercifully, declaring that Rome would
+not forget Saguntum, and that he had come in advance of the legions sent
+by the allies.</p>
+
+<p>From the houses nearby, from the streets close to the wall, issued men
+and women drawn by news of the arrival of the Greek. They surrounded
+him, they questioned him; all wished to be first to receive the news to
+scatter it through the city. Defending himself from them, Act�on gazed
+with horror at their lean, yellow faces, their earthy skin outlining the
+prominent sutures of their skulls; their sunken eyes in their black
+orbits shining with an unearthly light, like fading stars reflected in
+the depths of a well, and their emaciated<a name="page_299" id="page_299"></a> arms, which creaked like
+canes as they moved them with nervous emotion.</p>
+
+<p>He started onward, escorted by the multitude, preceded by boys
+absolutely nude, horrible to look at, with skins ready to break from the
+pressure of their ribs outlined one above the other, with enormously
+large heads above their fleshless necks. They staggered painfully, as if
+their tottering, thread-like limbs could not bear the weight of their
+bodies; some, to lessen their suffering, dragged themselves along the
+ground, lacking the strength to stand.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on beheld a deserted corpse lying in a corner, the face covered with
+strange flies which glinted in the sunshine with metallic reflections.
+Farther on at a cross street, some women were trying to raise to his
+feet a naked youth beside whom lay his abandoned bow. The Greek noted
+with horror his sunken, inward-curving abdomen, a palpitating whirlpool
+of skin between the protruding hip bones which threatened to burst from
+the body. It was a mummy still showing a flickering spark of life in the
+eyes, opening and shutting its parched and blackened lips as if feeding
+on the unnourishing air.</p>
+
+<p>He continued on his way down the lengthy streets, but no more people
+joined the group. The doors of many houses remained closed, despite the
+clamor of the crowd, and Act�on contrasted this solitude with the great
+multitude of people during the early days of the siege. Dead dogs lying
+in the gullies, as emaciated as the people themselves, polluted the
+atmosphere. At street crossings lay skeletons of horses and mules, clean
+and white, holding not even a scrap of flesh to satisfy<a name="page_300" id="page_300"></a> the repugnant
+insects buzzing in the atmosphere of the doomed city.</p>
+
+<p>With his gift of keen observation, the Greek's attention was fixed by
+the warriors' weapons. He saw only cuirasses of metal; those made of
+leather had disappeared. The shields displayed their texture of osier or
+bull-tendon, destitute of their coverings of hide. In one corner he saw
+two old men fighting over a black and stringy morsel; it was a bit of
+crow boiled in water. Many two-storied houses had been demolished to
+obtain stones for use in the new wall which barred the advance of the
+enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Desolating hunger had swept everything with cruel touch. Even the most
+fetid and repugnant matter had been turned to account. It was as if the
+besiegers had already broken into the city and had carried off
+everything of worth, leaving nothing but the buildings behind as silent
+witnesses to their rapine. Hunger and death stalked hand in hand beside
+the desperate Saguntines.</p>
+
+<p>On approaching the Forum a woman pushed her way through the people
+toward the Greek and flung her arms around his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Act�on, my love!" cried S�nnica.</p>
+
+<p>The privations of the siege had left deep marks upon her. She did not
+present the appearance of extreme emaciation as did most, but she was
+thin and pale, her nose sharpened, her cheeks transmitting an interior
+light, the arms which clung to him thin and hot with fever. A blue
+circle surrounded her eyes, and her rich tunic hung loose in empty
+folds; her body, in growing thinner, seemed to have gained in height.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_301" id="page_301"></a>"Act�on&mdash;&mdash;my love!" she cried again, "I had lost hope of ever seeing
+you! Bless you, bless you for coming back!"</p>
+
+<p>She walked beside him, one of her arms around his neck. The multitude
+looked upon S�nnica with veneration; she had sacrificed herself for the
+poor, sharing with them each day the shrinking supplies of her
+store-houses.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on recognized Euphobias the philosopher in the crowd, his garments
+more ragged than ever, almost naked, but with an appearance of relative
+vigor which contrasted strangely with the starving appearance of the
+majority. Lachares and the elegant young friends of S�nnica bowed to him
+from a distance with a distraught expression. They had the look of
+starving men, but they concealed their pallor beneath rouge and other
+cosmetics, and they wore their richest vestments as if to console
+themselves for their privations with the pomp of useless luxury. The
+young slave boys who accompanied them moved their emaciated limbs,
+covered by gold-embroidered garments, and gazing at their pendants of
+pearls, they yawned painfully. The crowd halted in the Forum. The Elders
+had gathered in the temple near the quadrangle. Above, on the Acropolis,
+the Carthaginians who occupied a part of the hill, kept up a continual
+bombardment, and great stones from the catapults fell constantly. Some
+of these reached the Forum, and the roofs of many houses and walls were
+pierced and shattered by the enormous projectiles.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on entered the temple alone. The number of Ancients had diminished.
+Some had died, victims of hunger and pestilence; others, with juvenile
+ardor, had rushed forth to defend the walls, and there encountered<a name="page_302" id="page_302"></a>
+death. The prudent Alcon seemed to enjoy great ascendancy, and he
+figured at the head of the assembly. Events had justified the prudence
+which had caused him in other days to declare against the warlike
+enterprises of the city and their fondness for alliances.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak, Act�on," said Alcon. "Tell us the truth, the whole truth! After
+the misfortunes the gods have already sent us, we can bear even
+greater."</p>
+
+<p>The Greek looked at the men, wrapped in their flowing mantles, holding
+their tall staves of authority, awaiting his words with an anxiety which
+they made an effort to conceal behind majestic calmness.</p>
+
+<p>He related his audience by the Roman Senate; he told of the caution
+which had impelled it to favor conciliatory measures; of the arrival of
+the legates off Saguntum; of their extraordinary reception by Hannibal,
+and of the departure of the ambassadors for Carthage to demand the
+punishment of the chieftain and desistance from the siege of Saguntum.</p>
+
+<p>As the sad tale proceeded the calmness of the Elders gradually
+dissipated. Some, more violent, arose to their feet and rent their
+garments, crying aloud with grief; others, in their excitement, beat
+their foreheads with clenched fists, raging with fury on hearing that
+Rome had not sent her legions; and the eldest among them, without
+sacrificing their dignity, wept unashamed, allowing their tears to
+stream down their fleshless cheeks into their snowy beards.</p>
+
+<p>"They have forsaken us!"</p>
+
+<p>"It will be too late when help arrives!"<a name="page_303" id="page_303"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Saguntum will perish before the Romans can reach Carthage!"</p>
+
+<p>The assemblage remained long in a state of desperation. Some, motionless
+in their seats from weakness, implored the gods to let them die ere they
+should behold the downfall of their people.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if the hordes of Hannibal were already clamoring at the
+temple doors.</p>
+
+<p>"Restrain yourselves, Elders!" admonished Alcon. "Remember that the
+citizens of Saguntum stand waiting outside these walls. If they suspect
+your despair, discouragement will spread abroad, and this very night we
+will become the slaves of Hannibal!"</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the Elders recovered their composure, and silence reigned. All
+awaited the counsel of Alcon the Prudent. He spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not entertain the thought of immediate surrender of the city, do
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>A roar of indignation from the Senate answered him.</p>
+
+<p>"Never, never!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then, in order to keep hearts beating with hope, to prolong the defense
+a few more days, you must lie; you must inspire in the Saguntines a
+deceptive confidence. Provisions are exhausted; those who man the walls,
+weapons in hand, have eaten the flesh of the last horses that remained
+in the city. The plebs are perishing of hunger. Every night hundreds of
+corpses are gathered and burned on the Acropolis for fear of their being
+devoured by wandering dogs pressed by hunger, which have turned into
+veritable wild beasts that attack even the living. There is a complaint
+that some of the foreigners sheltered in the city, in company with
+slaves<a name="page_304" id="page_304"></a> and mercenaries, lie in wait by night near the walls to eat
+whatever bodies they find. The cisterns of the city are almost dry;
+there is but little water left, and that is thick with mud; and yet no
+one in Saguntum talks of surrender, and the defense must be continued.
+We all know what awaits us if we fall into the hands of Hannibal."</p>
+
+<p>"I have talked with him," said Act�on, "and he is inexorable. If he
+enters Saguntum every man of us will become his slave!"</p>
+
+<p>The assembly stirred again with indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"We will die first!" shouted the Elders.</p>
+
+<p>Hastily they agreed upon what must be said to the people. They swore by
+the gods to conceal the truth. They would prolong the sacrifice in the
+hope that aid from Rome might come in time. Composing their countenances
+so that none should divine their despair, the Elders walked out of the
+temple. Swiftly the news flashed through the city. The legates had
+proceeded to Carthage to waste no time in the camp; there they would
+demand the punishment of Hannibal. The legions which Rome was sending to
+the support of the Saguntines would arrive at any moment.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd received this specious fabrication with cold insensibility.
+The sufferings of the siege had deadened their feelings. Besides, they
+had been fired so many times with hope of the coming of the Romans that
+they doubted and would not believe until they saw the fleet itself.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on mingled with the starving crowd searching for S�nnica. He found
+her surrounded by Lachares<a name="page_305" id="page_305"></a> and the young gallants. Near them stood
+Euphobias, smiling at S�nnica, but not venturing to approach.</p>
+
+<p>"The gods have protected you on your journey, Act�on," said the
+parasite. "You look better than we who have remained in the city. One
+can plainly see that you have fed."</p>
+
+<p>"But you, philosopher," said the Greek, "are not so lean and emaciated
+as the others. Who maintains you?"</p>
+
+<p>"My poverty. I was so accustomed to hunger in times of plenty that now I
+scarcely notice the famine. Observe the advantages of being a
+philosopher and a beggar!"</p>
+
+<p>"Trust not the words of that monster," said Lachares with repugnance.
+"He is as beastly as a Celtiberian. He eats daily; but he should be
+crucified in the middle of the Forum as a warning. He has been seen at
+night wandering near the walls with a band of slaves in search of dying
+men."</p>
+
+<p>The Greek turned from the parasite with disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not believe it, Act�on," said Euphobias. "Now they envy me my
+beggar's parsimony, as in other times they jeered at it. Hunger is my
+ancient companion, and she respects me."</p>
+
+<p>All drew away from the parasite, and Act�on followed S�nnica to her
+house. The beautiful Greek woman was living almost alone. Many of her
+servants had been killed on the walls; others had perished in the
+streets, victims of pestilence. Some slaves, unable to resist the
+torments of hunger, had run away to the besieging camp. Two aged
+slave-women lay groaning in a corner, amidst stacks of luxurious
+furniture and chests filled with riches. The great warehouses in the<a name="page_306" id="page_306"></a>
+lower story were empty. A gang of boys had taken possession, and passed
+the time watching cat-like in hopes of some stray rat issuing from a
+corner, that they might fall upon it as an animal of inestimable value.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me of Rhanto!" the Greek said to his beloved.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor child! I see her only occasionally. She will not stay here; I have
+her brought to me so that I can watch over her, but at the first
+opportunity she slips away. Grief over Erotion's death has caused her to
+lose her reason. Day and night she wanders along the walls. She goes
+where the battle rages fiercest, and she passes among flying missiles as
+if she does not see them. By night I hear from afar the strange dirges
+which she chants to her Erotion; sometimes she appears crowned with a
+wreath of those flowers which grow on the walls, and she asks for the
+son of Mopsus, as if he were hidden among the defenders. The people
+believe that she is in communication with the gods, and they look upon
+her with awe and ask her what will be the fate of Saguntum."</p>
+
+<p>The two spent the night amidst the piled up riches in the warehouse
+wrapped in costly tapestries, insensible to their surroundings, as if
+they were still in the rich villa on the domain, at the end of one of
+those banquets which had so scandalized many of the Saguntines.</p>
+
+<p>Days passed. The city was growing weaker, but the people, still firm in
+their resolution, continued the defense, with stomachs faint from
+starvation. The besiegers made no violent assaults. Hannibal guessed the
+condition of the city, and, desirous of avoiding further<a name="page_307" id="page_307"></a> shedding of
+the blood of his troops, he allowed time to pass, maintaining only a
+rigid blockade, waiting for hunger and pestilence to complete his
+triumph.</p>
+
+<p>The mortality in the streets increased. There was no longer any one left
+to gather up the dead; the crematory fire on the Acropolis had gone out.
+Corpses, abandoned in the doorways of their homes, were covered with
+loathsome insects, and birds of rapine audaciously came down by night
+into the heart of the city disputing the prey of vagabond dogs which
+prowled the streets with lolling tongues and flaming eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Vile smelling people of savage aspect, possessed by the delirium of
+starvation, dragged themselves cautiously through the streets armed with
+clubs, stones, and missiles. They went foraging as soon as night fell.
+Euphobias guided them, giving counsel with majestic emphasis, as if he
+were a great captain commanding his army. When they managed to kill a
+crow or a savage dog they carried it to the Forum and roasted it over a
+bonfire, quarreling violently over the noisome morsels, while the rich
+citizens stood aloof, faint with hunger but nauseated by such horrors.</p>
+
+<p>Spring had set in. It was a gloomy springtime, revealed to the besiegers
+by little flowers growing up among the weeds in the crevices of the
+towers and on the roofs of the houses. Winter was over, and yet it was
+cold in Saguntum, with a tomb-like chill which the besieged felt in the
+very marrow of their bones. The sun shone, but the city seemed obscured
+by a fetid mist which imparted to people and to houses a leaden color.</p>
+
+<p>One morning, on his way to the upper part of the mount where the defense
+continued, Act�on met the prudent<a name="page_308" id="page_308"></a> Alcon in the Forum. This loyal
+citizen revealed discouragement in his dejected appearance.</p>
+
+<p>"Athenian," he said, with a mysterious expression, "I am resolved that
+this must end. The city can resist no further. She has waited long
+enough for aid from Rome. Let Saguntum fall, and let Rome be filled with
+shame because of her infidelity to her allies. This day I shall go to
+Hannibal's camp and sue for peace."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you considered it carefully?" exclaimed the Greek. "Do you not
+fear the indignation of your people when they see you treating with the
+enemy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I love my city well, and I cannot remain impassive and witness its
+sacrifice, its interminable agony. Few are aware of the actual
+conditions, but I can tell you, Act�on, because you are discreet. We are
+much worse off than the people realize. There is not a scrap of meat
+left for those who are defending our walls. This morning there was
+nothing but mud in the bottom of the cisterns. We have no water. A few
+days more of resistance and we shall be forced to eat dead bodies like
+those soulless creatures who feed by night. We shall have to kill the
+children to placate our thirst with their blood."</p>
+
+<p>Alcon was silent for a moment; he passed his hand over his forehead with
+a gesture of pain as if to obliterate terrible recollections.</p>
+
+<p>"No one knows better than we Elders what occurs in the city," he
+continued. "The gods must shudder with horror when they see the deeds
+done in Saguntum since they abandoned her. Listen and forget, Act�on,"
+he said in a low voice and with an accent of fear. "Yesterday two women,
+maddened by hunger, drew lots to<a name="page_309" id="page_309"></a> choose which one of their children
+they should devour. We Elders have closed our eyes and our ears; we have
+not desired to see nor to hear, understanding that punishment would only
+serve to increase the horrors. The men who are fighting on the walls are
+chewing the leather from their weapons to deceive hunger. Their flesh is
+loosened from their bones, they weaken and fall as if wounded by an
+invisible stroke from the gods. We have resisted for nearly eight
+months; two-thirds of the city no longer exists. We have done enough to
+demonstrate before heaven and before man how Saguntum fulfills her
+oaths."</p>
+
+<p>The Greek bowed his head, convinced by Alcon's arguments.</p>
+
+<p>"Moreover the valor of the city is breaking down," continued the Elder.
+"Faith is dying. The omens are all against us. There are people who,
+during the night, have seen globes of fire rise from the Acropolis and
+fly toward the sea, plunging into the waters like shooting stars which
+cut through the blue of heaven with a stream of light. The people
+believe that they are the penates of the city, who, divining the coming
+destruction of Saguntum, are abandoning it to go and establish
+themselves on the other side of the sea whence they came. Last night,
+those who were watching up there in the temple of Hercules saw a serpent
+glide from beneath the tomb of Zacynthus, hissing as if it were wounded.
+It was blue, with golden stars&mdash;the serpent which bit Zacynthus and was
+the cause of the foundation of the city around the tomb of the hero. He
+crawled between the feet of the astonished watchers; he fled down the
+mount, and crept off across the plain in the direction of<a name="page_310" id="page_310"></a> the sea. He
+also has abandoned us; the sacred reptile which was like the tutelary
+god of Saguntum."</p>
+
+<p>"It may not be true," said the Greek. "It may be the hallucinations of a
+people tormented by hunger."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be; but observe the women and you will find them weeping; in
+addition to their misery they are lamenting the flight of the serpent of
+Zacynthus. They believe the city defenseless, and many men on the walls
+will feel weaker to-day when they hear of the strange disappearance.
+Faith is the staff on which the people lean."</p>
+
+<p>The two men remained silent for a while.</p>
+
+<p>"Go," said the Greek, at last: "Speak to Hannibal, and may the gods
+incline his heart toward clemency!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you not come with me&mdash;you who have traveled so much, and who
+possess the eloquence of conviction? You can help me."</p>
+
+<p>"Hannibal knows me. I have refused his friendship, and he hates me. Go
+and save the city. My fate is sealed. The African will never abate his
+anger. He will pardon anyone but me. I will die rather than become his
+slave, or suffer myself to be put to death on a cross."<a name="page_311" id="page_311"></a></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h3>
+
+<p class="head">THE LAST NIGHT</p>
+
+<p class="nind">F<span class="smcap">ighting</span>
+on the walls with the defenders of the upper part of the city
+late in the afternoon Act�on saw Rhanto coming down a street near the
+ramparts.</p>
+
+<p>He had not seen the shepherdess since his return to Saguntum, and now he
+noticed the changes wrought by the sufferings of the siege, and by the
+grief which was breaking her reason.</p>
+
+<p>She walked absorbed, with bowed head, unconscious of her surroundings,
+and in her tangled hair were little faded flowers which at every step
+dropped their withered petals. Her torn and dirty tunic gave glimpses of
+her emaciated body, which still preserved the grace and freshness
+admired by the Greek. Her breasts had developed somewhat, as if pain had
+matured her figure; her eyes dilated by dementia, seemed to fill her
+whole face, shedding a mysterious light about her, an aureole of fever.</p>
+
+<p>She advanced slowly, raising her head at times, looking up at the men on
+the wall, and finally stopping at the foot of the stone steps she
+murmured in a supplicating voice, like the convulsive sobbing of a
+child:</p>
+
+<p>"Erotion! Erotion!"</p>
+
+<p>Behind the mantelets of the besiegers the defenders noticed fresh
+activity, as if a new attack against the<a name="page_312" id="page_312"></a> city were being attempted, but
+in spite of it the Greek came down from the wall in his eagerness to see
+the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Rhanto, shepherdess, do you know me?"</p>
+
+<p>He addressed her tenderly, taking one of her hands, but she tried to
+spring away from him, as if she had been startled from a sleep. Then she
+grew faint, and fixing her enormous, frightened eyes on the Greek, she
+exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"You! Is it you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you recognize me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you are the Athenian; you are my master; the lover of S�nnica the
+rich. Tell me, where is Erotion?"</p>
+
+<p>The Greek did not know how to answer, but Rhanto continued speaking
+without awaiting his reply.</p>
+
+<p>"They tell me he is dead; even I saw him lying at the foot of the walls;
+but it is not true; it was a bad dream. It was his father, Mopsus the
+archer, who died. Since then he runs away from me as if he wishes to
+weep alone for his father's death. He hides from me by day. I see him
+from afar, upon the walls, among the defenders, but when I climb up to
+search for him I find none but armed men, and Erotion disappears. He is
+only faithful to me at night. Then he seeks me, he comes to me. Scarcely
+do I conceal myself at the foot of the stairway and rest my head upon my
+knees than I see him coming, looking for me in the darkness, strong and
+loving, with his quiver at his side and his bow slung across his
+shoulders. When he comes the ferocious dogs which slink through the
+shadows, sniffing in my face and staring at me with their gloomy eyes,
+are<a name="page_313" id="page_313"></a> frightened away. He comes to me, he sits beside me; he smiles, but
+he is ever silent. I speak to him and he answers me with a tender
+glance, but never with a word. I seek his shoulder, to lean my head upon
+it as in other days, and he flees, he disappears as if dissolved in
+shadow. What does it mean, good Greek? If you see him, ask him why he
+hides from me. Tell him not to run away!&mdash;&mdash;He loves you so much, so
+much! How often has he talked to me of you and of your country!"</p>
+
+<p>She was silent a moment, as if these words had aroused within her a
+whole past of recollections. With a painful effort, which was reflected
+in her face, she caught at them and arranged them in her mind. Slowly
+surged through her memory again the image of those happy days before the
+siege when she and Erotion ran hand in hand through the valley and had
+for their house all the groves of the Saguntine domain.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled at Act�on, looking at him affectionately, and she recalled
+their several meetings; their first interview on the Road of the Serpent
+when he had just disembarked, poor and unknown. Then, the touch of
+paternal protection with which he greeted them when he found them in the
+fields climbing the cherry trees and quarreling playfully over the red
+fruit, and that surprise beneath the leafy fig trees, when she, in her
+virginal beauty, was acting as a model for the young sculptor. Did he
+remember? Had the Greek forgotten those days of peace and joy?</p>
+
+<p>Act�on did indeed cherish them in his memory. He still retained the
+impression caused by the vision of the lovely shepherdess, and at the
+same moment his eyes<a name="page_314" id="page_314"></a> searched the tattered tunic, seeking with an
+artist's delight the warm tones of her amber skin.</p>
+
+<p>But Rhanto's mind, after evoking these recollections, began again to
+wander. Where was Erotion? Had Act�on seen him? Was he up there with the
+defenders? The Greek held her back catching her by the hand to prevent
+her climbing to the top of the wall.</p>
+
+<p>The defenders were shouting wildly, shooting their arrows and throwing
+darts and stones. The besiegers had begun the attack. Projectiles came
+hurtling from outside the walls, passing over the merlons like
+dark-colored birds, as if the Africans were covering an assault with
+battering-rams and pickaxes to open a breach.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on, who since his return to Saguntum had again assumed control of
+the work of defense, must go up on the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Run away, Rhanto," he said hastily. "You will be killed here. Go to
+S�nnica's house&mdash;&mdash;I will take you to Erotion. But fly! Hide yourself!
+See how the missiles are falling around us!"</p>
+
+<p>He shoved her from the stairway with an energetic push which nearly
+drove her to her knees.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek ran up hastily, hearing the ceaseless and deadly hisses
+rending the air about his head. Before he reached the merlons he heard a
+faint groan at his back, a gentle cry which recalled to Act�on's mind
+the bleating of a fawn when pierced by the huntsman's arrow. Turning he
+saw Rhanto half way up the steps, wavering, ready to fall backward, her
+breast covered with blood and pierced by a long feather-tipped shaft,
+still quivering from the swiftness of its flight.<a name="page_315" id="page_315"></a></p>
+
+<p>She had started to follow him up the wall, but an arrow had caught her.</p>
+
+<p>"Rhanto! Poor Rhanto!"</p>
+
+<p>Obeying an impulse of grief which he could not explain to himself, but
+which was stronger than his will, he forgot the defense of the wall, the
+attack of the enemy, everything, to run toward the girl, who sank down
+with the gentle flutter of a wounded bird.</p>
+
+<p>He took her in his strong arms and laid her at the foot of the steps.
+Rhanto sighed, moving her head as if trying to rid herself of the pain
+which had taken possession of her.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek supported her by the shoulders, calling tenderly:</p>
+
+<p>"Rhanto! Rhanto!"</p>
+
+<p>In her eyes, enlarged by pain, the light seemed to condense. The
+expression of her face had now become sane; it lost, at moments, the
+vagueness of dementia. Pain seemed to have restored her reason, and in
+this supreme moment of lucidity the whole past arose clear in her mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not die, Rhanto," murmured the Greek, impulsively, "wait; I will
+draw out that iron; I will carry you on my back to the Forum so that
+they shall cure you."</p>
+
+<p>But the girl shook her head sadly. No, she wished to die. She wished to
+join Erotion, near the gods, among the clouds of rose and gold where
+wandered the Mother of Love, followed by those who had loved each other
+devotedly on earth. She had roamed for weeks like a shadow among the
+horrors of the besieged city, believing<a name="page_316" id="page_316"></a> that Erotion still lived,
+searching for him everywhere; but Erotion was dead; she remembered it
+well now; she herself had seen his corpse.</p>
+
+<p>"Since he is dead why should I live?"</p>
+
+<p>"Live for me!" cried Act�on, stung with grief, unconscious of his
+surroundings, deaf to the cries of the defenders on the wall and to the
+footsteps of someone approaching on the street.</p>
+
+<p>"Rhanto, shepherdess, listen to me! Now I understand why I longed to see
+you; why your memory came to me so often in Rome whenever I thought of
+Saguntum. Live and be to Act�on the last spring of his existence! I love
+you, Rhanto! You are my last love; the flower which blooms in the winter
+of my life! I love you, Rhanto! I have loved you since that day when I
+saw you revealed like a goddess. Live and let me be your Erotion!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl, her face clouded by the shadow of death, smiled, murmuring:</p>
+
+<p>"Act�on, good Greek, thank you, thank you!"</p>
+
+<p>Her head slipped from between Act�on's hands and fell heavily on the
+ground. The Athenian remained motionless, mutely gazing at the body of
+the girl. The silence which suddenly fell on the wall seemed to arouse
+him from his painful stupor. The besiegers had suspended the attack. The
+Greek stood up, but he knelt again to press kisses on the still warm
+mouth of the shepherdess and upon her unquivering wide-open eyes, in
+which the red splendor of the setting sun was reflected as in quiet
+waters.</p>
+
+<p>As he arose he was startled by S�nnica standing quietly before him, with
+cold, ironic stare.<a name="page_317" id="page_317"></a></p>
+
+<p>"S�nnica! You!"</p>
+
+<p>"I came to tell you to hasten to the Forum. A messenger from the hostile
+camp has presented himself at the gates of the city asking to speak to
+the Elders. The people are gathered in the Forum."</p>
+
+<p>Despite the importance of the news Act�on did not stir. He was
+transfixed by S�nnica's cold rigidity.</p>
+
+<p>"How long have you been here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Long enough to see how you bade my slave farewell forever!"</p>
+
+<p>She was silent for a moment, then as if impelled by a sentiment stronger
+than her will, she approached him with flashing eyes and with
+outstretched hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you really love her?" she asked bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, faintly, as if ashamed of the confession. "I know now
+that I loved her&mdash;&mdash;but I love you also."</p>
+
+<p>They stood motionless, their eyes fixed upon the body which lay between
+them. It was like a cold intervening wall, suddenly risen and separating
+them forever.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on was shamed by the grief which his words caused her who had so
+loved him. S�nnica seemed stunned by his immense deception, and she
+gazed frigidly at the body of the slave with the eyes of an implacable
+Nemesis.</p>
+
+<p>"Go, Act�on!" she said. "They are waiting for you in the Forum. The
+Elders are calling for you to serve as interpreter for the messenger
+from Hannibal."</p>
+
+<p>The Athenian advanced a few steps, and then stopped, gently imploring
+mercy for the body.<a name="page_318" id="page_318"></a></p>
+
+<p>"It will be deserted. Night is coming on, and&mdash;&mdash;the hungry dogs&mdash;&mdash;the
+soulless men who look for corpses&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He chilled with horror to think that the beautiful body which had
+thrilled him with admiration might be devoured by the beasts.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica replied with a gesture. He might go. She would stay on guard,
+and, mastered by her chill hauteur, he turned and hastened toward the
+Forum.</p>
+
+<p>As he reached the quadrangle it was growing dark. In the centre burned
+the great fire which was lighted every night to combat the mortal
+springtime chill.</p>
+
+<p>The Elders brought their ivory chairs to the foot of the temple steps to
+receive Hannibal's messenger in the presence of the populace. The news
+had circulated throughout the city, and the people flocked to the Forum,
+eager to hear the propositions of the besieger. New groups poured in
+each moment along the streets leading to the great square where the
+waning life of the city was concentrated.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on placed himself near the Elders. He glanced around for Alcon, but
+failed to see him. The aged senator was still in the hostile camp, and
+the coming of this emissary must be in consequence of his interview with
+Hannibal.</p>
+
+<p>A senator explained the circumstances. An unarmed enemy had presented
+himself before the walls, waving an olive branch. He asked to speak to
+the Senate in the name of the besiegers, and the assembly of Elders
+thought it wise to summon the whole city to participate in this supreme
+deliberation.</p>
+
+<p>Orders to admit the messenger had been given, and<a name="page_319" id="page_319"></a> soon an armed group
+was seen approaching, making its way through the crowd, conducting a man
+with uncovered head, unarmed, and carrying a branch in his right hand as
+a symbol of peace.</p>
+
+<p>As he passed before the fire the ruddy glow of the flames fell full upon
+his face and the Forum reverberated with a clamor of indignation. They
+had recognized him:</p>
+
+<p>"Alorcus! It is Alorcus!"</p>
+
+<p>"Traitor!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ingrate!"</p>
+
+<p>Many hands reached for their swords to fall upon him; above the heads of
+the multitude menacing arms brandished spears; but the presence of the
+Elders, and the sad smile of the Celtiberian restrained them. Moreover,
+the people felt the weakness of hunger; they had little strength left
+for indignation, and they were eager to hear the messenger, to learn the
+fate reserved for them by the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Alorcus advanced until he stood before the Elders, and the great
+concourse subsided into profound silence, interrupted only by the
+crackling of the wood in the fire. All eyes were fixed on the
+Celtiberian.</p>
+
+<p>"Alcon the prudent is not with you?" he began.</p>
+
+<p>They glanced around in surprise. It was true; until then the absence of
+the man who was first in all public acts, had not been noticed.</p>
+
+<p>"You look for him in vain," continued the Celtiberian. "Alcon is in the
+camp of Hannibal. Heart-broken over the condition of the city, realizing
+that it is impossible to persist longer in the defense, he has
+sacrificed himself for you, and at the risk of his life he<a name="page_320" id="page_320"></a> came to
+Hannibal's tent a few hours ago to beg him, with tears, to have
+compassion upon you."</p>
+
+<p>"And why has he not returned with you?" asked one of the Elders.</p>
+
+<p>"He was afraid and ashamed to repeat Hannibal's words to you&mdash;&mdash;the
+conditions which he imposed for the surrender of the city."</p>
+
+<p>The silence grew more oppressive. The multitude divined in the terror of
+the absent Alcon the frightful demands of the conqueror which made all
+hearts beat fast with dread even before hearing them.</p>
+
+<p>Fresh groups of people kept straggling in to the Forum. Even the
+defenders of the city abandoned the walls, attracted by the event, and
+stood at the entrances of the streets around the quadrangle, the flames
+from the bonfire glinting on their bronze helmets and on their shields
+of varied shapes, round, rectangular, and oval. Act�on also saw S�nnica
+make her way through the crowd and seat herself near the group formed by
+the elegant young gallants who admired her.</p>
+
+<p>Alorcus continued speaking:</p>
+
+<p>"You know me well. A moment ago I heard threats, I saw menacing gestures
+when you recognized me. I understand your indignation at seeing me
+before you. Perhaps I am an ingrate; but remember that I was born in
+other lands, and that my father's death placed me at the head of a
+people whom I have to obey and to lead in their alliances. Never have I
+forgotten that I was the guest of Saguntum; I cherish the memory of your
+hospitality, and I am as interested in the fate of this city as if it
+were my native land. Ponder well your situation, Saguntines! Valor has
+its limits, and no<a name="page_321" id="page_321"></a> matter how much you exert yourselves the gods have
+decreed the ruin of heroic Saguntum. They show it by having forsaken
+you, and your courage is all in vain before their immutable will."</p>
+
+<p>The vague words of Alorcus augmented the dread of the people. They
+feared the conditions set by Hannibal, and they read their harshness in
+the Celtiberian's hesitation in pronouncing them.</p>
+
+<p>"The conditions! Tell us the conditions!" they shouted from all sides of
+the Forum.</p>
+
+<p>"The proof that I have come in your sole interests," continued Alorcus,
+as if he did not hear their cries, "lies in the fact that as long as you
+were able to resist with your own strength, and while you expected
+assistance from the Romans, never did I come to counsel your submission.
+But your walls can no longer defend you; every day hundreds of
+Saguntines perish from hunger; the Romans will not come; they are far
+away, and occupied with other wars; in place of sending you legions they
+send you legates, and thus I, seeing that Alcon hesitated to return,
+face your indignation to bring you a peace rather necessary than
+advantageous."</p>
+
+<p>"The conditions! The conditions!" demanded the multitude, with a
+formidable howl which shook the Forum.</p>
+
+<p>"Remember," said Alorcus, "that what the conqueror offers you is a gift,
+for to-day he is master of everything you possess&mdash;your lives and your
+estates."</p>
+
+<p>This terrible truth, falling upon the multitude, produced silence.
+"Saguntum, which, for the greater part is already in ruins, and whose
+extremes his troops already occupy, he takes from you as a punishment;
+but<a name="page_322" id="page_322"></a> Hannibal will permit you to build a new city in the place which he
+will designate. All your riches, those in the public treasury as well as
+those in your houses, shall be turned over to the conqueror. Hannibal
+will respect your lives and those of your wives and children, but you
+must depart from Saguntum to a place which he will indicate, unarmed,
+and with but two garments each. I understand that these terms are stern,
+but your misfortune commends them to you, for it is worse to die, and to
+have your families fall as booty of war into the hands of a triumphant
+army."</p>
+
+<p>Alorcus ceased speaking, but still the Forum remained in silence, a
+silence profound, threatening, like the leaden calm which precedes the
+tempest.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Saguntines! No!" shouted a woman.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on recognized the voice of S�nnica.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" answered the multitude, with a thundering echo.</p>
+
+<p>They swayed and surged from place to place; compact masses crowded
+against each other, possessed with fury, as if they would rend
+themselves in pieces to give vent to the wrath produced by the
+conditions of the conqueror.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica had disappeared; but Act�on saw her return to the Forum followed
+by a cordon of people, slaves, women, soldiers, bearing upon their backs
+the rich furniture from the villa which had been stored in the
+warehouse; the chests of jewels, the sumptuous tapestries, ingots of
+silver, and boxes of gold dust. The multitude observed this procession
+of riches without guessing S�nnica's purpose.<a name="page_323" id="page_323"></a></p>
+
+<p>"No! No!" repeated the Greek woman, as if talking to herself.</p>
+
+<p>She was infuriated at the conqueror's proposals. She imagined herself
+departing from the city with no other fortune than the tunic she wore
+and another over her arm, compelled to beg along the highway, or to
+labor in the fields as a slave, persecuted by the fierce soldiers of
+many nations!</p>
+
+<p>"No! No!" she repeated energetically, making her way through the crowd
+to the fire in the centre of the Forum.</p>
+
+<p>She was magnificent with her auburn hair loosened in her excitement, her
+tunic rent by struggling through the multitude, her eyes flashing with
+the expression of a Fury who found an acrid satisfaction in destruction.
+Of what use were riches? Of what use was life? Her desperate energy was
+spurred by the bitterness which she had tasted an hour ago before the
+body of her slave.</p>
+
+<p>She gave the signal by hurling into the bonfire an image of Venus in
+jasper and silver which she carried in her arms, and which disappeared
+in the flames as if it were a clod. The wretched and starving crowd
+which followed imitated her with intense relish. The destruction of so
+many riches made them howl with joy, and they danced in their
+gladness&mdash;they, so poor, who had passed their lives in the deprivation
+of slavery! Into the flames fell dainty caskets of ivory, cedar, and
+ebony, and as they clashed against the firewood they burst open,
+spilling treasures within&mdash;collars of pearls, clusters of topazes and
+emeralds, diamond earrings, the whole scale of precious stones, which
+sparkled for an instant against the half-burnt wood like gleaming
+salamanders. Then<a name="page_324" id="page_324"></a> came the tapestries, the silver-embroidered veils,
+the tunics of spun-gold flowers, the golden sandals, the chairs with
+lion claws, the couches with metal clamps, mirrors, lamps, bottles of
+perfume, rich inlaid marble tables, all the splendors of S�nnica the
+rich. The poverty-stricken multitude, transported by this sacrifice,
+applauded with bellowing enthusiasm as it saw the fire grow and grow
+with so much fuel, until the flames mounted to a great height and
+scattered ashes and sparks over the roofs of the houses.</p>
+
+<p>"Hannibal wants riches!" shouted S�nnica in a hoarse voice which
+resembled a howl. "Come, pile here your treasures, and let the African
+lay siege to the fire for them!"</p>
+
+<p>No need of urging them to imitate her! Many of the Elders who had
+withdrawn at the first moment of confusion now returned to the Forum
+carrying chests beneath their white mantles, and flung them into the
+fire. They were the hoarded treasures from their houses.</p>
+
+<p>Above the heads of the multitude furniture and rich fabrics passed from
+hand to hand until they tumbled into the immense furnace, which whirled
+its flames higher and higher, crowned by a white and luminous smoke.</p>
+
+<p>It was a holocaust in honor of the dead and silent gods on the
+Acropolis. Houses seemed to turn themselves inside out to fling their
+adornments and riches upon the fire. The men pursued their work of
+destruction silently and gloomily; but the women seemed mad, and they
+danced around the huge bonfire, disheveled, screaming, their eyes
+bulging from their sockets, hypnotized, caressing the flames with their
+garments, intoxicated by the<a name="page_325" id="page_325"></a> glare, scratching their faces unconscious
+of their acts, and bellowing curses with mouths foaming with rage.
+Crazed by the infernal round, unable to resist the fascination of the
+lambent flames, one of them sprang and fell into the fire. Her hair and
+clothing blazed for an instant like a torch, and she sank among the
+white-hot coals. Another hurled into the roaring crematory, as if it
+were a ball, the babe she had borne in her arms clinging to her empty
+breast, and then, as if repentant for her crime, she followed the child
+into the burning pile.</p>
+
+<p>The conflagration had extended to the wooden roofs of the houses around
+the Forum. A chaplet of flame began to inwreathe the square. The heat
+and smoke were stifling, and the furniture seemed to travel
+automatically above the heads of the crowd toward the incandescent kiln
+through the dense sooty atmosphere. Lachares and his elegant friends
+began to talk of death. Those effeminate beings discussed with sublime
+tranquility the manner of their end. They did not wish to follow
+S�nnica, who had just armed herself with sword and shield to sally forth
+against the besieging camp and die fighting. It was repugnant to them to
+think of struggling with rude, half-savage soldiers, to inhale their
+wild-beast odors, and to fall with their painted faces cleft by a blow,
+covered with blood, and wallowing in gore like a beheaded ox; neither
+did it please them to stab themselves&mdash;that was a means reserved for
+heroes. They preferred to die in the flames; they recollected the
+sacrifice of the Asiatic queens who perished in a fire of perfumed
+woods. What a pity that this fire smelled so ill! But it was not a
+moment for refinements; drawing<a name="page_326" id="page_326"></a> their mantles over their eyes, shoving
+their little slaveboys before them with their depilated and perfumed
+arms, one after the other the elegant young gallants walked into the
+fire with tranquil step, as if still dwelling in those days of peace
+when they strolled through the Forum, gratified by the scandal caused by
+their feminine adornments.</p>
+
+<p>S�nnica gathered her tunic around her waist in order to run with greater
+freedom, leaving disclosed the resplendent whiteness of her limbs.</p>
+
+<p>"We are going to die, Euphobias," she said to the philosopher, who stood
+absorbed in contemplation before this spectacle of destruction.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time the philosopher failed to display his insolent and
+ironic manner. He was grave and frowning; gazing at the people whom he
+had so often ridiculed, beholding the heroism of their death.</p>
+
+<p>"Die?" he exclaimed. "Must we die? Do you think so, S�nnica?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; he who is not willing to be a slave must die. Get a sword and
+follow me!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, if I must die I will avoid the fatigue of running and the exertion
+of striking blows. I will die placidly in the sweet indolence which ever
+embellished my life."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, deliberately, he walked over to the fire, covered his face with
+his patched and mended mantle, and laid himself in the flames as calmly
+as he used to drop down on the porticos of the Forum in the old days of
+peace.</p>
+
+<p>On the steps of the temple the Elders were stabbing themselves in their
+breasts with a dagger. Before breathing his last, each passed the weapon
+on to his<a name="page_327" id="page_327"></a> nearest companion, and they died trying to maintain
+themselves erect in their chairs of state. Groups of women caught up
+torches lighted at the great fire, and scattered like furious bacchantes
+throughout Saguntum, setting fire to doors, and flinging burning brands
+upon the wooden roofs.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly from the direction of the citadel where the attacks of the
+besiegers had been concentrated, arose an appalling commotion, as if
+half a mountain had toppled over. The walls had been abandoned by the
+defenders who had gathered in the Forum, and a tower which the
+Carthaginians had undermined some days before had fallen. A cohort of
+Hannibal's army, seeing the city destitute of the usual outposts and
+guards, rushed through the breach, and made a signal for Hannibal to
+enter with his hosts.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on! come on!" shouted S�nnica with a hoarse voice. "This is our
+last night! I will not die in the fire! I choose to die fighting! I want
+blood!"</p>
+
+<p>She flew from the Forum like a Fury, followed by Act�on who ran beside
+her calling her name, trying to gain a look from her. But the beautiful
+Greek woman was insensible in her rage, as if she had at her side
+someone she had never seen before. They were followed by a discordant
+crowd, armed citizens, women brandishing knives and darts, naked youths
+with no other defense than a spear. They poured out like a stampeded
+herd, their bronze corselets and their helmets with broken crests
+shimmering in the firelight, their weapons dyed in blood, and displaying
+through the tatters of their clothing emaciated limbs which seemed to
+dance in their loose skin, dried and wrinkled by hunger.<a name="page_328" id="page_328"></a></p>
+
+<p>They passed out of Saguntum on the lower side, marching in the glare of
+the burning city straight upon the camp of the besieger.</p>
+
+<p>A cohort of Celtiberians hurrying toward Saguntum was routed, put in
+disorder, harried by this troop of desperate beings who ran with lowered
+head, striking blindly at everything before them. Farther on they
+encountered other troops who advanced in battle form to meet the sally,
+and they collided with the line of shields, unable to stand in a
+struggle hand to hand.</p>
+
+<p>The Saguntines, debilitated by the long siege, their strength exhausted
+by hunger and sickness, could not withstand the clash. The Celtiberians
+wounded mercilessly with their two edged swords, and the company of sick
+men, women, and children, fell rapidly beneath their blows.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on, fighting with his shield before his face and his sword raised
+against two vigorous soldiers, saw S�nnica receive a stab in the head
+and drop her weapons, doubling up in agony.</p>
+
+<p>"Act�on! Act�on!" she cried, forgetting her bitterness, the fire of her
+old love returning to her with death.</p>
+
+<p>She fell face downward on the ground. The Greek started toward her, but
+at the same instant his ears buzzed as if an immense mass had crashed
+upon his head; in his side he felt the chill of the steel perforating
+his flesh; everything turned black, and he sank to the ground, as if
+falling into a dark and gloomy pit the bottom of which he would never
+reach.</p>
+
+<p class="points">* * * * * *</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_329" id="page_329"></a>The Greek awoke. His chest was weighted down by a form as heavy as a
+mountain. He was not sure whether he really existed. His members refused
+to obey him. Only with a painful effort could he open his eyes and
+understand confusedly why he was there.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually he realized that the something which oppressed his breast was
+the corpse of a gigantic soldier. Act�on thought he remembered having
+plunged his sword into the body of the warrior the instant that he fell
+into the dense and mysterious night.</p>
+
+<p>He looked around. A ruddy glow, as of an endless aurora, scintillated on
+the abandoned weapons and outlined silhouettes of the bodies lying in
+heaps or scattered over the field contracted in weird postures by their
+final convulsions.</p>
+
+<p>In the background a city was burning. The blackened and shapeless
+structures stood out against the curtain of flames, and through their
+restless splendor the walls of the Acropolis trembled.</p>
+
+<p>Act�on remembered all that had happened. That city was Saguntum; the
+conquerors could be heard howling through the streets; they were covered
+with blood; setting fire to the houses still untouched; cursing a people
+which only gave itself up after consuming its riches; killing in their
+fury whatever living thing they encountered in their way, and stabbing
+the wounded.</p>
+
+<p>As he realized this he knew that he was not dead, but that he was going
+to die. He knew it by the terrible weakness which overpowered him, by
+the mortal cold creeping up to his heart; by his mind which was growing
+dull, and was now but a flickering light.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_330" id="page_330"></a>What of S�nnica? Where could he find S�nnica? His last thought was to
+reach her body, which must be near. He wished to kiss her as her slave;
+to render her that tribute before he died. But as he made a supreme
+exertion, raising his head from the ground, a wave of warm and sticky
+liquid covered his face. It was his last blood.</p>
+
+<p>Then he seemed to see, with the vagueness of a vanishing dream, a kind
+of black centaur, galloping over the slain, and looking at the blazing
+city, laughing with malevolent joy.</p>
+
+<p>He passed near. His horse's hoofs ploughed into the body of the
+Celtiberian lying on his breast. The dying Greek recognized the horseman
+by the light of the conflagration.</p>
+
+<p>It was Hannibal, his head uncovered, possessed by the fury of triumph,
+galloping on his jet-black horse which seemed to have caught the
+ferocity of the rider, whinnying, treading on the fallen bodies, lashing
+his tail above the litter of battle. To the Greek he appeared an
+infernal demon coming for his soul.</p>
+
+<p>Dimly, like a blurred vision, he saw the face of Hannibal animated by a
+smile of pride, of cruel satisfaction&mdash;the majestic and ferocious visage
+of one of those gods of Carthage who showed clemency only when human
+sacrifices were smoking upon their altars.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal laughed on seeing that at last the city which had detained him
+eight months before her walls, was his. Now he was free to go on working
+out his audacious dreams!</p>
+
+<p>The Greek saw no more. He sank finally into eternal night.<a name="page_331" id="page_331"></a></p>
+
+<p>Hannibal galloped on around the city, and beholding the purplish glow of
+the coming day breaking over the sea, he reined in his horse, he looked
+into the East, and extending his arm, impatient to stretch it across the
+blue expanse bounded by the horizon, he shouted threateningly, as if
+challenging an invisible enemy before falling upon it:</p>
+
+<p>"Rome!&mdash;&mdash;Rome!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of S�nnica, by Vicente Blasco Ib��ez
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sonnica, by Vicente Blasco Ibanez
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sonnica
+
+Author: Vicente Blasco Ibanez
+
+Translator: Frances Douglas
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2010 [EBook #31821]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONNICA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SONNICA
+
+BY
+
+VICENTE BLASCO IBANEZ
+
+Translated from the Spanish by
+FRANCES DOUGLAS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+NEW YORK
+DUFFIELD & COMPANY
+1919
+
+COPYRIGHT 1912
+By DUFFIELD & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                 PAGE
+
+    I. AT APHRODITE'S TEMPLE               3
+
+   II. SAGUNTUM                           45
+
+  III. DANCING GIRLS FROM GADES           95
+
+   IV. GREEK AND CELTIBERIAN             143
+
+    V. INVASION                          174
+
+   VI. ASBYTE AND HANNIBAL               200
+
+  VII. THE WALLS OF SAGUNTUM             234
+
+ VIII. THE ROME OF FABIUS THE DELAYER    258
+
+   IX. THE HUNGRY CITY                   285
+
+    X. THE LAST NIGHT                    311
+
+
+
+
+
+SONNICA
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+AT APHRODITE'S TEMPLE.
+
+
+When the ship of Polyanthus, the Saguntine pilot, arrived off the port
+of his native land, the mariners and fishermen, their vision sharpened
+by ever watching the distant horizon, had already recognized his
+saffron-dyed sail and the image of Victory, which, with extended wings,
+and holding a crown in her right hand, stretched along the prow until it
+dipped its feet in the waves.
+
+"It is Polyanthus' ship! It is the Victoriata returning from Gades and
+New Carthage!"
+
+To obtain a better view they rushed out upon the stone breakwater
+surrounding the three basins of the port of Saguntum, which were
+connected with the sea by a long canal.
+
+The low marshy land, overgrown with reeds and tangled aquatic plants,
+extended as far as the Gulf of Sucro, which bounded the horizon by its
+curving blue belt, and over which the fishermen's smacks skimmed like
+dragon flies. The trireme slowly advanced. The colored sail fluttered in
+the breeze without filling, but the triple banks of oars, with rhythmic
+movement along its flanks caused the vessel to spring over the white
+foam lashing the entrance of the canal.
+
+Night was falling. On the hill near the port the temple of Venus
+Aphrodite reflected from the polished surface of its pediment the fire
+of the setting sun. A golden atmosphere wrapped the columns and the blue
+marble walls, as if the father of day, before sinking to rest, were
+greeting the goddess of the waters with a kiss of light. The chain of
+dark mountains, covered with pines and shrubbery, swung around the sea
+in a gigantic semicircle, embracing the fertile valley in which lay the
+Saguntine gardens, the white villas, the rustic towers and the hamlets
+rising among the clustering green trees of the fields. At the other
+extreme of this mountain barrier, dimmed by the distance and the haze of
+the landscape, could be seen the city, the ancient Zacynthus, with its
+dwellings compressed within walls and citadels upon the fold of the
+hill. Far above was the Acropolis, with cyclopean ramparts above which
+rose the high-roofed temples and public buildings.
+
+The port was enlivened by the stir of labor. Two ships from Massilia
+were loading with wine in the big basin. One from Liburnia was taking on
+a cargo consisting of Saguntine pottery and dried figs, to be sold in
+Rome, while a galley from Carthage contained in its hold great bars of
+silver brought from the mines of Celtiberia. Other ships, with sails
+furled and their banks of oars fallen against their sides, swung at
+anchor near the wharf, like great sleeping birds gently nodding their
+prows with figureheads of crocodiles or of horses, used by the navy of
+Alexandria, or displaying on the stern a hideous red dwarf resembling
+that which decorated the vessel of the Phoenician Cadmus in his
+astounding voyages over many seas.
+
+The slaves bending under the weight of amphorae and silver ingots,
+wearing no other clothing than a loin-cloth and a white hood, their
+fretted and sweating bodies bare, passed like an endless rosary along
+the boards leading from the mole to the ships, as they carried the
+merchandise from where it lay piled on the wharf into the concave holds
+of the vessels.
+
+In the centre of the great middle basin rose a tower guarding the
+entrance to the port; a solid structure with its stone foundations laid
+in the deepest water. Moored to the rings which adorned its walls lay a
+ship of war, a Liburnian galley, high of stern, the prow a sheep's head,
+the great square sail furled, an armored fore-castle near the mast, and
+on the gunwales, forming a double row, the shields of the _classiarii_,
+soldiers destined for marine combats. It was a Roman vessel which at
+daybreak next morning was to set sail, bearing the ambassadors sent by
+the great Republic to settle the political disorders which agitated
+Saguntum.
+
+In the second basin, a tranquil square of water where boats were
+constructed and repaired, sounded the hammers of the calkers striking
+against the wood. The dismasted galleys lay on the bank like sick
+monsters, showing through their lacerated flanks their strong frames and
+their pitch-blackened interiors. In the third and smallest, a lake of
+filthy waters, the fishermen's barks were anchored. Flocks of gulls
+whirled around them, darting down upon the spoils which floated on the
+water, while along the bank crowded women, old men, and boys, awaiting
+the arrival of the barks with fish from the Sucronian Gulf, which were
+sold in the interior to the more advanced tribes of Celtiberia.
+
+The arrival of the Saguntine ship had drawn all the people of the port
+away from their tasks. The slaves worked lazily while their overseers
+were preoccupied by the entrance of the trireme, and even phlegmatic
+citizens seated on the mole, rod in hand, trying to capture corpulent
+eels which abounded in the basin, forgot their fishing while they
+watched the advance of the Victoriata. She had by this time come into
+the canal. Her hull could not be seen. The mast, with its motionless
+sail, rose above the tall reeds which bordered the entrance to the port.
+
+The afternoon silence was interrupted by the hoarse cry of innumerable
+frogs croaking in the marshes and the chattering of birds which
+fluttered in the olive trees near the fane of Aphrodite. The
+hammer-blows of the arsenal rung more and more slowly; the people of the
+port were silent, watching the progress of the ship of Polyanthus. As
+the Victoriata rounded the sharp bend of the canal the gilded image of
+the prow hove into sight, and then the first oars quickly followed, like
+enormous red talons, clutching the glossy surface of the water with a
+force which flung aloft the white spray.
+
+The crowd, amid which chafed the eagerly watching families of the
+mariners, burst into acclamations as the ship swung into the port.
+
+"Greeting, Polyanthus! Welcome, son of Aphrodite! May Sonnica, your
+mistress, overwhelm you with riches!"
+
+Naked, brown-skinned boys dived head-first into the basin, swimming
+around the ship like a swarm of young Tritons.
+
+The people of the port praised their compatriot Polyanthus,
+exaggerating his skill. According to them his ship lacked nothing; well
+might the rich Sonnica be satisfied with her freedman. Forward on the
+vessel stood the _proreta_, motionless as a statue, watching with swift
+glances to discover the presence of obstacles; the crew, naked, their
+sweaty backs glistening in the sun, bent over the oars, and on the poop
+the _gubernator_, Polyanthus himself, insensible to weariness, wrapped
+in his ample red mantle, the tiller firmly held in his right hand, and
+in his left a white staff which he waved rhythmically, marking the swing
+of the rowers. Near the mast stood men in strange costumes, and
+motionless women wrapped in flowing mantles.
+
+The ship glided into the port like an enormous crustacean, parting the
+dead and silent waters with her prow, which but recently had been
+fretting the waters of the gulf.
+
+As she cast anchor near the mole and threw out her gang-plank, the
+rowers were forced to club back the multitude which crowded forward
+eager to board the ship.
+
+The pilot gave orders from the poop; his red robe moved from place to
+place like a flame kindled by the setting sun.
+
+"Eh! Polyanthus! Welcome, navigator! What cargo do you bring?"
+
+The pilot saw two young horsemen on the bank. The one who addressed him
+was wrapped in a white mantle; one of its corners covered his head,
+leaving exposed his beard done into curls and lustrous with pomatum. The
+other clung to the back of his steed with his strong bare legs; he wore
+the sagum of the Celtiberians, a short wool tunic over which the
+broadsword hung from his shoulder, and his hair, as thick and
+dishevelled as his beard, outlined a brown and manly countenance.
+
+"Greeting, Lachares! Greeting, Alorcus!" replied the pilot with an
+expression of respect. "Shall you see Sonnica, my mistress?"
+
+"This very night," answered Lachares. "We sup at her country-seat. What
+bring you?"
+
+"Tell her that I have argentiferous lead from New Carthage, and wool
+from Baetica. Excellent voyage!"
+
+The two youths tugged at their horses' reins.
+
+"Ah! Wait a moment," added Polyanthus. "Tell her that I have not
+forgotten her instructions. I am bringing what you so greatly desire,
+the dancing girls from Gades."
+
+"We are all grateful to you," said Lachares, laughing. "Hail,
+Polyanthus; may Neptune favor you!"
+
+The two riders set off at a gallop, becoming lost to view among the
+hovels grouped around the base of the temple of Aphrodite.
+
+Meanwhile one of the ship's passengers landed, making his way through
+the crowd. He was a Greek. All knew his origin by the _pilos_ which
+covered his head, a conical leather helmet, after the fashion of that
+worn by Ulysses in Greek paintings. He was clad in a short, dark tunic,
+adjusted around his waist by a leather belt, from which hung a pouch.
+His chlamys, which did not reach his knees, was fastened at the right
+shoulder by a copper brooch; worn and dusty laced shoes covered his
+stockingless feet, and his sinewy arms, carefully freed from hair,
+rested on a great dart which was almost a lance. His hair, short and
+arranged in thick curls, hung beneath the _pilos_, forming a hollow
+crown around his head. It was black, but silvery threads shone in it and
+also in his broad short beard. His upper lip was carefully shaved in the
+Athenian style.
+
+He was a strong and agile man, in the prime of life, healthy and
+vigorous. His eyes had an ironic glance, and in them sparkled something
+of that fire which reveals men born for warfare and for contact with the
+world. He walked at ease about the unfamiliar port, like a traveler
+accustomed to all manner of contrasts and surprises.
+
+The sun began to sink, and work at the port had ceased. The crowd which
+had swarmed on the wharf was gradually scattering. Bands of slaves
+stretching their aching limbs and wiping off the sweat, passed near the
+stranger. Controlled by the clubs of their guards, they were about to be
+locked up until the next morning in caves in the nearby hill, or in the
+oil mills situated beyond the mariners' taverns, the inns, and the
+brothels, with their mud walls and broad roofs, which as a complement to
+the port were grouped at the foot of the hill of Aphrodite.
+
+The merchants also left in search of their horses and chariots to ride
+to the city. They passed in groups, looking over the records on their
+tablets, and discussing the operations of the day. Their diverse types,
+dress, and bearing, showed a great mixture of races in Zacynthus, a
+commercial city to which in ancient times flocked the vessels of the
+Mediterranean, and whose traffic was in rivalry with that of Emporion
+and Massilia. The Asiatic or African merchants who imported ivory,
+ostrich feathers, spices, and perfumes for the rich of the city, were
+distinguished by their majestic step, their tunics with flowers and
+birds embroidered in gold, their green buskins, their tall embroidered
+tiaras, and their beards falling over their breasts, curled so as to lie
+in horizontal waves. The Greeks laughed and talked incessantly, jesting
+over their business affairs, and overwhelming with volubility the grave,
+bearded, diffident Iberian exporters dressed in coarse wool, who, with
+their silence seemed to protest against the stream of useless words.
+
+The wharves were deserted one after another, the life of the place
+flowing along the road toward the city. Horses galloped, raising clouds
+of dust, chariots rolled along, and little African donkeys passed with a
+short trot, bearing on their backs some corpulent citizen or other,
+seated like a woman.
+
+The Greek walked slowly along the mole behind two men clad in short
+tunics, wearing buskins and little conical hats with drooping brims,
+like those of the Hellenic shepherds. They were two artisans from the
+city. They had spent the day fishing, and were returning to their
+houses, gazing with ill dissimulated pride at their baskets in which
+writhed and wriggled barbels and eels. They were talking in Iberian,
+frequently mixing Greek and Latin words in their conversation. It was a
+not unusual dialect in that ancient colony, which was in continual
+contact through commerce with the principal peoples of the earth. The
+Greek, as he followed them down the wharf listened to their conversation
+with the curiosity of a stranger.
+
+"You will come in my cart," said one of them. "My donkey awaits me at
+Abiliana's inn. The beast as you know is the envy of all my neighbors.
+We shall yet reach the city before the gates are closed."
+
+"I thank you, neighbor. It is not prudent to travel alone when the
+country is swarming with adventurers whom we take as hirelings for the
+wars with the Turdetani, and all the people who fled from the city after
+the last revolt. Day before yesterday, as you know, the dead body of
+Acteio, the barber of the Forum, was found in the road. He was
+assassinated and robbed as he was returning from his little
+country-house at night-fall."
+
+"They say that we shall live more tranquilly now since the Roman
+intervention. The legates from Rome have ordered a few heads cut off;
+and they affirm that after this we shall have peace."
+
+The two men stopped a moment and turned their heads to look at the Roman
+liburna, which could barely be distinguished near the tower in the port,
+wrapped in the shadows of evening. Then they walked slowly onward, as if
+in deep thought.
+
+"You know," continued one of them, "that I am only a shoemaker who has
+his shop near the Forum and has been able to save a sack of silver
+victoriati in order to live at ease in his old age, and to spend the
+afternoons at the port, rod in hand. I do not know as much as those
+rhetoricians who stroll up and down outside the city wall disputing and
+shouting like Furies, nor do I worry my brain as do the philosophers who
+gather on the porticos of the Forum to quarrel amid the jests of the
+merchants as to whether this or that one of the men who occupy
+themselves there in Athens with such matters is in the right. But, with
+all my ignorance, I ask myself, neighbor, why this strife between us
+men who live in the same city who should deal with one another like good
+brothers? Why?"
+
+The shoemaker's comrade replied with vigorous nods of assent.
+
+"I understand," continued the artisan, "that from time to time we shall
+be at war with our neighbors the Turdetani. Sometimes on account of a
+question of irrigation, again on account of pasture-grounds, but mainly
+because of boundary lines, and to keep them from enjoying this beautiful
+port, I understand that the citizens take up arms and seek battle, going
+out to destroy their fields and burn their huts. But those people are
+not of our race, and that is how a great city makes itself respected.
+Besides, war yields slaves, which often are scarce, and what would we
+men, we citizens, do without slaves?"
+
+"I am poorer than you, neighbor," said the other fisherman. "I do not
+earn as much making saddles as you do making shoes; but in spite of my
+poverty I can afford to have a Turdetan slave, who helps me very much,
+and I desire war, because it brings in considerably more work."
+
+"War with our neighbors--that is welcome. The young men are restless,
+and seek ways of distinguishing themselves, the Republic acquires
+importance in consequence, and, after tramping through valleys and
+mountains, all will buy shoes and have their saddles mended. Very well;
+that enlivens business. But why have we been at work for over a year
+converting the Forum into a battlefield and turning every street into a
+fortress? At best you are in your shop extolling to a citizeness the
+elegance of a pair of papyrus sandals of Asiatic fashion, or of Greek
+buskins of great majesty, when you hear in the nearest plaza the clash
+of arms, shouts, death cries, and you rush to shut the door so that a
+stray missile will not nail you to your seat! And why? What reason is
+there for living like cats and dogs in the bosom of this Zacynthus,
+which used to be so tranquil and so industrious?"
+
+"The pride and riches of the Greeks"----began his companion.
+
+"Yes, I know that reason. The hatred between Iberians and Greeks; the
+belief that the latter, by their riches and wisdom, dominate and exploit
+the former--as if in the city there actually existed Iberians and
+Greeks! Iberians are those who are behind those mountains which mark off
+our horizon; a Greek is he whom we have seen disembark, and who is
+following our footsteps; but we are only sons of Zacynthus or of
+Saguntum, as they wish to call our city. We are the product of a
+thousand encounters by land and by sea, and Jupiter himself would be
+driven into a corner to tell who our grandparents were. Who can
+enumerate the people that have come here and have remained, in spite of
+others having come afterward to wrest from them the dominion of these
+lands and mines, since Zacynthus was bitten by the serpent in these
+fields, and our father Hercules raised the great walls of the Acropolis?
+Hither came the peoples of Tyre with their red sailed ships for the
+silver from the interior; the mariners from Zante fleeing with their
+families from the tyrants of their country; the Rutulian race from
+Ardea, people from Italy, who were powerful in the times when Rome did
+not as yet exist; Carthaginians of the epoch in which they thought more
+of commerce than of arms--and how do I know how many other peoples? You
+should hear the pedagogues when they explain our history on the portico
+of the temple of Diana! And I, do I know, perchance whether I am Greek
+or Iberian? My grandfather was a freedman from Sicily who came to take
+charge of a pottery and married a Celtiberian from the interior. My
+mother was a Lusitanian who came here on an expedition to sell gold dust
+to merchants from Alexandria. I call myself a Saguntine like all the
+rest. Those who consider themselves Iberians in Saguntum believe in the
+gods of the Greeks; the Greeks unconsciously adopt many Iberian customs;
+they think themselves different because they have divided the city in
+half and live separate; but their feasts are the same, and in the next
+Panathenaea you will see, together with the daughters of the Hellenic
+merchants, those of the citizens who cultivate the earth and who dress
+in coarse cloth and let their beards grow to more closely resemble the
+tribes of the interior."
+
+"Yes, but the Greeks dominate everywhere, they are masters of
+everything, they have taken possession of the life of the city."
+
+"They are the wisest, the bravest; they have something almost divine
+about them," said the shoemaker sententiously. "See if that is not true
+of the one who is following us. He is poorly dressed; perhaps he has not
+an obolus in his pocket for supper; perhaps he will sleep beneath the
+open sky, and yet, it seems as if Zeus had come down from the heavens in
+disguise to visit us."
+
+The two artisans turned their gaze instinctively to look at the Greek,
+and continued on their way. They had arrived near the huts which formed
+an animated town around the port.
+
+"There is another reason," said the leather-worker, "for the war which
+divides us. It is not only the hatred between Greeks and Iberians, it is
+because some want us to be friends of Rome and others of Carthage."
+
+"We should not affiliate with either," said the shoemaker tersely.
+"Tranquilly carrying on our commerce as in other times is the way in
+which we should prosper best. I reproach the Greeks of Saguntum for
+having allied us with Rome."
+
+"Rome is the conqueror."
+
+"Yes, but Rome is very far away, and the Carthaginians are almost at our
+doors. Troops from New Carthage can come here by a few days' journey."
+
+"Rome is our ally and she will protect us. Her legates, who leave
+to-morrow, have put an end to our strifes, beheading the citizens who
+disturbed the peace of the city."
+
+"Yes, but those citizens were friends of Carthage and old-time proteges
+of Hamilcar. Hannibal will not easily forget his father's friends."
+
+"Bah! Carthage wants peace and wide commerce to enrich herself. Since
+her defeat in Sicily she fears Rome."
+
+"The senators may be afraid, but Hamilcar's son is very young, and, for
+my part, I am afraid of these boys converted into chiefs, who forget
+wine and love to dream only of glory."
+
+The Greek could hear no more. The two artisans had disappeared among
+the huts, and the echo of their argument was lost in the distance.
+
+The stranger was alone in the unfamiliar port. The wharves were
+deserted; lights began to glisten on the poops of the ships, and in the
+distance, over the waters of the bay, rose the moon like an enormous
+honey-colored disk. Only in the small fishermen's ports lingered
+animation. The women, naked from above the waist, tucking between their
+legs the rags which served them as a tunic, walked into the water up to
+their knees to wash the fish, and then putting them into broad baskets
+on their heads they took up their journey, dragging their big-bellied,
+naked youngsters after them. From the silent and motionless ships came
+groups of men who traveled toward the wretched settlement spread around
+the foot of the temple. They were sailors going in search of taverns and
+brothels.
+
+The Greek knew those customs well; it was a port like many others he had
+seen--the temple on the hill to guide the navigator, and below, wine in
+abundance, easy love, and the sanguinary fight as a termination of the
+feast. He thought for a moment of starting on the journey to the city,
+but the way was long, he did not know the road, and he preferred to
+remain, sleeping where he could until sunrise.
+
+He had entered one of the winding lanes formed by the hovels thrown
+together at hazard, as if they had fallen in confusion from the sky,
+with their walls of earth and roofs of reeds and straw, with narrow
+slits for light, and with only a few rags sewn together or a bit of
+threadbare tapestry, for a door. In some, with less wretched exteriors,
+dwelt the modest traders of the port, ship chandlers, dealers in grain,
+and those who, with the assistance of slaves, brought casks of water
+from the springs in the valley to the vessels; but the majority of the
+hovels were taverns and lupanars.
+
+Some of the houses had alongside the doors signs in Greek, Iberian, or
+Latin, painted with red ochre.
+
+The Greek heard some one calling him. It was a little, bald, fat man
+beckoning from the door of his dwelling.
+
+"Greeting, son of Athens!" he said, to flatter him with the name of the
+most famous city of Greece. "Come in! Here you will be among your own,
+for my forefathers also came from Athens. See the sign on my tavern, 'To
+Pallas Athene'. Here you will find wine from Laurona, as excellent as
+that from Attica; if you wish to try the Celtiberian beer, I have it
+also, and if you desire, I can serve you with a certain flask of wine
+from Samos, as authentic as the goddess of Athens which adorns my
+counter."
+
+The Greek answered with a smile and a shake of his head, while the
+loquacious tavern-keeper went into his hut, lifting the tapestry to
+allow a group of mariners to enter.
+
+After a few steps he stopped, attracted by a faint whistle which seemed
+to be calling him from the interior of a cabin. An old woman, wrapped in
+a black mantle, stood in her doorway making signs to him. Within, by the
+light of an earthen lamp hanging by a slender chain, he could see
+several women squatting on mats in the attitude of placid beasts, with
+no other sign of life than a fixed smile which displayed their shining
+teeth.
+
+"I am in haste, good mother," said the stranger, smiling.
+
+"Stay awhile, son of Zeus!" urged the old woman in the Hellenic idiom,
+disfigured by the harshness of her accent and by the hiss of breathing
+between toothless gums. "The moment I saw you I knew you for a Greek.
+All who come from your country are gay and beautiful; you look like
+Apollo seeking his celestial sisters. Enter! Here you will find
+them----"
+
+Approaching the stranger, and catching him by the border of his chlamys,
+she enumerated the charms of her Iberian, Balearic, or African wards;
+some majestic and grand like Juno, others small and graceful like the
+hetaerae of Alexandria and Greece; and seeing that the customer released
+his garment from her clutch and continued on his way, she raised her
+voice, believing that she had not divined his taste, and she spoke of
+white youths with long hair, beautiful as the Syrian boys who were
+contended for by the gallants of Athens.
+
+The Greek had passed out of the winding lane, but he could still hear
+the voice of the old woman, who seemed to become shamelessly intoxicated
+crying her infamous wares. He was now in the country, at the beginning
+of the high road to the city. On his right rose the hill of the temple,
+and at its base, opposite the flight of stone steps, he saw a house
+larger than the others, an inn with doors and windows illuminated by
+lamps of red earthenware.
+
+Seated on stone benches were sailors from all countries, demanding food
+in their several languages--Roman soldiers wearing corselets of bronze
+scales, short swords hanging from their shoulders; at their feet
+helmets topped by a crest of red horsehair in the form of a brush;
+rowers from Massilia, almost naked, their knives half hidden among the
+folds of the rag knotted around their waists; Phoenician and
+Carthaginian mariners with wide trousers, wearing tall caps in the form
+of mitres with heavy silver pendants; negroes from Alexandria, athletic
+and slow of movement, displaying their sharp teeth as they smiled,
+making one think of frightful cannibalistic scenes; Celtiberians and
+Iberians with gloomy dress and tangled hair, looking suspiciously in all
+directions, and instinctively raising their hands to their broad knives;
+some redmen from Gaul, with long mustaches and coarse red hair tied
+behind and falling down their necks; people, in fine, who had come, or
+had been flung by the hazards of war and the sea, from one point of the
+known world to another, one day victorious warriors, and slaves the
+next, now sailors and anon pirates, acknowledging no law nor
+nationality; with no other respect than the fear of the master of the
+vessel who was quick to order them to the whip or the cross; with no
+other religion than that of the sword and the strong arm; testifying by
+the wounds which covered their bodies, in the long cicatrices which
+furrowed their muscles, by cuts on their ears covered by matted hair, to
+a past mysterious with horrors.
+
+Some ate standing by the counter, behind which were ranged the amphorae
+corked with fresh leaves; others seated on the stone benches along the
+walls held earthenware plates on their knees. Most had thrown themselves
+down on the floor upon their bellies, like wild beasts devouring their
+prey, reaching into their plates with their hairy claws, crunching the
+food in their jaws as they talked. They had not yet upset their wine
+nor asked for the women. They ate and drank with the appetite of ogres
+tormented by the deprivations of the long voyages, and morally starved
+by the brutal discipline on shipboard.
+
+Finding themselves huddled together in a small space, filled with smoke
+from the lamps and with vapors from the food, they felt the necessity of
+communicating with each other, and between mouthfuls, each spoke to his
+neighbor, paying no heed to difference of idiom, making themselves
+understood finally by a language composed more of gestures than of
+words. A Carthaginian was telling a Greek about his last voyage to the
+islands of the Great Sea, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, through a gray
+body of water covered with fog, until they arrived at an abrupt coast
+known only to the pilots of his country, where tin was found. Farther
+down the bench a negro, with grotesque mimicry, was describing to a
+couple of Celtiberians an excursion down the Red Sea, until they reached
+mysterious shores, deserted by day, but covered by night with moving
+fires and inhabited by hairy men as agile as monkeys, the skins of some
+of whom they stuffed with straw and carried to the temples of Egypt to
+offer to the gods. The older Roman soldiers, paying no attention, in
+their insolence as conquerors, to the humiliated Carthaginians who were
+listening, told of their great victory on the AEgates islands which drove
+the Carthaginians out of Sicily, ending the first Punic War. The Iberian
+shepherds mixed in among the navigators wished to off-set the effect of
+these maritime adventures, and they bragged of the horses belonging to
+their tribe, and of their marvelous swiftness, while a little Greek,
+lively and keen, in order to overwhelm the barbarians and to demonstrate
+the superiority of his race, began to declaim fragments of some ode
+learned in the port of Piraeus, or he intoned a lyric poem, slow and
+sweet, which was lost amid the noise of conversation, of crunching jaws,
+and of clattering plates.
+
+They called for more light. The smoky atmosphere of the inn was
+constantly growing denser, and the frames of the lamps were scarcely
+more distinctly visible than drops of blood on the soot-blackened walls.
+From the kitchen floated an odor of piquant sauces and smoky wood which
+made many of the customers cough and weep. Some were drunk soon after
+beginning dinner, and they asked the slaves for crowns of flowers to
+adorn themselves as in the banquets of the rich. Others growled applause
+as they saw the den illuminated by the lurid flame of the candlewood
+which the proprietor lighted. The slaves passed behind the stone counter
+overturning great amphorae, and ran into the kitchen only to rush back
+again immediately, red with suffocation, bearing great platters. Wine
+ran across the floor as a crater was overturned. When there appeared at
+the window the painted faces of some of the prostitutes--she-wolves of
+the port--who were awaiting the moment for making an irruption into the
+inn, the mariners greeted them with hoarse laughter, imitating the howl
+of the beast after whom they were nicknamed, and throwing them a portion
+of their food, over which the women fought, scratching and shrieking.
+
+The food was all thirst-giving, so that each mouthful should be
+accompanied by a sip. The Greeks ate snails floating in a sauce of
+saffron; fresh sardines from the gulf appeared arranged in circles
+around the dishes, festooned with laurel leaves; birds' heads were
+served covered with green sauce; the Iberian shepherds were satisfied
+with dried fish and hard cheese; the Romans and Gauls devoured great
+chunks of lamb dripping blood, and eels from the basins of the port
+decorated with hard-boiled eggs. All these dishes and many others were
+loaded with salt, pepper, and herbs of acrid odor, to which the
+strangest qualities were attributed. Everybody was eager to spend his
+money, to satisfy his hunger and thirst, and to roll on the floor drunk,
+consoling himself thus for the hard life of privation which awaited him
+on shipboard. The Romans who were to sail the next day had collected
+their back pay and were determined to leave their sestertii in the port
+of Saguntum; the Carthaginians boasted of their Republic, the richest in
+the world, and other mariners praised their masters, ever generous when
+they touched that port where business was excellent. The innkeeper was
+continually throwing into an empty amphora coins of all kinds, those
+from Zacynthus, bearing the prow of a ship, with Victory flying above
+it; those from Carthage with the legendary horse and the frightful
+Cabiric deities; and Alexandrian coins with their elegant Ptolemaic
+profile.
+
+The meanest of the rowers felt the caprices of a potentate, the itch to
+imitate the opulent for a night that they might console themselves with
+its memory in future days of hunger; and they asked for oysters from
+Lucrinus, which an occasional ship brought packed in amphorae with sea
+water as a delicacy for the great merchants of Saguntum, or the
+_oxygarum_, salted fishmilt, prepared with vinegar and spices as an
+appetizer for which the patricians of Rome paid a great price. Black
+wine from Laurona and the pink wine from the Saguntine vineyards were
+scorned by those who had money. The wine from Massilia they despised
+also, sneering at the rosin and gypsum employed in its preparation, and
+they called for wines from the Campagna, Falerno, Monte Massico, or
+Caecubum, which, in spite of the price, they drank in capacious
+cymbas--boat-shaped drinking vessels of Saguntine clay. Hungry for the
+fresh products of the field after their long sojourn on the sea, these
+men devoured immense quantities of vegetables and fruits, in addition to
+the hot dishes and a great variety of drinks ranging from Celtiberian
+beers to foreign wines. They fell greedily upon the plates of mushrooms;
+they ate handfuls of radishes dressed with vinegar; leeks, beets,
+garlic, and heaps of fresh lettuce from the gardens of the Saguntine
+domain disappeared down their throats, while they littered the floor
+with green, muddy leaves.
+
+The Greek stood in the doorway with a few of the mariners who could not
+find room within, and contemplated the spectacle. As he gazed on the
+rude banquet the stranger remembered that he had not eaten since
+morning, when the master of the rowers on Polyanthus' ship had given him
+a piece of bread. The novelty of disembarking in an unknown land had
+quieted his stomach, accustomed as it was to privations; but now in
+sight of so many different foods he felt the pangs of hunger, and
+instinctively set one foot within the tavern, drawing it back
+immediately. What was the use of going in? The pouch hanging from his
+shoulder held papyri testifying to his past achievements; tablets for
+memoranda; even pincers for extracting his beard; a comb; all the small
+objects of which a good Greek, addicted to the scrupulous care of his
+person, would not deprive himself, but search in it as he might he could
+find not a single obolus. The pilot, who respected the Greeks of Attica,
+had given him free passage on the ship when he met him wandering along
+the wharves at New Carthage. He was hungry and alone in a strange land,
+and if he should enter the hostelry to eat without offering money, he
+would be treated like a slave, and be driven out with a club.
+
+Mocked by the odor of the viands and sauces, he turned to flee, tearing
+himself away from this torture of Tantalus, but as he drew back he
+bumped against a tall man clad only in a dark sagum and sandals with
+straps crossed to the knees. He resembled a Celtiberian shepherd; but
+the Greek, as he collided with him, received the impression in a hasty
+exchange of glances that this was not the first time he had looked into
+those imperious eyes which recalled to his mind the eyes of the eagle
+perched at the feet of Zeus.
+
+The Greek shrugged his shoulders with indifference. What he desired was
+to satiate his hunger and to sleep if possible until sunrise. Turning
+his back on the wretched suburb, illuminated and noisy, he sought a
+place where he might rest, and he took the road toward the fane of
+Aphrodite. The temple, situated on the crest of the hill, was approached
+by a broad stairway of blue marble, its first step rising from the quay.
+
+The Greek seated himself on the polished stone, proposing to await there
+the coming of the day. The moon illuminated the whole upper part of the
+temple; the sounds from the houses near the port, the murmur of the sea,
+the whisper of the olive trees, and the monotonous croaking of the frogs
+hidden in the marshes, floated to him muffled, as if lulled by the great
+calm of night.
+
+Again and again the Greek heard a strident, dismal cry, like the howl of
+a wolf. Suddenly it whined behind him, he felt a warm breath on his
+back, and as he turned he saw a woman bending toward him, her hands on
+her knees, her mouth rent by a stupid smile which displayed gums, in
+places lacking teeth.
+
+"Greeting, handsome stranger! I saw you flee from the tumult. You must
+be sad here all alone. I have come to make you happy.----What! Can it
+not be?"
+
+The Greek recognized her immediately--a "she-wolf" from the port, a
+wretched woman such as he had seen swarming around the wharves in many
+countries; miserable, cosmopolitan strumpets, flames for a single night
+of men of all colors and races, with no other ambition than to earn a
+few oboli, slinking near a stone or in the shadow of a boat, old hetaerae
+sunk in brutality, fugitive slaves seeking liberty in obscenity and
+drunkenness; females who represented all that cruel men of the sea knew
+of love; poor beasts, weakened in their youth by excessive caresses, and
+destined to be treated with blows in their old age.
+
+The stranger looked at the woman, who was still young, and detected some
+traces of beauty. But she was wasted, her eyes lachrymose, her mouth
+disfigured by broken teeth. She was wrapped in an ample mantle which
+must have been of beautiful weave but was now dirty and threadbare; her
+feet were naked, and her tangled hair, in which the unhappy creature
+had thrust a branch of wild flowers, was held by a copper comb.
+
+"You are wasting your time here," said the Greek with a kindly smile. "I
+have not so much as an obolus in my pouch."
+
+The man's gentle accent seemed to intimidate the poor unfortunate. She
+was accustomed to blows; man to her represented brutal assault,
+gratification revealed with bites, and in the presence of the Greek's
+tender manner she seemed disconcerted and shy, as if she suspected
+danger.
+
+"Have you no money?" she said with humility, after a long silence. "It
+matters not; here I am. You please me; I am your slave. Among all those
+people rioting at the hostelry my eyes have turned to you."
+
+She bent over the Greek, caressing his curly hair with her calloused
+hands, while he regarded her with compassionate eyes, seeing her
+shrunken breast and hollow form. Hungry and alone in an unknown land he
+felt attracted by the kindness of the unhappy creature; there was the
+fraternity of misery between them.
+
+"If you desire company, stay near me," he said; "talk as much as you
+wish, but do not caress me. I am hungry; I have eaten nothing since
+dawn, and at this moment I would exchange all the joys of Cytherea for
+the pittance of any mariner."
+
+The harlot stood up straight, so great was her surprise.
+
+"You hungry? You faint with hunger, when I thought you nourished on the
+ambrosia of Zeus?"
+
+Her eyes displayed astonishment such as she would have felt had she seen
+Aphrodite, the nude, white, goddess who was guarded up there in her
+temple, descend from her marble pedestal and offer herself with open
+arms to the rowers of the port for an obolus.
+
+"Wait, wait!" she cried with resolution, after a moment's reflection.
+
+The Greek saw her running toward the huts, and when at last weariness
+and weakness began to close his eyes, he felt her near him again,
+touching his shoulder.
+
+"Take this, my master! It has cost me dear to obtain it. The cruel Lais,
+an old woman as horrible as the Pareae, who helps us to live through days
+of privation, has agreed to give me her supper, after making me take
+oath that by the time the sun rises I will hand her two sestertii. Eat,
+my love; eat and drink!"
+
+She placed upon the steps a loaf of brown bread, made in the form of a
+disk, some dried fish, half a Saguntine cheese, tender and oozing whey,
+and a jar of Celtiberian beer.
+
+The Greek fell upon the food, and began to devour it, followed by the
+gaze of the _lupa_, which sweetened at times, and acquired an almost
+maternal expression.
+
+"I should like to be as rich as Sonnica, a woman who they say began like
+any one of us, and is now mistress of many of these ships, and has
+gardens as wonderful as Olympus, troops of slaves, potteries, and half
+the domain of the commonwealth as her own property. I should like to be
+rich if only for to-night, to regale you on the best there is in the
+city; to give you a banquet like one of Sonnica's, which last till dawn,
+and where, crowned with roses, you should drink the Samian wine from a
+golden cup."
+
+The Greek, touched by the simplicity and ingenuousness with which she
+spoke, gazed at her tenderly.
+
+"Do not thank me," she continued. "It is I who should be grateful for
+the joy of feeding you. What is this? I know not. Never has a man
+approached me before without giving me something; some give me copper
+coins, others a piece of cloth or a patera of wine; most of them blows
+and bites; all have given me something, and I have accepted, though I
+detested them. But you, who come poor and hungry, who do not seek me but
+reject me, who give me nothing, just your being near me has made a new
+pleasure surge through my body. As I give you food I feel intoxicated,
+as if I were fresh from a banquet. Tell me, Greek, are you really a man,
+or are you the father of the gods, descending to earth to honor me?"
+
+Exalted by her own words, she arose, standing half way up the marble
+steps, and extending her rigid arms toward the temple, bathed in
+moonlight, exclaimed:
+
+"Aphrodite! My goddess! If some day I manage to get together the price
+of two white doves, I will present them on thy altar, adorned with
+flowers and fire-colored ribbons, in memory of this night."
+
+The Greek drank the bitter liquid from the jar and offered it to the
+woman, whose lips sought the same spot on the rim which had been touched
+by his.
+
+She did not taste the supper which the Greek held out to her; she
+continued drinking, and the wine made her more talkative.
+
+"If you only knew what it has cost me to get all this! The lanes are
+full of drunken men, who wallow in the mire and drag themselves along on
+their hands, tearing one's clothing and biting one's legs. Wine runs
+out of the doorways of the inns. They were fighting on the wharf a
+little while ago. Some Africans were holding one of their companions
+head down in the water to cure his broken skull; a Celtiberian had
+opened a great gash in it with his clenched fist. Others amused
+themselves by catching Tuga, an Iberian girl, by the feet, and thrusting
+her head in the biggest vat in the tavern as long as they dared. She was
+half drowned when they pulled her out. It is their usual diversion. I
+saw poor Albura, a friend of mine, seated on the ground covered with
+blood, holding in the palm of her hand one of her eyes which a drunken
+Egyptian had knocked out with a fisticuff. This kind of thing happens
+every night! And yet, all at once, I have become afraid. I have only
+just met you, and still it seems to me as if I were living in a new
+world, and that for the first time I give heed to my surroundings."
+
+She told him the story of her life. They called her Bacchis, and she was
+uncertain what was her native land. No doubt she was born in some other
+port, for she vaguely remembered in her childhood a long voyage in a
+ship. Her mother must have been a _lupa_ also, and she herself the
+result of a meeting with a mariner. The name of Bacchis, which had been
+given her when she was little, had been borne by many famous courtesans
+of Greece. No doubt she had been sold to some old woman by the pilot who
+had brought her to Saguntum, and, while still a child, long before
+coming to maturity, was visited in the old woman's hut by aged merchants
+of the port or libertines of the city.
+
+When her owner died she became a _lupa_, and passed into submission to
+mariners, fishermen, shepherds from the mountains, and to all the brutal
+horde which swarmed around the port. She was not yet twenty, but she was
+aged, disfigured, wasted by excesses and by blows. She had always seen
+the city from a distance. She had only entered it twice. The _lupas_
+were not tolerated there. They were allowed to remain near the fane of
+Aphrodite, as a guarantee of the security of Saguntum, that thus the
+rabble which came to the port from all lands might be held at a
+distance, but in the city the Iberians of cleanly habits became
+indignant at the mere sight of the wantons, and the corrupt Greeks were
+too refined in their tastes to feel pity for those sellers of the body
+who fell like beasts beside the roadway for a bunch of grapes or a
+handful of nuts.
+
+There in the shadow of the temple of Aphrodite she had spent her life,
+ever awaiting new ships and new men, hairy and obscene, brutal as
+satyrs, made ferocious by the abstinence of the sea, to be at last
+assassinated in some mariners' fight, or found the victim of hunger,
+dead beside some abandoned boat.
+
+"And you--who are you?" Bacchis asked at last. "What is your name?"
+
+"My name is Actaeon; my native land is Athens. I have traveled over the
+world; in some parts I have been a soldier, in others a navigator; I
+have fought, I have trafficked, and I have even written verses, and
+discussed with philosophers things which you do not understand. I have
+been rich many times, and now you give me food. That is all my story."
+
+Bacchis looked at him with eyes full of admiration, divining through his
+concise words a past crammed with adventures, with terrible dangers and
+prodigious changes of fortune. She thought of the deeds of Achilles, and
+of the adventurous life of Ulysses, so often heard in the verses
+declaimed by Greek mariners when they were drunk.
+
+The courtesan, reclining on the Greek's breast, fondled his hair. The
+Greek, grateful, smiled fraternally on Bacchis, with indifference, as if
+she were a child.
+
+Two mariners came out from among the huts, and began to stagger along
+the wharf. A penetrating howl, which seemed to cleave the air, sounded
+close to Actaeon's ears. His companion, impelled by habit, with the
+instinct of the vendor who sees a customer in the distance, had arisen
+to her feet.
+
+"I will return, my master. I had almost forgotten the terrible Lais. I
+must give her her money before the sun rises. She will beat me as she
+has done before if I do not fulfill my promise. Wait for me here."
+
+Repeating her wild howl, she went in search of the sailors, who had
+stopped, hailing the "she-wolf's" cries with loud laughter and obscene
+words.
+
+When the Greek found himself alone, his hunger placated, he felt a
+certain disgust in thinking of his recent adventure. Actaeon the
+Athenian, he for whom the richest hetaerae of the beautiful city used to
+dispute in the Cerameicus, protected and adored by a strumpet of the
+port! To avoid meeting her again he hurriedly left the temple steps,
+losing himself in the streets by the harbor.
+
+Again he stopped before the hostelry in the doorway of which he had
+experienced the torment of hunger. The sailors were in the midst of an
+orgy. The tavern keeper could barely command respect behind the
+counter. The slaves, terrified by blows, had taken refuge in the
+kitchen. Some amphorae lay broken on the floor letting the wine escape
+like streams of blood, and the drunken men wallowed in the gurgling
+liquid as it soaked into the earthen floor, calling for drinks of which
+they had vaguely heard on distant voyages, or for fantastic dishes
+conceived by the little tyrants of Asia. One Herculean Egyptian was
+running on all fours imitating the growl of the jackal, and biting the
+women who had entered the tavern. Some negroes were disporting with
+feminine movements, as if hypnotized by the whirling of the umbilical
+dance. In the corners, on the stone benches, men and women embraced in
+the crude light of the torches; the smell of bare and sweaty flesh
+mingled with the aroma of wine; in the atmosphere of viands and of
+wild-beast odor, seamen, forgetting shame, committed crimes peculiar to
+the aberration of the epoch.
+
+In the midst of this disorder a few men stood motionless near the
+counter, arguing with apparent calmness. They were two Roman soldiers,
+an old Carthaginian mariner, and a Celtiberian. The torpid slowness of
+their words, which in their anger acquired flute-like tones, their
+inflamed and blood-shot eyes, and their hawk-like noses, seeming to grow
+sharper as they talked, revealed that terrible drunkenness, stubborn and
+quarrelsome, which culminates in murder.
+
+The Roman was telling of his presence in the combat on the AEgates
+islands, fourteen years before.
+
+"I know you," he said insolently to the Carthaginian. "You are a
+republic of merchants born for lying and bad faith. If someone who knows
+how to sell at top prices and cheat the buyer is wanted, I agree that
+you stand first; but talking of soldiers, of men, we are the best, we
+sons of Rome, who grasp the plow in one hand and the lance in the
+other."
+
+He proudly raised his round head with its close-cropped hair and shaven
+cheeks, on which the chin-straps of his helmet had worn hard calloused
+lines.
+
+Actaeon looked through the window at the Celtiberian, the only one of the
+group who remained silent, but who had his glittering eyes fastened upon
+the bare neck showing above the Roman legionary's bronze corselet, as if
+attracted by the coarse veins outlined beneath the skin. Surely the
+Greek had seen those eyes before; they were like an old acquaintance
+whose name one cannot recall. There was something artificial about his
+person, which the Greek divined with his keen perception.
+
+"I would swear by Mercury that that man is not what he pretends to be.
+He looks something more than a shepherd, and the bronze color of his
+face is not that of the Celtiberians, no matter how sunburned they may
+be. Perhaps that long hair which falls around his shoulders is
+false----"
+
+He was unable to observe him longer because of the dispute between the
+legionary and the old Carthaginian, who gradually approached each other
+to hear better in the midst of the clamor which reigned in the tavern.
+
+"I also was on that sad expedition to the AEgates," said the
+Carthaginian; "there is where I received this wound that crosses my
+face. It is true that you conquered us; but what does that show? Many
+times did I see your ships flee before ours, and more than once I
+counted Roman corpses by the hundred on the fields of Sicily. Ah, if
+Hanno had not arrived too late that day of the combat at the islands! If
+Hamilcar had only had reinforcements!"
+
+"Hamilcar!" disdainfully exclaimed the Roman. "A great chief who had to
+sue for peace! A merchant turned warrior!"
+
+And he laughed with the insolence of the strong, not fearing the anger
+of the old Carthaginian, who began to stammer an answer.
+
+The Celtiberian, who had remained silent, laid his hand upon the old
+man.
+
+"Silence, Carthaginian! The Roman is right. You are peddlers incapable
+of measuring up with them in war. You love money too much to dominate by
+the sword. But Carthage is not made of those of your breed; there are
+others born there who will know how to stand up before those peasants of
+Italy!"
+
+The Roman, seeing the rustic intervene in the dispute, became still more
+arrogant and insolent.
+
+"And who can that be?" he shouted scornfully. "The son of Hamilcar? That
+youngster who they say had a slave for a mother?"
+
+"Those who founded your city, Roman, were sons of a prostitute, and the
+day is not far distant when the horse of Carthage shall trample under
+foot the wolf of Romulus!"
+
+The legionary arose trembling with fury, feeling for his sword, but he
+suddenly gave a savage growl and fell, pressing his hands against his
+throat.
+
+Actaeon had seen the Celtiberian introduce his right hand into the sleeve
+of his sagum, and, drawing a knife, stab the legionary in the thick neck
+he had been staring at with the fixity of a wild beast while the fallen
+man mocked at Carthage.
+
+The tavern shook with the strain of the combat. The other Roman seeing
+his companion down, hurled himself at the Celtiberian with raised sword,
+but quick as a flash he received a thrust in the face and was blinded by
+a stream of blood.
+
+The agility of the man was astounding. His movements had the elasticity
+of the panther; blows seemed to rebound from his body without doing him
+harm. Around him fell a shower of jars, of broken amphorae, of swords
+hurled through the air; but with extended arm, and knife held before
+him, he made a spring toward the door and disappeared.
+
+"After him! After him!" clamored the Romans, starting in pursuit.
+
+Attracted by the brutal joy of a man hunt, all who were sober enough to
+retain mastery of their legs followed him out of the hostelry. The horde
+of men, fired by the sight of blood, sprang over the bodies of the dying
+Roman and the drunken sailors who lay snoring near him. The Greek saw
+them break up into groups, running in all directions after the
+Celtiberian, who had disappeared a few steps distant from the hostelry
+as if dissolved into the shadow of the night.
+
+The port thrilled with the ardor of the chase. Lights flashed along the
+wharves and through the village streets; the lupanars and taverns were
+subjected to a brutal overhauling by the Romans who were mad with fury;
+a fresh fight started at the door of every hut; blood was about to flow
+anew, when the Greek, fearing to become involved in a riot, fled to the
+temple. Bacchis had not returned, and the Greek climbed up the steps
+and stretched out on the portico, a broad terrace paved with blue
+marble, over which the fluted columns supporting the pediment flung
+oblique bars of shadow.
+
+When Actaeon awoke he felt the warmth of the sun on his face. Birds were
+singing in the olive trees, and he heard voices near. As he arose he was
+surprised to see that day had dawned, for it seemed but a few minutes
+had passed since he fell asleep.
+
+A woman, a patrician, stood not far away, smiling upon him. She was
+robed in a flowing white linen mantle which fell to her feet in graceful
+folds like the drapery of statues. A few curls of blonde hair fell over
+her forehead. Her lips were painted red, and her black eyes, velvety,
+and with a silky caress in their gaze, were surrounded by blue circles
+suggesting a night of fatigue. Moving her arms beneath her mantle,
+hidden ornaments jingled with silvery tones, and the toe of her sandal,
+peeping from beneath the border of her garment, shone like a jewelled
+star.
+
+She was followed by two slender Celtiberian slaves, their brown,
+swelling breasts almost bare, their limbs wrapped in multicolored cloth.
+One carried a pair of white doves, the other bore on her head a basket
+of roses.
+
+Actaeon recognized Polyanthus, the Saguntine pilot, and also the perfumed
+young gallant who had been on the wharf with another horseman when the
+ship came in, standing near the handsome patrician.
+
+The Greek arose, amazed at the beautiful apparition smiling upon him.
+
+"Athenian," she said in Greek of the purest accent, "I am Sonnica, the
+mistress of the ship which brought you hither. Polyanthus is my
+freedman and he has done well in giving you passage, for he is aware of
+my interest in your people. Who are you?"
+
+"I am Actaeon, and I ask the gods to shower blessings upon you for your
+kindness. May Venus guard your beauty while you live."
+
+"Are you a navigator? Are you engaged in commerce? Are you traveling
+about the world giving lessons in rhetoric and poetry?"
+
+"I am a soldier, as were all my ancestors. My grandfather died in Italy
+covering with his body the great Pyrrhus who wept for him as for a
+brother. My father was a captain of mercenaries in the service of
+Carthage, and was cruelly assassinated in the war called 'inexorable.'"
+
+He was silent a moment as if overcome by this recollection. His voice
+choked, but presently he added: "I fought until recently under the
+orders of Cleomenes, the last Lacedaemonian. I was one of his companions,
+and when the hero suffered defeat I accompanied him to Alexandria,
+afterward traveling over the world because I could not endure the
+inactivity of exile. I have also been a merchant in Rhodes, a fisherman
+on the Bosphorus, a farmer in Egypt, and a satirical poet in Athens."
+
+The handsome Sonnica approached him smiling. He was an Athenian
+possessed of all the qualities so loved by her; one of those adventurers
+accustomed to rapid changes of fortune, rounders of the world, who
+frequently chronicle their achievements when they have reached old age.
+
+"And why have you come hither?"
+
+"I have come by chance. Your pilot offered to bring me to Zacynthus, and
+I came. I felt stifled in New Carthage. I might have enlisted in
+Hannibal's army; it would have been sufficient perhaps to have revealed
+my origin to meet with welcome. The Greeks are paid great prices in
+every army. But a war is in progress here also, and I prefer to go
+against the Turdetani, to serve a city which I do not know, but which
+has never done me any harm."
+
+"And did you sleep here last night? Could you not find a bed in any of
+the inns?"
+
+"What I could not find was an obolus in my pouch. If I appeased my
+hunger, it was due to the charity of a forlorn harlot who shared her
+meagre supper with me. I am poor, and I was faint for food. Do not pity
+me, Sonnica. Do not look upon me with eyes of compassion. I have given
+banquets which lasted from sunset until dawn. In Rhodes, at the hour of
+the songs, we used to throw the metal plates out of the windows to the
+slaves. The life of a man should be thus, like Homer's heroes, a king in
+one place and a beggar in another."
+
+Polyanthus looked upon the adventurer with interest, and the elegant
+Lachares, who had at first opposed Sonnica when she wished to awaken so
+ill-dressed a Greek, approached him, recognizing Athenian refinement
+beneath his humble exterior, thinking to make a friend of him in the
+hope of receiving lessons to his advantage.
+
+"Come to my villa at sunset to-day," said Sonnica. "You shall dine with
+us. Anyone can guide you to my house. One of my ships has brought you to
+this land, and I wish you to find hospitality beneath my roof.
+Farewell, Athenian. I also am from Athens, and seeing you I imagine that
+the golden lance of Pallas on the height by the Parthenon still shines
+before my eyes."
+
+Bidding the Athenian farewell with a smile, Sonnica turned toward the
+temple, followed by the slaves.
+
+Actaeon overhead the conversation of Lachares and Polyanthus outside the
+temple. They had spent the night before at Sonnica's house. They had
+left the table at dawn. Lachares still wore his banquet crown, but the
+roses were withered and falling to pieces. When Sonnica heard of the
+arrival of the dancing girls from Gades, whom she had so impatiently
+awaited to present at her suppers, she took a fancy to see Polyanthus
+and his ship, and she wished to make a sacrifice to Aphrodite in
+passing, as she did whenever she went to the port. She had come in her
+great litter, accompanied by Lachares and the two slaves, proposing to
+sleep on the way back, for she generally stayed in bed until well past
+the hour of noon.
+
+The pilot withdrew and went toward his ship to disembark the troop of
+dancers, and Actaeon walked with Lachares to the entrance of the open
+temple.
+
+The interior was simple and beautiful. A great square space remained
+roofless to allow the light to enter, and the sun's rays descending
+through this opening gave the changing bluish green of sea-water to the
+azure columns with their capitals representing shells, dolphins, and
+cupids grasping the oar. At the lower end in a soft penumbra, laden with
+the perfumes of the sacrifices, stood the goddess, white, arrogant, and
+proud in her nudity as when she first emerged from the waves before the
+astonished eyes of men.
+
+The altar was near the door. Before it stood the priest in a full linen
+mantle, held to his head by a crown of flowers, receiving the offerings
+to the goddess from the hands of Sonnica herself.
+
+Coming out upon the peristyle she swept with a loving glance the expanse
+of whitecapped sea, the port glistening like a triple mirror, the
+immense green valley, and the distant city, gilded by the first rays of
+the morning sun.
+
+"How beautiful! Look at our city, Actaeon! Greece is not more exquisite."
+
+At the foot of the great stone steps was her palanquin, which was a
+veritable house closed by purple curtains, decorated at their four
+corners with plumes of ostrich feathers. It was borne by eight athletic
+slaves with swelling muscles.
+
+Sonnica ordered her women to enter this ambulatory dwelling; she pushed
+in Lachares, whom she treated as an inferior, and whose familiarity was
+tolerated as one of her caprices; and, turning toward the Greek, who
+stood on an upper step of the temple, she smiled once more, bidding him
+farewell with a wave of a hand covered to the fingernails with rings,
+which at every movement traced streams of light through the air.
+
+The litter swiftly disappeared along the city road, when suddenly Actaeon
+became aware of hands caressing his neck.
+
+It was Bacchis, looking still more wasted and ragged in the light of
+day. She had one eye blackened, and bruised spots on her arms.
+
+"I could not come before," said the slave humbly. "They only let me
+loose a little while ago. What people! They barely gave me enough to
+pay Lais. I have been thinking of you all night, god of mine, while they
+were tormenting me, blowing in my face like tired satyrs."
+
+Actaeon turned away, shrinking from her caresses. He perceived the odor
+of wine on the wretched woman, drunk and exhausted after the adventures
+of the night.
+
+"You run away from me? Yes, I understand! I saw you talking with Sonnica
+the rich, she whom her friends call the most beautiful woman in
+Zacynthus. Are you going to be her lover? Oh, I know that she will adore
+you. But she is only another like myself. Tell me, Actaeon, why do you
+not take me with you? Why do you not make me your slave? My price will
+be only one night with you."
+
+The Greek pushed aside the thin arms which tried to embrace him, in
+order to see the road where trumpets were blaring, and helmets and
+lances were gleaming, in the midst of a great cloud of dust.
+
+"Those are the legates from Rome who are leaving to-day," said the
+woman.
+
+Attracted by the charm which men of war exercised upon her childish
+mind, she ran down the steps to obtain a closer view of the ambassadors
+and their retinue.
+
+In advance marched the trumpeters of the Roman ship, blowing their long
+metal tubas, their cheeks bound by broad woolen bands. An escort of
+citizens of Saguntum surrounded the ambassadors, making their shaggy
+Celtiberian horses caracole, waving their lances, their heads covered
+with triple-crested helmets which still bore the dents from blows
+received in their latest skirmishes with the Turdetani. Some old men of
+the Saguntine senate rode sedately on heavy horses, their long beards
+covering their breasts. Their dark mantles, held upon their heads by
+embroidered tiaras, swept to their stirrups in heavy folds. The Roman
+ensign, over-topped by the wolf, was carried by a strong _classiarius_,
+and behind it rode the legates, their round, shaven heads uncovered. One
+was obese, and had a fat, triple chin; the other was spare, nervous,
+with a sharp aquiline nose; both wore embossed bronze cuirasses; their
+legs were covered with metal greaves, and over their protuberant thighs
+hung skirts the color of wine-lees, trimmed with loose strips of gold
+which quivered at the slightest movement of their steeds.
+
+As the procession reached the wharf, where swarmed groups of sailors,
+fishermen, and slaves, they met a band of women wrapped in their
+mantles, who were walking along guided by an old man with insolent eyes
+and sunken mouth, wearing that repulsive aspect acquired by eunuchs who
+live perpetually in the company of enslaved women. They were the dancing
+girls from Gades, who, as they left Polyanthus' ship, passed unnoticed
+in the hubbub of the leave-taking.
+
+Some women, issuing from the fish-wharves, offered the legates crowns of
+flowers gathered from the neighboring hills, and lilies from the
+lagoons. Acclamations arose throughout the entire length of the quay,
+witnessed by groups of indifferent sailors from all countries.
+
+"Hail to Rome! May Neptune protect you! The gods accompany you!"
+
+Actaeon heard a mocking laugh behind him, and as he turned he saw the
+Celtiberian shepherd who had killed the legionary in the tavern the
+night before.
+
+"You here?" the Greek exclaimed with surprise. "Are you alone, and do
+you not hide from the Romans who seek you?"
+
+The imperious eyes of the shepherd, those strange eyes which aroused in
+the Greek confused and inexplicable memories, looked at him with
+arrogance.
+
+"The Romans! I hate and despise them! I would go without fear even to
+the deck of their ship! Mind your own affairs, Actaeon, and don't meddle
+in mine."
+
+"How do you know my name?" exclaimed the Athenian with growing
+amazement, wondering also at the perfection with which the rude shepherd
+used the Greek tongue.
+
+"I know your name and your life. You are the son of Lysias, a captain in
+the service of Carthage, and, like all of your race, you wheel around
+the world, without finding contentment in any part."
+
+The Greek, so strong and sure of himself on most occasions, felt
+intimidated in the presence of this enigmatic man.
+
+Absorbed in the contemplation of the cortege which had come to bid
+farewell to the legates, he had turned his back on Actaeon. His eyes
+expressed hatred and scorn as he saw the bronze wolf of the Roman
+standard flash in the sunlight, hailed with enthusiasm by the
+Saguntines.
+
+"They think themselves strong; they think themselves safe, because Rome
+protects them. They imagine Carthage dead, because her Senate of
+shopkeepers is afraid to provoke an issue with an ally of Rome. They
+have beheaded the Saguntine friends of the Carthaginian, those who of
+old were friends of the Barcas, and used to go out to greet Hamilcar
+when he passed near the city on his expeditions. They do not know that
+there is one who will not sleep as long as peace exists. The world is
+not wide enough for these two peoples; either the one or the other!"
+
+As if the acclamations of the multitude shouting farewells toward the
+small boat in which the legates were being borne to the liburna and the
+trumpet blasts which burst forth from the poop of the vessel, were
+whiplashes to the shepherd, with clenched teeth and eyes red with fury,
+he shook his sinewy arms at the ship and muttered in menacing tones:
+
+"Rome!----Rome!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SAGUNTUM
+
+
+The sun was high in the heavens when Actaeon walked toward the city along
+the thoroughfare called the Road of the Serpent.
+
+On his way he overtook wagons laden with leather bottles of oil and
+amphorae of wine. The files of slaves bending under the weight of heavy
+burdens, their feet covered with dust, drew to one side of the road to
+give him passage, displaying that submission and shrinking which a
+freeman always inspired. The Greek paused a moment before the oil mills,
+watching the enormous stones revolved by chained slaves; then he
+continued on his way skirting the bases of the hills, on the crests of
+which rose the _speculae_, little red watchtowers, which, with their
+fires, announced to the Acropolis of Saguntum the arrival of ships, or
+any activity observed on the opposite slope where began the territory of
+the hostile Turdetani.
+
+The fertile fields of the immense domain were flooded by a golden shower
+of morning sunshine. From the villages, from the country-houses, from
+the innumerable dwellings scattered throughout the extensive valley,
+streamed people to the Road of the Serpent, traveling toward the city.
+
+The majority of the Saguntine people lived in the country, cultivating
+the soil. The city was relatively small. In it dwelt only the rich
+agriculturists, the magistrates, and foreigners. When some danger
+threatened, when the Turdetani attempted an incursion into the Saguntine
+territory, all the people streamed to the city, seeking the shelter of
+its walls, and the rustics, driving their flocks before them, mingled
+with the artisans of Saguntum, and took refuge within these precincts
+which they only visited when they came to town to sell their wares.
+
+Actaeon guessed, by the great number of people met along the way, that
+this must be market day in the Forum. The country folk strode along in
+single file, carrying on their heads baskets covered with leaves, clad
+only in a dark tunic which hung far down their bodies, outlining their
+forms at every step. The peasants, sun-browned, sinewy, their single
+garment a skirt of skins or of coarse cloth, guided oxen drawing carts,
+or asses laden with bundles, and up and down the road sounded the
+incessant jingling of bells from flocks of goats, and the gentle lowing
+of cattle, as they trotted along in clouds of red dust raised by their
+sharp hoofs.
+
+Some families were already returning from market, displaying with pride
+the articles for which they had bartered their fruits at the booths in
+the Forum, and their friends stopped them to admire the new fabrics, the
+red terra cotta cups, fresh and brilliant, the rudely wrought feminine
+ornaments of solid silver, and their inspection was followed by a
+"salve!" of congratulation, which made their possessors flush with
+childish pride.
+
+Brown girls with firm, spare limbs and high foreheads, their hair
+hanging loose in Celtiberian fashion, marched in pairs carrying from
+their shoulders long poles on which hung branches of flowers for the
+ladies of the city. Others carried enormous bunches of red cherries,
+wrapped in leaves to preserve them from the dust, and at intervals they
+sprang and shouted between outbursts of noisy laughter, mimicking the
+voices and gestures of the rich youths of Saguntum, who, to the great
+scandal of the city, gathered in Sonnica's garden to imitate before the
+statue of Dionysus the picturesque follies of Greece.
+
+Actaeon admired the beauty of the landscape; the groves of fig trees,
+which lent fame to Saguntum, just beginning to put forth new leaves,
+forming upon their ancient branches canopies of verdure which swept the
+ground; the vines, like waves of emerald, spreading over the plain and
+climbing the far off hills to the forests of pine and holly; and the
+olive orchards planted symmetrically in the red soil, forming colonnades
+of twisted branches with capitals of silvery leafage. The sight of this
+splendid landscape moved him, recalling to mind memories of his
+childhood. The valley was as beautiful as that of Mother Greece; here he
+would remain if the gods did not urge him forward again on his restless
+pilgrimage about the world.
+
+He walked almost an hour, keeping ever before him the red mountain with
+the city at its base, and on its summit the innumerable constructions of
+the Acropolis. At a turn of the road he saw the people stop before a
+shrine--a long altar of stone, upon which an enormous serpent of blue
+marble extended its scaly rings. The rustics deposited flowers and
+earthen cups of milk before the motionless reptile, which with head
+lifted and venomous jaws open seemed to threaten them. In this place
+the unfortunate Zacynthus had been bitten by the serpent as he was
+returning to Greece with the red cattle stolen from Geryon. His body was
+burned on the Acropolis, and the city grew around the spot. The simple
+people worshipped the reptile as one of the founders of their _patria_,
+and with affectionate words they surrounded it with offerings, which
+mysteriously disappeared, causing many to believe that it came to life
+in the dark, and they imagined that they heard its frightful hissing for
+great distances on stormy nights.
+
+As Actaeon drew nearer to Saguntum he saw the tombs which rose on both
+sides of the road, attracting the attention of the traveler by their
+inscriptions. Behind these extended gardens enclosed by thick hedges
+over which peeped the branches of fruit trees belonging to the
+country-houses of the rich. Some slave women were watching nude children
+of pronounced Grecian type who played and wrestled. A corpulent old man,
+wrapped in a purple chlamys, stood in a garden gateway observing the
+passing of the flood of wretched people with the cold arrogance of a
+merchant newly risen to affluence. On the terrace of a villa Actaeon
+fancied that he saw a gold-dyed coiffure in Athenian style interlaced
+with red ribbons, and near it a waving fan of multicolored feathers of
+Asiatic birds. These were the villas of the rich patricians of Saguntum
+who had retired from business.
+
+Upon nearing the river, the Baetis-Perkes, which divided the city from
+the champaign, the Greek noticed that he was walking beside a girl,
+almost a child, driving a flock of goats before her. Slender,
+well-formed, with spare limbs, her skin a brown and velvety color, she
+would have looked like a boy had it not been that her short tunic, open
+on the left side, afforded glimpses of her slightly rounded breast, with
+a gentle cup-like curve, as it were a bud beginning to expand with the
+vigor of youth. Her black eyes, moist and large, seemed to fill her
+whole face, bathing it with a mysterious effulgence, and through her
+lips, dry and cracked by the wind, shone her white teeth, strong and
+regular. Her hair knotted behind her neck she had adorned with a garland
+of poppies plucked in the wheat. She carried over her shoulder with
+masculine ease a heavy net filled with white cheeses as round as loaves
+of bread, fresh, and still oozing whey. With her disengaged hand she was
+caressing the white fleece of a straight-horned goat, her favorite,
+which rubbed against her limbs, ringing a little copper bell worn on its
+neck.
+
+Actaeon was charmed contemplating her girlish figure, so sturdy for
+labor, in which the freshness of youth triumphed over fatigue. Her
+slenderness, with lines erect and harmonious, reminded him of the
+elegance of the Tanagra figurines on the tables of the hetaerae of Athens;
+of the imperious virility of the canephorae painted in black around Greek
+vases.
+
+The girl cast furtive glances at him, and then smiled, showing her teeth
+with juvenile confidence on feeling herself admired.
+
+"You are a Greek, are you not?"
+
+She spoke like the people of the port, in that strange idiom of a
+maritime city open to all peoples, a mixture of Celtiberian, Greek, and
+Latin.
+
+"I am from Athens. And you--who are you?"
+
+"I am called Rhanto, and my mistress is Sonnica the rich. Have you not
+heard of her? Her ships are in every port, she has slaves by the
+hundred, and she drinks from cups of gold. Do you see above those olive
+trees, on the side toward the sea, that small rose-colored tower? It is
+the villa where she lives as soon as the passing of winter allows her to
+leave the city. I belong at the villa, and I am in her service during
+the open season. My father has charge of her flocks, and she often comes
+down to our stables to play with the goats."
+
+Actaeon was surprised at the frequency with which he had heard of Sonnica
+since setting foot on Saguntine soil. The name of that opulent woman,
+whom some called "the rich," and others "the courtesan," was in every
+mouth. The shepherdess, who evinced a certain attraction toward the
+stranger, continued:
+
+"She is good. Sometimes she seems sad; she says she languishes with
+tedium in the midst of her riches; she is indifferent to everything, and
+in that mood she is capable of letting all her slaves be crucified
+without interfering. But when she is happy she is as kind as a mother,
+and she will not allow us to be punished. Her overseer in charge of the
+slaves is a cruel man, an Iberian freedman, who watches us, and at every
+instant threatens us with the lash and the cross. He has whipped my
+father several times on account of a lost ewe, or a goat which had
+broken its leg, or because a little milk was spilled in the
+cheese-making season. I would have received his blows myself had it not
+been for the respect he feels for me on account of having seen me
+caressed sometimes by Sonnica."
+
+Rhanto spoke of the terrible situation of the slaves with the
+naturalness of a creature accustomed from birth to witnessing such
+severities.
+
+"In winter," she continued, "I go to the mountain with my father, and I
+await with impatience the coming of the season when my mistress will
+return to the villa, and I can come down to the plain where there are
+flowers. Then I can spend the whole day in the shade of a tree
+surrounded by my goats."
+
+"And how have you learned something of Greek?"
+
+"Sonnica speaks it with rich people of the city, who are her friends,
+and with the slaves who serve her. Besides----"
+
+She hesitated, and her pale cheeks flushed.
+
+"Besides," she persisted, with animation, "my friend Erotion, the son of
+Mopsus, the archer who came from Rhodes, speaks it. He is a friend who
+helps me watch the goats when he is not working in the pottery, which
+also belongs to Sonnica."
+
+She pointed to the great works near the river, the famous Saguntine
+potteries, which revealed, between clay walls, the cupolas of its ovens
+like enormous red bee-hives.
+
+From one side of the road among the trees, sounded mellow notes, wild
+and joyous flute-tones, and Actaeon saw a boy spring into the highway. He
+was about the same age as Rhanto, tall, slender, barefooted, clad only
+in a soft goat-skin which hung over his left shoulder, leaving his right
+exposed, and was tied together at the waist. His eyes were like live
+coals, his black hair had bluish tones and, forming short ringlets,
+shook like a heavy mane with the nervous movements of his head. His
+arms, thin but strong, with the skin stretched by the tension of veins
+and tendons, were stained to the elbow by the red potter's clay.
+
+Actaeon, as he contemplated the short, correct profile of the handsome
+youth, and the nervous vivacity of his body, was reminded of the
+apprentices to the sculptors at Athens, artistic youths who in the broad
+glare of day, before returning to the studios, scandalized the
+well-behaved citizens by their frolics in the promenade of the
+Cerameicus.
+
+"This is Erotion," said Rhanto, who smiled sweetly as she saw her
+friend. "Although born in Saguntum, he is a Greek like yourself,
+stranger."
+
+The youth did not glance at the girl; he stood looking at the stranger
+respectfully.
+
+"Are you from Athens, really?" he said with admiration. "You cannot deny
+it. You look like Ulysses when he was wandering about the world, passing
+through the adventures related by Father Homer. I have seen just such as
+you on vases and in reliefs, resembling in figure and dress the husband
+of Penelope. Greeting, son of Pallas!"
+
+"And you--are you also one of Sonnica's slaves?"
+
+"No," the boy hastily answered with pride. "Rhanto is a slave, but
+perhaps some day she will not be. I am free; my father is Mopsus, a
+Greek from Rhodes, and the chief archer of Saguntum. He came from there
+with no other fortune than his bow and arrows, and now he is rich, since
+his recent expedition against the Turdetani, and he figures as the first
+in the militia of the city. I work in the pottery for Sonnica, who is
+very fond of me. She it was who gave me the name of Erotion, because
+when I was little I looked like a cupid. I am not one of those who
+mould clay, nor turn the wheel to shape the vases. They call me the
+artist; I make decorations of foliage, I model animals, I can make the
+head of Diana from memory, and no one can engrave in clay the great seal
+of Saguntum as I can. Do you know what it is like? A ship without sails,
+with three banks of oars; above it flies Victory in long draperies,
+depositing a crown on the prow. I could, if you wish, model your
+figure----"
+
+But he stopped, as if ashamed at these last words, and added sadly:
+
+"How you must be laughing at me, stranger! You come from _there_, from
+that marvelous country of which my father so often talks. You must have
+seen the Parthenon and Athene Promachos which navigators distinguish far
+out at sea long before they can descry Athens; the wonderful procession
+of horses in the metopes; the prodigious works of Phidias. How I long to
+see all that! When a ship comes into port from Greece I run away from
+the pottery and spend whole days in the taverns with the mariners. I
+drink with them, I give them presents of figurines in lewd attitudes,
+which make them laugh, just for the sake of getting them to tell me what
+they have seen--the temples, the statues, the paintings; and their
+stories, instead of calming me, excite my longing.... Ah, if Sonnica
+would allow it!... If only she would let me go in one of her ships when
+they set sail for Greece!"
+
+Afterward, he added earnestly:
+
+"This girl you see here, my sweet Rhanto, is all that sustains me. If
+she did not exist I should long ago have sought the _gubernator_ of a
+ship, should have sold myself to him as a slave, if necessary, to
+travel over the world, to see Greece, and to become an artist like those
+to whom you render there the same honors as to the gods."
+
+The three walked on in silence for some time behind the cloud of dust
+raised by the goats. The boy gradually recovered his serenity at the
+side of Rhanto, who had taken one of his hands in hers.
+
+"And you--why do you come here?" he asked Actaeon.
+
+"I came as did your father. I am a Greek without fortune, and I wish to
+offer my arms to the Saguntine Republic in its wars with the Turdetani."
+
+"Speak to Mopsus. You will find him in the Forum, or above on the
+Acropolis near the temple of Hercules, where the magistrates gather. He
+will be glad to see you; he adores those of your race, and he will stand
+sponsor for you before the city."
+
+Again silence fell. The Greek noticed the loving glances exchanged
+between the two young people, the fervid pressure of their clasped
+hands, the tender inclination of their healthy young bodies, which
+seeking each other, clung together. Erotion, as if obeying an unspoken
+request from his beloved, drew from his bosom a flute made of a hollow
+reed, and began to blow upon it softly, producing tender, pastoral
+music, to which the goats responded with bleating.
+
+The Greek realized that his presence was becoming undesirable to the
+happy lovers, for they gradually slackened their pace.
+
+"Farewell, children! Travel without haste; youth is on time whenever it
+arrives. We shall meet again in the city."
+
+"May the gods protect you, stranger," replied Rhanto. "If you need
+anything you will find me in the Forum where I have to sell these
+cheeses and some others which were brought in the farmer's cart at
+dawn."
+
+"Farewell, Athenian! Speak to my father, but do not tell him with whom
+you saw me."
+
+Actaeon crossed the river, picking his way between the carts which were
+immersed in the water up to their axles, and stood before the ramparts
+of the city, admiring their strength, the bases of undressed stone,
+fitted closely without mortar, supporting wall and towers of strong
+masonry.
+
+At the gate of the Road of the Serpent, which was the main entrance, he
+was detained by a jam of men, wagons, and horses in the narrow tunnel.
+Inside the city, and almost against the wall, was the temple of Diana, a
+shrine known throughout the world for its antiquity, and which gave not
+a little fame to the Saguntines. Actaeon paused to admire the roof of
+juniper planks of venerable age, but, eager to see the city, he
+continued on his way.
+
+There was to be seen down at the end of a straight street, where the
+buildings widened out, forming an enormous right-angled space, a great
+square plaza with beautiful structures sustained by arches, beneath
+which the people were swarming. It was the Forum. Above the roofs at the
+lower end could be seen houses and more houses with white walls climbing
+up the mountain slope; and in the background the walls of the Acropolis,
+the colonnades of the temples sustaining the friezes consisting of
+enormous carved stones.
+
+Actaeon, following the road leading to the Forum, was reminded of the
+maritime suburb of the Piraeus. This was the merchants' district,
+inhabited mainly by Greeks. The stir of traffic could be seen through
+the windows of the lower stories; slaves were piling up bales; young men
+with curly hair and aquiline noses were tracing on their wax tablets
+their complicated business accounts, and samples of their wares were
+exposed on small tables before the doors of the houses; there were piles
+of wheat or wool and heavy rough pieces of marble from the quarries. The
+merchants, standing in their doorways and leaning against the jambs,
+talked with their customers, gesticulating and with smooth accent
+calling upon the gods as witnesses that they were being ruined in their
+business.
+
+In some shops, the proprietors, in vestments embroidered with golden
+flowers, wearing tall mitres and purple sandals, with light, sphinx-like
+eyes, and stroking the curls of their perfumed beards, listened in
+silence to their customers. They were traders from Africa and Asia,
+Carthaginians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, who dealt in costly
+merchandise--trinkets of gold, tusks of ivory, ostrich feathers, and
+pieces of amber. Before their doors paused rich women clad in white
+mantles, followed by slaves, and as they talked they peeped their rosy
+faces into the shop, fascinated by the exotic aroma of stimulating
+spices from Asia and mysterious perfumes from the Orient. Rare birds
+brought from the East strode majestically among the bales with strident
+calls, trailing their multicolored plumage like a royal mantle.
+
+Actaeon, after hastily examining these shops, entered the Forum. It was
+market day, and the life of the city streamed to the great square.
+Farmers spread out their garden stuff near the porticos; shepherds from
+the public domain piled their cheeses in pyramids in front of little
+pitchers of milk, and women of the port, brown and almost naked, called
+attention to their fresh fish, arranged upon beds of leaves in flat rush
+baskets. At one end shepherds from the mountain, dressed in esparto,
+ferocious of aspect, and armed with lances, watched over cattle and
+horses offered for sale. These were Celtiberians, of whom it was told
+with horror that they sometimes ate human flesh, and they seemed to feel
+imprisoned inside the plaza, contemplating with hostile eyes that
+bee-like activity, so different from the independent solitude they
+enjoyed in their wandering life. The riches excited their appetites for
+robbing and horse-stealing, and, grasping their lances, they stared with
+ferocious eyes at the group of armed mercenaries in the service of the
+city, who at the lower end of the Forum, on the steps of the temple,
+guarded the senator charged with dispensing justice on market days.
+
+In the centre of the square swarmed the multitude, buying and dickering,
+dressed in a thousand colors, and speaking diverse tongues. The virtuous
+women of the city, simply dressed in white, passed along, followed by
+slaves who deposited in netted sacks the provision for the week; the
+Greeks, in long, saffron-colored chlamydes investigated everything,
+haggling tediously before making an insignificant purchase; the
+Saguntine citizens, Iberians who had lost their primitive rudeness
+through infinite intermarriages, imitated the manner and bearing of the
+Romans who were at the moment the people in highest esteem. Mingled with
+these were natives from the interior, bearded, begrimed, with long
+dishevelled hair, attracted by the market in spite of their dislike for
+the city, and particularly for the Greeks on account of their refinement
+and riches.
+
+Some Celtiberians, chiefs of the tribes nearest to Saguntum, remained on
+horseback in the centre of the Forum, without putting aside their
+lances, and still clinging to their shields of woven bull-sinews. They
+wore triple-crested helmets and leather cuirasses, as if they were on
+hostile soil and feared treachery. Meanwhile their women, agile, brown,
+and masculine, moved from place to place, their ample vestments,
+embroidered in gayly colored flowers, fluttering as they walked, and
+anon they stopped with childish admiration before the table of some
+Greek selling crystal beads and coarsely engraved necklaces and trinkets
+of bronze.
+
+Mantles of finest linen and costly purple brushed against the naked
+limbs of slaves or against the Celtiberian sagum of black wool buckled
+at the shoulder. Coiffures in Grecian style with red ribbons plaited in,
+the tuft of curls at the back of the head resembling the flame of a
+torch, the forehead small as a sign of supreme beauty, mingled with
+coiffures of the Celtiberian women, who wore their foreheads shaven and
+shiny to make them larger, their hair curled around a little stick
+placed on their heads, forming a sharp horn from which hung a black
+veil. Other Celtiberian women wore strong steel collars with little
+wires which were brought together above the coiffure, and from this
+cage, which enclosed the head, hung the veil, proudly displaying their
+enormous foreheads, brilliant and luminous as the moon in her first
+quarter.
+
+Actaeon lingered wondering at the costumes of these women, and at their
+masculine and warlike aspect. His quick Grecian perceptions divined
+danger as he contemplated the barbarians motionless on their steeds in
+the centre of the Forum, from that height dominating with looks of
+hatred this nation of merchants and farmers. They were like birds of
+prey that were compelled to come down to the plain as thieves in order
+to find food for existence in their arid mountains. Saguntum surrounded
+by such peoples would some day have to struggle for supremacy against
+them.
+
+The Greek pondering this, entered the colonnades where the idle of the
+city were gathered before the shops of barbers, money changers, and
+vendors of wines and refreshments. Actaeon could imagine himself still in
+the Agora of Athens. Although smaller, this was the same world as his
+native city. Sedate citizens had themselves carried by a slave in a
+wicker chair to take seats before the door of some shop to learn the
+news. Newsmongers circulated from group to group spreading the most
+stupendous lies; parasites seeking an invitation to dine flattered the
+rich whom they chanced to meet, and spoke ill of everything that
+happened; unemployed pedagogues disputed in loud tones over a point in
+Greek grammar, and youthful citizens grumbled against the old senators,
+declaring that the Republic needed newer blood.
+
+The recent expedition against the Turdetani, and the great victory
+gained over them, was much discussed. They would no longer dare to raise
+their heads; their king Artabanes, a fugitive in the most remote of
+their territories, must be punished for the late defeat. And the young
+Saguntines looked proudly at the trophies of lances, shields, and
+helmets, hanging from the pilasters of the porticos. They were the arms
+of some hundreds of Turdetani killed or taken prisoner on the last
+expedition. Furniture and ornaments stolen in the villages of the enemy
+by the warriors of Saguntum were offered for sale at low prices in the
+barber-shops. Nobody wanted them. The city was filled with such spoils.
+The Saguntine soldiers had returned, dragging in their wake a veritable
+army of loaded wagons and an interminable horde of men and beasts. As
+they thought of the triumph they smiled with the grim ferocity of
+ancient warfare, incapable of forgiving, and in which the greatest of
+mercies for the conquered was slavery.
+
+The slave-market was situated near the temple where justice was
+administered. The slaves squatted on the ground in a circle, covered
+with rags, their hands clasped around their feet, their chins resting
+between their knees. Those born into slavery awaited the new master with
+the passivity of beasts, their limbs emaciated by hunger, their heads
+shaved and covered by a white cap. Others, more closely watched by the
+slave dealer, were bearded, and over their filthy hair wore crowns of
+branches to indicate their condition as slaves taken in war. They were
+Turdetani who had not given ransom. Astonishment and fury at finding
+themselves reduced to slavery still showed in their glowering eyes. Many
+of them wore chains, and on their bodies the cicatrices of the recent
+war were still fresh. They glared at the hostile people, contracting
+their mouths as if with desire to bite and some of them restlessly moved
+their right arms which terminated in mere formless stumps. Their hands
+had been cut off in wars with tribes of the interior, whose custom it
+was to thus render their prisoners useless.
+
+The Saguntines looked indifferently upon these enemies converted into
+chattels, into beasts, by the cruel law of conquest, and forgetting the
+presence of the Turdetani they discussed the city's quarrels, the
+rivalry of factions, which seemed to have been stifled by the
+intervention of the Roman legates. On the steps of a temple close at
+hand the bloodstains of those beheaded because of their friendship for
+Carthage could still be seen, and the adherents of Rome, who were in the
+majority, discoursed bravely and praised the energetic counsel of the
+envoys of the great Republic. The city would now live in peace and
+security under the protection of Rome.
+
+Actaeon, while listening to the conversation of these various groups,
+glanced toward the temple and thought that he saw in the crowd streaming
+up and down the steps the Celtiberian shepherd who had killed the Roman
+legionary the night before. It was a swift vision; his dark sagum
+vanished in the multitude, and the Greek was uncertain if it were really
+he.
+
+The morning advanced. Actaeon had spent a long time in the market, and he
+thought that now the hour had come for occupying himself with other
+matters. He must see Mopsus the archer, up on the Acropolis, and he
+began the ascent following winding streets paved with cobbles, and lined
+with white houses, where in the doorways sat women spinning and weaving
+wool.
+
+As the Greek approached the Acropolis, he admired the cyclopean walls of
+great stones laid with rare art, solidly fitted without mortar-joints.
+Here was the cradle of the city, relic of the companions of Zacynthus
+as they established themselves among the rude indigenes.
+
+He passed through a long archway, and found himself on the extensive
+esplanade upon the eminence, surrounded by ramparts which could shelter
+a population as great as Saguntum. On this immense plain, scattered at
+random, rose the public buildings, recalling the epoch when the city
+stood on the summit and had not yet descended, spreading toward the sea.
+From its walls one could take in the immensity of the fertile domain,
+the territories belonging to the Republic, reaching out of sight to the
+south along the shore toward the boundary of the lands occupied by the
+Olcades; the innumerable villages and estates, grouped on the banks of
+the Baetis-Perkes, and the city opening like a great white fan down the
+slope of the mount, enclosed by walls over which the close-packed houses
+seemed to spring and scatter through the orchards.
+
+Actaeon, turning his gaze toward the enclosed quarter of the Acropolis,
+noticed the temple of Hercules; near it the portico on which the Senate
+gathered; the mint where money was coined; the temple where the treasure
+of the Republic was stored; the arsenal where the citizens were armed;
+the barracks of the mercenaries; and, dominating all these buildings,
+the tower of Hercules, an enormous cyclopean structure which at night
+answered with its lights to the _speculae_ on the shore and on the hills
+around the port, spreading alarm or giving tranquility throughout the
+whole of the Saguntine territory. In another quarter a band of slaves,
+directed by a Grecian artist, was putting the final touches on a small
+temple which Sonnica the rich was having raised on the Acropolis in
+honor of Minerva.
+
+The Saguntines who were climbing up to the citadel for a quiet stroll,
+proudly viewing their city and taking a look at the mercenaries who were
+burnishing their swords and their bronze cuirasses at the doors of their
+barracks, glanced curiously at the Greek.
+
+A prosperous looking Saguntine, wrapped in a red toga in Roman fashion,
+and leaning on a long staff, approached to speak to him. He was a middle
+aged man, strong, with gray hair and beard, and a kindly expression in
+his eyes and in his smile.
+
+"Tell me, Greek," he asked sweetly, "why have you come hither? Are you a
+merchant? Are you a navigator? Do you seek for your country the silver
+which the Celtiberians bring us?"
+
+"No, I am a poor man wandering about the world, and I have come to offer
+myself to the Republic as a soldier."
+
+The Saguntine made a gesture of distress.
+
+"I should have guessed it by the arm which serves you as a staff....
+Soldiers! Always soldiers! In other times not a sword nor a dart could
+be seen in the city. Foreigners used to come in ships loaded with
+merchandise; they took what we had, and in return they gave us what they
+brought, and we lived in that peace of which the poets sing. But now,
+those who come, whether Greek or Roman, African or Asiatic, present
+themselves armed; ferocious dogs who come to offer themselves as guards
+for the flock which used to frolic in peace without fear of enemies. As
+I behold all this warlike preparation, as I contemplate the youths of
+Saguntum rejoicing and boasting over their recent expedition against
+the Turdetani, I tremble for the city and the fate in store for my
+people. To-day we are the strongest, but will not someone come stronger
+than we, and clap upon our necks the chains of slavery?"
+
+Over the top of the walls he looked down at the city with tender
+solicitude.
+
+"Stranger," he continued, "my name is Alcon, and my friends call me 'the
+Prudent.' The old men of the Senate give heed to my counsels; but the
+young men will not listen to them. I have been a merchant, I have run
+over the world, I have a wife and children maintained in comfortable
+circumstances, and I am convinced that peace means felicity for the
+people and should be maintained at any cost."
+
+"I am Actaeon, a son of Athens. I used to be a navigator, but my ships
+were wrecked. I was a trader, but I lost my fortune. Mercury and Neptune
+have ever treated me like harsh and merciless fathers. I have enjoyed
+much, I have suffered still more, and to-day, almost a beggar, I come
+here to sell my blood and brawn."
+
+"You do wrong, Athenian. You are a man, and you seek to turn yourself
+into a wolf. Do you know what I most admire in your race?... that you
+jest at Hercules and at his deeds; that you worship Pallas Athene! You
+scorn force, and you worship intelligence and the arts of peace."
+
+"The strong arm is as valuable as the head in which Zeus kindled the
+divine spark."
+
+"Yes, but that arm impels the head to death."
+
+Actaeon was impatient at Alcon's words.
+
+"Do you know Mopsus the archer?"
+
+"There he is, near the temple of Hercules. You may recognize him by his
+weapons, which he never lays aside. He is another of those who drew
+hither the evil spirit of war."
+
+"Farewell, Alcon."
+
+"May the gods protect you, Athenian!"
+
+Actaeon recognized the valorous Greek by his bow and by the quiver
+hanging from his shoulders. He was a robust, long-bearded man, who wore
+bound around his gray locks a bull's tendon to renew the one which
+served to string his bow. His strong muscular arms revealed in the
+elasticity of their sinews the high tension to which they were subjected
+in bending the strong bow and in shooting the arrows.
+
+He welcomed Actaeon with the sympathetic respect which the Athenians
+inspired in the island-Greeks.
+
+"I will speak to the Senate," he said, on learning Actaeon's aspirations.
+"My word will be sufficient to have you received among the mercenaries
+with all merited distinction. Tell me more about your military
+exploits."
+
+"I have made war in Lacedaemon, under the orders of Cleomenes."
+
+"A famous captain! The renown of the deeds of the Spartan king has even
+reached these shores. What news of him?"
+
+"I left him when, conquered but not mastered, he took refuge in
+Alexandria. There he dwelt as an exile under the protection of Ptolemy;
+but, according to what I heard not long ago in New Carthage, he got into
+trouble through a palace intrigue. The Egyptian monarch ordered his
+execution, and Cleomenes, with his twelve companions, died fighting.
+When he fell, a pile of corpses lay before him."
+
+"Worthy end for a hero! Where did you learn the military art?"
+
+"I began in Sicily and Carthage, in the camps of the mercenaries, and I
+finished my education in the Prytaneum of Athens. My father was Lysias,
+captain in the service of Hamilcar, put to death afterwards by the
+Carthaginians in their war with the mercenaries, which is called the
+'Inexpiable War.'"
+
+"Famous schools, and an excellent father! His name also came to my ears
+in the epoch when I was running over the world, before taking service in
+Saguntum. You are welcome, Actaeon! If you wish to enlist in the
+hoplites, you shall figure in the first rank of the phalanx with the
+heavy armor and the long spear. But, no, you Athenians prefer to fight
+light-armed. You are more to be feared in the onset than on account of
+the force of your blows. You shall be a peltast, with javelin and light
+shield; you shall fight unhampered, and surely great deeds will be
+related of you."
+
+Some old men whom the archer greeted respectfully passed near.
+
+"Those are senators," Mopsus said, "assembling because it is market day.
+Many of them come from their villas on the public domain, and ride up to
+the Acropolis in their litters. They meet on that portico."
+
+Actaeon saw them taking their seats on wooden chairs with curved
+claw-legs supporting the head of the Nemean lion. Their countenances and
+dress denoted the great diversity of races existing in the city. The men
+of Iberian origin came from their country-houses, bearded, grimy, with
+linen cuirass lined with heavy wool, a two-edged short sword hanging
+from the shoulder, and a hat of hardened leather equivalent to a helmet.
+The Grecian merchants presented themselves with faces shaven, wrapped in
+white chlamys, from which the right arm emerged bare; a fillet was bound
+around the hair in fashion of a crown, and they were leaning on long
+staves tipped by the design of a pine cone. They resembled the kings of
+the Iliad gathered before Troy.
+
+Actaeon noted among them a giant with black beard and short curling hair
+which lay around his head like a mitre of wool. His enormous limbs, with
+protuberant muscles and elastic sinews which seemed bursting with
+strength, peeped from below the openings of the red mantle in which he
+was wrapped.
+
+"That is Theron," said the bowman, "the great priest of Hercules; a
+prodigious man, who could conquer a crown in the Olympic games. He kills
+a bull with a single blow on its neck."
+
+Again the Greek thought he recognized among the people gathered near the
+Senate portico, the Celtiberian shepherd, studying intently the gigantic
+priest of Hercules; but the archer addressed Actaeon, compelling him to
+turn his gaze away.
+
+"The council is about to sit, and I must be at the foot of the steps
+awaiting orders. Go, Actaeon, and tarry for me in the Forum. There you
+will find my boy. Did you not say that you met him on the road? No doubt
+he was with that slave girl who herds Sonnica's goats. Don't hesitate,
+Actaeon; don't tell a falsehood. I guess it. Ah, that boy! That vagabond,
+who, instead of working, races through the fields like a fugitive
+slave!"
+
+In spite of the grievousness with which the archer complained, a thrill
+of tenderness was observable in his accent, the note of preference over
+his other sons for that wandering and capricious artist who often
+abandoned the paternal roof to roam about the port and through the
+mountains for weeks at a time.
+
+The two Greeks bade each other adieu, and Actaeon returned to the Forum,
+not without thinking that he saw again, strolling about the Acropolis,
+the mysterious Celtiberian shepherd. As he entered the porticos he heard
+hisses and shouting; the crowds were agitated, laughing and jeering;
+people rushed from the barber-shops and perfumeries. The Greek saw a
+group of luxuriously dressed young men passing with scornful smiles
+regardless of the tempest of hisses and sarcasm raised by their
+presence.
+
+They were the gallants of Saguntum; the rich youths who imitated the
+fashions of the Athenian aristocracy, exaggerated by distance and by
+their lack of taste. Actaeon also smiled, with the cynical smile of an
+Athenian, as he observed the crudeness with which these young fops
+copied their distant models.
+
+At their head strode Lachares, the gallant who had accompanied Sonnica
+on her morning visit to the temple of Venus. They were dressed in
+transparent cloth of screaming colors and subtle weave, disclosing the
+body, like the tunics worn by the hetaerae at banquets. Their cheeks,
+carefully plucked free of hair, were tinted with soft vermilion and the
+eyes were enlarged with black lines. The hair, curled, and perfumed with
+fragrant ointments, was confined by a fillet. Some wore large hoops of
+gold in their ears, and hidden bracelets jingled as they walked. Others
+were indolently leaning on the shoulders of small slave boys with white
+backs, and with hair hanging in heavy curls, resembling girls in the
+plumpness of their forms. As if deaf to the insults and sarcasms of the
+people, they talked with affected serenity of some Greek verses which
+one of them had composed; they discussed their merit, the manner of
+accompanying them with the lyre, and only stopped to caress the cheeks
+of their small slaves or to greet acquaintances, well pleased at heart
+over the scandal their presence caused in the Forum.
+
+"Do not tell me that they imitate the Greeks," shouted an old man with
+malicious face, clad in the patched and filthy mantle of an unemployed
+pedagogue. "The fire of the gods shall be hurled upon the city. It is
+true that in a moment of emotion our father Zeus carried off the
+beautiful Ganymede; but how about Leda and all the innumerable beauties
+touched by the fire of the Lord of Olympus? A fine place the world would
+be if men were to imitate the gods and were to behave as do these fools,
+dressing themselves like women! Do you wish to see a Greek? Well, there
+is one for you. That is a true son of Hellas."
+
+He pointed to Actaeon, who found himself the target for curious glances
+from the assembled people.
+
+"How you must laugh, stranger, at seeing those miserable creatures who
+stupidly believe they are copying your country," the beggarly phrenetic
+continued shouting. "I am a philosopher; do you know that? The only
+philosopher in Saguntum, and by the same token you will guess that these
+ungrateful people are quite willing to let me starve to death. As a
+young man I lived in Athens; I attended the schools; I gave up the life
+of a mariner, and ceased running over the world, to seek truth within
+myself. I have invented nothing, but I know all that man has said about
+the soul and the world, and if you wish I will recite from memory entire
+paragraphs from Socrates and Plato, and all the answers of the great
+Diogenes. I know your country, and I am ashamed of my city when I see
+such fools as those. Do you know who is to blame for these follies that
+dishonor us? Sonnica, that Sonnica whom they call 'the rich,' an
+old-time courtesan who will succeed in making Saguntum a reproach,
+destroying the traditions of the city, and the simple, healthful customs
+of other times."
+
+On hearing the name of Sonnica a murmur of protest arose from the group.
+
+"Do you see?" shouted the philosopher, becoming more abusive. "They are
+adulatory slaves who tremble at the truth. The name of Sonnica produces
+in them the same effect as that of a goddess. Do you see that one
+running away? Well, not long ago Sonnica lent his father a great sum
+without interest, that he might buy wheat in Sicily, and so he thinks he
+must run away from any place where things are said against her. See that
+one turning his back? The courtesan freed his father, who was a slave,
+and he does not wish to hear anything said that might annoy Sonnica. And
+these others, who are more valiant, and remain staring as if they would
+devour me, have all received favors from her, and would like to beat me
+for my words as they have done before. They are slaves who defend her as
+if she were a beneficent divinity. There are many others like them in
+Saguntum, and that is why the magistrates dare not punish that Grecian
+woman, who with her mad extravagances scandalizes the city. Come, beat
+me, shopkeepers! Beat the only one in Saguntum who does not lie!"
+
+The crowd slunk away, leaving the philosopher shaking his fist and
+hurling epithets of indignation.
+
+"What you ought to do," said one of the latter scornfully as he retired,
+"is to show more gratitude. If you ever get anything to eat, it is at
+Sonnica's table."
+
+"I shall eat to-night, then!" shouted the philosopher insolently. "And
+what do you prove by that? I will tell her to her face the same that I
+say here! And she will laugh as usual, while you will be eating swill in
+your houses and thinking of her banquet!"
+
+"Ingrate! Parasite!" exclaimed the man, turning his back contemptuously.
+
+"Gratitude is the condition of the dog. Man shows his superiority by
+speaking ill of those who favor him. If you do not wish Euphobias the
+philosopher to be a parasite, maintain him in exchange for his wisdom."
+
+By this time Euphobias was talking to empty space. They had all left,
+and had mingled with the moving crowd on the street. Only Actaeon
+remained, examining him with interest, as if marveling at finding in a
+far-away city a man so like those who in Athens swarmed about the
+Academy, forming a class of hungry and obscure philosophic plebs.
+
+The parasite, seeing himself with no other audience than the Greek,
+caught him by the arm.
+
+"You alone deserve to hear me. One can easily perceive that you are from
+_there_, and that you know how to distinguish merit."
+
+"Who is that Sonnica whose customs so anger you? Do you know the story
+of her life?" asked the Athenian, desirous of hearing the history of a
+woman who seemed to fill the whole city with her name.
+
+"Do I know it? A thousand times she has told me in her hours of
+melancholy and weariness, which out-number all the rest. When I cannot
+manage to make her laugh with my wit, when she feels the need of
+un-burdening her mind, then she tells of her past with as much abandon
+as though she were talking to a dog; but it is a long story."
+
+The philosopher paused and winked one eye, pointing to a door near at
+hand, within which was a perforated counter holding a row of amphorae.
+
+"We shall be more comfortable in Fulvius' house. He is a most honorable
+Roman who swears that he has quarreled with water. Day before yesterday
+he received a famous wine from Laurona. I smell its perfume even here."
+
+"I have not a single obolus in my pouch."
+
+The philosopher sniffed as if inhaling the vapor of the new wine, and
+made a gesture of disappointment. Then he looked at the Greek
+affectionately.
+
+"You are worthy to hear me; poor, like myself, surrounded by these
+merchants who stock their vaults with silver! Since there is to be no
+wine for us, let us take a walk. That clears the brain. I will treat you
+as Aristotle treated his favorite pupils."
+
+Strolling along the portico Euphobias began to relate what he knew of
+Sonnica's life.
+
+She was believed to have been born in Cyprus, the isle beloved of
+mariners. On those shores where the poets made the triumphant beauty of
+Aphrodite spring from the foam, the women of the island run by night in
+search of mariners to offer themselves in memory of the goddess. Sonnica
+was the fruit of one such alligation with a rower. She vaguely
+recollected the early years of her childhood, running about the deck of
+a ship, springing from one bank of rowers to another, fed and scorned
+like the cats on shipboard, visiting many ports populated by people
+diverse in dress, customs, and language, but seeing it all from afar,
+and vaguely, like images in a dream, never setting foot on terra firma.
+
+Before she became a woman she was the mistress of the owner of the ship,
+a pilot from Samos, who, grown tired of her, or tempted by money, sold
+her one night to a Boeotian who maintained a _dicterion_ in the
+Piraeus. She was not yet twelve years of age, and little Sonnica
+attracted special attention among the _dicteriadai_ who swarmed by night
+in the Piraeus, the chief centre of Athenian prostitution.
+
+The floating population of the city, composed of foreigners, gamblers,
+and young men thrown out of their homes by severe fathers, congregated
+in that suburb of Athens which surrounded the ports of the Piraeus and
+Phalerum and formed the deme of Estiron. No sooner had night closed in
+than the whole noisy and corrupt world gathered in the great square in
+the Piraeus, between the citadel and the port, and prostitutes began to
+circulate, who with the coming of the shadows, were privileged to leave
+the _dicteria_ in which they had been confined. On the porticos around
+the square the gamblers shook dice, wandering philosophers argued,
+vagabonds slept, mariners told of their voyages, and through this
+confusion of diverse peoples passed the _dicteriadai_, with painted
+faces, almost nude, or wearing striped mantles of vivid colors which
+revealed an African or Asiatic origin. There the young daughter of
+Cyprus grew up and became acquainted with the world, seeking each night
+some wheat merchant from Bithynia, or some exporter of hides from Magna
+Graecia, rude and merry people, who, before returning to their native
+lands wished to spend some of their earnings on the courtesans of
+Athens. By day she was a prisoner in the _dicterion_, a house of sordid
+aspect, without other ornamentation on the facade than an enormous
+phallus which served the establishment as a sign, the door standing open
+at all hours without the chained dog customary at other dwellings, and
+displaying, immediately the heavy curtain was raised, an open courtyard,
+in which, near the entrance to the rooms, squatting or lying on the
+pavement, were all the wares of the house, women worn and consumed by
+the fires of concupiscence and girls barely arrived at puberty. All were
+nude, the dark and velvety skin of the Egyptians contrasting with the
+pale countenance of the Greeks and the white and silky flesh of the
+Asiatics.
+
+Sonnica, who was at that time called Myrrhina, wearied of the life of
+the _dicterion_. All the women there were slaves whom the Boeotian
+beat when they allowed a customer to leave discontented. It disgusted
+her to take the two oboli stipulated by the laws of Solon from those
+calloused hands which wounded as they caressed, and she was nauseated by
+the dirty, brutal people from all the countries in the world who came in
+search of pleasure, and went away surfeited, being immediately replaced
+by another and another, like an incessant surging of desires excited by
+the solitude of the sea, repeating similar caprices and identical
+demands.
+
+One night she visited for the last time the temple of Venus Pandemos
+raised by Solon in the great square of the Piraeus, and deposited an
+obolus as her final offering before the statues of Venus and her
+companion Peitho, the two divinities of the courtesans, before whom she
+went many times with her lemans of the moment, before giving herself
+up to them on the seashore or near the long wall constructed by
+Themistocles to unite the port with Athens. Then she fled toward the
+city, eager for liberty and joy, wishing to become one of those Athenian
+hetaerae whose luxury and beauty she had admired from afar.
+
+She lived like the free, poor courtesans whom the Athenian youths called
+"she-wolves" on account of their howling. At first she spent whole days
+without eating, but she considered herself more happy than her former
+companions of the port of Phalerum, or in the district of Estiron,
+slaves of the masters of the _dicteria_. Her market now was the
+Cerameicus, a large district of Athens, along the wall between the gates
+of the Cerameicus and the Dipylon, in which were the garden of the
+Academy and the tombs of the illustrious citizens who had died for the
+Republic. By day the great _hetaerae_ went or sent their slaves to see if
+their names were written in charcoal on the wall of the Cerameicus. The
+Athenian who desired a courtesan would write her name, with the sum
+offered, and if this were to the liking of the hetaera she tarried near
+the inscription until the coming of the favored proponent. In broad
+daylight the great courtesans appeared there, almost nude, wearing
+purple sandals, wrapped in flowered mantles, wearing crowns of fresh
+roses on their hair, powdered with gold. The poets, the rhetoricians,
+the artists, the distinguished citizens strolled through the green
+groves of the Cerameicus or along the porticos adorned with statues,
+chatting with the courtesans, having to rack their brains to keep even
+with their repartee.
+
+When night came on an irruption of wretched, ragged women filled the
+promenade, dispersing among the tombs of the renowned dead. It consisted
+of the dregs of Athenian gayety which lived in liberty under cover of
+the darkness--old courtesans who, trusting in the night, came out to
+conquer bread in the same place where in other times they had reigned
+with the power of beauty; fugitive _dicteriadai_, slave women who had
+run away from their owners for a few hours, and women of the plebs
+seeking alleviation of their poverty. Hiding behind the tombs, among the
+clumps of laurels, they remained as motionless as sphinxes, and scarcely
+did the steps of a man disturb the silence of the Cerameicus, than from
+all sides arose faint howls calling to the new arrival. Frequently they
+fled in mad race on recognizing the official whose duty it was to
+collect the _pornikontelos_, a tax imposed by Solon upon the courtesans
+and one which constituted the largest revenue of Athens. At midnight the
+passer-by crossing the Cerameicus on his return from a banquet, would
+hear around him the rustle and whispering of an invisible world which
+seemed to sweep over the turf and the gleaming sand. The poets jestingly
+averred that the ghosts of the great departed were groaning in their
+capacious tombs.
+
+Thus Myrrhina lived until she was fifteen, spending the night in the
+Cerameicus and the day in the hut of an old woman of Thessaly who, in
+common with all her countrywomen enjoyed great fame as a witch, and
+assisted at births as well as sold love-philters, and retouched the
+faces of those who were fading.
+
+Innumerable things the little _lupa_ learned at the side of the old
+woman, bony and ugly as a Parca! She helped her grind the white lead
+which, mixed with isinglass, filled the wrinkles of the face; she
+prepared the bean flour to anoint the breasts and abdomen, to make the
+skin tight and elastic; she filled little flasks with antimony to give
+brilliancy to the eyes; she made a liquid preparation of carmine for
+coloring with light touches the paste-filled wrinkles, and she listened
+with profound attention to the wise counsels with which the old woman
+instructed her pupils, so that they might show off their particular
+charms to the best advantage and hide their defects. The old Thessalian
+advised the girls with plump bodies to use cork soles inside their
+shoes, and the tall ones to wear light sandals, and to shrink their
+heads down between their shoulders; she made pads for the thin,
+whalebone corsets for the stout, she stained the gray hair with soot,
+and those who had good teeth she obliged to carry a stalk of myrtle
+between their lips, counseling them to smile at the slightest word.
+
+The young girl possessed the old witch's confidence to such an extent
+that she assisted her in the most dangerous part of her science, the
+confection of love-philters and the making of charms, which had more
+than once caused her to be prosecuted by the officials of the Areopagus.
+The richest hetaerae consulted her about their desires and revenges, and
+she gave them the benefit of her knowledge. To accomplish the impotence
+of a man or the sterility of a woman, it was only necessary to give them
+a glass of wine in which a barbel had been stewed; to attract a
+forgetful lover a cake of unleavened dough was burned in a fire made of
+branches of thyme and laurel; and to convert love into hatred it was
+only necessary to follow the man, stepping in his tracks the opposite
+way, placing the right foot where he had put his left, and murmuring at
+the same time: "I am upon you, I step on you." If one wished to cause a
+satiated lover to return, the old woman rolled a bronze ball which she
+carried in her bosom, asking Venus to cause the lover to roll in over
+the threshold of the door in the same manner, and if the conjury
+produced no effect, the wax image of the person beloved was thrown into
+the brazier while asking the gods to melt the frozen heart with love
+even as the figure melted. With these enchantments, accompanied by
+mysterious invocations, went philters composed of aphrodisiacs and
+exciting herbs, which frequently led to death.
+
+One moonlight spring night Myrrhina had an adventure in the Cerameicus,
+which resulted in her abandoning the den of the Thessalian. Seated
+behind a tomb, her howl soft as a lament attracted a man wrapped in a
+white mantle. By the brilliancy of his eyes and the insecurity of his
+step he seemed to be intoxicated. He wore on his head a crown of
+withered roses.
+
+Myrrhina divined that he was a distinguished citizen coming from a
+banquet. It was the poet Simalion, a young aristocrat who had won a
+crown in the Olympian games, and in whom Athens saw revived the
+inspiration of Anacreon. The richest hetaerae sang his verses at banquets
+to the music of the lyre, and virtuous dames murmured them in the
+solitude of the gynaeceum, flushing with emotion. The most famous
+beauties of Athens contended for the poet, and he, already an invalid in
+his young manhood, and unable to resist the strain of worldly adoration,
+took refuge in the temple of AEsculapius when the cough compelled him to
+spit blood; he went on a pilgrimage to the healing springs throughout
+Greece and the islands; and no sooner did he begin to feel stronger,
+with new blood surging through his veins, than, scorning the doctors, he
+began once more the round of banqueting with business men and artists of
+Attica, in company with famous hetaerae and genteel Cyprians, rolling from
+the arms of one to another; paying for the caresses with verses which
+the city afterward repeated; ever ardent, and consuming his life like
+the torch which at the nocturnal feasts of Dionysus was passed by the
+chain of bacchantes from hand to hand until lost in the infinite.
+
+Coming from one of these orgies he met Myrrhina, and contemplating in
+the moonlight her youthful beauty, undimmed and almost childlike there
+in a place frequented by the filthy _lupas_, he raised his hand to his
+eyes as if he feared he were being deceived by the aberrations of
+intoxication. This must be Psyche with those firm, harmoniously curving
+breasts, round as cups; with those correct and gentle outlines which
+would have been the despair of sculptors at the Academy. The poet
+experienced the same satisfaction as when, after hours of solitary
+plodding along the wall of Themistocles from Athens to the port, he hit
+upon the culminating verse of an ode.
+
+She started to drag him to the old Thessalian's hut, but Simalion,
+dazzled by the marble flesh which seemed to shine through the rags, took
+her to his beautiful residence on the Street of Tripods, and there
+Myrrhina remained like a lady, with slaves and luxurious garments.
+
+This caprice of the poet astounded all Athens. In the Agora and in the
+Cerameicus they talked of nothing but Simalion's new love. They marveled
+at the rescue of a precious stone, forgotten and lost in the sands,
+which suddenly shone forth on the forehead of a grandee.
+
+The great hetaerae, who had never succeeded in making complete conquest of
+the fickle poet, were amazed at seeing him devotedly attached to a young
+girl from a _dicterion_, who was remembered by many adventurers in the
+Piraeus. He took her out in his chariot, driving three horses with
+close-cropped manes, and to all the great feasts in the temples of
+Attica; in the morning he composed verses in her honor, and he awoke her
+by reciting them, while he flung a shower of rose petals upon her couch.
+He gave banquets to his artist friends that he might revel in their envy
+and admiration, when, at their conclusion, he had her exhibit herself
+nude upon the table, in all the magnificence of that perfect beauty
+which aroused a religious emotion in the Greeks.
+
+Faithful to Simalion from gratitude at first, and finally enamored of
+the poet and of his works, Myrrhina adored him as teacher as well as
+lover. In a short time she learned to play the lyre, to recite verses in
+all the known styles, she read in her lover's library so diligently that
+she was able to hold her own among the guests at the banquets of
+artists, and was invited out among the most brilliant hetaerae of Athens.
+
+Simalion, constantly growing more enthusiastic over his beloved,
+dissipated his fortune and his life. He ordered for her from Asia
+transparent mantles embroidered with fantastic flowers, through which
+shone her pearly flesh; gold dust to sprinkle upon her hair, making her
+like the goddesses, which the poets and artists of Greece always painted
+blonde; he charged the navigators to buy roses in Egypt of marvelous
+freshness. He was steadily growing more emaciated, his skin more pallid,
+and his gaze glowing with fever, coughing and lying in the arms of his
+mistress, his strength slipping away.
+
+Thus two years passed, until one autumn afternoon, stretched on the lawn
+in his garden, his head resting on the knees of his beautiful inamorata,
+he heard his verses sung for the last time by the clear voice of
+Myrrhina, accompanied by the fluttering of her white fingers over the
+chords of the lyre. The setting sun caused Minerva's lance aloft by the
+Parthenon, dominating the city, to glow like a coal of fire; his boyish
+hand could scarce sustain the golden cup of honey and wine. He made an
+effort to kiss his mistress; the roses which crowned him fell apart,
+covering Myrrhina's breast with a shower of petals, and, uttering a
+plaint like that of a woman, he closed his eyes, falling upon that
+breast where he had lavished the last strength of his life.
+
+The young girl wept for him with the desperation of a widow. She cut her
+splendid hair to lay it as an offering upon his tomb. She put aside her
+dazzling costumes, she dressed in dark wool like the Athenian women of
+virtuous homes, and remained in retirement in her house, which she kept
+closed and silent as a gynaeceum.
+
+The necessity of living, of maintaining the luxury to which she had
+become accustomed, of keeping a chariot and slaves and grooms, forced
+her, however, to consider her beauty, and the most celebrated hetaerae
+became alarmed at the new rival. Covered with a dark red wig to hide the
+tonsure of mourning, wrapped in fine veils from which her throat emerged
+adorned with pearls, her fresh and alabastrine arms loaded to the
+shoulders with bracelets, she showed herself at an upper window of her
+house with the grave majesty of a goddess awaiting veneration. The
+richest men of Athens paused by night in the Street of Tripods to gaze
+at the poet's widow, as the women in the Ceramaeicus sarcastically called
+her. Some, more daring, or tremulous with desire, raised the index
+finger in mute question; but vainly they awaited her affirmative
+reply--the customary sigil of the hetaerae, touching thumb to index finger
+as it were an annulus.
+
+Few managed to gain entrance to the famous courtesan's house. They
+grumbled that some nights, in moments of tedium, she had opened her door
+to young students who were modeling their first statues in the gardens
+of the Academy, or reciting their unrenowned verses to the idle in the
+Agora--youths who could only afford to spend on pleasures a few oboli,
+or at most a drachma. On the other hand the rich, who offered golden
+stateres or several minae to enter the house, were considered too poor to
+win favor. The old courtesans whispered into one another's ears, with a
+degree of respect, that a petty Asiatic king, on passing through Athens,
+had given Myrrhina two talents for one visit--as much as any republic in
+Greece would spend in a year--and that the beautiful hetaera, unmoved by
+such a fortune, had suffered his presence only while her clepsydra
+emptied itself once, for, tired of men, she measured prurience by her
+water-clock.
+
+Fabulously rich merchants, on arriving at the Piraeus, sought access to
+Myrrhina's house through the good offices of friends. They heaped
+presents upon the vagabond artists who were the courtesan's familiars,
+that they might be admitted to her suppers; and more than one, arriving
+at the port with a fleet loaded with rich merchandise, hastened to sell
+everything without waiting to discharge his cargo, so that he might stay
+in the poet's house; and he returned to his country with the help of
+charity, content with his poverty when he saw the envy and respect which
+he inspired among his companions.
+
+Thus she met Bomaro, a young Iberian merchant from Zacynthus, who had
+come to Athens with three ships laden with hides. The courtesan was
+attracted by his sweetness, which contrasted with the rudeness of the
+other merchants brutalized by their contact with the great ports. He
+spoke little and blushed, as if the silence of his long stays at sea had
+given him the timidity of a virgin. If she forced him to relate his
+adventures as a navigator he did so with simplicity, without mentioning
+the dangers he encountered. He displayed particularly a childish
+admiration for Grecian culture.
+
+Myrrhina, during the supper at which she saw him for the first time,
+surprised his eyes fixed on her with the expression of tenderness and
+respect of one gazing at a goddess impossible of possession. The
+navigator, reared among barbarians, in a remote colony scarcely
+retaining traces of its mother Greece, began to interest the courtesan
+more than the young Athenians and opulent merchants who surrounded her.
+Tremulous and hesitant he craved the grace of a single night, and spent
+it near her with more admiration than enjoyment, adoring her regal
+beauty, thrilled by her voice, put to sleep by it like a warm maternal
+lullaby, accompanied by the lyre.
+
+When he awoke he begged to turn over to her the entire product of his
+cargo; but Myrrhina, hardly knowing why, refused to accept it, in spite
+of his urging. He was rich; he had no parents; far away in that land of
+barbarians he possessed immense flocks, hundreds of slaves who
+cultivated his fields or worked in his mines; great potteries, and many
+ships like the three which awaited him in the Piraeus; and seeing that
+the courtesan, with kindly smile, treated him like a generous boy,
+declining to accept his money, he bought in the Street of the Goldsmiths
+a prodigious collar of pearls, the despair of the hetaerae, and sent it to
+Myrrhina before he left the city.
+
+Afterwards he came back many times. He could not decide to return to his
+country. He set sail with his flotilla, but in the next port he took on
+a cargo for Athens, paying no regard to the price, and scarcely came to
+anchor in the Piraeus before he rushed to the courtesan's house, nor
+could resolve to leave until he suspected Myrrhina's weariness of his
+presence.
+
+The courtesan finally became accustomed to this submissive lover, ever
+at her feet, who was ready to die for her, showing his adoration with
+the fervor of a foreigner, so different from the cynical and mocking
+courtesy of the Athenians. She called him "little brother," and this
+word, which the hetaerae used with young lovers, gradually took on her
+lips a warmth of sincere affection. When he was delayed in returning
+from the islands she longed for his presence, and when she saw him at
+the door she ran to him with outstretched arms, in a transport of joy
+such as her other friends never witnessed.
+
+She did not love him as she had loved the poet, but the earnest humility
+of Bomaro, his respectful and docile love, so different from the ardor
+she inspired in others, moved Myrrhina to a sentiment of gratitude.
+
+One night, the Iberian, who seemed preoccupied, ventured after much
+vacillation to express his inner thought.
+
+He could not live without her; he would never return alone to Zacynthus;
+he was resolved to abandon his fortune rather than never to see her
+more. He would sooner be a stevedore on the wharf at Phalerum; and
+finally, like one who makes a dash to more quickly overcome an obstacle,
+he abruptly proposed to make her his wife, turning his fortune over to
+her, and to take her to smiling Zacynthus with its flowery fields and
+its rose-colored mountains, so like those of Attica.
+
+Myrrhina smiled while listening to him and her heart was touched by the
+affectionate self-abnegation of the Iberian who, to unite with her
+forever, was willing to overlook a shameful past in the _dicterion_ and
+in the Cerameicus. She rejected his proposals with an ironical smile;
+but Bomaro was persistent. Was she not tired of her mode of life, of
+seeing herself flattered as a thing of great price, but often scorned by
+coarse creatures who thought they made themselves her masters by merely
+offering their gold? Would she not like to be a sovereign on the coasts
+of Iberia, surrounded by people who would admire her Athenian
+attainments?
+
+Bomaro conquered her by his loving determination, and one day Athens
+beheld with surprise that the house on the Street of Tripods was sold,
+and that Myrrhina's slaves were carrying to the port the riches gathered
+during three years of mad fortune, loading them in the ships of the
+Iberian who had unfurled from the masts his purple sails for a triumphal
+voyage.
+
+Myrrhina, in her desire to propitiate him who gave himself up to her so
+completely, wished to leave her whole past behind. She proposed to be a
+new woman, to put away her sinister cognomen, and begging Bomaro to
+repeat the most beautiful names of the Iberian women, she chose that of
+Sonnica as the most pleasing to her ears.
+
+Arrived at Zacynthus, the navigator and the Greek woman were married in
+the temple of Diana before all the Senate, of which the young man was
+himself a member.
+
+The city felt the effects of the charm which seemed to emanate from the
+person of Sonnica. She was like a breath from distant Athens, which
+fascinated the Greek merchants in Saguntum, grown slack by their long
+stay among uncultured foreigners.
+
+At the banquets, at the hour of sweet wines, when she sang the hymns of
+the great masters, the Saguntine youths from the ward of the Greeks were
+impelled to fall at her feet and adore her as a goddess. After being
+married a year Bomaro realized in the growth of his fortune the
+assistance of the woman, who, in changing her environment, began to
+interest herself in material things through her desire to prove her
+worth before the noble dames who gossipped about her.
+
+She watched the work in the fields, took note of the great flocks, and
+the potteries; she went to the port to greet the arrival of the ships;
+and Bomaro's enormous fortune increased. Excellent results followed the
+business ventures which she counseled, as she lay in the shade of a
+clump of laurel in her garden, speaking in a slow harmonious voice,
+caressed by a feather fan in the hands of a slave.
+
+Bomaro, the days of more ardent love-making ended, sailed along the
+coasts of Iberia, his mind free from business cares, and desirous of
+adding to the fortune which Sonnica administered so well. She had
+surrounded herself by a court of youths who treated her as a
+preceptress. The young Greeks born in Saguntum flocked about her to
+learn the manners and customs of Athens, which was their perpetual
+dream. The evil tongues in the city called her Sonnica the Cyprian, but
+the plebs who were the recipients of her charity, and the small
+merchants who never appealed to her without result, entitled her Sonnica
+the rich, and they were ready to fight those who spoke ill of her.
+
+One winter, four years after their marriage, Bomaro perished by
+shipwreck near the Pillars of Hercules, and Sonnica found herself in
+absolute possession of an immense fortune, and mistress of a whole city,
+over which she reigned by virtue of her riches and of her kindness of
+heart. She freed slaves in memory of the unfortunate navigator, she sent
+costly offerings to all the temples in Saguntum, she raised on the
+Acropolis a cenotaph in memory of Bomaro, summoning marble-workers from
+Athens for this purpose. By her charities she won consideration,
+bringing this city of sturdy and austere customs to tolerate her bright,
+mirth-loving existence, which was a perpetuation of Athenian manners in
+the midst of Iberic sobriety.
+
+Having passed the period of mourning, she gave suppers in her
+country-house which lasted until dawn. She brought famous auletai from
+Attica who set the Saguntine youths wild with their flutes. She sent
+ships on voyages with no other commercial object than to bring rare
+perfumes from Asia, fabrics from Egypt, and unique adornments from
+Carthage; and her fame extended so far into the interior that kinglets
+from Celtiberia were drawn to Saguntum to behold that wonderful woman,
+as wise as a priestess, and as beautiful as a divinity. The Greeks
+admired her, observing that she strengthened the prestige of their race
+among the primitive Saguntines, who were lavish with eulogy of her
+disinterestedness. Thus she lived! No women entered her house, none but
+flute-players, dancers, and slaves; she was surrounded by men who
+yearned for her, but she held herself aloof, and treated them all with a
+masculine but distant intimacy. She was ever thinking of Athens the
+luminous, the city which held so many memories, and many of whose
+customs she sought to revive.
+
+Euphobias the philosopher, as he reached this point in his story,
+stoutly declared that Sonnica's life in Saguntum was above reproach, in
+spite of what the Greek women of the district of the merchants said. He
+himself, who possessed the bitterest tongue in the city, affirmed it.
+Several times she had been attracted toward some guest at her dinners.
+Alorcus, the scion of a petty king of Celtiberia, who lived in Saguntum
+and frequented her house, had made an impression upon her with his wild,
+virile beauty, as a son of the mountains; but Sonnica held him back,
+plainly fearing to take the step and unite herself with one of a
+barbarous race. The memory of Attica wholly occupied her imagination. If
+some young Athenian had landed on those shores, some youth as beautiful
+as Alcibiades, singing verses, modeling statues, and displaying skill
+and dexterity as in the Olympian games, perhaps she might have fallen
+into his arms, but her emotions were unstirred among the arrogant
+Celtiberians who came to her feasts smelling of horses and with their
+swords girded at their sides, and among the effeminate sons of
+merchants, becurled, and shedding perfumes, caressing their small slave
+boys, who accompanied them even in the bath.
+
+"Athenian," continued the philosopher, "you should present yourself to
+Sonnica. She will receive you kindly. You are not an ephebus," he added,
+with a mocking smile; "your beard is turning gray, but you have in your
+figure the arrogance of a king in the Iliad; upon your forehead
+something of the majesty of Socrates; and who knows but that you may
+fall heir to Bomaro's riches! If that should come to pass, do not forget
+the poor philosopher. I will be content with a skin of wine from
+Laurona, since to-day you condemn me to thirst."
+
+Euphobias laughed, slapping Actaeon on the shoulder.
+
+"I am invited to Sonnica's banquet to-night," said the Greek.
+
+"You, also? Then we shall meet there. I am not invited, but I go with
+the same right as a dog belonging to the house."
+
+The philosopher saw Alcon, the peaceful citizen, who had just come down
+from the Acropolis, pass through the centre of the Forum.
+
+"There is one of the few good men of this city. He extols virtue to me,
+he counsels me to go to work, and to forget philosophy, and on top of
+all that he never fails to give me something to drink; so farewell until
+to-night, stranger."
+
+He hurried toward Alcon who, leaning on his staff, greeted him with a
+kindly smile.
+
+Actaeon, finding himself once more alone wandered through the centre of
+the market. Suddenly he heard a youthful voice calling him. It was
+Rhanto, sitting on the ground among the pitchers which were now empty of
+milk, selling her last cheeses. Near her squatted the young potter. They
+were eating a hard cake with fresh, juicy onions, playfully disputing
+the mouthfuls amid merry laughter. The shepherdess offered Actaeon a
+round cake, and the Greek accepted gratefully. He seemed destined to
+receive his food in Saguntum from feminine hands. Twice since he landed
+he had been succored by women.
+
+Seated between the young people he saw the market gradually become
+deserted. The shepherds drove their flocks toward the Gate of the Sea;
+the Celtiberian chiefs, bearing their women behind them on their horses,
+rode off at a gallop, eager to reach their villages in the mountains;
+and the empty carts rumbled slowly toward the hamlets and towers in the
+Saguntine domain.
+
+Again Actaeon saw the Celtiberian shepherd in the colonnades, moving from
+one group of rustics to another, listening to their conversation. As he
+passed near the Greek he gazed at him with those enigmatic eyes which
+awoke within him shadowy recollections.
+
+All at once the young potter arose and started to run, hiding behind the
+columns around the Forum.
+
+"He has seen his father," said Rhanto quietly. "There is Mopsus coming
+down from the Acropolis."
+
+Actaeon advanced to meet the archer.
+
+"My word has been sufficient to have you received by the Senate. The
+city will soon need good soldiers like yourself. The elders seemed
+somewhat alarmed this morning. They fear Hannibal, that young cub of
+Hamilcar, who now leads the Carthaginians, and who will not calmly brook
+our friendship with the Romans and the execution of his sympathizers in
+Saguntum. Here, take this; it is the advance pay which the Republic
+allows you."
+
+He tendered Actaeon a handful of coins, which the Greek put into his
+pouch. Mopsus then invited him to his house to meet his sons and to
+dine; but the Athenian was obliged to plead his previous invitation to
+Sonnica's banquet.
+
+When the archer had left, Actaeon felt the torment of thirst, and,
+remembering the philosopher's recommendations, he entered the
+establishment of the Roman whose Lauronian wine inspired so much
+enthusiasm in Euphobias. At the counter he changed a victoriatus, and
+was given a boat-shaped terra cotta patera full of black wine crowned
+with iridescent bubbles. Two soldiers were drinking in a corner of the
+tavern--two rough mercenaries with the faces of bandits. One was an
+Iberian, the other with bronzed skin and athletic frame looked like a
+Libyan, and his cheeks, calloused by the helmet and his neck and arms
+furrowed with cicatrices, denoted the professional paid warrior who had
+fought with indifference since childhood, now in the service of one
+nation and now in that of its adversary.
+
+"I am in the service of Saguntum," said the Libyan. "These merchants pay
+better than those of Carthage. But, believe me, although content to live
+in this town, I realize that they have done an unlucky thing in
+displeasing Hannibal. Rome is strong, but Rome is far away, and that
+lion's whelp prowls only a few days journey from here. You ought to have
+known him, to have seen him from boyhood as I have done when I was
+fighting under the orders of his father Hamilcar! He runs like a mare;
+he fights as well on foot as on horseback, he eats what there is to be
+had, or he eats nothing at all; he goes about dressed like a slave; arms
+are his only luxury; he sleeps on the ground, and often, at daybreak,
+his father would find him lying among the sentinels of the camp. He is
+not content to be told about things, he must see everything with his own
+eyes, and mix with the enemy to study their weak points close at hand.
+Often Hasdrubal, his sister's husband, was surprised by seeing an old
+beggar come into his shop, and he would shout with laughter when
+Hannibal pulled off his wig and his rags, under cover of which he had
+been spending hours among the enemy."
+
+Actaeon left the tavern hastily on seeing that Rhanto, after handing her
+pitchers to a slave who loaded them into a cart, was starting on her
+walk toward Sonnica's villa.
+
+"I will go with you, little one. You shall be my guide to your mistress'
+house."
+
+The sun had begun to set. The afternoon light gilded the foliage of the
+domain, giving a transparency of amber to the leaves and vines. Along
+the highway through the champaign sounded the bells of the flock, the
+creaking of carts, and the sonorous songs of the rustics returning from
+the city.
+
+They arrived at Sonnica's villa, which had the aspect of a town. They
+first passed the dwellings of the slaves, where buzzed around the
+doorways a swarm of nude children with prominent abdomens, and with the
+umbilicus protruding like buttons; then the stables, from which floated
+a warm vapor vibrant with lowing and whinnying; the granaries and
+farmhouses; the dwelling of the overseer; the calabooses for rebellious
+slaves, with their breathing-holes on a level with the ground; the
+pigeon-house, a high tower of red brick around which fluttered a cloud
+of white wings amid incessant cooing; the big straw huts which served to
+shelter the hundreds of chickens; and, behind this row of buildings, the
+country-seat, Sonnica's villa, which was discussed with admiration even
+among the most remote tribes of Celtiberia. It was surrounded by
+cypresses and laurels, encircled by walls covered with gnarled grape
+vines, while rising above the great mass of foliage were its
+rose-colored walls with columns and friezes of blue marble and the
+terrace crowned by polychrome statues with enameled eyes shining in the
+sun like precious stones.
+
+Actaeon was silent and preoccupied. Rhanto had been talking to him for
+full half an hour without receiving a reply.
+
+"Look, stranger! All those fields which your eye can see belong to
+Sonnica. See, Greek, how many chickens! Nearly all the eggs used in the
+city come from here."
+
+Actaeon continued oblivious to the objects pointed out by the
+shepherdess; but just as she rang the bell on the garden gate, and was
+answered from within by the barking of dogs and the sharp cries of
+hidden birds, he smote himself nervously on the forehead as if he had
+made a discovery.
+
+"Now I know who he is!" he exclaimed, as if awaking from a dream.
+
+"Who?" asked the young girl in surprise.
+
+"Nobody," he replied with the frigidity of him who fears that he has
+said too much.
+
+In his own mind, however, he was satisfied with the identification.
+Recalling the words of the Libyan mercenary, overheard in the tavern,
+had brought back to his memory that enigmatic figure of the Celtiberian
+shepherd. Suddenly a light was kindled in his thought.
+
+Now he knew who it was! For a good reason had he been impressed from the
+first moment by the glance of that unknown man, by the eyes which never
+change in a countenance despite the passing of years. Often had he seen
+those eyes in his childhood when his father made war in Sicily with
+Hamilcar, and he himself was being educated in Carthage.
+
+That shepherd was Hannibal!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DANCING GIRLS FROM GADES
+
+
+Sonnica awoke two hours after midday. The oblique rays of the sun
+filtered through the gilded bars of her window over which crept the
+foliage of grapevines. Its light heightened the color of the stucco
+frames around scenes from the Olympian games painted on the wall, and of
+the columns of rose-colored marble which flanked the doorway.
+
+The beautiful Greek threw to the floor the covers of white Saetabis
+linen, and her first glance swept her figure, taking in the outlines of
+her body with affectionate eyes, from her swelling bosom curving in
+harmonious lines, to the tips of her rosy feet.
+
+Her heavy hair perfumed and falling in silky curls, hung down over her
+body, enveloping her as in a regal mantle, caressing her from throat to
+knees with a gentle kiss. The old-time courtesan, as she awoke, admired
+her body with the adoration inspired in her by the eulogies of the
+artists of Athens.
+
+She was still young and beautiful; she could still thrill men with
+emotion when, at the end of a banquet, she displayed herself upon the
+table nude as Phryne. Her hands eager for the thrilling touch of her
+beauty, caressed her firm round throat, the pearly globes terminating in
+a soft rose petal, testing their firm elasticity, and the winding
+network of slender blue veins delicately outlined beneath the satiny
+skin, flowing down, down--in line with the strongly incurved waist; the
+rotund hips, the slightly rounded abdomen, like that of a crater, and the
+limbs the harmonious proportions of which had been compared in other
+times to the elephant's trunk by the Asiatic merchants who visited her
+in Athens.
+
+Passion had swept its fiery tongue over her without consuming her; she
+had lived in the midst of its ardor, cold, emotionless, and white, like
+a marble statue in the warmth of the sun. Seeing herself young, still
+beautiful, and with a virginal freshness, she smiled, pleased with
+herself, content with life.
+
+"Odacis! Odacis!"
+
+At the echo of her voice there entered a Celtiberian slave, tall, spare,
+strong, whom the Greek valued highly for the gentleness with which she
+combed her hair.
+
+Supporting herself on the shoulders of the slave, she raised up and
+sprang from the couch to enter the bath.
+
+Her nude form was invested by her hair like a transparent, golden veil.
+As her bare feet pressed the mosaic, which depicted the Judgment of
+Paris, the chill of the tiles with its agreeable shock brought a smile
+to her lips; her laugh deepened the dimples in her cheeks, and the
+reaction caused the curves of her body to quiver with gentle
+undulations.
+
+She descended three steps and threw herself into the jasper piscina
+swinging her arms and splashing the water into tiny pearls. In the green
+pool her body assumed an ideal transparency, the glow of a fantastic
+apparition, and she moved from one side of the tank to the other like a
+siren with pearly back and floating hair.
+
+"Who has come, Odacis?" she asked, lying deep in the bath.
+
+"The women from Gades, who danced last night, have arrived. Polyanthus
+has given them lodgings near the kitchens."
+
+"And who else?"
+
+"A moment ago the stranger from Athens, whom you met this morning at the
+temple of Aphrodite. I have had him go into the library, and I have
+forgotten none of the duties of hospitality. He has just come from the
+bath."
+
+Sonnica smiled, recalling the meeting that morning. She had slept badly.
+She attributed it to the wakeful night spent with friends on the terrace
+of the villa, and to the capricious journey to the port before sunrise;
+but she thought with some confusion of the impression made in her mind
+by the Athenian's figure, which had reappeared several times in her
+dreams. Without knowing why she associated Actaeon's appearance with that
+of Zeus when he came to earth in mortal form in search of human love.
+
+In her moments of tedium in Athens, when she used to submit with
+repugnance to caresses for piles of gold, she experienced the vague
+desire of being loved by a god. She thought of Leda, of Psyche, even of
+the effeminate Ganymede beloved of the guests on Olympus, and she was in
+despair at the impossibility of finding a god who should transport her
+captive through a mysterious forest, or along some roadway leading to
+the unknown. She longed to contemplate her image in the depths of eyes
+animated by the splendor of the infinite; to kiss a mouth which served
+as a portal to supreme wisdom; to feel herself imprisoned in arms
+possessed of the immense strength of omnipotence. She had experienced a
+suggestion of this joy in loving her poet, who was sometimes as majestic
+and sublime as a divine being; but the simplicity of youth prevented her
+appreciation of that joy, and now, in her maturity, she only met men
+like those she had known in Athens, some rude and brutal, others
+effeminate and captious, lacking the severe and sovereign beauty she
+admired in statues.
+
+She left her bath breathing with happy, childlike thrills, while her
+hair scattered a light shower at every step.
+
+Odacis called, and three slaves entered; they were those who assisted at
+their mistress' toilet, the _tractatrices_ in charge of the massage of
+the body.
+
+Sonnica allowed herself to be manipulated by the three women who rubbed
+her vigorously, stretching her limbs to keep them supple and agile. Then
+she seated herself in a marble chair, resting her pink elbows on the
+dolphins which formed the arms of the seat, and in this position, erect
+and motionless, she waited for the slaves to proceed with the toilet.
+
+One who was almost a child, wrapped in a mantle of broad stripes, knelt
+on the floor holding a great engraved bronze mirror in which Sonnica
+gazed at herself down to her thighs. Another arranged the toilet
+articles on the tables, and Odacis began to smooth her mistress'
+splendid hair with ivory combs. Meanwhile, the other slave approached
+with a bronze patera filled with a gray ointment. It was the bean-flour
+used by the Athenians of refinement to preserve the skin firm and
+elastic. She anointed Sonnica's cheeks with this, and then the
+prominent breasts, the abdomen, the thighs, and knees, leaving nearly
+the whole body covered by a lustrous, unctuous coating. Where hair had a
+tendency to grow, she applied dropax, a depilatory paste, composed of
+vinegar and earth from Cyprus.
+
+Sonnica passively assisted these toilet preparations, which made her
+momentarily ugly in order that she might reappear each day more
+beautiful.
+
+Odacis continued combing her hair. She lifted the splendid tresses,
+burying both hands in the brilliant cascade; she gently wound it over
+her arms like an enormous golden serpent; then she shook it out,
+dividing it into small locks to dry it, and then she smoothed it
+lovingly with the ivory combs piled on the table near at hand, veritable
+prodigies of art, with the finest of teeth, their upper parts engraved
+with scenes representing forests, arrogant nymphs in pursuit of stags,
+and malodorous satyrs giving chase to nude beauties. After drying the
+hair the coiffeur proceeded to dye it. With a small, long-necked amphora
+she moistened it with a solution of saffron and gum arabic, and opening
+a little chest of gold dust she sprinkled it over the ample, silky
+skein, which assumed the brilliancy of the sun's rays. Then twisting the
+locks above her forehead around an iron heated over a small brazier, she
+formed tight curls which covered the Greek woman's brow almost to her
+eyes; she gathered the mass of hair at the neck, tying it with a red
+ribbon firmly interbraided, and she curled the crown of the coiffure,
+imitating the spiral flames of a torch.
+
+Sonnica arose. Two of the slaves approached with a heavy earthen
+amphora of milk, and dipping a sponge into it, they washed their
+mistress' body as she stood near the piscina, to remove the bean-paste.
+The glossy whiteness of her skin reappeared more fresh and moist.
+
+Odacis, with silver tweezers in her hand, carefully inspected her
+mistress' body, with the attentive and frowning brow of the artist
+preparing a great work. She had charge of the depilation; her skillful
+hand won praise for its gentleness as it obstinately sought out the
+lightest down, implacably destroying it with her tweezers, in deference
+to the Greek custom of imitating the polished smoothness of the statues.
+
+Sonnica being again seated in her ivory chair, the touching up of the
+face began. On the table near at hand was a formidable array of bottles,
+alabaster vases, pots of bronze and of silver, little caskets of ivory
+and gold, all engraved, brilliant, covered with delicate figures,
+ornamented with precious stones, containing Egyptian and Hebraic
+essences, balsams from Arabia, perfumes and intoxicating cosmetics
+brought by caravans from the heart of Asia to Phoenician ports, and
+thence to Greece or Carthage, bought for Sonnica by the pilots of her
+vessels in their venturesome trading voyages.
+
+Odacis painted her face white, and then, moistening a small wooden style
+with attar of roses, she thrust it into a bronze pot decorated with
+garlands of lotus and filled with a dark powder. It was the kohol, sold
+by Egyptian merchants at a fabulous price. The slave applied the point
+of the style to the Greek's eyelids, dyeing them an intense black, and
+tracing a fine line about the corners, which made them appear larger and
+softer.
+
+The toilet was almost complete. The slaves were opening the innumerable
+bottles and vases arranged in rows upon the marble table, and the
+atmosphere of the room was laden with costly perfumes--spikenard from
+Sicily, incense and myrrh from Judea, aloes from India, and cumin from
+Greece. Odacis took a small glass amphora inlaid with gold, with a
+conical stopper, terminating in a fine point which served to deposit
+antimony above the eyes to brighten them, and, after finishing this
+operation, she presented to her mistress the three ointments for
+imparting color to the skin in different shades--vermilion, carmine, and
+the Egyptian red extracted from the body of the crocodile.
+
+The slave began delicately coloring her mistress' body with a fine
+brush. She produced a pink flush on her cheeks and dainty ears; she
+marked rose petals on her bosom, and she colored her elbows and the
+harmoniously curving relievo of her dimpled sides. Then, with Egyptian
+red, she colored one by one the nails of her fingers and toes, while
+another slave put on her white sandals with papyrus soles and buckles of
+gold. Perfumes were showered upon her, each on a different part of the
+body, so that it might resemble a bouquet of flowers in which various
+aromas were mingled. Odacis presented the jewel-casket, within which
+precious stones lay shimmering like restless and glistening fish. The
+Greek woman's pointed fingers lifted with indifference the heap of
+collars, rings, and pendants, which, like all Grecian jewelry, were more
+valuable on account of the workmanship of the artists than for the
+richness of the material. Scenes from the great poems were reproduced
+almost microscopically in carnelian cameos, onyx, and agate, and the
+emeralds, topazes, and amethysts were decorated with profiles of
+goddesses and heroes.
+
+The slave clasped a necklace of stones of complicated design upon
+Sonnica's uncovered breast; she loaded her fingers to the tips with
+rings, and the whiteness of her arms seemed more diaphanous girdled here
+and there by wide bracelets of gold. To add more expression to the
+countenance, Odacis decorated her mistress with small patches, and then
+she proceeded to bind around her body the fascia, or corset of the
+epoch, a broad woolen band to support the breast. Sonnica, gazing into
+the burnished bronze, smiled at her statue-like reflection, as beautiful
+as Venus in repose.
+
+"Which costume, my mistress?" asked Odacis. "Do you wish the tunic with
+the golden flowers brought from Crete, or the _kalasiris_ veils,
+transparent as air, which you ordered bought in Alexandria?"
+
+Sonnica could not decide. She would choose in the vestiary; and in the
+majesty of her unveiled beauty, her papyrus sandals rustling, she walked
+from her dormitory followed by her slaves.
+
+Meanwhile Actaeon was waiting in the library. He had visited great
+palaces in his travels about the world, he had seen--two years before
+the earthquake which ruined it--the celebrated Colossus of Rhodes; he
+was familiar with the Serapeum and the tomb of the great conqueror in
+Alexandria; he was accustomed to elegance and splendor; yet he could not
+conceal surprise at this Grecian house in a barbarian land, more
+luxurious and artistic than those of opulent citizens of Athens.
+
+Guided by a slave, and leaving the garden with its whispering foliage
+and its cries of exotic birds, he had passed along the colonnade which
+gave entrance to the villa. First the vestibule with its plinth of
+mosaic, on which were painted ferocious black dogs with fiery eyes,
+their fierce and foaming mouths agape, their fangs erect.
+
+Above the door, fastened to a lamp, hung a branch of laurel in honor of
+the tutelary gods of the house. Next to the somewhat gloomy vestibule,
+beneath the open sky, like a lung of the house, was the atrium with its
+four rows of columns supporting the roof and forming an equal number of
+cloisters, upon which opened the doors of the rooms, their three panels
+decorated with large-headed nails.
+
+In the centre of the atrium was the impluvium, a rectangular marble tank
+to catch and hold the waters from the roof. Great terra cotta urns
+covered with flowers stood upon pedestals between the columns; four
+marble tables sustained by winged lions surrounded the impluvium, and
+near it rose a statuette of Love which on festive days threw a spray of
+water.
+
+Actaeon admired the graceful strength of the columns wrought in blue
+marble to match the socles of the galleries, which imparted to the light
+of the atrium a diffused radiance, as if the dwelling were submerged in
+the sea.
+
+Afterward the attendant turned him over to Odacis, the favorite slave,
+and she ushered him into the peristyle, an inner courtyard much larger
+than the atrium, which astonished the Greek with its polychrome
+decoration. The columns were painted red at their bases, and the color
+changed above into blue and gold on the fluting and capitals, and was
+dispersed over the trellis-work covering the porticos. In the unroofed
+part of the peristyle was a deep piscina of transparent water in which
+fish darted like flashes of golden lightning. Around it were marble
+benches supported by Hermae; tables held by dolphins with knotted tails;
+clumps of roses, between the foliage of which peeped white or terra
+cotta statuettes in voluptuous positions, and covering the walls of the
+peristyle, between the doors of the rooms, were great paintings by
+Grecian artists--Orpheus with his heavy lyre, nude and wearing his
+Phrygian cap, surrounded by lions and panthers who listened to his songs
+with humbled heads, stifling their growls; Venus springing from the
+waves; Adonis allowing himself to be cured of his wounds by the Mother
+of Love; and other scenes eulogizing the influence of art and beauty.
+
+Actaeon was conducted to the bath by two young slaves, and as he emerged
+from this he again met Odacis, who bade him enter the library beyond the
+peristyle.
+
+It was a great room paved with mosaic representing the triumph of
+Bacchus. The young god, beautiful as a woman, nude, and crowned with
+vines and roses, was riding on a panther, waving his thyrsus. The
+pictures on the walls illustrated famous passages from the Iliad. The
+more voluminous books were ranged on shelves, and the smaller ones
+formed bundles placed in narrow willow baskets lined with wool.
+
+Actaeon admired the richness of the library, where he counted more than a
+hundred volumes. They represented a veritable fortune. The navigators
+received from Sonnica commissions to bring her whatever notable works
+they found on their voyages, and the booksellers in Athens remitted to
+her famous books of entertainment which enjoyed vogue in their city.
+They were all of papyrus, consisting of strips rolled upon cylinders of
+wood or bone, each end wrought into an artistically carved _umbilicus_.
+The sheets, written only on one side, were impregnated on the other with
+cedar oil to protect them from moths, and the title of the book, the
+name of the author, and the index, gleamed in letters of minium and gold
+on the purple outer wrapping. The copying of these books represented the
+life work of many men, productions to be acquired only at the cost of
+great sums of money, and the Greek, with the respect characteristic of
+his race for art and wisdom, recognized that he was surrounded in the
+silence of the library by the august shades of many great men, and with
+veneration he turned from the Homer in its old, time-worn papyrus, and
+the works of Thales and Pythagoras, to the contemporary poets,
+Theocritus and Callimachus, whose volumes were unrolled, denoting recent
+reading.
+
+Actaeon's ear caught a faint rustling of sandals in the peristyle, and
+the square of pale gold thrown on the floor by the light entering the
+doorway from the courtyard was darkened by a form. It was Sonnica
+arrayed in a gauzy white tunic. The light behind her marked the artistic
+lines of her body in the diaphanous cloud of her garment.
+
+"Welcome, Athenian!" she said, in a studied but harmonious voice. "Those
+who come from over _there_ are ever masters in my house. The banquet
+to-night shall be in your honor, for no one can be king of the feast and
+direct conversation like a son of Athens."
+
+Actaeon, somewhat stirred by the presence of a beautiful woman enveloped
+by intoxicating perfumes, began to speak of her house, of his
+astonishment at its magnificence in that barbarian land, and of the
+admiration which its owner enjoyed in the city. Everyone he met had
+spoken to him of Sonnica the rich!
+
+"Yes, they like me; yet sometimes they censure me; but let us speak of
+you, Actaeon; tell me who you are. Your life must be as interesting as
+that of old Ulysses. Tell me first what new thing there is in Athens."
+
+For a long time the two Greeks maintained an incessant chattering. She
+was eager to know what courtesans triumphed in the Cerameicus and set
+the fashions; merry, unconsciously harking back to the life of old,
+forgetful of her princely opulence in Saguntum, as if she were still in
+the house in the Street of Tripods, and Actaeon one of the poor artists
+who visited her of an afternoon to discuss affairs of the city, in the
+intimacy of comrades. She laughed at the latest witticisms of the idlers
+in the Agora, at the song in vogue the year before, when Actaeon left
+Athens; and with frowning brow and the gravity of a goddess, she
+listened to a detailed relation of the recent changes of fashion and of
+the style of coiffure used by the most celebrated hetaerae.
+
+The curiosity of the exiled Athenian being satisfied, she longed to
+penetrate the adventurous life of her guest, and Actaeon told his story
+simply. Born in Athens, he had been taken to Carthage at twelve years of
+age. His father, in the service of the African republic, fought with
+Hamilcar in Sicily. In a village in the interior the selfsame slave
+attended the son of the Greek mercenary and a lion-cub of Hamilcar, who
+was at that time only four years of age. It was Hannibal. The Athenian
+recalled the blows he had often dealt the savage youngster in exchange
+for bites with which the African surprised him in the midst of their
+games. The revolt of the mercenaries broke out with those horrors which
+gave it the name of "the truceless war," and his father, who had
+remained faithful to Carthage and would not take up arms with his
+companions, was despite his loyalty crucified by the Carthaginian
+populace, who, forgetting his wounds received in the service of the
+Republic, saw in him only a foreigner, a friend of Hamilcar who was
+hated by the partisans of Hanno. The son miraculously escaped these
+red-handed reprisals; and Hamilcar's faithful slave smuggled him aboard
+ship for Athens.
+
+There, under the protection of relatives, he received the education of
+all young Greeks. He won prizes in the Gymnasium, in wrestling, in
+running, and in throwing the discus; he learned to ride unbridled horses
+bareback, balancing himself merely by resting his toe in a groove of the
+lance; to temper the rudeness of this education he was taught to play
+the lyre and to sing verses in diverse styles, and being strong of body
+and mind, he was sent, as were all Athenian youths, to pass his military
+apprenticeship in the garrisons on the frontier.
+
+The monotony of this existence bored him; it was dull, and he loved
+pleasure; the blood of his forefathers, soldiers of fortune all, surged
+through his body; and he ran away from Attica to take charge of a
+fishing fleet in the Euxine Sea. Then he became a navigator, trading on
+land and sea; his caravans threaded Asia, through warlike tribes, and
+among peoples who dwelt in the lethargy of a remote and decadent
+civilization. He was a powerful personage in the court of some tyrants
+who admired him on seeing him drink at a gulp an amphora of perfumed
+wine, and overcome the giants of the guard in a boxing match with the
+agile dexterity of a true Athenian; and, loaded with riches, he built a
+palace in Rhodes near the sea, and he gave banquets which lasted three
+days and nights. The earthquake which flung down the Colossus, also
+destroyed his fortune; his ships were sunk, his warehouses full of
+merchandise disappeared beneath the waves, and he began again his
+pilgrimage roundabout the world; in some places he was a singing master,
+in others a military instructor of the young men, until, attracted by
+the Spartan war, he enlisted in the army of Cleomenes, the last Greek
+hero, accompanying him at the moment in which, vanquished, he embarked
+for Alexandria. Poor, disappointed, convinced that riches would never
+return to him, saddened at seeing the whole world filled with the names
+of Carthage and Rome, while that of Greece was sinking into oblivion, he
+had come to take final refuge in Saguntum, the small and almost unknown
+Republic, in search of bread and of peace. Perhaps, in this retired
+spot, if war did not disturb its calm, he would write the history of his
+adventures.
+
+Sonnica followed his narrative with interest, fixing upon Actaeon a
+glance of sympathy.
+
+"And you, who have been a hero and a potentate, have come to serve this
+city as a simple mercenary?"
+
+"Mopsus the archer has promised to give me a post of distinction among
+his troops."
+
+"That is not enough, Actaeon. You would have to live like the other
+soldiers, spending your life in the Forum taverns, and sleeping on the
+steps of the Temple of Hercules. No! here is your home! Sonnica will
+protect you!"
+
+In her sparkling eyes, enlarged by the dark circle traced about them,
+shone an almost maternal love and sympathy.
+
+The Athenian gazed at her with admiration as she sat erect in her chair
+like a white cloud in the dimly illuminated library, which, like all
+Grecian rooms, received no other light than that entering through the
+doorway.
+
+"Let us go into the garden, Actaeon. The afternoon is delicious, and we
+can imagine ourselves for a moment in the groves of the Academy."
+
+They went out of the house and strolled along a winding avenue bordered
+by tall laurels, above which peeped the tops of banana trees, irrigated
+with wine to accelerate their growth. On the terrace two peacocks hailed
+them with strident calls, strutting along the balustrade and spreading
+their majestic tails.
+
+Actaeon, on beholding his beautiful protectress in the light of the sun,
+felt a thrill of desire rush through his body. She wore as her only
+covering a Grecian chiton, an open tunic, fastened with metal clasps
+over the shoulders, and secured around the waist by a golden girdle. The
+arms emerged bare from the white wrapping, and the left side of the
+tunic, closed from the armpit to the knee by small brooches, half opened
+at each step, revealing her pearly nudity. The material was so delicate
+that its transparency displayed the outlines of her rosy body, which
+seemed to float in a veil of woven foam.
+
+"Does my dress astonish you, Actaeon?"
+
+"No; I admire you. You seem to me Aphrodite surging from the waves. It
+is a long time since I have seen the women of Athens disclosing their
+divine beauty. I am corrupted by my travels, through the rude customs of
+the barbarians."
+
+"It may happen so. As Herodotus says, nearly all who are not Greeks
+consider it opprobrious to appear nude.--If you only knew how
+scandalized the people of this city were in the beginning at my Athenian
+customs!--as if there existed anything more beautiful in the world than
+the human form!--as if the nude were not the supreme beauty! I adore
+Phryne, astonishing with her nude body the old men of the Areopagus;
+making the thousands of pilgrims gathered on the Eleusinian strand shout
+with enthusiasm when they saw her white form surge from among the veils,
+like the moon from behind the clouds. I believe in the promise of her
+bosom more than in the power of the gods."
+
+"Do you doubt the gods?" asked Actaeon, with his fine Athenian smile.
+
+"The same as do you and all those from _there_. The gods now serve only
+as themes for artists, and if they are tolerated in old Homer, it is
+because he was skilled in celebrating their quarrels in graceful verse.
+No; I do not believe in them; they are as simple and credulous as
+children, but I love them because they are sane and beautiful."
+
+"In what do you believe, then, Sonnica?"
+
+"I do not know--in something mysterious that surrounds us and animates
+life; I believe in beauty and love."
+
+She was silent a moment, standing in a pensive attitude; then she
+continued:
+
+"I hate the barbarians, not because they have no treasures of art, but
+for the odium they cast on love, which they enchain with all manner of
+laws and restrictions. They are hypocritical and deformed; they make
+reproduction a crime, and they hate the nude, hiding the body with all
+kinds of rags, as if it were an abominable spectacle--when carnal love,
+the meeting of two bodies, is the sublime love through which we are
+born, and without which the fount of existence would dry
+up--extinguishing the world."
+
+"That is why we are great," said Actaeon with gravity. "On this account
+our arts fill the earth, and all bow before the moral grandeur of
+Greece. We are the people that has known how to honor life making a cult
+of its origin; we satisfy the impulses of love without hypocrisy, and
+because of this we understand better than others the needs of the
+spirit. Intelligence wings more truly when it does not feel the weight
+of the body tormented by pudicity. We love and study; our gods go naked,
+with no other adornment than the ray of immortal light upon the
+forehead. They do not demand blood, like those barbarian divinities
+enwrapped in clothing which only leaves uncovered their frowning
+assassin faces; they are as beautiful as human beings, they laugh like
+them, and their peals of merriment wafted around Olympus gladden the
+earth."
+
+"Love is the most virtuous sentiment; from it emanates all greatness.
+Only the barbarians calumniate it, hiding it as a dishonest thing."
+
+"I know a people," said Actaeon, "among whom love, the divine fusion of
+bodies, is looked upon as an impurity. Israel is an amalgamation of
+miserable tribes, occupying an arid region surrounding a temple of
+barbaric construction, copied from all peoples. They are hypocrites,
+rapacious and cruel; on this account they abominate love. If such a
+people were to attain universal influence like Greece, if it should
+dominate the world, imposing its beliefs, the eternal light which shines
+on the Parthenon would go out; humanity would grope in darkness, with
+the heart dry and the thought dead; the world would be a necropolis, all
+would be moving corpses, and centuries and more centuries would pass
+before man would again find the road, coming back to our smiling gods,
+to the cult of beauty that gladdens life."
+
+Sonnica, listening to the Greek, approached the tall rose bushes and
+began to pluck the flowers, smelling them with delight. She imagined
+herself in Athens, in the garden on the Street of Tripods, listening to
+her poet who had initiated her into the sweet mysteries of art and love.
+And she gazed sweetly at Actaeon, with frank and sincere passion, with
+the submission of a slave, saying "I love you" with her eyes, as if only
+awaiting a word to fall into his arms.
+
+The breeze lightly stirred the whole garden. Bits of purple sky inflamed
+by the setting sun could be seen through the foliage. A mysterious
+penumbra began to form beneath the trees. The sounds from the fields,
+the stirring of the people outside the villa in the houses of the
+slaves, and even the cries of the exotic birds on the terrace seemed to
+come from a distant world.
+
+Between two clumps of rose bushes stood an image of Priapos carved from
+the trunk of a tree. The rustic god was smiling with a lewd expression,
+arching his hairy breast and thrusting his abdomen forward.
+
+Sonnica smiled on seeing the Athenian looking at him.
+
+"You know that it is an ancient custom to place the gardens under the
+protection of Priapos," said Sonnica. "They say that he frightens away
+thieves. My slaves believe it firmly, and I keep the god as a symbol of
+life in the midst of these roses, which are as beautiful as those of
+Paestum. The allurements of Priapos complete the sweet charm of abounding
+Nature."
+
+The two Greeks walked on in silence, with slow step, along an avenue of
+slender cypresses at the end of which opened a grotto, its rocky walls
+draped with ivy, allowing a greenish, diffused light to filter through
+its openings. A white cupid spilled from a shell a stream of water like
+tender falling tear-drops, caught in an alabaster basin. There the
+luxurious Sonnica spent the warmer part of the day.
+
+Actaeon was conscious of a soft, warm touch upon his shoulder.
+
+"Sonnica!"
+
+Caressing her around her gold-encircled waist, her white and satiny arms
+knotted themselves responsive about his neck like ivory serpents; her
+head fell upon the shoulder of the Greek, who, looking down, saw fixed
+upon him a pair of violet eyes moist with ecstatic emotion.
+
+"You are Athens come back to me!" She murmured sweetly, with bated
+breath. "When I met you this morning on the steps of Aphrodite's temple
+I thought you must be Apollo descended to earth. I felt the Olympian
+fire, impossible to resist. Long have I scorned love, but at last the
+little god is avenged, and--and--I love you!"
+
+Like a soft glow the beauty of the Greek shone in the twilight of the
+grotto.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nine guests were bidden to Sonnica's banquet, and as night closed in
+they came, some in chariots, others mounted on gaily caparisoned horses,
+passing between rows of slaves holding lighted torches.
+
+When Sonnica and Actaeon entered the festal hall, the guests stood in
+groups near the purple couches arranged about the curving table, the
+marble top of which some slaves were washing with sponges and perfumed
+water. Four enormous bronze lampadaries occupied the corners of the
+triclinium. From their brackets were suspended numberless little jars of
+perfumed oil, in which floated wicks, shedding a rich light. Garlands of
+roses and foliage hung from lamp to lamp, constituting a fragrant border
+for the banquet hall. Near a door leading to the peristyle stood carved
+wooden tables piled with gold and silver dishes and the keen-edged
+carving knives for the use of the slaves.
+
+Alorcus the Celtiberian stood talking with Lachares and three of those
+young Greeks who so scandalized the Saguntines in the Forum by their
+effeminate ways. The arrogant barbarian, according to the custom of his
+race, wore his sword belted to his waist until the banquet began, when
+he hung it upon the ivory _anaclintron_ of the couch that he might have
+it ever within reach of his hand.
+
+At the other extreme of the table two citizens of advanced age, and
+Alcon the pacific Saguntine, with whom Actaeon had spoken that morning on
+the esplanade of the Acropolis, were carrying on a quiet conversation.
+
+The two old men were long-time friends of the house, Greek merchants
+whom Sonnica had taken as partners in business, and whom she invited to
+her nocturnal feasts, appreciating the dignified air which they added to
+these occasions.
+
+As the devoted pair entered the banquet chamber the guests divined their
+felicity in Sonnica's tender, shining eyes, and in the abandon with
+which she inclined toward Actaeon her blonde head, crowned with roses and
+violets.
+
+"At last we have a master," murmured Lachares with a tone of jealousy.
+
+"He has been more fortunate than we," replied the Celtiberian
+resignedly. "But he is an Athenian, and I can understand that Sonnica,
+the cold hearted, should have surrendered to one of her own people."
+
+Actaeon, being presented to the guests, moved about the hall with the
+self-possession of a potentate enjoying his riches, like a man
+accustomed to princely splendors--he whom a stroke of fortune had
+suddenly lifted out of poverty to his old-time condition.
+
+At a signal from Sonnica the guests reclined upon the purple couches
+which surrounded the table, and four young girls entered the hall
+bearing on their heads, with the slender grace of canephorae, little
+willow baskets filled with rose-crowns. They walked with airy ease, as
+if gliding over the mosaic to the sound of invisible flutes, and with
+their delicate girlish hands they crowned the guests with flowers.
+
+Suddenly the steward appeared with an irritated countenance.
+
+"Mistress, Euphobias the parasite is trying to enter."
+
+The guests burst into cries and protests on hearing this.
+
+"Throw him out, Sonnica! He will make us miserable!" shouted the young
+men, recalling with anger his jeers in the Forum at their dress and
+manners.
+
+"It is a shame for the city to tolerate that insolent beggar," said the
+grave citizens.
+
+Sonnica smiled, then suddenly recalling a cruel epigram which the
+parasite had dedicated to her, and had recited in the Forum a few days
+before, she said frigidly to the steward:
+
+"Drive him away with a club."
+
+The guests bathed their hands at a lavabo of perfumed water which a
+slave passed from couch to couch, and Sonnica had given the order to
+commence the banquet when the steward returned with a rough-knobbed club
+clutched in his hand.
+
+"I have beaten him, mistress, but he will not go. He suffers the blows,
+but after each one he works his way a little farther into the house."
+
+"And what does he say?"
+
+"He says that one of Sonnica's feasts is impossible without the presence
+of Euphobias, and that the blows are a sign of appreciation."
+
+The woman displayed compassion; the guests laughed; and Sonnica gave the
+order to admit the philosopher, but before the steward had left the
+room to comply with her command Euphobias had already entered the hall,
+cringing, humble, but looking at the assembled company with insolent
+eyes.
+
+"The gods be with you! May joy ever attend you, beautiful Sonnica!"
+
+Turning to the steward he said loftily:
+
+"Brother, now that you see that I get in anyhow, try to wield a less
+heavy hand in future."
+
+Accompanied by the laughter of the guests he rubbed his forehead on
+which a lump had begun to rise, and with a corner of his time-worn
+mantle he wiped off a few drops of blood close to one ear.
+
+"Greeting, lousy one!" the gallant Lachares called to him.
+
+"Away from us!" shouted the other youths.
+
+But Euphobias paid no attention. He smiled at Actaeon, seeing him
+reclining near Sonnica, and his eyes shone with a malicious expression.
+
+"You have arrived where I thought you would. You will master these
+effeminate creatures who surround Sonnica and who heap insults upon me."
+
+Paying no heed to the mocking retorts of the young gallants he added
+with a servile smile:
+
+"I trust you will not forget your old friend Euphobias. Now you can set
+him up to all the wine he wishes in the taverns of the Forum."
+
+The philosopher took the couch at the farther end of the table, and he
+refused the crown offered him by the slave.
+
+"I have not come for flowers; I have come to eat. I can find plenty of
+roses merely by taking a stroll in the country; but what I do not find
+in Saguntum is a crust of bread for a philosopher."
+
+"Are you hungry?" asked Sonnica.
+
+"I am more thirsty than hungry. I have spent the whole day talking in
+the Forum; they all listened to me, but it never occurred to any one to
+refresh my throat."
+
+According to the Grecian custom an _arbiter bibendi_ must be chosen, a
+guest of honor who should propose the toasts, announce the moment for
+drinking, and direct the conversation.
+
+"Let us choose Euphobias," said Alorcus, with the grave humor of a
+Celtiberian.
+
+"No!" protested Sonnica. "One night we put him in charge of the banquet
+for a joke, and we were all drunk before the third course. He proposed a
+potation at every mouthful."
+
+"Why choose a king?" said the philosopher. "We already have one at
+Sonnica's side. Let it be the Athenian!"
+
+"Yes, let it be he," said the elegant Lachares, "and may he not allow
+you to speak during the whole night, insolent parasite!"
+
+In the centre of the table stood a broad bronze crater, over the edges
+of which peeped a group of nymphs looking at themselves in the oval lake
+of wine. Each guest had a slave at his back to serve him, and they
+dipped wine from the crater to fill the glasses of the guests for the
+first libation. They were murrhine cups, brought from Asia at a great
+price, of mysterious fabrication, into which entered the dust of certain
+shells, and myrrh, hardened and tinted. They were white and opaque, like
+ivory, holding pieces of colored glass embedded, and their mysterious
+composition gave a voluptuous fragrance to the wine.
+
+Actaeon raised himself in his couch to propose the first toast in honor
+of the chosen divinity.
+
+"Drink to Diana, Athenian," spoke the grave voice of Alcon; "drink to
+the Saguntine goddess!"
+
+But in the hand which remained free the Athenian felt another, delicate
+and beringed, clasping it with a warm caress, so he dedicated his
+libation to Aphrodite, and the young men greeted it with shouts of
+enthusiasm. Aphrodite was to be the goddess for that night! While the
+young men thought of the dancers from Gades, the great attraction of the
+banquet, Sonnica and Actaeon, their elbows resting on the cushions,
+caressed each other with their eyes, while they leaned shoulder to
+shoulder, close to the edge of the table.
+
+Strong slaves, perspiring from standing over the fires in the kitchens,
+set upon the table the food for the first course, served in great plates
+of red Saguntine terra cotta. There were shellfish raw and broiled, all
+highly spiced. Fresh oysters, mussels, enchinoderms dressed with parsley
+and mint, asparagus, peppers, lettuce, peacock eggs, tripe seasoned with
+cumin and vinegar, and fried birds swimming in a sauce of grated cheese,
+oil, vinegar, and silphium. There was also served _oxygarum_ made in the
+fisheries of New Carthage--a paste of tunny milt, loaded with salt and
+vinegar, which excited the palate, stimulating one to drink wine.
+
+The aroma from these dishes floated through the festal hall.
+
+"Talk not to me about the nest of the phoenix!" said Euphobias with
+his mouth full. "According to the poets, the phoenix bestrews its
+nest with incense, bay, and cinnamon, but I swear by the gods that I
+would rather be in Sonnica's triclinium than in that nest!"
+
+"Which does not prevent your dedicating insulting verses to me, you
+rascal," said the Greek woman, smiling.
+
+"Because I am fond of you, and I protest against your follies. By day I
+am a philosopher; but at night my stomach compels me to come to you, so
+that your menials may beat me, and that you may give me something to
+eat."
+
+The slaves removed the plates of the first course, and brought on the
+second which consisted of fish and meat. A small roasted wild boar
+occupied the centre of the table; great pheasants with their plumage
+laid as a covering upon their cooked flesh, were displayed on plates
+surrounded by hard-boiled eggs and fragrant herbs; thrushes spitted upon
+reeds were arranged in form of crowns; hares, on being carved, displayed
+a stuffing of rosemary and thyme; and wild doves were brought on with
+quails and thrushes. There were innumerable dishes of fish, reminding
+the Greeks of the viands of their native land, and between mouthfuls
+they discussed the glauci from Megara, the eels from Scione, and breams
+and xiphiae from the coasts of Phalerum and from the Hellespont.
+
+Each guest chose his favorite food from among the different dishes, and
+regaled his friends with it, presents being carried by slaves from one
+end of the table to the other. More wines, in sealed and dusty amphorae,
+were brought up from the cellars, and overflowed the festal goblets.
+Wine from Chios, rare and costly, mingled with those from Caecubum, from
+Falerno, and from Massico, in Italy, and those from Laurona and from the
+Saguntine domain. To the bouquet of these liquids was added the aroma of
+the sauces, into which entered, following the complicated recipes of the
+Grecian cuisine, silphium, parsley, sesame, fennel, cumin, and garlic.
+
+Sonnica barely touched her food; she neglected the successive plates,
+heaped with presents from her guests, to smile at Actaeon.
+
+"I love you," she whispered. "I feel as if a Thessalian magus had cast a
+spell over me. My whole being responds to the throb of love. Do you see
+these fishes? I am afraid to eat them; I feel that I would be committing
+a sacrilege, because roses and fishes are dedicated to Venus, the mother
+of our joy. I only wish to drink--to drink profoundly. I feel within me
+a fire which caresses, yet consumes me."
+
+The guests gormandized, rendering tribute to Sonnica's cook, an Asiatic,
+purchased in Athens by one of her navigators. He had cost her almost the
+price of a villa; but they considered the money well spent, and they
+admired the art with which his meditations in a corner of the kitchen
+produced these astonishing combinations, afterward executed by the other
+slaves--above all that happy invention of a mild sauce of dates and
+honey for the roasts. With such a slave it were possible to enjoy one's
+food throughout the whole of life and to ward off death for many years.
+
+The second course had ended. The guests were lying surfeited on their
+couches, loosening their garments. The slaves served them with wine in
+horn-shaped flagons of alabaster, which permitted a slender stream to
+gurgle from its spout, so that they need not lift themselves to drink.
+The purple drapery of the couches was stained with wine. The great
+lampadaries in the corners, with their tapers of perfumed oil, seemed to
+glow more faintly in the dense atmosphere charged with vapor from the
+steaming viands. The garlands of roses hanging in festoons from the
+lamps wilted in the heavy atmosphere. Through the open door the guests
+caught glimpses of the columns of the peristyle, and of a strip of dark
+blue sky in which twinkled many stars.
+
+The pacific Alcon rising up in his couch, smiled with the amiability of
+mild intoxication, gazing at the splendor of the firmament.
+
+"I drink to the beauty of our city!" he said, raising the horn filled
+with wine.
+
+"To the Grecian Zacynthus!" shouted Lachares.
+
+"Yes, let Saguntum be Greek!" answered his friends.
+
+The conversation turned upon the great festival which, at Sonnica's
+initiative, the Greeks of Saguntum would celebrate in honor of Minerva
+on gathering the harvest. The Panathenaic festivals should end with a
+procession like that which took place in Athens, and which Phidias had
+immortalized in marble in his famous friezes. The young men spoke with
+enthusiasm of the horses they would ride, and of the contests for which
+they were training by persistent exercise. Sonnica patronized the
+festivals with her immense wealth, and she wished to make these as
+famous as that one which Athens celebrated on the dedication of the
+Parthenon.
+
+The Saguntine youths would race outside the walls in the morning to
+demonstrate that they were as clever as the Celtiberian horsemen; the
+more pacific would contest in the Forum, lyre in hand, to win the crown
+offered to the one who should hymn the poems of Homer most creditably;
+afterward the procession would reveal all its magnificence through the
+streets of the city, climbing up to the Acropolis; and in the afternoon
+the race of the flaming torch would take place to divert the people, who
+would hiss at him who let his torch go out, and would whip up him who
+traveled slowly to protect the flame.
+
+"But do you really believe in Minerva?" Euphobias asked of Sonnica.
+
+"I believe in what I see," she replied. "I believe in spring, in the
+resurrection of the verdant fields, in the grain which springs from the
+ground to nourish man from its golden bearded heads; the flowers, which
+are the incense-bearers of the earth; and, above all the goddesses, I
+love Athene for the wisdom with which she endows man and makes him
+divine, and I love Minerva for her bounty which maintains them."
+
+The slaves laid the third course on the table, and the guests,
+half-inebriated, raised themselves in their couches to look at the
+little baskets of fruit, the plates covered with pastry toasted over the
+fire in the Cappadocian style; buns made of sesame flour, filled with
+honey, and browned in the oven; and cakes of cheese stuffed with stewed
+fruits.
+
+Small amphorae containing the choicest wines, brought from the uttermost
+ends of the world by Sonnica's ships, were uncorked. Wine from Byblus in
+Phoenicia saturated the atmosphere with a fragrance as penetrating as
+bottles of perfume; that from Lesbos which on being poured gave forth a
+ravishing odor of roses, and, in addition to these, cups were filled
+with cordials from Erythrea and Heraclea, strong and spiritous, and
+those from Rhodes and Chios, prudently mixed with sea-water to aid the
+digestion.
+
+Some slaves, to excite again the appetite of the guests, and to make
+them drink, offered plates of locusts cured in brine; radishes with
+vinegar and mustard, toasted garbanzos, and olives, prized for their
+size and flavor, swimming in a piquant sauce.
+
+Actaeon could eat nothing, diverted by Sonnica, who, leaving her
+_epiclintron_, pressed against him, rubbing her cheek upon the
+Athenian's with mingling breath. Thus they remained in silence, each
+watching the image reflected from the pupils of the other.
+
+"Let me kiss you on the eyes," murmured Sonnica, "they are the windows
+of the soul, and I imagine that through them my caress will penetrate to
+the depths of your being."
+
+The arrogant Alorcus, grave as all Celtiberians when intoxicated, spoke
+of the coming festival as he gazed into his empty cup. He had five
+horses in the city, the finest his tribe could furnish, and if the
+magistrates would allow him to take part in the rejoicings, despite his
+being a foreigner, the Saguntines would have a chance to admire the
+strength and swiftness of his beautiful coursers. The crown should fall
+to him, unless some unexpected event summoned him from the city.
+
+Lachares and his elegant friends proposed to contest for the prize in
+singing, and their effeminate hands, slender and beringed, moved
+nervously over the table as if already thrumming the lyre, while their
+painted lips sang Homeric verses in subdued tones. Euphobias, lying on
+his back on his couch, gazed aloft with dreamy eyes, with no other
+earthly desire than to reach forth his glass and call for wine; but
+Alcon and the Greek merchants became impatient at the slowness of the
+banquet.
+
+"The dancers! Let the daughters from Gades come!" they called with
+tremulous voices, the fiery spark of intoxication glowing in their eyes.
+
+"Yes; let the dancing girls come!" cried Euphobias rousing from his
+stupor. "I want to see how this honorable people disturbs its digestion,
+which is the best gift to man, by the lewd steps of the daughters of
+Hercules."
+
+Sonnica made a sign to her steward, and in a moment the joyous sound of
+flutes was heard in the peristyle.
+
+"The auletai!" shouted the guests.
+
+Four slender girls, violet-crowned, marched into the triclinium, wearing
+a chiton open from waist to ankle, displaying the left leg at every
+step, holding to their mouths the double aulos, their agile fingers
+playing over the holes of the instrument.
+
+Standing in the space enclosed by the curve of the table, they began a
+sweet melopoeia, which caused the guests to sit up in their couches
+and to smile placidly. Most of them recognized the flute players as old
+acquaintances, and swinging their heads in time with the music, they
+watched with avid eyes the outlines of their bodies which swayed
+rhythmically from the movement of their dancing feet.
+
+Several times the flutists changed the tune and measure, but at the end
+of an hour the guests became bored.
+
+"We are used to all this," protested Lachares; "they are the same
+flutists who always play at your banquets, Sonnica. Since you have
+fallen in love you forget your friends. Give us something else! Let us
+see the dancers!"
+
+"Yes, let the dancing girls come!" chorused the young men.
+
+"Have patience," said the Greek woman, lifting her head for an instant
+from Actaeon's breast; "the dancers will appear, but not until the end of
+the banquet when I am overcome with sleep. I know you well, and I can
+guess what the finish of the feast will be. First I wish you to see a
+little slave who has learned from the Grecian mariners tricks like those
+of celebrated Athenian performers."
+
+Before the slave entered, the guests turned in alarm toward the farther
+end of the table. A beast-like growling arose from beneath it. Euphobias
+had fallen from his couch, and with his head on the mosaic was
+disgorging his dinner, accompanied by a stream of wine.
+
+"Give him laurel leaves!" called the prudent Alcon. "There is nothing
+better to dissipate drunkenness."
+
+The slaves compelled him almost by force to chew the leaves, paying no
+attention to the philosopher's protests.
+
+"I am not drunk," shouted Euphobias. "It is the hunger which persecutes
+me. Most of the time I can find no bread, and when I am so fortunate as
+to sit at a table like Sonnica's, the food which I eat escapes me."
+
+"Say rather the wine which you drink escapes you," replied Sonnica,
+resting her head again on Actaeon's breast.
+
+The contortionist had reappeared before the table, and had greeted her
+mistress by touching her hands to her face. She was a girl of about
+fourteen, with yellowish skin, wearing a pair of red trunks. Her nervous
+and agile limbs, and her lean, undeveloped chest, made her look like a
+boy. The elder guests smiled, stirred by her fresh and almost masculine
+beauty.
+
+She uttered a shout, and doubling over with elastic vigor stood on her
+hands, and with feet in the air and her head almost touching the floor,
+she began to run swiftly about the triclinium. Then, with a powerful
+spring of her arms, she leaped upon the table, and trotted on her hands
+among the confusion of plates, amphorae, and cups, without upsetting
+them.
+
+The guests applauded with enthusiasm. The two Greek merchants offered
+her their goblets, pinching her cheeks while she drank, and passing
+their hands caressingly over her back.
+
+"Lachares," said the philosopher to his aristocratic enemy, "why have
+you and your companions not brought your beautiful slave boys who serve
+you as supports in the Forum?"
+
+"Sonnica will not allow it," replied the young gallant, pleased at the
+question, not suspecting the irony in Euphobias' words. "She is a
+superior woman, but this is the only one of the refined customs of
+Athens which she declines to tolerate. She believes in Jupiter and Leda;
+but she spits upon the beautiful Ganymede. She is not a full-fledged
+Athenian."
+
+A double row of broad, sharp swords was placed along the floor by a
+group of slaves, so that the contortionist might show her greatest feat.
+The flutists began to play a slow, solemn melody, and the contortionist,
+again standing head downward, began to walk between the swords without
+disturbing them or touching their sharp edges. The guests, cup in hand,
+followed her course anxiously through the forest of keen steel blades,
+which at her slightest wavering would penetrate her body. She paused
+near a sword, extended one arm, and sustaining herself on a single hand
+she bent the elbow until she kissed the floor; then she stiffened the
+muscles, raising herself back to her first position, and throughout this
+whole maneuvre the cutting edge grazed her breast without even abrading
+the skin.
+
+When the girl finished her act the guests applauded vigorously. The two
+old men flung their tunics around her, while her malicious, boyish face
+peeped forth and sniffed the foods and sweetmeats.
+
+"But, Sonnica," protested Lachares, "when did the beautiful Greek ever
+forget her friends like this? Athenian, you have maddened her with your
+love; now intercede for us, and ask that the daughters of Gades present
+themselves quickly!"
+
+Sonnica appeared to be sleeping upon Actaeon's breast, spellbound by his
+close, warm, throbbing heart.
+
+"Bid them enter----let my guests do what they wish----only leave us in
+peace!"
+
+Footsteps, giggling, and whispering were heard in the peristyle, and the
+Gaditanian dancers entered the triclinium, crowding each other like a
+stampeding flock.
+
+They were girls of small stature, with supple, agile limbs; their skin a
+pale amber, their eyes large and luminous; their hair black; their
+bodies floating in vapory veils, alluring and deceptive in their
+semi-transparency. They wore on their breasts and on their arms and
+ankles strands of coins and amulets which rung with merry tinkle at the
+slightest movement, and they stared boldly at the guests like a flock
+accustomed to such feasts, who traveled from banquet to banquet, seeing
+men only in their hours of intoxication.
+
+The ruler of the band, a wrinkled, parchment-faced old man with an
+insolent stare, was dressed like them in feminine veils, his cheeks
+painted, his eyes encircled with black, having great hoops in his ears,
+and a cynical leer on his vermilion lips, ready for trade in the most
+infamous traffic.
+
+Euphobias, indifferent to the charms of the dancing girls, looked at him
+with amazement, wondering to what sex belonged those skeleton arms
+peeping from beneath the veils, painted white, and weighted down with
+jewels.
+
+"Brother, are you a man or a woman?" the philosopher gravely enquired.
+
+"I am the father of all these flowers," replied the eunuch with a
+squeaking voice, showing as he smiled his repulsive, toothless gums.
+
+Three of the women, squatting on the floor, began to fillip their
+castanets with lively clacking, while another beat with her hands on a
+globe-bottomed timbrel tucked under her left arm.
+
+The eunuch rapped on the floor with his staff, and instantly four pairs
+of dancers whisked into the centre of the triclinium, and began to swing
+to the sound of clamorous barbaric music played by their companions.
+They danced with stately step, holding themselves majestically erect,
+spreading their arms as if swimming in space, their brown bodies
+wheeling in slow spirals, seeming to float on the waves of transparent
+foam which enwrapped them. Gradually their movements accelerated; they
+gracefully extended their bodies, elevating their firm chests, outlining
+their contours among the veils--contortions in which the trunk revolved
+on the hips, a whirl of forms enclosed in white and floating drapery,
+which as it flew into a thousand folds with voluptuous undulations,
+fanned up the flames of the lamps.
+
+Suddenly, at a signal from the old crone, the music stopped, and the
+dancing ceased.
+
+"More! More!" shouted the guests, sitting up in their couches with
+excitement.
+
+It was merely a halt to change the time and to evoke applause by taking
+a brief rest. The music assumed a gay and noisy rhythm; the old eunuch
+marked time on the floor with the beating staff; he uttered a prolonged
+lament, sad, yet with a mild sweetness, which did not seem to come from
+his infected mouth; and then followed slow dreamy strophes of love with
+words of double meanings, which acted like aphrodisiacs, and were
+greeted with a roar of enthusiasm.
+
+The dancers sprang into the centre of the triclinium, whirling swiftly,
+as if possessed of a fever. Each song served as a lash further to excite
+their nerves, and their bare feet tripped over the mosaic like
+snow-white birds, or rose in gentle flight, trailing clouds of gauze,
+displaying well modeled limbs with tinkling ornaments which scattered
+silvery tones. Their gently curving abdomens seemed to assume a separate
+existence, moving like restless animals over their bodies which they
+held in sacerdotal rigidity, contracting in circular waves, forming a
+whirlpool of voluptuous undulations, of which the umbilicus was the rosy
+centre. They accompanied the dance with incessant snapping of fingers.
+Gathering the gauzy draperies beneath their arms and adjusting them
+around their hips, they moved their amphoral curves with seductive
+rhythm, sighing langourously, with bowed heads, as if enchanted by the
+contemplation of their own beauty. Suddenly the music grew fainter, as
+if drawing away, and the dancers, their feet together and limbs half
+opened, descended in a slow spiral, with gentle undulations, until they
+touched the floor; the instant their callipygian charms grazed the
+mosaic, they recoiled like suddenly awakened serpents, and the castanets
+clacked and the timbrel beat louder, accompanied by the howls of the
+musicians who animated them with lascivious words and exclamations of
+supreme abandon.
+
+The guests, red with emotion, their eyes sparkling and their mouths dry,
+had rushed into the centre of the triclinium, interrupting the dance,
+mixing with the couples and grasping them. Euphobias lay snoring at the
+foot of his couch. Sonnica had disappeared long before, leaving the
+triclinium, supported by a slave without lifting her head from Actaeon's
+shoulder.
+
+The veils of the dancing girls fell to the foot of the table; they
+devoured the sweetmeats and fruits, they drank from the amphorae, plunged
+their heads into the crater of the nymphs, and laughed on seeing their
+faces bespattered with wine. The eunuch continued singing and pounding
+furiously on the floor to mark the rhythm for his musicians. In vain!
+The girls who tried to dance could not escape from the hands of the
+guests, who at every turn slapped them on their buttocks and tore off
+their veils. The young men rolled at the foot of the lamps, maddened by
+these bacchantes wise in perversion, reared in a port to which
+navigators brought both the refinements and the corruptions of the
+entire world. Alorcus the Celtiberian, brutalized by his enthusiasm,
+walked around the triclinium making a display of his strength by
+sustaining in his sinewy hands two dancing girls, who screamed with
+fright, while outside could be noted in the darkness of the peristyle
+the movement of the slaves, men and women, from the kitchens, creeping
+near to enjoy from without the spectacle of the bacchanal.
+
+It was not yet dawn when Actaeon awoke, wondering, no doubt, at the soft
+couch and at the perfumes of the dormitory. Sonnica was lying beside
+him, and by the light of a lamp hanging near the door he could see a
+smile of felicity flitting over her lips.
+
+After the intoxication of the night the Athenian felt a vehement desire
+to breathe the fresh, open air. He was stifling where he was, in
+Sonnica's room, sunk down in the couch that seemed to burn with the fire
+of their recent passion, near the form, which now lay inert and with no
+other sign of life than the gentle sighs which inflated her bosom.
+
+The Greek softly tiptoed out to the peristyle. The lamps were still
+burning in the triclinium, and an insufferable vapor of viands, wines,
+and sweaty bodies floated through the doorway. He saw the guests lying
+on the floor among the snoring women. Euphobias had awakened from his
+drunken sleep, and, occupying the place of honor, Sonnica's couch, was
+forging for himself the illusion of being master of the villa. Wrapped
+in his tattered mantle he was compelling two sleepy dancing girls to
+dance, contemplating their nude flesh with a disdainful stare like a man
+who considers himself above carnal desires.
+
+As Actaeon appeared in the triclinium some slaves fled, fearing lest they
+should be punished for their curiosity. Not wishing to be seen by the
+philosopher the Greek went out of the house seeking the cool garden.
+There he noticed the same flight before his steps. Embracing couples
+fled along the avenues; from behind the clumps of foliage arose
+exclamations of surprise as he approached, and in the dissipating
+shadows of the night the garden seemed animated by a mysterious life
+beneath its leafy bowers.
+
+They were slaves who, excited by the feast, continued beneath the open
+sky the scenes of the triclinium.
+
+The Greek smiled, reflecting that the feast was destined to augment his
+mistress' wealth.
+
+"Let them enjoy themselves in peace. To disturb them would damage
+Sonnica's interests."
+
+He passed out of the garden so as not to interfere with the joy of the
+miserable flock which, forgetting every trouble, sought each other
+there in the dim light of dawn.
+
+He crossed Sonnica's immense dominions, through groves of fig trees and
+extensive olive orchards, until suddenly he found himself in the highway
+of the Serpent. It was deserted. In the distance he heard the galloping
+of a horse and saw in the bluish light of dawn a rider who was
+undoubtedly making for the port.
+
+As he drew near Actaeon recognized him in spite of his head being covered
+by the hood of a war mantle. It was the Celtiberian shepherd. The Greek
+dashed into the centre of the roadway and grasped the horse by the
+bridle, while the rider, checked in his race, leaned back, tugging at
+the knife which he wore in his belt.
+
+"Be calm!" said Actaeon in a low voice. "If I stop you it is to say that
+I have recognized you. You are Hannibal, the son of the great Hamilcar!
+Your disguise may serve you among the Saguntines, but your boyhood
+friend knows you."
+
+The African bent his head forward with its bushy mass of hair, and his
+imperious eyes made out the Greek in the dim light.
+
+"Is it you, Actaeon? When I met you so many times yesterday I knew that
+you would finally recognize me. What are you doing here?"
+
+"I am living in the house of Sonnica the rich."
+
+"I have heard of her, a Greek as famous for her beauty and her talent as
+the courtesans of Athens. I was also desirous of knowing her, and I
+think I should have loved her if it were a man's mission to chase after
+women. And are you doing nothing else?"
+
+"I am a soldier in the pay of the city."
+
+"You, the son of Lysias, the confidential captain of Hamilcar! You, a
+man educated in the Prytaneum of Athens, in the service of a city of
+barbarians and merchants!"
+
+Hannibal was silent for a moment as if wondering at the conduct of the
+Greek. At last he added resolutely:
+
+"Mount behind me on my horse! Come with me! In the port a Carthaginian
+ship, loading with silver, is waiting for me. I go to New Carthage to
+place myself at the head of my troops. Days of glory are coming, an
+immense and sublime enterprise, like that of the giants when, heaping
+mountain on mountain, they scaled your Olympus. Come! You are the friend
+of my childhood; I knew you before Hasdrubal and Mago, those sons of
+Hamilcar, whom the glorious captain gave me for brothers, calling all
+three of us 'my lion's brood.' I know you. You are astute and brave like
+your father; at my side you will conquer riches. Who knows but that you
+may reign as king in some fair land when, imitating Alexander, I divide
+my conquests among my captains!"
+
+"No, Carthaginian," said Actaeon gravely. "I do not hate you; I remember
+our early years with pleasure; but I will never go with you. Your
+lineage prevents it, the past record of your nation, and the bloody
+shade of my father."
+
+"Nationality is but a fiction; 'the people' a pretext for making war.
+What matters it to you whether you serve Carthage or any other republic,
+since you are a Greek? If my own people should abandon me I would fight
+for any country. We are men of war; we fight for glory, power, and
+riches; the needs of our people only serve to justify our victory and
+our despoiling of the enemy. I hate the merchants of Carthage, pacific
+and stuck to their shops, as much as I hate the proud Romans. Come,
+Actaeon, since we have met, follow me! Fortune goes with me."
+
+"No, Hannibal; here shall I remain. Seeing your African soldiers I
+should remember the mob that crucified Lysias."
+
+"That was an unavoidable crime, a mad deed of that truceless war to
+which the mercenaries impelled us. My father lamented it a thousand
+times, remembering his faithful Lysias. With my protection I will make
+amends for that injustice of Carthage."
+
+"I will not follow you, Hannibal. I have bid farewell to war and booty.
+I prefer to grow old here in this sweet and tranquil life, at the side
+of my Sonnica, loving peace like any one of those Saguntines who dwells
+in the merchants' ward."
+
+"Peace? Peace?"
+
+A strident and brutal shout of laughter, like that which Actaeon had
+heard on the steps of Aphrodite's temple when the Roman legates were
+embarking, broke the silence of the roadway.
+
+"Listen well, Actaeon," said the African, recovering his gravity, "the
+proof that I still remember my boyhood affection for you lies in the
+frankness with which I speak my mind. Only to you, understand it well!
+If, sleeping in my tent, I should learn on awaking that what is in my
+mind had escaped in words, I would stab the sentinel who guarded my
+sleep. You speak of peace! Actaeon, awake! If you think of growing old in
+tranquility in any part of the world, flee with that Greek woman whom
+you love, far, far away! Where I am, there shall be no peace until I
+have become the sovereign of the world! War marches ahead of my
+footsteps; he who will not submit to me must die or become my slave!"
+
+The Greek comprehended the significance of the threat.
+
+"Remember, Hannibal, that this city is Rome. The Republic has taken it
+for an ally and protects it."
+
+"Do you imagine that I fear Rome? If I hate Saguntum it is because she
+is proud of her alliance, and that she scorns and forgets me, in spite
+of my being near. She fancies herself secure because that far-away
+Republic protects her, and she laughs at me, though I reign over all the
+Peninsula as far as the Ebro, and am encamped almost at her very gates.
+She antagonizes the Turdetani, who are my allies, as are all the Iberian
+tribes, and within her walls she beheads the citizens who love me, those
+who were friends of the great Hamilcar. Ah, blind and vainglorious city!
+How dear shall it cost thee to live near to Hannibal without knowing
+him!"
+
+Turning about in his saddle he glared with menacing eyes at the
+Acropolis of Saguntum, which stood forth above the fog of the early
+morn.
+
+"You could scarcely lay siege to her ally before Rome would fall upon
+you!"
+
+"Let her come!" replied the African arrogantly. "That is what I want, I
+hate peace! I will not submit to seeing Carthage subdued while there
+exist men like me and my friends. Either Rome or Africa! Let the final
+clash come! The sooner the better, the supreme struggle; and let that
+nation which is left standing be ruler of the world! I hate the rich of
+my country who live content in the shame of defeat because it enables
+them to traffic calmly and to cram their vaults with silver. Those are
+the wretches who, after our defeat in Sicily, dared to dream of
+abandoning Carthage and of moving wholesale to the islands of the Great
+Sea to live in tranquility. They are Carthaginians indeed; true sons of
+Phoenicia, with no other conception of glory than trade, nor other
+aspiration than to find new ports where they can market their wares! We
+Barcas are Libyans; we descend from the gods; like them we have
+greatness of thought; we must be masters, or die! Those merchants do not
+understand that it is not enough to be rich; that one must dominate and
+instill fear; and they formed in Carthage a peace-party, which
+embittered my father's life by defeats, and they leave me with no other
+resources than those that I can procure on the Peninsula. They do not
+know the Barcas, despite the fact that we struggle to make Carthage a
+world power! My father, when he lost Sicily, foresaw the future
+extinction of our nation, and he wished to prevent it. We had lost a
+great part of our ancient commerce. We needed an army to defend us from
+ambitious Rome, and we did not have it. The citizens of Carthage are
+good, at the best, to fight on their own soil. The merchant cannot bear
+the weight of arms nor endure marches for months and years through
+hostile countries. The profit derived from booty conquered with blood,
+he can win more easily standing behind his bales of goods, and as he
+loves money he does not wish to pay it out to foreign soldiers. That is
+why Hamilcar brought us to the Peninsula, and here we have given
+Carthage new ports and markets, and the Barcas have an army gathered
+together by their own efforts. Little does it matter that the
+Carthaginian Senate, lovers of peace, refuse to send us soldiers. The
+Iberian tribes loved my father after putting his bravery to the test,
+and they will rise in arms at the voice of the Barcas against whatever
+enemy we may designate."
+
+Hannibal turned his gaze toward the distant mountains, as if he could
+behold the innumerable barbarian tribes who lived behind them scratching
+the earth, or pasturing their flocks. "Hamilcar fell," he said sadly,
+"just as he was beginning to see his dreams realized in a great army
+with which to enter anew into strife with Rome, with riches of his own
+to carry on the war without need of assistance from the African
+merchants. Hasdrubal, the handsome husband of my sister, frittered away
+eight years on succeeding to his authority. He was a good governor, but
+a timid commander. Perhaps it was Baal, our savage god, who guided the
+arm of his assassin that he might be succeeded by another capable of
+exterminating the eternal enemy of Carthage. That one shall be I! Listen
+well, Greek! You are the only one who shares my thought. The moment for
+fighting the final battle has come. Soon shall Rome know that there
+exists a Hannibal who defies her by taking possession of Saguntum."
+
+"You have scant power for that, African. Saguntum is strong, and I, who
+come from New Carthage, have seen there nothing but the elephants, the
+fragments of the army which your father brought, and the Numidian
+cavalry which your friends have sent from Africa."
+
+"You forget the Iberians and the Celtiberians, the whole Peninsula,
+which will rise bodily and flock to the taking of Saguntum. The country
+is poor, and the city is overstocked with riches. I have noted it well.
+There is enough in it to pay an army for entire years, and even the
+Lusitanian tribes from the coast of the Great Sea will come attracted by
+the hope of loot and urged on by the hatred of rude natives for a city,
+opulent and civilized, where dwell their exploiters. It will be no great
+task for Hannibal to take possession of a republic of farmers and
+merchants."
+
+"And after you become master, what then?"
+
+The African answered nothing, but shrugged his shoulders with an
+enigmatic smile.
+
+"You are silent, Hannibal. But after you are master of Saguntum you will
+have gained nothing. Rome will hurl her thunder at you for violating her
+treaties, and the Carthaginian Senate will curse you; it will set a
+price upon your head; it will order your soldiers to disobey you; and
+you will die crucified, or you will wander about the world like a
+fugitive slave."
+
+"No! Fire of Baal!" shouted the chief arrogantly. "Carthage will attempt
+nothing against me; she will accept war with Rome, even though to-day
+she may not wish it. I have there innumerable partisans of the Barcas;
+the populace which loves war, because it yields cargoes of loot for
+distribution; the people of the out-lying districts, whose enthusiasm I
+keep at white heat by sending them riches sacked on the Peninsula, after
+having paid my troops. Hamilcar and Hasdrubal did the same. They would
+be ready to cut off the heads of the rich if anything were attempted
+against Hannibal. Since following my father for nine years, I have not
+returned to Carthage, but the people adore my name. Even those of the
+peace-party will follow me to war, if to war I drag them."
+
+"And how will you conquer Rome?"
+
+"I know not," said Hannibal with his mysterious smile. "I harbor a world
+of thoughts which would provoke the laughter of my friends if I should
+relate them. I see myself like a Titan scaling immense mountains,
+following the course of the eagle, ploughing through the snow, climbing
+to the very sky to fall upon my enemy with greater force. Ask me no
+more; I know nothing further. My will says, 'I desire,' and that is
+enough--I shall carry it through!"
+
+Hannibal was silent, wrinkling his brows as if fearing he had said too
+much.
+
+It was now daylight. Women with baskets on their heads were passing
+along the road. Two slaves carrying a great amphora hanging from a pole
+swung between their shoulders, stopped near them a moment to rest. The
+African patted his horse's neck as if preparing to leave.
+
+"For the last time, Greek, will you come?"
+
+Actaeon shook his head.
+
+"I know you too well to beg you to forget that you have seen Hannibal.
+You are astute. You know that what we have spoken here must be swallowed
+in the silence of the fields, and must be repeated to no one. Be happy
+in your new love, and live in peace, since, though born to soar as an
+eagle, you choose to stay here in a barnyard. If ever you oppose me as
+an enemy and contend against me, I will not crucify you; you shall not
+become my slave. I love you, although you will not follow me. I do not
+forget that you were the first who taught me to hurl a dart. May Baal
+guard you, Actaeon! My men await me at the port."
+
+His mantle floating in the breeze, he started on a gallop, raising a
+cloud of dust, scattering the country people and slaves, who scurried to
+the sides of the road to give him passage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+GREEK AND CELTIBERIAN.
+
+
+Actaeon told no one of his meeting. Moreover, after a few days he had
+almost forgotten it. Seeing the city tranquil, busy in preparation for
+the great Panathenaic festival, trusting in its protecting alliance with
+Rome, the recollection of the interview with the African assumed the
+vagueness of a dream.
+
+Perhaps Hannibal's words were only the arrogant boasts of youth. Hated
+by the rich of his country, and with no better followers than those he
+himself could procure, he was surely not going to attempt the audacious
+enterprise of attacking a city allied to Rome, thus violating the
+treaties with Carthage.
+
+Besides, the Greek was living in a period of sweet intoxications; ever
+in Sonnica's arms in the shade of the peristyle; listening to the lyres
+of the slaves and the flutes of the flute players, and watching the
+dancers from Gades, while his beloved crowned him with flowers, or
+sprinkled costly perfumes upon him.
+
+Sometimes the restless spirit of the wanderer and man of war, trained to
+action and strife, manifested itself in the midst of this effeminacy.
+Then he would flee to the city. There he conversed with Mopsus, the
+archer, and listened to the grumblers in the Forum, who, not suspecting
+that Hannibal had passed through Saguntum, jested at the possibility of
+the African chief attempting anything against them, and gloated in their
+power, trusting in the strength of their walls, and still more in the
+protection of Rome, which would repeat on the coasts of Iberia their
+triumphs over the Carthaginians in Sicily.
+
+Actaeon contracted a great friendship with Alorcus the Celtiberian. He
+admired the fiery pride of the barbarian, his nobility of sentiment, and
+the almost religious respect he displayed for the cultured Grecian
+woman. His father, now old and sick, was a petty king reigning over some
+tribes which pastured great flocks of horses and cattle in the mountains
+of Celtiberia. He was the sole heir, and some day would be obliged to
+rule that rude people with their ferocious customs, who, in perpetual
+brigandage, made war for the sake of stealing horses, and in years of
+famine came down from the mountains to despoil the farmers on the
+plains. His father had brought him to Saguntum when a child, and the
+Grecian customs produced such an effect in him that, when he had grown
+to manhood it became his most earnest desire to return to the city on
+the coast, and there he lived with a few servants of his tribe and his
+magnificent horses, deaf to the affectionate calls of the old chieftain
+drawing near to death, and being esteemed by the Saguntines as almost a
+fellow citizen.
+
+He was eager to figure in the festival of the Panathenaea that the Greeks
+of the city should admire him galloping in the races to conquer the
+crown of olives. He was grateful to Actaeon for using his influence with
+Sonnica to secure the consent of the magistrates that the Celtiberian
+might enter among the horsemen in the great procession that would climb
+to the Acropolis carrying the first sheaves of wheat to the temple of
+Minerva.
+
+In those days when the Athenian languished amidst songs and perfumes,
+overwhelmed by the caresses of the Greek woman, who seemed to blaze with
+the fire of the last passion of her life, he sprang from his couch at
+dawn, slung his bow across his back, and followed by two handsome dogs
+tramped through the Saguntine domain, giving chase to the wildcats which
+came down from the surrounding mountains.
+
+On one of these excursions he had an adventure. It was noon; the sun's
+warm light fell upon the land, and the panting dogs halted, barking at a
+grove of ancient fig trees with branches sweeping the ground, forming
+shady canopies of dense foliage. Actaeon, quieting the animals,
+approached cautiously with bow ready to draw, and as he parted the
+curtain of leaves he saw in the centre of an open space enclosed by the
+trees his two friends Rhanto and Erotion.
+
+The boy was seated on the ground before a pile of red clay which he was
+carefully modeling, wrinkling his brow, and whistling intently. The
+shepherdess, completely nude, with the assurance of healthy and innocent
+beauty, happy in being admired, was smiling at Erotion, her cheeks
+flushing lightly every time the artist raised his eyes from the clay to
+the model.
+
+Actaeon drank in with his eyes the form of her vernal body. He felt the
+enthusiasm of the Greeks in the presence of beauty, intensified by the
+ardor of manhood. He admired her bosom, tender and small as buds, barely
+perceptible; her lightly curving hips; the line from her throat to her
+feet soft and undulating, which served to give more elegance to her
+chaste appearance; the grace of strong and beautiful girlhood, in
+addition to the attraction of sex. With the taste of a Greek of
+refinement he rejoiced in the freshness of her form, comparing it
+mentally with Sonnica's opulent but somewhat over-ripe charms.
+
+Rhanto, as she saw the Greek's head appear between the leaves, uttered a
+piercing scream and scurried behind a fig tree in search of her clothes.
+Bells tinkled among the foliage and the goats thrust forward their
+glossy muzzles, their moist eyes, and curving horns.
+
+"Is it you, Athenian?" said Erotion, arising with a gesture of ill
+humor. "You have frightened Rhanto by your unexpected presence."
+
+Then he added maliciously, "Rhanto is your slave. I am well aware of
+that. And I also know that you are the master of the pottery where I
+work. You have risen much since that morning when we met you on the
+highway of the Serpent. You have dominion over Sonnica the rich. Love
+has made her your slave."
+
+"I am not master of anyone," said the Greek simply. "I am your friend,
+and I do not forget that the first bread I ate in this city I received
+from your hands."
+
+Erotion seemed to gain confidence at these words.
+
+"What are you looking at, Athenian? That clay? How you must laugh at me!
+I am convinced that I am worthless as an artist. Yet there are moments
+when I feel myself capable of a great work; I conceive it; I see it in
+my mind as clearly as if I had it erected before me; but when I put my
+hands to the clay I realize my lack of skill, and I am ready to weep.
+Ah! if only I could have gone to Greece!"
+
+His words sounded like a lament; he stared angrily at the pile of clay
+which had crudely begun to assume the outlines of Rhanto's form.
+
+"If you only knew how I had to urge her before she would consent to show
+the divine nudity of her body. Do not think it strange. She comes of a
+race of barbarians. She fears the club of her grandfather, the chief
+shepherd, that would fall upon her body if he should discover her as you
+did a few minutes ago. I explained to her about our sculptors, before
+whom the most famous hetaerae contended for the honor of disrobing; and
+the certainty that her mistress, Sonnica, had done the same in Athens
+was the only thing that decided her. But how can one copy her divine
+body? How imbue molded clay with the life which throbs beneath her
+skin?"
+
+In his despair he threatened the clay figurine as if he would crush it
+under his feet. Then he took courage, and said resolutely:
+
+"But I will be stronger than my untrained hands. I will work years and
+years if necessary, until I see the divine form of my Rhanto reproduced
+in all its beauty. I will not return to the pottery, although the old
+archer may kill me with blows. I began my statuette hoping that it might
+figure in the Panathenaic procession. Rhanto would carry it on her head,
+and the multitude would crowd around to see it. I only hope for a moment
+of inspiration, a fortunate moment. Who knows if to-morrow the muses may
+not breathe upon me, and that I shall arise with the skill in my hands
+to execute my dream?"
+
+Frankly hurling himself down from the pinnacle of his imagination he
+told the Athenian his ambition.
+
+"If I manage to finish this statue the future will be all my own, and
+some day my name will be engraved in the Forum, and the people of the
+city will read it with admiration. I will free myself from the pottery
+forever. I will present my statue to Sonnica, after it has been admired
+by all Saguntum in the Panathenaea, and your lover, who is so generous,
+will give me passage in one of her ships. I shall see Athens. I will
+admire what you have seen, and then--then! Look, Actaeon, through these
+leaves. What do you see on the hill of the Acropolis? Nothing. Walls of
+great stones, columns, roofs of temples, but not a single statue to
+proclaim from afar the glory of the city. They say that upon the
+Acropolis of Athens rises the gigantic figure of Pallas, all of bronze
+and gold, with a lance that seems to burn in the sunlight, and that it
+guides the mariners like a flame from many stadia out at sea. Is that
+true? Many, many nights have I dreamt of something like that, and I see
+Erotion returned from Athens a great artist, and raising a colossal work
+upon our Acropolis. The bulls of Geryon, enormous, gigantic, with gilded
+horns shining like flames, and behind them Hercules, covered with the
+skin of the Nemean lion, like Theron, his priest, in the great festivals
+of Saguntum, and his club, menacing on the height, shall be a signal to
+all the navigators of the Sucronian gulf. Ah! If only some day I realize
+this achievement!"
+
+Rhanto had come out of her hiding-place covered by a tunic, and she
+timidly approached Actaeon, looking at him respectfully, and blushing at
+the same time at the recollection of the condition in which he had
+surprised her. Erotion, excited by the telling of his hopes, showed
+eagerness to resume his task. He glanced at his work, and seemed to
+disrobe the shepherdess with his eyes.
+
+The Athenian understood that his presence disturbed the young people.
+
+"Work, Erotion!" he said. "Be a great artist if you can. The sculptors
+of Athens would envy you your model. Now that I know that you hide here
+I will not again annoy you with my presence."
+
+And so it was. He left the grove of fig trees permitting the two to work
+undisturbed in their mysterious retreat, Erotion spurred on by ambition,
+Rhanto submissive from love.
+
+The day of the Panathenaea came at last.
+
+The fame of the solemn festival had spread beyond the confines of
+Saguntum, and the rude Celtiberians assembled by caravans to witness the
+diversions of the rustic people.
+
+The workers from the domain abandoned the labor of the harvest, and,
+dressed in their best, began streaming into the city at sunrise to
+attend the festival of the goddess of the fields. They carried great
+sheaves of wheat, interspersed with flowers, to offer to the goddess,
+and white fleeced lambs adorned with ribbons to sacrifice on her altar.
+
+By sunrise the city was filled with a multicolored crowd which gathered
+in the Forum, or hurried along the river banks to see the horse races.
+
+A great stadium had been formed near the Baetis-Perkes in which the
+principal citizens of Saguntum were to contest for the triumph. The
+senators, on long benches, and guarded by a group of mercenaries,
+presided over the festival. At one end of the race-track the sons of the
+merchants and rich agriculturists, the entire youth of Saguntum, almost
+nude, awaited the signal, leaning on their light lances, and holding the
+bridles of their barebacked horses which snorted and champed the bit,
+scenting the coming contest.
+
+The signal to start was given, and placing their left feet on the
+handles of their lances all sprang simultaneously upon their chargers,
+dashing forward in a compact squadron along the track. The immense crowd
+broke into acclamations at sight of the bizarre riders who leaning
+forward almost lay on their horses' necks, as if forming a single body
+with them, waving their lances, quickening their gallop with shouts, and
+wrapped in a cloud of dust through which the multitude could barely make
+out the straining legs and the bellies of the animals which were nearly
+touching the ground. The wild race lasted long. The less skillful
+riders, and those with poorer mounts, were being out-stripped; the
+squadron was diminishing visibly. He who should remain longest on the
+track, ever in advance of the others, would win the crown, and the
+people made bets on the Celtiberian Alorcus, and on the Athenian Actaeon
+who figured from the first instant at the head of the riders.
+
+The citizens who did not wish to wait in the sun for the end of the race
+followed the river bank until they reached the walls, in the shade of
+which the youths were wrestling or engaging in boxing matches in
+competition for the prize for dexterity. Others of more pacific turn
+went to the Forum, where beneath the porticos the young aristocrats were
+competing for the laurel crown offered for the most skilled in music and
+song. Seated on ivory chairs, attended by their handsome slave boys who
+fanned them with branches of myrtle, Lachares and his friends played the
+flute or thrummed the lyre, singing Greek verses with sweet and
+effeminate intonations. In the gathering, some laughed, mimicking the
+softness of their voices, but others, indignant, compelled silence,
+overcome by the charm which art, even in this womanish guise, exercised
+over their uncultured minds.
+
+Late in the morning the clamor from the enthusiastic multitude filled
+the broad space of the Forum like reverberating thunder. It was the
+people returning from the races, acclaiming the victor. The arrogant
+Alorcus, dragged off the back of his horse, was borne on the shoulders
+of the most enthusiastic. The olive crown encircled his tossed and dusty
+hair. Actaeon was beside him, celebrating his triumph fraternally,
+without a touch of envy.
+
+The singers, swept away before this wave of enthusiasm, made off with
+their chairs and instruments. The crown of laurel was bound upon
+Lachares in the midst of general indifference, and he received no other
+congratulations than those of his slaves. All the enthusiasm of the city
+was lavished upon the winner in the races; the people were inflamed with
+admiration for strength and skill.
+
+The solemn moment had come; the _pompa_ was about to begin. In the
+merchant's ward slaves hung red and green bunting from roof to roof
+which shaded the streets. The windows and terraces were draped with
+multicolored tapestries of complicated design, and slave women placed
+censers in the doorways for burning perfumes.
+
+The rich Grecian women, followed by their servants who carried sedan
+chairs, went in search of places where they could sit on the steps of
+the temples or in the shops at the Forum, and the people ranged
+themselves along the houses, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the
+procession which was forming outside the walls. Flocks of children
+completely nude ran through the streets waving branches of myrtle,
+shouting acclamations in honor of the goddess.
+
+Suddenly the people stirred, bursting into cries of enthusiasm. The
+pageant in honor of Minerva had entered through the gate of the Road of
+the Serpent and was advancing slowly toward the Forum, through the ward
+of the merchants, who were the organizers of the festival.
+
+In advance marched venerable old men with long beards, dressed in white,
+with voluminous mantles, their snowy hair crowned with green leaves, and
+carrying olive branches in their hands. Then came the more arrogant
+citizens, armed with lance and shield, the visor of the Grecian helmet
+drawn down over their eyes, proudly displaying the strong muscles of
+their arms and limbs. Next followed the most beautiful youths of the
+city, crowned with flowers, singing hymns in praise of the goddess;
+choruses of nude children, dancing with unaffected grace, clasping
+hands, forming a chain of complicated combinations. Now appeared the
+maidens, daughters of the rich, clad only in a tunic of finest linen,
+which displayed their youthful charms. They carried in their hands as
+offerings dainty willow baskets covered by veils which hid the
+instruments for the sacrifice to the goddess, and with these the loaves
+made of new wheat and the handfuls of golden ears which were to be
+deposited on her altar. To clearly mark the dignity of the rich virgins,
+slave women marched behind them bearing their sedan chairs inlaid with
+ivory, and the striped silk sunshades with gay colored tassels at the
+ends of the staves.
+
+A group of slave women chosen for their beauty, with Rhanto in the
+premier rank, carried on their heads great amphorae filled with honey and
+water for the libations in honor of the goddess. Behind them marched the
+musicians and singers of the city, crowned with roses, clad in flowing
+white vestments. They swept the lyre, and played the flutes, and some
+Greeks from Sonnica's pottery, who had been wandering rhapsodists, sang
+fragments from the epic of the Trojan war before the barbarian throngs,
+who scarcely understood them, but admired the harmonious cadence of
+Homer's verses.
+
+The people pressed forward, craning their necks to get a better view of
+the salii, the dancing devotees of Mars, who advanced nude, armed with
+sword and shield. Slung from the stick laid across their shoulders, two
+slaves were carrying a row of bronze shields, on which another slave was
+beating with a mallet, and keeping time to these harsh sounds the salii
+danced, making feigned attacks, and raining blows with their swords on
+the shield of the pretended adversary, uttering ferocious shouts, and
+also performing pantomimes to recall the main episodes in the life of
+the goddess Minerva.
+
+Behind the clamor, which set the streets in a commotion, causing the
+populace to roar with enthusiasm excited by the warlike display, came a
+group of girls holding a peplus of finest texture on which the principal
+Grecian women of the city had embroidered the combat of Minerva with the
+Titans. It was the offering which was to remain in the new temple of the
+goddess as a perpetual token of the festival.
+
+Closing the procession, the sacred squadron advanced, the richest
+citizens, mounted on fiery horses, which, with their evolutions
+compelled the crowd to fall back against the walls. They presented a
+brave display, making their steeds rear on their hind feet, guided only
+by the bridle, riding bareback, pressing their knees into the horses'
+ribs. The eldest of the horsemen wore huge hats in the Athenian fashion.
+The young men wore the winged helmet of Mercury or went bareheaded,
+their short curls bound by a fire-colored ribbon. Alorcus wore the crown
+he had won, and Actaeon, riding beside him on one of the Celtiberian's
+horses, smiled at the crowd, which regarded him with a certain respect
+as if he were Sonnica's husband and in possession of her enormous
+riches. The horsemen gazed with pride at the swords which hung at their
+sides and clanked against the flanks of their horses, and they took in
+with a glance the high Acropolis and the city lying at its feet, as if
+expressing confidence in their strength, and faith in the tranquility in
+which Saguntum might dwell, sure of protection.
+
+The crowd fired with enthusiasm by the brilliant procession, acclaimed
+Sonnica. Surrounded by her slave women, she gazed down from the terrace
+of her great building in the ward of the merchants where she stored her
+merchandise. She was the organizer, the one who bore the cost of the
+peplus of Minerva, she it was who had transplanted to Saguntum the
+beautiful festival of Athens. Fragrant odors from the censers were flung
+upon the air; a shower of roses fell from the windows upon the maidens;
+arms glistened in the sunlight, and in moments when the people were
+silent the sounds of lyres and flutes floated on the breeze,
+accompanying with soft melodies the voices of the Homeric rhapsodists.
+
+The crude Celtiberians, gathered to witness the festival, remained
+silent in astonishment at the procession which dazzled them with its
+glitter of arms and jewels and the multicolored confusion of costumes.
+The natives of Saguntum congratulated their fellow-citizens, the Greeks,
+admiring the splendor of the festival.
+
+The festivity did not cease with the passing of the brilliant
+procession. In the afternoon the diversion of the populace, the festival
+of the poor, would take place. The race of the flaming torch would be
+held along the walls. Mariners, potters, laborers, all the free and poor
+people of the port and the country in wild career, would carry lighted
+torches in memory of Prometheus. He who accomplished the feat of making
+the round of the city, keeping his torch still burning, would be
+declared winner; those who let theirs go out, or who traveled slowly to
+protect the flames, would be greeted with hisses and blows by the crowd.
+Even the rich gave vent to enthusiasm over this popular festival which
+produced so much merriment.
+
+Near the Acropolis, when the procession was wholly within its walls,
+Alorcus discerned among the people a Celtiberian mounted on a horse
+covered with foam and sweat, beckoning him to approach.
+
+Alorcus, turning away from the troop of horsemen, trotted towards him.
+
+"What do you want?" he asked, in the harsh language of his country.
+
+"I am one of your tribe, and your father is my chief. I have just
+reached Saguntum after traveling three days to say to you; 'Alorcus,
+your father is dying, and he calls for you.' The ancients of your tribe
+have ordered me not to return without you."
+
+Actaeon had followed his friend, breaking away from the sacred squadron,
+and witnessed the dialogue without understanding a word, although he
+guessed something disagreeable by the Celtiberian's pale face.
+
+"Bad news?" he asked Alorcus.
+
+"My father is dying, and he has sent for me."
+
+"What shall you do?"
+
+"I must go immediately. My people demand my presence."
+
+The two horsemen began the descent to the city, followed by the
+Celtiberian messenger.
+
+Actaeon sympathized with his comrade's emotion. At the same time the
+curiosity of the traveler, so often aroused by the Celtiberian's tales,
+was awakened within him.
+
+"Do you wish me to accompany you, Alorcus?"
+
+The young man received the proposition with a look of gratitude. Then
+he declined, saying that he must depart in haste; the Greek might wish
+to bid farewell to Sonnica; perhaps the separation would be a grief to
+her; and he desired to start on the journey at once.
+
+"We will omit the farewell," said the Greek in his light, happy manner.
+"Sonnica will be resigned when I make known to her through a slave that
+I shall be absent for some days. Do you wish to leave immediately? I
+will accompany you. I am curious to see that land with its strange
+customs, and its valiant and sturdy inhabitants, of whose brave deeds
+you have so often told me."
+
+They crossed the city. The streets were deserted. The entire population
+had gone up to the Acropolis. Actaeon stopped a moment before Sonnica's
+warehouses to give the news of his journey to her slaves, and then he
+followed his friend, riding forth from the city.
+
+Alorcus lodged in one of the inns in the suburb, an enormous edifice
+with extensive stables and broad courtyards, where continuously rang the
+diverse tongues of the interior of the Peninsula, hoarsened and made
+strident by dickering for merchandise and the bartering of beasts. Five
+men of the tribe accompanied the young Celtiberian during his stay in
+Saguntum, taking care of his horses and serving him as free domestics.
+
+On learning that they were to depart these sons of the mountains shouted
+with joy. They had languished with inactivity in that rich and fruitful
+country amid customs which they detested, and they made preparations for
+the journey in haste.
+
+The sun was setting when they started. Alorcus and Actaeon rode in
+advance, their mantles thrown over their heads, padded linen
+breastplates to protect their chests after the Celtiberian fashion, and
+short broadswords, and leather shields hanging at their sides. The five
+servants and the messenger brought up the rear, armed with long lances,
+driving the mules laden with Alorcus' clothing and provisions.
+
+Throughout the afternoon they traveled upon the roads, being still in
+the Saguntine domain, and they passed cultivated and fruitful fields,
+beautiful villas and compact little towns clinging close around the
+tower which served them as defense. When night closed in they camped
+close to a miserable village in the mountains. There the territory of
+Saguntum ended. Beyond lay the tribes which were almost constantly
+warring with the people of the coast.
+
+Next morning the Greek beheld a wholly different landscape. The sea and
+the green plains lay behind him, and he saw only mountains and more
+mountains, some covered with great pine forests, others red, with bluffs
+of bluish stone, overgrown with dense thickets which, brushed by the
+passing caravan, sent forth clouds of frightened birds, while terrified
+rabbits scampered under the very horses' hoofs.
+
+The trails were not the work of man. The beasts laboriously picked their
+way in the tracks left by former travelers; they often twisted around
+masses of rock fallen from the summits, and again they forded streams
+which ran across their path. They skirted mountains; they climbed
+heights into a silent region seldom penetrated by man, where eagles
+screamed, flapping their wings in anger at this invasion. They rode down
+into gorges, deep crevices, in which reigned a sepulchral penumbra and
+where buzzards hopped close by the dead body of some abandoned animal.
+
+In the distance they saw beside a stream in a little valley, a group of
+mud-walled cabins with straw-thatched roofs, with an open hole to let
+light into the dwelling and to give exit to the smoke. The women, bony
+and dressed in skins, surrounded by naked children, came out of their
+hovels to stare at the passing caravan, with wild expressions of alarm
+as if the approach of strangers could only bring misfortune. Others
+younger, barelegged, with ragged aprons hanging from their waists, were
+reaping the stunted wheat, which barely rose like a golden film above
+the sterile, whitish earth. Girls, strong and ugly, with masculine
+limbs, came down from the mountains, bearing great bundles of fagots on
+their backs, while the men sat in the shade of nut and oak trees
+braiding bull-tendons for making their shields, or they practiced
+hurling, darts and handling the lance, their tangled hair falling over
+bronzed and bearded faces.
+
+On the highest points along the way appeared warriors of doubtful
+aspect, a mixture of bandit and shepherd, armed with long lances and
+carrying leather shields, mounted on small horses with long and filthy
+hair. They looked the company over, and after measuring its strength,
+and seeing it would be difficult to conquer, they turned back to their
+sheep pasturing in the deep mountain gorges filled with a tangle of
+shrubbery. The innumerable flocks of lambs and herds of cattle,
+accustomed to the wild solitude, fled terrified as they heard the
+passing of the caravan. Bevies of quail ran in search of food like gray
+ants among the rosemary and thyme growing on the slopes, and flew away
+at the sound of the horses' hoofs, whirring like a hiss over the
+travelers' heads.
+
+Actaeon was interested in the rude customs of these people. The cabins
+were made of red adobe, or of stones laid in clay, and roofed with
+branches. The women, uglier and more energetic than the men, performed
+the fatiguing labor. Only boys worked, imitating their mothers. Young
+men early grasped the lance, and under the direction of their elders
+learned to fight on foot or on horseback; they broke the colts,
+springing to the ground, and mounting again while the horse was running,
+and they trained themselves to remain kneeling motionless on the horses'
+backs with their arms free to wield the sword and shield.
+
+In some villages the party was received with traditional hospitality,
+and was welcomed even more affectionately on recognizing Alorcus, the
+heir of Endovellicus, the respected chieftain of the tribes of Baraeco
+which had pastured their flocks for centuries on the banks of the Jalon.
+When night came they gave up to them their best beds of woven thongs
+covered with fluffy dried grasses; they impaled a calf on a spit,
+turning it before an enormous bonfire, for regaling the caravan, and
+during the journey the women detained them at the entrance to their
+huts, offering them in coarse earthen vessels the bitter beer brewed in
+the valleys, and the bread made of acorn flour.
+
+Alorcus explained the customs of his people to the Athenian. They
+gathered acorns, their chief food, exposing them to the sun until well
+dried. They husked and ground them, and stored the supply of flour for
+six months. This bread, with game, and the milk of their animals,
+constituted their principal food. At intervals pestilence robbed them of
+their flocks, the crops failed, and hunger decimated the tribes; then
+the strong devoured the weak. Alorcus remembered hearing this from the
+elders of his tribe as having occurred in remote times when Neton,
+Autubel, Nabi, and other divinities of the land, irritated against their
+people, had sent upon them these fearful punishments.
+
+The young Celtiberian continued telling of the customs. Some of the
+women who worked in the fields with so much vigor had perhaps given
+birth to a child the day before. As soon as born they immersed it in the
+nearest river, so that by this act, which in many cases caused death, it
+would grow vigorous and insensible to cold; and while the mother
+resolutely arose and continued her work, the husband took her place in
+the bed, lying down with the newly born child. The woman, still barely
+convalescent, took care of the two, surrounding the hale and hearty
+husband with comforts, as if in gratitude for the fruit he had given
+her.
+
+Several times the caravan on its march passed men lying rigid and
+groaning on couches of herbs gathered by the wayside. Flies buzzed about
+their heads in clouds; an amphora of water stood within their reach. A
+child squatted near the couch brushing away the insects with a branch.
+They were sick people whom their relatives exposed by the roadside
+according to ancient custom, partly to implore the clemency of the
+divinities by exhibiting their misery, and also in order that passing
+travelers might advise a remedy, thus transmitting prescriptions from
+distant countries.
+
+The strong men bathed in horse urine to harden their muscles. Their only
+luxury consisted in weapons. They admired as priceless jewels the bronze
+swords brought from the north of the Peninsula, and those of steel made
+by the people of Bilbilis and tempered in the sands of their famous
+river. The flexible cuirasses, formed by several thicknesses of
+superposed linen, or those of leather, decorated with nails, were
+defensive arms which the Celtiberian never laid aside, not even when in
+bed. They slept dressed in the sagum, the metal greaves on their legs,
+and their weapons within reach of the hand, ready to fight the instant
+the slightest alarm might disturb their sleep.
+
+After three days of travel the caravan entered the territory belonging
+to the tribes of Alorcus. The mountains separated on both sides of the
+Jalon, forming smiling valleys covered by tall grasses, through which
+ran herds of wild horses with curling manes and waving tails. The women
+came out of the villages to greet Alorcus, and the men, grasping lances,
+mounted their horses and joined the caravan. In the first village where
+they stopped an old man told Alorcus that his father, the powerful
+Endovellicus, was dying, and in the next through which they passed in a
+few hours, he heard that the great chieftain had died at daybreak.
+
+All the warriors of the tribe, herders and farmers, followed them on
+horseback. When they reached the village where the kinglet had lived,
+the escort had grown to a small army.
+
+In the doorway of the paternal house, a low structure of red stones
+roofed with logs, Alorcus saw his sisters in dresses made of flowers and
+wearing around their necks and over their heads cage-like collars from
+the bars of which hung mourning veils.
+
+The sisters of Alorcus, as well as the women who accompanied them, the
+wives of the chief warriors of the tribe, hid their grief at the death
+of the chieftain, and smiled as if it were the eve of a festival. Old
+age was a disgrace among the Celtiberians, who held life in contempt,
+and fought for diversion when not engaged in war. To die in bed was
+deemed dishonorable, and the only thing which somewhat disturbed the
+serenity of the family of Endovellicus was that so famous a warrior, the
+terror of neighboring clans, should have died with white hair, his life
+flickering out like a wasted torch, after having galloped his steed
+through so many combats, hurling his sword like a thunderbolt upon the
+enemy.
+
+Actaeon's dress and his countenance attracted the curious gaze of all the
+tribe. Many of the Celtiberians had never seen a Greek, and they looked
+upon this one with hostile eyes, recalling the clever tricks and sharp
+dealings of the Hellenic merchants experienced by their brethren when
+they went down to Saguntum to sell silver from the mines.
+
+Alorcus reassured his people.
+
+"He is my brother," he said, in the language of the country. "We have
+dwelt together in Saguntum. Besides, he is not a native of that city. He
+is from very far away, from a land where the men are almost gods, and he
+has journeyed hither with me to become acquainted with you."
+
+The women gazed at Actaeon in astonishment on hearing the almost divine
+origin which Alorcus attributed to him.
+
+The members of the caravan had dismounted, and entered the immense log
+structure which had served the chief for a palace. A vast room blackened
+by smoke, lighted only by narrow apertures like loopholes, served as a
+place of reunion and council for the warriors of the tribe. At one end
+was an enormous stone, upon which was burning a wood fire, while a great
+opening in the roof did service as a chimney. Set in one wall was a
+stone slab, with the figure of the divinity of the tribe strangling two
+lions rudely sculptured upon it. Hung along the walls were lances and
+shields, skins of wild beasts, bleached craniums and twisted horns of
+large game. A stone bench ran along the sides of the room making way
+near the fireplace for a high masonry seat covered by a bear skin. Here
+the chieftain was accustomed to sit.
+
+The warriors took their places on the bench as they entered.
+
+One old man taking Alorcus by the hand, guided him to a place of honor.
+
+"Sit here, son of Endovellicus. You are his only heir and you shall be
+our chief. May his valor and his prudence dwell in you."
+
+The other warriors assented to the elder's words with grave nods of
+approval.
+
+"Where is my father's body?" asked Alorcus, filled with emotion by the
+simple ceremony.
+
+"Since the sun set it has slept in the meadow where you learned to break
+horses and to use arms. The young men of the tribe are keeping guard
+over it. The obsequies worthy of so great a chief will take place at
+sunrise. Then, as our new king, you will give us counsel upon the great
+affairs of the tribe."
+
+Alorcus compelled the Greek to sit beside him. The women filed in with
+torches, since no more than a dim twilight was produced by the pale,
+diffused glow filtering through the narrow slits in the wall. The
+sisters of Alorcus, with lowered eyes, their flowery tunics floating
+about their strong, virginal forms, passed before the warriors, offering
+drinking horns filled with metheglin and beer. The men imbibed
+enormously without losing self-control. They recounted the deeds of
+Endovellicus as if he had died many years before, and they told of the
+great enterprises in which his successor would surely lead them hinting
+again and again, in mysterious words, at a subject with which they must
+deal in the council on the morrow.
+
+Supper was brought. The Celtiberians were not accustomed to eating at
+table like the people of the coast. They remained seated on the stone
+bench. The women placed beside them a wheaten loaf, instead of the acorn
+bread which was commonly eaten, this being an extraordinary feast.
+Others passed a great vessel filled with chunks of roasted meat still
+dripping blood, and each warrior speared a piece with the point of his
+knife. Horns overflowing with liquor circulated from hand to hand, and
+Actaeon accepted with graceful mien whatever his neighbors, in hospitable
+phrase which he could not understand, offered him.
+
+Supper being ended, the young men of the tribe came in with trumpets and
+flutes, and began to play a bizarre air which combined the joy of the
+chase with the fury of their charge upon the enemy in battle. The
+guests were aroused, and the youngest among them, springing into the
+centre of the room, began to dance with gymnastic freedom. It was the
+dance with which the Celtiberians terminated their banquets, a violent
+exercise which put their muscles to the test, and caused them to regain
+their spirit even in moments of greatest depression.
+
+Long before midnight the warriors retired, leaving Alorcus and Actaeon
+alone in the great smoke-filled room, where sputtered the torches,
+tingeing the barbaric decorations on the walls with a blood-like hue.
+They slept on couches of aromatic herbs, without removing their
+clothing, their weapons near them, as slept all the tribe, ever fearful
+of attack from neighbors tempted by the multitude of their flocks.
+
+At daybreak they went down to the meadow where the body of Endovellicus
+was exposed. The whole tribe was gathered on the plain near the river;
+the young men on horseback with their lances, and in full armor; the old
+men seated in the shade of the oak trees; the women and children near
+the pyre of logs upon which lay the corpse of their chief.
+
+Endovellicus was arrayed in his war costume. His faded hair escaped
+beneath the borders of his triple-crested helmet; his silvery beard
+rested upon a cuirass of bronze scales; his muscular arms were naked,
+and his hands were clasped over the Celtiberian sword, short and
+slender, with broadened point, and his legs were bound by the broad
+straps of his sandals. His shield, engraved with a representation of the
+gods of the tribe struggling with two lions, served as a cushion for his
+head.
+
+When the two young men arrived the same elder who had spoken to Alorcus
+the day before advanced. He was the wisest of the tribe, and had
+counselled Endovellicus many times before undertaking audacious
+expeditions. Under extraordinary circumstances he had laid open with his
+sacred knife the viscera of his prisoners to read the future in the
+quiverings of their entrails. Again he had cut off the hands of the
+conquered to dedicate them to the god of the tribe, nailing them to the
+chieftain's door to placate the divinity. Mystery used him as a
+mouthpiece and all the tribe regarded him with awe and fear, as if he
+were capable of changing the course of the sun and of destroying in a
+night the crops of an enemy.
+
+"Advance, son of Endovellicus!" he said solemnly. "Look upon your people
+who choose you as most valiant and most worthy to succeed your father!"
+
+He questioned the assemblage with a look, and the warriors answered by
+beating on their shields, uttering the same shouts with which they
+infuriated themselves on plunging into battle.
+
+"You have become our king!" continued the elder. "You shall be father
+and guardian of your people! That you may fulfill your mission receive
+the great inheritance of your father! Bring hither the shield."
+
+Two young men climbed to the top of the pyre, and raising Endovellicus'
+head, they brought down the shield engraved with the image of the god,
+and delivered it to Alorcus.
+
+"With this shield," continued the venerable warrior, "you shall protect
+your people from the blows of the enemy. Bring hither the sword!"
+
+The young men brought down the sword, drawing it forth from the stiff
+fingers of Endovellicus.
+
+"Bind it upon you, Alorcus," continued the wizard. "With this you shall
+defend us, and may it fall like a thunderbolt wherever the destiny of
+your people points! Advance, youthful king!"
+
+Guided by the elder, Alorcus stepped forward to the pyre upon which his
+father lay. He turned away his face that he might not behold the body,
+fearing an outburst of grief which would force him to shed tears before
+his tribe.
+
+"Swear by Neton, by Autubel, by Nabi, by Caulece, by all the gods of our
+tribe, and of all the tribes that people this earth and hate the
+foreigners who one day came from across the sea to rob us of our riches.
+Swear to be faithful to your people and ever to obey the counsels of the
+warriors of your tribe! Swear it by the body of your father, which soon
+will be only ashes!"
+
+Alorcus took the oath, and the warriors pounded upon their shields
+again, uttering acclamations of joy.
+
+The old warrior, with extraordinary vigor, climbed upon the logs and
+searched beneath the cuirass of the corpse.
+
+"Take this, Alorcus!" he said, on descending. He handed the new
+chieftain a slender copper chain from which hung a disk-like case of the
+same metal. "This is the greatest inheritance from your father--the
+manumission which accompanied him at all times. There is not a warrior
+in Celtiberia who does not carry upon his person his poison so that he
+may die rather than become the slave of the conqueror. I prepared this
+for your father. I spent a whole moon extracting it from the wild
+apium, and one drop of it will kill like a lightning flash. If some day
+you fall vanquished, drink and die before your people behold their
+chieftain with a hand stricken off and serving the enemy as a slave."
+
+Alorcus slipped the chain over his head, concealing the heirloom in his
+breast. Then he returned to Actaeon, beneath the oaks where the ancients
+of the tribe were grouped.
+
+The young men in the meadow, apprentices in the art of warfare, ran
+around the pyre with lighted torches. The flaming candlewood licked the
+resinous logs, and soon the smoke and flames began to enwrap the corpse.
+
+The warriors most famous for valor and strength advanced, making their
+horses caracole round about the fire.
+
+Waving their lances, they proclaimed with hoarse cries the deeds of the
+departed chief, the body of the tribe joining in the acclamation. They
+related the innumerable combats from which he had come forth victor; the
+audacious expeditions on which he had caught the enemy off their guard
+at night, burning their dwellings, and leading off interminable strings
+of captives; the flocks captured, for which there was barely
+pasture-ground in the territories belonging to the tribe; his colossal
+strength; the quickness with which he mastered the wildest colt; and the
+prudence which he demonstrated in all his counsels.
+
+"He covered the doors of our houses with the hands of our enemies,"
+shouted a warrior, galloping like a phantom through the smoke of the
+funeral pyre.
+
+The multitude shouted with an intonation of lament.
+
+"Endovellicus! Endovellicus!"
+
+"All the tribes feared him, and his name was respected like that of a
+god!"
+
+The multitude repeated the name of the chief over and over, as if
+weeping.
+
+"With his hands of stone he would fell the bull in full career, and
+smite off the head of the enemy with a stroke of his sword!"
+
+"Endovellicus! Endovellicus!"
+
+Thus proceeded the last rites to the chieftain. The flames from the bier
+rose straight into the heavens clouding the blue sky with its pall of
+smoke, and the mourners tireless in heralding the deeds of their leader,
+passed and repassed like black demons crowned with sparks, making their
+horses leap over the flaming wood. The funeral pyre fell overwhelming
+the remains of Endovellicus with ashes and charring logs, while around
+the embers of the fire commenced the combat in honor of the dead.
+
+The warriors advanced on horseback with slack rein, the shield held
+before the breast, the sword raised high, and they fought like
+irreconcilable enemies. The closest comrades, brothers at arms, dealt
+each other tremendous blows, with the enthusiasm of a people which turns
+fighting into a diversion. They must shed blood to glorify the memory of
+the deceased with greater pomp. Horses fell at the shock of the
+encounter and the riders continued the struggle on foot, wrestling body
+to body, making the shields resound with the force of the blows. When
+some of the warriors had retired covered with blood, and the combat had
+assumed the character of a general battle, in which, aroused by the
+spectacle, the women and children participated, Alorcus ordered the
+trumpets to sound the retreat, and he hurled himself among the
+combatants to separate the more tenacious.
+
+Thus ended the funeral rites. The slaves of the tribe flung the remnants
+of the bonfire into a ditch, and the crowd, seeing the festival over,
+before retiring to their villages, held aloft once more their horns
+brimming with beer, to drink to the honor of the new-made king.
+
+The principal warriors turned toward the dwelling of the chief to hold
+council.
+
+The Athenian traveled beside Alorcus, manifesting astonishment at the
+barbaric and warlike customs of the Celtiberians. As he could not
+understand their language, the warriors were not alarmed at seeing him
+take a seat in the council hall near their new chieftain.
+
+The wizard discoursed at length to Alorcus, amid the respectful silence
+of the warriors. Actaeon understood that he was giving an account of
+extraordinary events which had occurred in the tribe a few days before
+the arrival of the new king. Perhaps some call from friendly tribes,
+some fruitful expedition planned by the more venturesome.
+
+He saw the face of Alorcus darken, as if they were telling him something
+painful, repugnant to his feelings. The assemblage looked at him
+fixedly, betraying in their eyes enthusiasm and agreement with the old
+man's words. Alorcus recovered his composure, listening calmly to the
+wizard, and when the latter ceased talking, after a long pause, he spoke
+a few words and with his head made a gesture of assent.
+
+His rude countrymen received the chieftain's acceptance with ardor, and
+rushed from the house in vehement haste to carry the news to those
+outside.
+
+When the Greek and the Celtiberian were left alone, the latter said
+sadly:
+
+"Actaeon, to-morrow I set out with my people. I begin to serve as
+chieftain of the tribe. I must lead it to combat."
+
+"May I accompany you?"
+
+"No. I know not where we are going. My father had a powerful ally whom I
+dare not name to you, and this ally calls me without saying why. The
+whole tribe displays tremendous enthusiasm for this expedition."
+
+After a pause Alorcus added:
+
+"You are welcome to stay here as long as you wish. My sisters will obey
+you as if you were Alorcus himself."
+
+"No; since you will not be here, nothing remains for me to do. I have
+seen enough in one day to know the Celtiberians. I will return to
+Saguntum."
+
+"Happy man, who can return to the Grecian life, to Sonnica's banquets,
+to the sweet peace of those merchants! May it never be disturbed, and
+may I be able to return there as a friend!"
+
+The two preserved a long silence, as if black thoughts were whirling
+through their minds.
+
+"You will return from this expedition loaded down with riches," said the
+Greek, "and you will come back to Saguntum to spend them joyously."
+
+"May it be thus!" murmured Alorcus. "But I feel a presentiment that we
+shall never meet again, Actaeon; or, if we meet, it will be to curse the
+gods that we should ever have known each other. I go ignorant of my
+destination, and perhaps I must march against what I most love."
+
+They said no more; they feared to give expression to their thoughts.
+
+Greek and Celtiberian embraced tenderly. Then, after a sorrowful
+farewell, they kissed each other on the eyes in sign of fraternal
+friendship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+INVASION
+
+
+Sonnica feared that she had lost Actaeon forever. His sudden departure
+seemed the caprice of a fickle Athenian--of an eternal wanderer, driven
+by the fever of seeing new lands. Only the gods could tell where that
+bird of passage might fly after his visit to Celtiberia! Perhaps he
+would remain with Alorcus; perhaps he would go to war along with those
+barbarians; perhaps, captivated by his knowledge and cleverness, they
+would go so far as to give him a kingdom.
+
+Sonnica doubted that the Athenian would ever return. Her short
+springtime of love had been like the fugitive joy of the women adored by
+the gods when they had come down to earth. She who used to be so
+unfeeling as to mock at affection, now spent the days weeping on her
+couch, or wandering by night like a shade through the gardens, stopping
+in the grotto where the Greek had given her his first caress. The slaves
+wondered at the harsh and capricious temper of their mistress, who one
+moment groaned like a child, and the next, as if fired with sudden
+cruelty, ordered punishments for them all; but, without warning, Actaeon
+presented himself before her villa one morning, riding a dusty, sweaty
+horse. He dismissed the ferocious featured barbarians who had served him
+as bodyguard, and ran with outstretched arms toward the tremulous
+Sonnica. The whole of her immense dominions seemed resuscitated; the
+mistress smiled; the garden bloomed more beautifully; on the terrace
+shone the plumage of the rare birds with greater splendor; the
+instruments of the flute players sounded more joyful, and to the slaves,
+freed now from punishment, the air seemed sweeter and the sky more blue.
+
+Sonnica's villa reawoke to its merry life, as if its owner had risen
+from the dead. The nights were devoted to feasting in the great
+triclinium; Sonnica's friends, the young gallants, accepted her
+invitations, and even Euphobias, the philosopher, reached his place at
+the table without having to fight his way through the blows of her
+slaves.
+
+Sonnica was radiant, clinging to Actaeon and listening to his words as to
+sweet music. The guests urged him to relate the story of his adventures
+among the Celtiberians, wondering at the customs of the tribes over
+which Alorcus reigned. Euphobias, the parasite, did not conceal his
+satisfaction at possessing so powerful a friend, and he declared that he
+would go to his kingdom to live awhile in comfort, without having to beg
+his bread from the merchants of Saguntum. Love's springtime returned for
+the Athenian. He spent his days at the villa, lying at Sonnica's feet,
+watching her spin the bright colored wool from the distaff or give the
+finishing touches to her toilette, assisted by her slaves. At the close
+of day they strolled through the garden, and night surprised them in the
+grotto, in fond embrace, listening to the song of the water falling into
+the alabaster basin with sweet, monotonous melody.
+
+Now and again Actaeon went to the city in the morning to stroll through
+the porticos of the Forum listening to the newsmongers with the
+curiosity of a Greek accustomed to the grumblings in the Agora. He
+noticed extraordinary stir in the great Saguntine market-square. The
+idle talked of war; the more bellicose recounted with exaggeration their
+achievements on the last expedition against the Turdetani, and the
+tranquil merchants left their counters to ask for news, accepting with
+gestures of despair the possibility of a coming struggle. As Actaeon came
+into Saguntum he saw on the wall hundreds of slaves repairing the
+merlons worn by time, and filled with cracks which many years of peace
+had opened in them.
+
+Mopsus, the archer, put him in touch with the deliberations of the
+elders. Hannibal had sent an emissary with an ultimatum to return to the
+Turdetani the conquered territories and the booty taken during their
+last expedition. The African threatened with insufferable arrogance, and
+the Saguntine Republic had answered with scorn, refusing to listen to
+his commands. Saguntum would only obey its strong ally Rome, and, secure
+in her protection, she looked with indifference upon the threats of the
+Carthaginian. However, as war seemed inevitable, and as all stood in
+fear of the youth and audacious character of Hannibal, two senators had
+embarked some days before at the port of Saguntum, setting sail for the
+coasts of Italy to relate what had taken place, soliciting the
+protection of the Roman Senate.
+
+This news circulated confusedly through the Forum, and the crowd jested
+at Hannibal as an impetuous youth who needed a lesson. He might come
+against Saguntum whenever he wished. These Carthaginians were the very
+same who had been driven out of Sicily, the same who had been compelled
+to abandon the coasts of Magna Grecia, being expelled by the Romans, who
+had then raised their own city beside the ruin! If they had achieved
+victories afterward in Iberia it was only against barbarian tribes
+ignorant of the art of warfare, who fell victims to their cunning! When
+they attacked Saguntum they would encounter a worthier enemy, and Rome,
+the powerful ally, would fall upon their rear and exterminate them!
+
+These ideas infuriated the city.
+
+News came that Hannibal had set forth upon his campaign and was slowly
+approaching, and with such tidings a gust of war seemed to sweep over
+Saguntum inflaming the minds of the most prudent. The peace-loving
+merchants with the mute choler of pacific-minded men who see their
+possessions endangered, stood in the doorways of their shops cleaning
+the rust from old arms, or they went down to the river bank to practise
+using them, mingling with the young men, who, since sunrise, had been
+making their horses caracole, gaining skill in the management of the
+lance, or improving themselves in archery under the direction of Mopsus.
+
+Actaeon now began to spend his days away from the villa, deaf to the
+prayers of Sonnica, who longed to have him ever near her. The Senate had
+given him command of the peltasts, the light infantry, and at the head
+of some hundreds of young men, barefooted and with no other defensive
+arm than a cuirass of wool and a shield of osiers, he ran along the
+river bank, teaching them to hurl darts without stopping in their race,
+to wound an enemy as they passed swiftly by his side, without giving
+him time to respond with another blow.
+
+This exercise over, the perspiring youths dived into the river to
+refresh themselves with a swim, while the Greek slowly returned to the
+villa, lingering in the most smiling spots of the domain.
+
+One afternoon the Athenian met Erotion, the potter, at the foot of an
+enormous cherry tree, gazing into the tallest branches, from which fell
+a shower of red fruit shaken down by an invisible hand. They had not met
+since the day when Actaeon surprised him modeling before the nude
+shepherdess.
+
+The youth greeted the Greek with a smile.
+
+"Are you no longer busy?" asked Actaeon with paternal kindness. "Have you
+finished your work?"
+
+The boy answered with a gesture of indifference: "My work! Do not laugh
+at me, Greek. I have nothing to do."
+
+"And where is Rhanto?"
+
+"She is in the top of that tree, gathering the finest cherries for me.
+She climbs like a wood-nymph and she will not let me go with her. She is
+afraid I shall hurt myself."
+
+The branches of the cherry tree shook, and the shepherdess descended,
+agile as a squirrel, her limbs bare, her skirt gathered up and filled
+with cherries. She and her lover devoured them amid laughter, their lips
+ruddy with the crimson fruit-juice, and they decorated each other's hair
+or hung yokes of cherries over their ears, forming picturesque
+ruby-colored earrings.
+
+Actaeon smiled at the strong, handsome young folks who ever sought each
+other's company and frolicked as if they were in the heart of the
+desert, giving no heed to the danger threatening the city.
+
+"But what about your art?" he asked.
+
+Erotion and Rhanto laughed at the recollection.
+
+"I smashed the figure to pieces," said the boy. "I broke the clay into
+fragments, and I have decided to touch no other than that in the
+pottery--when I make up my mind to return there."
+
+He flung his arms around the shepherdess and rested his head upon her
+shoulder, rubbing his cheek against her neck with an almost feline
+caress.
+
+"Why should I work?" he added. "I spent many days kneeling before that
+accursed clay, struggling to make it take on the form of her body; but
+it is useless. Clay is clay, and it cannot become living substance. When
+the soft flesh of my Rhanto is within reach of my hand, it is folly to
+grow desperate trying to mold earth into a semblance of her life. I wish
+to dream no more, Athenian. I will be content with what I have."
+
+With sublime indifference he caressed his playmate in Actaeon's presence.
+
+"One day," continued the boy, "I saw clearly, and I understood the
+truth. Rhanto stood before me. Blinded by ambition I had seen in her
+only the model, but that day I beheld the woman. Why seek glory when I
+had love before me! Even though I should mould a great statue, what
+should I gain? That people should say, after I am dead, 'Erotion the
+Saguntine made this.' I should not hear it--after having spent my life
+working and suffering. No; let us live and love. That day I kicked the
+statue to pieces, and I embraced Rhanto with an enthusiasm of joy.
+Loving each other is better than wasting time over clay puppets. Is not
+that so, Rhanto?"
+
+They kissed each other again, heedless of the presence of the Greek.
+Actaeon observed a transformation in the pair, both in the frank devotion
+of the boy, and in the glow in the eyes of the shepherdess. The ardor of
+love seemed to have made him more manly, and to have given her a suave
+and tender grace, a sweet abandon which she had lacked before.
+
+"I have forgotten art, and now we are happy," continued the boy. "It
+would have been madness to have run off to Greece, leaving here a
+treasure which I had not fully appreciated. We spend our time wandering
+through the fields; we know mysterious corners in the groves sheltered
+by curtains of leaves, dark and perfumed hiding places which even
+Sonnica the rich might envy us. When we are hungry we milk Rhanto's
+goats and we rob a beehive; we climb trees in search of fruit; this is
+the glorious season of the year; the whole champaign is full of
+cherries."
+
+He suddenly ceased speaking, fearing lest he had said too much. Perhaps
+Rhanto reproved him with a nudge. Then he added, in a supplicating tone:
+
+"You are good, Athenian. Rhanto and I have looked upon you as an elder
+brother since that day we met you on the Road of the Serpent. Do not say
+anything to my father, nor to Sonnica. Let us be happy in this life of
+ours, which is worthy of the gods."
+
+Actaeon envied the felicity of these care-free youths, who loved each
+other frankly, living beneath the trees, strong and beautiful as wild
+creatures who had no thoughts beyond their companionship.
+
+"Saguntum is about to be attacked. War is at our gates. Did you not know
+it?"
+
+"We have not heard of it," said Erotion, with a scornful gesture. "I am
+interested in nothing but Rhanto."
+
+"Are you not interested in the fate of your city?"
+
+"I am more interested in the kisses of my shepherdess. As long as there
+be love, sunshine, and fruits, what does the rest of the world matter to
+me?"
+
+"Have you no thought for your country, you truant?"
+
+"Just now I have no thought for anything but these cherries, and for
+these red lips which are as fresh as they."
+
+They parted, and Actaeon long held the memory of the meeting. The
+light-heartedness of the loving couple filled him with envy.
+
+The summer months passed. The vines of the domain ripened their
+clusters, the farmers rejoiced in the prospect of the coming crop hidden
+beneath the leaves, but from time to time, like a gloomy trumpet blast,
+came news of Hannibal, of his victories over the tribes of the interior
+who refused to recognize him, and of his imperious demands upon
+Saguntum.
+
+Actaeon scented the nearness of war, and this, which had ever been his
+principal occupation, now caused him only sorrow. He had grown to love
+this beautiful land as dearly as Greece. His soul, saturated with the
+sweet peace of the fertile fields, and of the rich industrious city, was
+saddened at the thought that this life was to be paralyzed. His
+existence had been spent amid struggles and adventures; and now, rich
+and happy, when he longed for peace in a corner where he hoped to end
+his days, war, like a forgotten mistress who presents herself
+inopportunely, returned unbidden, forcing him anew to cruelty and
+destruction.
+
+One afternoon, at the end of summer, he was pondering these things as he
+was riding toward the city. In the oblique rays of the sun the
+industrious bees, searching out the wild flowers, glistened like golden
+buttons. The vintagers were singing in the vineyards, stooping over
+their baskets. Actaeon saw one of the slaves whom Sonnica kept in her
+warehouses in Saguntum come running from the direction of the city.
+
+He stopped panting before Actaeon. He was almost speechless from fatigue,
+and his broken words revealed his alarm. Hannibal was coming from the
+direction of Saetabis! The people from the country were crowding into the
+city in terror, driving their flocks before them. They had not seen the
+invader but they ran, horrified by the tales of the fugitives who were
+fleeing from the frontiers of the Saguntine territory. The Carthaginians
+had crossed the border; they were people of ferocious aspect, who bore
+strange arms, who looted the villages, and set them on fire. He was
+running to tell his mistress that she might take refuge in the city.
+
+He rushed on toward Sonnica's villa. The Greek hesitated a moment; he
+deliberated whether he should go back in search of his beloved, but he
+ended by setting out on a gallop toward the city, and as he neared it,
+he rode at full speed around the walls. He went for a look at the
+highway from the mountains which gave Saguntum communication with the
+towns by a branch which led to Saetatis and Denia. As he approached he
+began to meet the refugees of whom the slave had told him.
+
+They flooded the road like an inundation. The flocks and herds were
+bleating and lowing under the lash, crowding in between the wagons;
+women were running, carrying great bundles on their heads, and dragging
+along the children clutching at the folds of their tunics; boys were
+driving horses laden with furniture and clothing thrown together
+haphazard in the precipitation of flight, and ewes leaped to the sides
+of the road to escape the wheels which, catching their dragging fleece,
+almost crushed them.
+
+The Greek, riding into the stream of fugitives, opened passage with his
+horse through the seething wave of wagons and animals, rustics and
+slaves, in which people of different towns were confusedly mingled,
+while members of scattered families were calling to one another
+desperately through the clouds of dust.
+
+The fleeing multitude was clearing away. Actaeon was beginning to meet
+the stragglers; poor old women traveling with vacillating step, bearing
+on their shoulders some lamb which constituted their entire fortune; old
+men crushed by the weight of pots and clothing; sick people dragging
+themselves along by the aid of a staff; abandoned animals wandering
+among the olive trees near the highway, that suddenly darted forward at
+full speed through the fields as if scenting their masters; children
+seated on a stone weeping, abandoned by their kindred.
+
+Soon the road was empty. The last of the refugees were left behind, and
+Actaeon saw before him only the narrow tongue of red earth winding along
+the mountain slopes, without a solitary being to break the monotony of
+the road with his shadow.
+
+The gallop of his horse resounded like distant thunder through the
+profound silence. It seemed as if Nature had expired as she guessed the
+approach of war. Even the ancient trees, the twisted olives which had
+stood for centuries, the great fig trees which rose like green cupolas
+against the mountain slopes, remained motionless, as if terrified at the
+approach of that something which caused the people to abandon their
+homes and to flee into the city.
+
+Actaeon rode through a village. Closed doors! Silent streets! From the
+interior of a cabin he thought he heard a faint groan--some sick person
+forsaken by his kindred in their haste to escape. Then he passed a great
+closed villa. Behind the high mud walls a dog was howling in despair.
+
+Then once more solitude, silence, absence of life, a paralysis that
+seemed to creep over the fields. Night began to fall. From afar, as if
+diffused and mellowed by the distance, he heard a muffled booming;
+something like the surging of an invisible sea, the swelling roar of an
+inundation.
+
+The Greek left the road; his horse began to climb a cultivated hill, his
+hoofs sinking into the red soil of the vineyards. From the height he
+could dominate the landscape for a great distance.
+
+The sun's last rays dyed the mountain slopes a brilliant orange. On the
+winding red road shone like a rivulet of sparks the cuirasses of a group
+of horsemen approaching cautiously on a trot, as if exploring the way.
+Actaeon recognized them; they were the Numidian cavalry with white and
+floating mantles, while, mingled with them galloped other warriors of
+less imposing stature, waving lances and making their small horses
+caracole. The Greek smiled as he recognized Hannibal's Amazons, the
+famous squadron he had seen in New Carthage, formed of the wives and
+daughters of soldiers, commanded by the valorous Asbyte, daughter of
+Iarbas, the Garamantan of Fezzan.
+
+Behind this group, the road was deserted for some distance. Against the
+background, like a dark monster moving with serpentine undulations,
+loomed the army, an immense girdle upon which glittered the lances like
+a line of fire broken at intervals by square bulks, which advanced like
+moving towers. These were the elephants.
+
+Suddenly a new sun seemed to rise behind the army, illuminating its
+footsteps. A lurid light filled the horizon, and upon this ruddy
+background the serrated outlines of an immense mass were traced. A
+village was in flames. Hannibal's troops, composed of mercenaries from
+all countries, and from barbarian tribes in the interior, intended to
+terrify the hostile city, hence immediately upon entering Saguntine
+territory they laid waste the fields and set fire to the dwellings.
+Actaeon feared to become surrounded by the Numidians and the Amazons, and
+riding down from the height he started toward Saguntum at a desperate
+gallop.
+
+It was after dark when he reached the city, and he had to call his
+friend Mopsus and make himself known before the gate would open to him.
+
+"Have you seen them?" asked the archer.
+
+"Before the cock crows they will be before our walls."
+
+The city presented an extraordinary aspect. The streets were
+illuminated with bonfires. Pine torches burned in doorways and windows,
+and the multitude of fugitives huddled in the public squares, filling
+the porticos, and lying on the thresholds. All the Saguntines had
+streamed into the city.
+
+The Forum was a camp. The flocks and herds were crowded between the four
+colonnades without space to move, stamping and bellowing; sheep sprang
+about on the steps of the temples; families of rustics boiled pots on
+the Attic bases of the marble columns, and the glow of so many fires,
+flickering on the facades of the houses, seemed to communicate a thrill
+of alarm to the entire city. The magistrates ordered the fugitives lying
+in the streets obstructing traffic to get up, and lodged them in the
+slaves' quarters of the dwellings of the rich, or had them conducted to
+the Acropolis to camp in its innumerable buildings. The herds also were
+driven thither by the light of torches, between a double row of almost
+naked men who beat the oxen when they tried to escape down the sides of
+the sacred mountain.
+
+Rising above the murmur of the multitude sounded blasts from trumpets
+and conch shells calling the citizens to form ready for defending the
+walls. Merchants, dressed in bronze loricas, their faces covered by the
+Grecian helmet crested with an enormous brush of horsehair, issued from
+their houses, tearing themselves from the arms of wives and children,
+and strode majestically through the crowds of rustics, bow in hand,
+their spears over their shoulders, and their swords clanking against
+their nude thighs, their limbs covered to the knees with the copper
+greaves. The young men dragged to the walls enormous stones to hurl
+down upon the besiegers, and they laughed on being assisted by the
+women who were eager to take part in the combat. Old men with venerable
+beards, rich members of the Senate, opened passage, followed by slaves
+with great bundles of spears and swords, distributing the arms among the
+strongest country people, first making sure if they were freemen.
+
+The city seemed to rejoice. Hannibal was coming! The more enthusiastic
+had actually been anxious lest the African would not dare to present
+himself before their walls; but there he was, and all laughed, thinking
+that Carthage would perish in the fall of Hannibal here at the feet of
+Saguntum, as soon as Rome should rally to the aid of the city.
+
+The Saguntine ambassadors were already in Rome, and her legions would
+soon arrive and crush the besiegers at a blow. Some, in their
+enthusiastic optimism, inclined to the marvelous, believing that, by a
+miracle of the gods, the great deed would happen within a few hours, and
+that as soon as day should dawn, at the very instant when Hannibal's
+army had begun to invest Saguntum, a countless galaxy of sails would
+appear on the blue of the Sucronian gulf--the fleet convoying the
+invincible veterans of Rome.
+
+Nearly the entire city was on the walls. The multitude crowded upon them
+until many had to catch hold of the merlons to keep from falling.
+
+Outside the ramparts darkness reigned absolute. The frogs that inhabited
+the pools along the river were hushed as if terrified; the dogs that
+wandered vagabond through the champaign barked ceaselessly; they sensed
+the presence of hidden beings moving in the shadows surrounding the
+city.
+
+Obscurity augmented the anxious uncertainty of the watchers on the
+walls. Suddenly a point of light pierced the darkness of the plain;
+another and then another flash, in different places at a distance from
+the city. They were torches guiding the steps of the approaching army.
+Before the ruddy spot of light silhouettes of men and horses were seen
+to pass. Far off on the hilltops gleamed bonfires, serving as signals to
+straggling troops.
+
+These lights exasperated the more impatient. Some of the younger men
+could no longer remain inactive, and drawing their bows, began to shoot
+their arrows. Promptly came response from out the darkness. A whistling
+passed over the heads of the crowd, and from the houses near the wall
+some tiles flew off with a crash. Sling-shots from the enemy!
+
+Thus the night passed. When the cocks crowed announcing dawn a great
+part of the multitude had fallen asleep, wearied with straining their
+eyes into the darkness where buzzed the invisible foe.
+
+When the sun rose the Saguntines saw Hannibal's entire army before their
+walls, on the side toward the river. Actaeon, as he noted the location of
+the troops, could not repress a smile.
+
+"He well knows the lay of the land. His visit to the city has stood him
+in good stead. Even in the dark he has chosen the only point from which
+Saguntum can be attacked."
+
+The whole side of the mountain was free of besiegers. His army had
+encamped between the river and the lower part of the city, occupying the
+orchards, the gardens of the villas, the beautiful section of which the
+rich of Saguntum were so proud.
+
+Soldiers came and went through the luxurious villas, preparing their
+morning meal; they made kindling of sumptuous furniture to light their
+camp fires; they wrapped themselves in garments they had found, and they
+cut down trees to make room for setting up their tents. Across the
+river, over the immense domain, groups of horsemen scattered out to take
+possession of villages, of villas, of the innumerable buildings which
+rose above the verdure of the plain, abandoned to the mercy of the
+enemy.
+
+The first things to attract the attention of the Saguntines, exciting a
+childish curiosity, were the elephants. They stood in a row on the
+opposite side of the river, enormous, ashen-hued, like tumescences
+uprisen from the earth within the night, their green-painted ears
+drooping like fans, from time to time waving their trunks which seemed
+like gigantic leeches, trying to suck in the blue of the sky. Their
+drivers, assisted by the soldiers, unbound the square towers resting on
+their backs, and rolled up the heavy trappings which covered their
+flanks when engaged in battle. They set them free, as if the fertile
+plain were to them an immense stable, their drivers being convinced that
+the siege would be a lengthy undertaking, and that while it lasted they
+would not need the assistance of the terrible beasts, so appreciated in
+battle.
+
+Near the elephants, along the river bank, stood the engines of war, the
+catapults, the battering-rams, the movable towers, complicated
+structures of wood and bronze, drawn by rosaries of double yokes of
+oxen having enormous backward curving horns.
+
+As if suffering from an eruption the fields were covered with pustules
+of diverse colors, tents of cloth, of straw, or of skins, some conical,
+others square, the majority mound-shaped like ant hills, around which
+swarmed the armed multitude.
+
+The Saguntines, from the top of the walls, examined the besieging army
+that seemed to fill the whole plain, and which was being joined by a
+ceaseless stream of new crowds on foot and on horseback, flowing in from
+every road, and seeming to roll down from the crests of the surrounding
+mountains. It was an agglomeration of diverse races, of different
+peoples; a bizarre collection of costumes, colors, and types, and those
+Saguntines who had been taught by travel recognized the different
+nations, and were pointing them out to their absorbed fellow citizens.
+
+Some horsemen who seemed to fly, lying stretched along the backs of
+their swift barbs, were Numidians, Africans of feminine aspect, covered
+with white veils, wearing women's earrings and slippers, perfumed, with
+eyes painted black, but who were impetuous in combat and fought in full
+career using their lances with great skill. Around the camp fires in the
+gardens stalked athletic negroes from Libya, with kinky hair and
+glistening teeth, smiling in stupid satisfaction as they wrapped their
+naked limbs in garments of rich weave which they had just stolen,
+shivering with cold as soon as they drew away from the fire, as if
+suffering martyrdom in the cool morning air. These dark, shiny-skinned
+men, so seldom seen in Saguntum, excited the curiosity of the citizens
+almost as much as the Amazons who audaciously passed on a gallop close
+to the walls to obtain a better view of the city. They were young women,
+slender, their skins bronzed by exposure. Their hair floated behind
+their helmets like a barbaric decoration, and they wore no other
+clothing than a broad tunic open on the left side, displaying sinewy
+limbs clinging to their horses' ribs. Over the breast some wore
+corselets of bronze-scales, also open on the left side to give greater
+freedom in fighting, displaying the roundness of their small breasts
+made firm and hard by fatiguing exercise. They rode their wild nervous
+horses bareback, guiding them with a delicate bridle, and as they
+galloped in groups the ferocious animals bit and kicked each other, thus
+enlivening the desperate race. The Amazons approached close to the
+walls, laughing and hurling insults which the Saguntines did not
+understand; they waved their lances and shields; and when a cloud of
+arrows and stones was flung after them, they dashed away, with
+wind-swept drapery, turning their heads to repeat their mocking
+gestures.
+
+The besieged distinguished in the dark crowd of soldiers the cuirasses
+of certain horsemen which shone like plates of gold. They were the
+Carthaginian captains, some rich men of Carthage who followed Hannibal,
+sons of opulent merchants who marched with the army more like shepherds
+than like chiefs, covered with metal from head to foot for protection
+against blows, and, with the genius of their race, more devoted to
+administering the conquests and in sharing the booty than in seeking
+glory in combat.
+
+In addition to these people, those on the walls who were familiar with
+them pointed out the other troops of the besieging army. Some with skin
+the color of milk, with faded mustaches, and red horsehair tied to the
+crowns of their heads, who laid aside their military cloaks and tall
+boots of untanned leather to bathe in the river, were Gauls. The others,
+bronzed and so thin that their skeletons were outlined as if they would
+push through the skin, were Africans from the oases of the great desert,
+mysterious people, who with the beating of their small drums caused the
+moon to descend, and by playing the flute forced venomous serpents to
+dance. Mingling with them were the bulky Lusitanians, with limbs as
+strong as columns, and broad rock-like chests; those from Baetica, united
+to their horses day and night by a love which lasted all their lives;
+the hostile Celtiberians, bushy-haired and dirty, wearing their rags
+with arrogance; tribes from the North, who worshipped solitary menhirs
+as gods, and in the moonlight sought mysterious herbs for charms and
+philters; men of ferocious customs, in perpetual battle with hunger;
+barbarian people of whom horrifying tales were told, believed to devour
+the bodies of the conquered after a victory.
+
+The Balearic slingers provoked laughter in spite of their ferocious
+aspect. From the walls the observers commented on the extravagant
+customs which prevailed in their island home, and the multitude burst
+into laughter contemplating the almost naked youths, carrying sticks
+with charred points which served them as lances, and having three
+slings, one wound around the forehead, another about the waist, and the
+third held in the hand. One of these slings was of horsehair, one of
+esparto, and the third of bull tendon, and one or the other was used
+according to the distance they had to throw.
+
+They lived on their islands in caves or in the hollow spaces between
+huge masses of rock, and they were taught to use the sling while mere
+children. Their fathers set their bread some distance from them, and
+would not let them eat it until they had brought it down with a pebble.
+Their passion was drunkenness, and woman their strongest appetite. In
+combat they turned with scorn from prisoners who would bring high ransom
+to capture the women, and they not infrequently would exchange six
+strong slave men for a single slave woman. On the islands they were
+unfamiliar with gold and silver; the elders divining the evils of money,
+had prohibited the importation of coins, and the Balearic slingers in
+the service of Carthage, unable to carry their earnings to their
+country, spent their wages in drink or flung them generously into the
+hands of the loose and wretched women who followed the army. Their
+traditional customs amused the Saguntines. At their weddings, so said
+those who had visited the islands, it was customary for all the guests
+to embrace the bride in advance of the husband, and at funerals the
+corpse was beaten until the bones were crushed and converted into a
+shapeless mass which they forced into a narrow urn and buried under a
+heap of stones. Their slings were terrible. They hurled to great
+distances balls of sun-baked clay, conical at their ends, and bearing
+grotesque inscriptions dedicated to the one who received the blow, and
+in battle they flung stones weighing a pound with such force that the
+highest tempered armor failed to resist them.
+
+In the rear of this warlike crowd ragged women of all colors scattered
+through the champaign; lean, naked children who did not know their
+parents; the parasites of war, who marched at the tail of the army to
+revel in the spoils of victory; females who at night lay down in one
+extreme of the camp and arose on the opposite in the morning, and, aged
+in the prime of their youth by fatigue and blows, died forsaken by the
+roadside; youngsters who looked upon all the soldiers of their race as
+their fathers, bearing on their backs on long marches the firewood or
+the flesh-pot of the warriors, and, in moments of fiercest struggle,
+when the fighting was hand to hand, they slipped between the
+adversaries' legs and bit them like rabid cur-dogs.
+
+Actaeon found Sonnica on the wall, gazing at the hostile camp in the
+first streak of dawn. The beautiful Greek had taken refuge in Saguntum
+the night before, followed by slaves and flocks, moving part of her
+riches from the villa to her warehouse. She had left behind rooms filled
+with paintings and mosaics; rich furniture, sumptuous table-service, all
+which would fall into the hands of the victor. And she and her fellow
+Greek saw peeping through the distant foliage the terrace of the villa
+with its statues, the tower of the doves and the roofs of the houses of
+the slaves, over which men, barely discernible, were running like
+insects. The invaders were there; perhaps they would amuse themselves by
+shooting their arrows at the brilliantly plumaged Asiatic birds, and by
+beating the old and sick slaves abandoned in the flight. Between the
+banana trees in the garden rose the smoke of a bonfire. The Greek woman
+and her lover guessed the destruction and rapine that were taking
+place. Sonnica grew sad, not at the loss of a part of her riches, but
+because they were rending her heart through destroying a place which had
+been witness to her first outbursts of love for the Athenian.
+
+Some time after sunrise the Saguntine people cried out with indignation.
+Along the Road of the Serpent appeared groups of drunken and shouting
+women embracing soldiers. They were the _lupas_ of the port, the
+miserable harlots who thronged around the temple of Aphrodite by night,
+and who were denied entrance to the city. When the first Carthaginian
+horsemen passed through the port these creatures had followed them with
+enthusiasm. Accustomed to the coarse blandishments of men of all
+countries, the presence of these soldiers, so different in dress and
+nationality, did not seem strange to them. The 'wolves' of the land were
+the same as those of the sea. They adored strong men, birds of prey
+which could destroy them with their talons, and they followed the
+Carthaginians to their camp, rejoicing in their hearts at the chance to
+approach the city without fear of punishment, and at being able to mock
+the besieged inhabitants with the concentrated odium of long years of
+humiliation.
+
+They sang like mad women, flitting from one pair of greedy and trembling
+hands to the next which disputed for them as if in their eagerness they
+would tear them to pieces. They drank to intoxication from amphorae of
+rich wines sacked from the villas; around their shoulders they flung
+cloths with threads of gold, stolen but a moment before; the Numidians
+with their moist gazelle-like eyes, looked upon them admiringly,
+bedecking them with crowns of grass, and they in turn bursting into
+bacchanal laughter, petted the kinky hair of the Ethiopians, who giggled
+like children, displaying their sharp cannibal teeth.
+
+They gave themselves up to all manner of ribaldry near the long line of
+horses staked out in front of the tents, displaying their wantonness as
+a shameless insult to the besieged city, and the Saguntines who had
+witnessed undaunted the approach of the long defile of the enemy
+trembled with ire behind their merlons as they witnessed this offense of
+their courtesans.
+
+"The wretches! _Caninae!_"
+
+The women of the city hissed and reviled them, pale with fury, leaning
+over the walls ready to spring into the camp to lay hold upon the
+strumpets, while they, as if the anger of the city only stimulated them,
+redoubled their laughter, adding insult to insult, and exciting the
+whole army to join with them.
+
+A fresh cause of indignation infuriated anew the minds of the
+Saguntines. Some thought they saw something familiar in the appearance
+of one of the Celtiberian warriors riding at the head of a troop of
+cavalry. His gallant bearing on his horse, the arrogance with which he
+galloped with firm seat in the saddle, recalled to many the sightly
+procession of the Panathenaic festival. When he dismounted and removed
+his helmet, wiping away the sweat, all recognized him, and raised a
+shout of resentment. Alorcus! Even he! Another ingrate, faithless to the
+city which had overwhelmed him with honors and distinctions! His duty as
+chieftain compelled him to ignore his fraternal reception in Saguntum.
+
+Blind with rage they drew their bows against him but the arrows fell
+short of the spot where the Celtiberians were encamped. The maddened
+crowd experienced one slight consolation. The groups along the wall made
+way for Theron, the priest of Hercules, who advanced with the majesty of
+a god, his eyes fixed on the enemy, insensible to the general adoration
+which surrounded him.
+
+The Saguntines persuaded themselves that they beheld Hercules himself,
+who perhaps had abandoned his temple on the Acropolis to come down to
+their walls. He was nude; an enormous lion skin covered his back. The
+wild beast's claws were crossed over his breast, and his head was
+covered by the cranium of the animal, with bristling whiskers, sharp
+teeth, and yellow glass eyes which shone between the tossed golden mane.
+His right hand clutched without visible effort the entire trunk of an
+oak tree which served him as a cudgel in imitation of the mace of the
+god. His shoulders towered above all other heads. His breasts were round
+and strong as shields, on which the veins and sinews were traced like
+tendrils winding round the muscles, and his columnar limbs, all excited
+admiration. His virility was the very type of sovereign power. He was so
+enormous that his head seemed small between his great shoulders,
+exaggerated in size by the cushion of his muscles; his chest heaved like
+a bellows, and instinctively all took a step backward, fearing contact
+with that machine of flesh created for strength.
+
+Sonnica's friends, the young gallants, who, even on this extraordinary
+occasion had not forgotten to paint their faces, followed and admired
+him, ordering the crowd, to give them passage.
+
+"Hail, Theron!" shouted Lachares. "We will see what Hannibal will do
+when he meets you in battle."
+
+"Hail to the Saguntine Hercules!" replied the other youths, leaning
+weakly on the backs of their little slave boys.
+
+The giant looked over the encampment, in which trumpets began to sound,
+and the soldiers ran to form in rank. The slingers cautiously advanced,
+sheltering themselves behind buildings and hummocks. The attack was
+about to begin. On the walls the bowmen drew their bows, and the boys
+piled up stones to hurl with their slings. The old men compelled the
+women to retire. At the head of the stairway leading up to the top of
+the wall, Euphobias the philosopher stood haranguing in the midst of a
+group, paying no heed to the indignation of his hearers.
+
+"Blood is going to flow," he shouted; "you will all perish, and for
+what? I ask you what do you gain by not obeying Hannibal? You will
+always have a master, and it is just as well to be friends of Carthage
+as of Rome. The siege will be prolonged, and you will die of hunger; I
+shall outlive you all, because I know hunger from of old like a faithful
+friend. But again I ask you, what more does it profit you to be Romans
+than Carthaginians? Live and enjoy! Leave shedding of blood to the
+butchers, and before you think of putting another man to death, study
+your own selves. If you would give heed to my wisdom, if instead of
+scorning me, you would feed me in exchange for my advice, you would not
+be shut up in your city like foxes in a trap."
+
+A chorus of imprecations and a row of threatening fists answered the
+philosopher.
+
+"Parasite! Slave of poverty!" they shouted. "You are worse than those
+_lupas_ who throw themselves at the barbarians."
+
+Euphobias, whose insolence increased as the indignation blazed higher,
+opened his mouth to reply; but he hesitated, beholding a dark mass which
+shut out the sunlight. The gigantic Theron was before him, looking at
+him as scornfully as would one of those elephants that the besiegers had
+near the river. He raised his left hand carelessly, as if he were going
+to flip off an insect; he barely grazed the insolent face when the
+philosopher tumbled down the steps from the wall, his head bleeding,
+silent, bumping from step to step without a groan, like a man accustomed
+to such caresses, and convinced that pain is but a figment of the
+imagination.
+
+At the same moment a cloud of black arrows whistled over the walls like
+a flock of birds. Tiles flew off, bits of plaster sprang from the
+merlons, and some fell from the wall with broken heads. From between the
+merlons stones and arrows leaped as an impetuous answer.
+
+The defense of the city had begun!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ASBYTE AND HANNIBAL
+
+
+Hannibal lay tossing between the bright-hued coverings of his couch,
+unable to conciliate sleep.
+
+The cocks had announced midnight, breaking the silence of the camp with
+their shrill voices, and the chieftain was yet awake, closing his eyes
+though unable to sleep. His rest was disturbed by the singing of a
+nightingale perched in a great tree from the branches of which hung his
+tent.
+
+An earthenware lamp illuminated the mass of objects strewn carelessly
+around his bed. On the floor glistened cuirasses, greaves, and helmets,
+over which were thrown rich fabrics stolen from the Saguntine villas.
+Grecian furniture, delicately wrought toilette amphorae, tapestries with
+mythological scenes, lay in a heap mingled with rawhide whips, shields
+of hippopotamus hide, and the rags of Hannibal's personal costume, for,
+though a lover of glittering arms, he was careless and dirty in his
+dress. Elegant Grecian vases he put to the vilest uses. An alabaster
+crater covered by a shield served as a seat; a huge terra cotta vase,
+decorated by a Grecian artist with the adventures of Achilles, the
+African scornfully used in a manner calculated to express the height of
+his contempt for refinement. Pieces of statues and columns destroyed
+during the tempest of invasion were sunk in the ground, making seats
+for Hannibal's captains when a council was held in the chieftain's tent.
+It was the spoil of war, looted and thrown about in a fever of robbery.
+Only a small portion of it had reached the chief, who felt absolute
+scorn for artistic beauty except when stamped on precious metals. He
+sneered at the gods of this land as he did at those of his own country
+and of the world; he spat upon the marble forms of divinities which
+filled the camp, as if they were scraps of worthless stone, good for
+nothing but to be hurled by a catapult against the enemy.
+
+Impelled by nervous excitement, which prevented his sleeping, he raised
+up in his couch, and the lamplight shone full upon his face. He was no
+longer the Celtiberian shepherd, dishevelled and ferocious, whom Actaeon
+had met in the port of Saguntum. Divested of his disguise he showed what
+he was--a young man of medium height, with strong and well proportioned
+limbs, without display of exaggerated muscles, but revealing in his body
+the temper of steel, a vitality capable in supreme moments of the most
+stupendous achievements. His face was slightly bronzed, and his hair lay
+around his head in thick short curls like a black and lustrous turban,
+completely covering his forehead, and leaving exposed the lobes of his
+ears, from which hung great discs of bronze. His beard was thick and
+curly; his nose straight and somewhat prominent, and his eyes, large and
+imperious, always looked sidewise, with an expression of profound
+astuteness and unapproachable reserve. His muscular neck was habitually
+bent, inclining his head toward the right, as if to more clearly catch
+the sounds around him.
+
+He wore a simple, dirty, and threadbare sagum, like any one of those
+Celtiberians who lay snoring in the tents roundabout, and, as a sign of
+command, there shone on his wrists two broad golden bracelets, which
+added strength by their confinement of the tendons and muscles of the
+arm.
+
+For more than a month he had been before the walls of Saguntum without
+achieving any advantage. He had spent the whole of that afternoon
+directing his engines of war without result, and now in his solitude
+this want of success irritated his nerves, and dispelled his sleep. The
+petted child of victory, he had conquered in open fight the most savage
+tribes of Iberia; he had dragged his elephants over the crests of lofty
+mountains, crossing rivers, breaking trails through forests, seeing
+warlike hordes fall prostrate before him as if he were a god, but now,
+for the first time in his life he encountered a stubborn enemy, which
+behind sheltering walls mocked at him and would not suffer him to
+advance a step.
+
+The city of merchants and farmers which he had studied from within,
+looking scornfully upon its opulence and effeminacy, threatened to break
+the current of his good luck, and, finding it indomitable, and
+reflecting upon his enemies in Carthage, upon the wrath of Rome, and
+realizing that time was passing while he was making no headway, the
+chieftain experienced a gust of anxiety.
+
+He had chosen well the vulnerable point of Saguntum. His engines of war
+were placed before the lower part of the city where the walls projected
+into the valley, upon an open, level plain, which permitted the advance
+of the battering-rams; but scarcely had the hundreds of naked men who
+dragged the heavy machines come within range than such a shower of
+arrows fell about them that those who were not pinned to the ground had
+to flee for their lives.
+
+Sometimes, under cover of the mantelets, which advanced on wheels, and
+through the loopholes of which the Carthaginian bowmen shot, they
+managed to get the battering-rams to the foot of the wall, but while
+that part of the city was the most exposed to attack, the ramparts which
+in the upper portion of Saguntum were of adobe had here a stony rock
+base, and in vain the bronze rams'-heads which formed the ends of the
+beams, pounded and pounded, operated by hundreds of arms. Showers of
+arrows and stones fell upon the besiegers, breaking the shields which
+covered them. A great tower dominated the whole area around the
+assailants, sowing death among them without exposure to the besieged,
+and not content with this, under the impulse of their passion, they
+frequently sprang forth from behind the ramparts, knifing the
+Carthaginians.
+
+Each of these sallies cost Hannibal's army severe losses. The Africans
+had begun to tell with superstitious dread of a naked giant, wearing a
+lion's skin, and brandishing a tree-trunk, who charged at the head of
+the Saguntines, and at each blow ploughed a broad furrow through the
+assailants. The Ethiopians saw in him a terrible and sanguinary
+divinity, like those which they worshipped in their oases; the
+Celtiberians declared that it was Hercules, descended from Olympus to
+protect the city.
+
+Hannibal recognized him in the battles from afar. It was Theron, the
+priest whom he had seen one morning on the Acropolis, and whose
+extraordinary vigor he had admired. But in spite of knowing his human
+origin, he could not overcome the terror of the troops at the instant
+when they saw towering above all the helmets that invulnerable lion's
+head which seemed to change the course of the arrows and stones.
+
+Moreover the besieged counted on the assistance of the phalaric. It was
+well known that among the merchants and agriculturists there figured men
+expert in war, who had traveled through many lands. The memory of his
+boyhood companion, Actaeon, the Greek adventurer, surged through
+Hannibal's mind. He, surely, must be the introducer of the phalaric, a
+dart wrapped in tow and dipped in pitch. The shaft sped blazing through
+the air like a stream of fire, with its long iron head capable of
+piercing the shield and the cuirass, and even if the terrible missile
+should not penetrate the armor, its flames set fire to the clothing; the
+combatants threw down their arms to put out the fire, and thus stood
+exposed to the blows of the enemy. The same warriors who had fought
+against the most determined and barbaric tribes of Iberia, flung away
+their shields and fled before those meteors of fire which came from the
+walls of Saguntum whistling and scattering sparks.
+
+Thus time passed; the besiegers gained nothing, and Hannibal was
+dominated by a galling impatience. Fire of Baal! He, chained to these
+walls which he could not make his own, while Hanno's faction was
+conspiring in Carthage, preparing the downfall of the Barcas if he
+should fail in taking Saguntum; planning, perhaps, his delivery to Rome
+when she should demand him on finding her treaties violated. In despair
+he threw himself back once more upon his couch, seeking the oblivion of
+sleep with the eagerness of one who must needs forget. He blew out the
+light, but lay open-eyed in the darkness. The bluish glint of the moon
+filtered through an opening in the cupola of his tent, shimmering upon
+the cuirasses which in the darkness shone like phosphorescent fishes.
+Outside, the nightingale continued singing.
+
+Hannibal grew frantic. Accursed bird that was keeping him awake! He
+could sleep in the din of battle! Accustomed from boyhood to the camp,
+the hoarse songs of the mercenaries and the whinnying of horses would
+fail to arouse him, and the harsh trumpet-blast of war had been his
+lullaby. But the sweet song of that bird, its incessant melodious trill,
+annoyed him like the buzzing of a hornet.
+
+He sprang from his couch; he groped in the dark amid the litter of arms,
+fabrics, and furniture; he burst out through the doorway of his tent,
+and the fresh night soothed his tempestuous spirit.
+
+The moon was shining in a cloudless sky; the breeze was warm, although
+it was the end of autumn; stars scintillated; the nightingale's trills
+were answered by another and yet another bird, throughout the expanse of
+the valley. The camp lay at rest. The flames were flickering out from
+dying bonfires near which soldiers were sleeping along with women and
+children of the army, wrapped in rags and in rich stolen fabrics; the
+horses picketed to the ground, pointed their nodding heads in a straight
+line; in the distance, the beleaguered city crouched dark and silent as
+if asleep, but a faint glow escaping through loopholes in its walls
+produced the effect of half-open eyes watching while feigning sleep.
+
+Hannibal leaped over the trusted soldiers who slept near the door of his
+tent. They raised up as they heard his footsteps, but recognizing the
+chief, lay down on the ground again and continued snoring. They were
+veterans from Hamilcar's wars, who looked with almost religious
+veneration on the lion cub of their old captain.
+
+As he turned the corner of the tent he drew his bow to shoot at the bird
+hidden in the foliage; but he started in surprise on seeing a white
+figure standing near the trunk of the tree, shining in the moonlight.
+
+It was a woman, an Amazon. On her head and on her breast glistened the
+helmet of gold and the cuirass of scales; her white linen tunic fell
+over her limbs, outlining her form, and her strong bare arms were
+resting on her lance with its shoe driven into the ground. Her dark eyes
+were fastened on Hannibal's tent with strange, unblinking persistence,
+as if she were dreaming awake, and the night-wind lightly swayed her
+floating hair. Behind her stood a black horse with glossy coat, nervous
+legs, and eyes injected with blood, destitute of saddle or bridle, his
+mane unbound; he was bending down to lick the border of the Amazon's
+tunic and her nude feet, like a dog which followed her everywhere.
+
+"Asbyte!" exclaimed Hannibal, surprised at the apparition. "What are you
+doing here?"
+
+The queen of the Amazons seemed to awake, and seeing the chief, she
+fixed on him the moist and impassioned gaze of her large eyes.
+
+"I could not sleep," she said with a voice languid and measured. "I
+spent the first part of the night dreaming horrible dreams. The Goddess
+Tanith will not guard my repose, and I have seen the shade of my father
+Iarbas announcing my approaching death."
+
+"Death!" exclaimed Hannibal, laughing. "Who thinks of death?"
+
+"Am I then immortal? Do I not fight like any one of your soldiers? I
+hurl myself impetuously through forests of lances; feathered shafts hiss
+around me like a trailing mantle of invisible birds; I scorn the
+phalarics with their streams of fire--but some day I shall die; my
+dreams foretell it."
+
+Asbyte, as if fearing to show too great melancholy in the presence of
+Hannibal, added bitterly:
+
+"Let death come when it will! It does not frighten me as it does the
+merchants of Carthage who hate you. If it disturbed my sleep it was
+because when I awoke I thought of you. I cannot explain to myself why I
+thought that you also might die, and to your death, Hannibal, I cannot
+be resigned. You should live long like a god. I knew that you sleep
+alone in your tent; that, to better conceal your movements you keep no
+guards to watch while you slumber, and I felt the need of doing
+something for you, of spending the night leaning on my lance near your
+couch to prevent the treachery of an enemy."
+
+"What madness!" exclaimed the African, laughing.
+
+"Hannibal," said the beautiful Amazon gravely, "remember Hasdrubal, the
+husband of your sister. The dagger of a slave was enough to put an end
+to him."
+
+"Hasdrubal was doomed to die," said the chieftain, with the conviction
+of fatalism. "The fate of Carthage demanded his death. It was necessary
+that Hasdrubal should succumb to make way for Hannibal. But Hannibal has
+no one to replace him, and he shall live even though he were to sleep
+surrounded by enemies. My sleep is light and my arm is sure; he who
+slips into the tent of Hannibal enters his tomb."
+
+Asbyte contemplated with loving admiration the young hero, who had flung
+down his bow, and while he spoke of his strength he raised his powerful
+arms, and the moon enlarged their shadow in such wise that as they moved
+he seemed to embrace the camp, the city, the whole valley, like a
+supernatural being.
+
+The Amazon drew near leaning her lance against the trunk of a tree. On
+laying down her weapon she seemed to throw off her warlike mien, and she
+approached Hannibal with feminine sweetness, gazing upon him with the
+moist, timid eyes of the antelopes that frisk about the oases of her
+native land.
+
+"Besides," she murmured, "I came because I needed to be near you. To
+guard your sleep gives me indescribable joy. I feel the delight of an
+exalting sacrifice in keeping vigil over you when you know it not. I
+never have an opportunity to speak with you. By day I see you on
+horseback among the Carthaginians with their golden armor, who flock
+around you; on foot directing those who push the engines of war, helping
+them, often, to excite their enthusiasm; but I see you always from afar,
+as a chieftain, as a hero, never as a man. Do you remember those days in
+the citadel of New Carthage when I had just arrived from Africa with the
+reinforcements which caused you to utter shouts of enthusiasm?"
+
+"Asbyte! Asbyte!" murmured Hannibal, repelling her with a movement of
+his arms, as if the recollection annoyed him.
+
+"Do not be angry, Hannibal; listen to me. I must speak to you. Give me
+at least the consolation of seeing you near, of telling you what I feel.
+If not, why have I come to Iberia, joining my fate to yours?"
+
+The chieftain glanced around, as if fearing that someone might be
+listening to his conversation with the Amazon.
+
+"Fear not," said Asbyte, divining his thought. "Mago, your brother,
+sleeps far from here with Maherbal, the favorite captain. My Numidians
+are at the opposite end of the camp. You surround yourself only with
+Iberians in order to encourage their fidelity with such a proof of
+confidence, and they do not understand Phoenician."
+
+Reassured by Asbyte's answer, Hannibal lowered his head and crossed his
+arms, resigned to listen.
+
+"You are as hard and disdainful as a god," sighed the Amazon. "The woman
+who loves you feels within her the fire of Moloch, and you will not
+deign to quench it even with a glance of kindness, nor with a smile. You
+have a heart of bronze; your eyes ever gaze aloft, and you cannot see
+those who crawl to approach you. You imagine that you have made me happy
+because you lead me from battle to battle, from conquest to conquest,
+and you consider that my happiness consists in having my hands, which
+used to be adorned with rings, calloused by the lance; my face, which in
+other times was covered with costly unguents brought from Egypt by my
+caravans, hardened by the cheek-pieces of the helmet. I have become rude
+and fierce like a man. Though I possess gardens far away where an
+eternal springtime dwells, I have suffered hunger and thirst at your
+side. I know not who I am; I doubt my sex, seeing my body made ugly by
+fatigue. My skin, over which the hands of my slaves used to slip as if
+it were a mirror, is now as hard as that of a crocodile. If I do not
+seem as hideous as the troop of wasted females which follows your
+soldiers it is because my youth has not forsaken me. And all this for
+whom? For you who will not deign to look at me; for you who have
+forgotten our first meeting; for you who see in Asbyte only a good
+friend, an esteemed ally, who came to you bringing a strong array of
+fighters. Hannibal! Lightning-flash of Baal! You are as great as a
+demigod, but you do not know human beings. You see in me only an Amazon,
+a warrior virgin like those of whom the Grecian poets sing--but I am a
+woman!"
+
+Asbyte sadly and silently searched the face of the pensive Hannibal.
+
+"You have forgotten, perhaps, how we met," she added, presently, with
+melancholy tone. "I dwelt happy in my oasis until I rushed to your side,
+drawn by some irresistible charm that emanates from your person. I, the
+daughter of Iarbas the Garamantan, wearied of the comforts of my house,
+of the songs of my slaves, and of the splendors which the merchants
+flung from the caravans at my feet, went into the desert hunting lions
+with Iarbas, and the warriors marveled when the most savage colts
+trembled, obedient and timid, as soon as they felt me on their backs. I
+was strong, and I was beautiful. Scarcely had I grown out of my girlhood
+than the bravest of the Numidian sheikhs came seeking hospitality of my
+father that they might see me, and they told of their flocks and of
+their warriors, proposing an alliance to Iarbas. And I, indifferent,
+cold, kept my thoughts ever on Carthage where I once had been in
+company with my father to adjust the tribute with the rich men of the
+Senate. Ah, the magnificent city, the immense city, with her temples as
+huge as towns and her gigantic gods!"
+
+Wandering from the trend of her ideas, she fell into enthusiastic
+reminiscence of Carthage, the great city which after all her travels and
+warlike adventures was still a vivid memory. She called to mind the
+dwellings of the rich Carthaginians, with their polychrome walls
+finished by brilliant spheres of metal and of glass; the great marble
+temples, with their mysterious groves through which resounded the lyres
+and cymbals of the priests; the temple of Tanith surrounded by rose
+gardens, perfumed hiding places which served as shelters for the sacred
+phallic rites in honor of the goddess; and then the port, the immense
+port, with a whole city of ships which poured into the metropolis a
+continual stream of riches from all over the world, tin from Brittania,
+copper from Italy, silver from Iberia, gold from Ophir, frankincense
+from Saba, amber from northern seas, purple from Tyre, ebony and ivory
+from Ethiopia, spices and pearls from India, and brilliant fabrics from
+nameless and mysterious peoples of Asia who dwelt at the uttermost
+borders of the world, wrapped in the mists of legend.
+
+She adored the city, not only for its splendors, but far more because it
+harbored partisans of the Barcas, the supporters of the heroic family
+whose deeds the Numidian warriors recounted in the moonlight, and of
+whom Hannibal, who added renown to his name in the wars of Iberia when
+still a boy, was the glorious descendant.
+
+"My people ever loved your people," continued the Amazon. "If my father
+Iarbas submitted to the domination of Carthage, it was because at the
+head of it was Hamilcar, an African, a Numidian like ourselves. I hate
+the Carthaginian merchants as bitterly as you do--those ancient
+Phoenicians from the rock-bound Aradus who prospered and reproduced
+like worms, afterwards to cross the sea and take possession of our
+beautiful soil of Africa. I hate the ship figured upon so many of your
+coins and temples, because it is the sign of the avaricious people who
+came to exploit us, but I adore the Carthaginian charger, the Numidian
+horse, the symbol of our past."
+
+Then she spoke of the charm which the glory of the Barcas had exercised
+over her mind from afar. She had loved Hannibal without realizing it,
+influenced by tales of his achievements which had reached her ears. She
+imagined him fighting like a young lion at his father's side, among
+herds of bulls with flaming horns, and among burning chariots which the
+Iberians drove against the Carthaginian invader; she thought of him, mad
+with fury, before the body of Hamilcar, and then languishing from
+inaction beside the beautiful Hasdrubal, conciliatory and pacific, until
+the moment when, his brother being assassinated by the dagger of a Gaul,
+the whole army acclaimed the youth as chieftain.
+
+Her father Iarbas had just died, and she, now become queen of her
+tribes, heard that Hannibal, thirsting for glory and for combat, was
+isolated in the fortress of New Carthage, with no other troops than the
+remnant of the army which Hamilcar had taken to Iberia. The rich of
+Carthage, enemies of the Barcas, fearing the populace, dared not
+deprive Hamilcar's son of the chieftancy which his soldiers tendered
+him; they confirmed it by their silence, but they kept him isolated,
+without resources, left to his own devices, so that the natives should
+put an end to him, or at the most, that he might conquer a small
+territory on the Iberian coast in which the ambition of the Barcas would
+gradually become extinguished.
+
+"Then I flew to your side," continued Asbyte. "I wished to know the man
+and to save the hero. I turned over a great part of my riches to the
+merchants of Carthage for the loan of their ships; I kindled the
+enthusiasm of the most warlike of my tribes to follow me; even their
+daughters imitated me, and went lion hunting, galloping all day long,
+lance in hand, drawn on by my mad adventure, and one afternoon, when
+perhaps you were weeping, believing your hopes of glory dead, you beheld
+from the height of the citadel of New Carthage a whole fleet coming from
+Africa. Do you remember? Tell me! Do you remember how you received me?"
+
+"Yes, and I shall never forget it," said Hannibal gently. "Those days
+are my happiest memory."
+
+"You received me as if I were a divinity, as if Ashtoreth, who illumines
+our nights had descended from the sky to give you her protection. You
+were oblivious to my warriors and saw only me, and scorning your
+ambitions for the moment we spent the nights lying on the terrace of the
+citadel, and the stars were witnesses to our interminable embraces. But,
+alas! that joy was like the roses from Egypt which last but a day in the
+vases of the rich women of Carthage. Soon the pride of conquest
+returned to you, the ambition of the chieftain. You admired the training
+of my Numidians more than my beauty when, of an afternoon, outside the
+walls they astounded your old warriors by hurling darts while kneeling
+on their horses, which ran so fast that they raised the dust with their
+bellies. We went out to fight with the Olcades, the Vaccaei, all those
+Iberian tribes which yesterday you fought and which to-day follow you.
+Led by you I fought like a soldier, and I considered myself happy when
+on the long marches, imitating our horses which lovingly put their heads
+together, you bent toward me, striking your helmet against mine to kiss
+me. Finally--not even that! What am I? One warrior more in your camp; a
+friend worthy of gratitude, who brought you assistance on seeing you
+abandoned by Carthage, with no other force than a handful of veterans
+and some elephants. In the battles if you see me in danger you fly to
+defend me; but afterwards, in the camp, on the long marches, a few words
+of friendship, a cold smile as to any one of your captains. Your heart
+has closed against me. Am I not Asbyte, she whom you knew in New
+Carthage? Do you not love me when you see me made ugly and hardened by
+war? Tell me that, and I will become a woman again, I will bedeck myself
+with jewels, I will abandon my Amazons and surround myself with Greek
+slaves, I will cover myself with ointments which will change my skin
+back to its pristine freshness, and I will follow you on your marches
+lying on a litter with curtains of purple."
+
+"No!" Hannibal made haste to reply, with enthusiasm. "I love you as you
+are. The beloved of Hannibal can only be an Amazon like yourself, who
+have made many warriors fall beneath your charger."
+
+"Then why do you flee from me? Why do you abandon me, why forget the
+sweetness of our early love? See that nightingale, at which a moment ago
+you aimed your arrow! In the midst of an army camp, before a besieged
+city, it sings and sings, calling to its mate, heedless of the horrors
+of war, unconscious of the stench of blood which rises from these
+fields. Let us be like him! Let us make war; but let us also love each
+other, and let us ride through the battles with our bodies thrilled with
+love!"
+
+"No, Asbyte," said the African gloomily. "That felicity is impossible; I
+love you, but we cannot understand each other. You complain because I
+see in you only an Amazon, when you are a woman; you, in return, see in
+me only a man, and I am more than man. I am not the demigod you imagine;
+I am something more; I am a formidable machine of war, without heart or
+sense of pity, created only to crush men and nations who obstruct my
+passage."
+
+Hannibal said this with conviction, beating his firm chest,
+straightening his figure with sombre majesty as he declared his
+destructive power.
+
+"I would love you if I were a man capable of wasting my time in such
+sweet folly, but when have you seen the eagle spend all his time in the
+nest caressing his mate, without desire to soar aloft and fall upon the
+quarry? Those who have talons cannot caress, and I was born to make prey
+of the world, or else for the world to crush me. Love? A sweet
+occupation, I grant you! In the past, full of blood and of battles, the
+only oases of my joy were those days in New Carthage when I believed
+that Tanith herself, with all her divine beauty, had deigned to come
+down to my arms. But that is over; Hannibal has other loves that attract
+him and dominate him; he loves his sword, he loves all that the enemy
+possesses, and he cannot sleep with tranquility for thinking of Rome,
+whom he desires to crush within these arms! How far away she is!"
+
+The Amazon made a gesture of despair at the passion with which the
+chieftain declared his ambitions.
+
+"You might complain," continued Hannibal, "if you saw that my thoughts
+were filled with the image of another woman. Whom have I loved but you?
+To draw to me those barbarians who follow me, to league them by ties of
+blood to my enterprises, I took to wife the daughter of an Iberian
+kinglet. Yes, and where is she? Does she follow me as do you? She
+remains in New Carthage, spinning her gay-colored wools, and she
+scarcely thinks of me, because never for a moment did the charms of the
+barbarian virgin move me. I love only you. Hannibal can fall tremulous
+with passion only into arms like yours, hardened by use of the lance.
+But be worthy of him! Think not as do other women; seek not new lovers;
+unite yourself to me, so that both together we can think of possessing
+and of hating, of making the world ours!"
+
+As if exalted by his own words, the African, with glowing eyes,
+approached Asbyte, caressing her arms, while he breathed in her face his
+ambitious plans.
+
+"I must be lord of the world! I want Carthage, only Carthage, to exist
+upon the earth, because Carthage is my native land! Had I been born a
+Roman, Rome should be mistress! With my name I mean to obliterate the
+memory of Alexander the Macedonian, to be greater than he, to conquer
+wider territories, and I dream of undertakings less easy than dominating
+the Asiatics, weakened by the softening tendency of the sun and of
+riches. Rome is sturdy, she is stronger than our republic of merchants
+corroded by avarice and pleasure; her hands are calloused by the plow
+handle and the lance--then against Rome am I headed! Alexander! How weak
+is his glory! It is easy to march to the conquest of the world when one
+is the son of Philip, who leaves as inheritance an army seasoned by a
+hundred victories, when one has an obedient kingdom at one's back, and
+even in childhood has the good fortune to receive instruction from
+Aristotle. The difficult thing is to be Hannibal, abandoned by my
+country, with no other resources than those I can find for myself;
+having to face at the same time the fury of the enemy and the treachery
+and intrigue of my fellow countrymen, reared far from my father, among
+astute merchants who, keeping me as hostage, sought to avoid future
+danger by diverting my warlike instincts; with no other culture than a
+little Greek which Sosilon the Spartan taught me; but despite all this,
+Hannibal wars with fate, and he is conquering. If Alexander is admired
+for his conquests in the land of the rising sun, some day the world will
+be startled at seeing me, after having crushed men, dominating Nature
+herself by crossing the loftiest glaciers and changing the positions of
+mountains to continue on my way. Look at me well, Asbyte, and you will
+be convinced that it is as useless to try to arouse human sentiments in
+my heart as to soften the breast of the enormous bronze Moloch which we
+have in Carthage! A moment ago, in the solitude of my tent, I felt weak
+and disheartened, but talking with you revives my strength. Look at me
+well; you are in the presence of one who fears neither men nor gods!"
+
+"The gods!" exclaimed Asbyte with a throb of terror. "Do you not fear
+that they will punish you?"
+
+A peal of laughter, sarcastic, tinged with deep scorn, answered the
+Amazon.
+
+"The gods!" exclaimed Hannibal. "I live among warriors of all nations.
+Each one adores his own gods, and I know so many, so many, that I do not
+believe in any of them, and I jest at them all. In Carthage I adored
+Moloch; here you have often seen me dedicate sacrifices to the Iberian
+divinities, to attract the people to me. If some day I enter as a
+conqueror that city where my thought continually dwells, the populace
+shall acclaim me, seeing me climb to the Capitol to offer thanks to
+their gods. I believe only in force and strategy. I have but one
+tutelary god--war, who makes giants of men, giving them the omnipotence
+of divinity. If on becoming lord of the earth, I find no one with whom
+to fight, I shall die, thinking the world empty!"
+
+The Amazon bowed her head, overcome with sadness.
+
+"I realize now that you will never be mine, Hannibal! You love war above
+all things else, and will be faithful to it as long as you live. You are
+indeed a bird of prey; the momentary love of a slave woman satisfies
+you; the wounded and weeping woman who falls into the power of your
+soldiers as they enter a city through a breach in its walls satiates
+you. You will never understand love and its sweetness."
+
+Hannibal shrugged his shoulders scornfully.
+
+"I love victory, success! The laurel which Greek heroes bound upon their
+brows in the triumph has for me a more penetrating perfume than the
+roses of the poets. Cease your laments, Asbyte; be a warrior, and forget
+that you are a woman; I will love you more. You shall be my brother in
+arms. Why think of those nights of love when I was still in misfortune
+and lacking in soldiers, now that all Iberia follows me and I see my
+dreams of world-power beginning to be realized? Look over this camp,
+where infinite tongues are spoken, and where each tribe dresses in a
+different costume. They flow in like streams which swell the torrent.
+Each day new warriors appear. How many are they? No one knows. Maherbal
+said yesterday that there were a hundred and twenty thousand; I believe
+that soon there will be a hundred and eighty thousand. Blind faith in
+Hannibal draws them on; they feel that with me they march to victory;
+perhaps their gods have told them that this is but the beginning of a
+series of achievements which will astound the world. Ponder over it,
+Asbyte! These peoples have spent their lives fighting among themselves;
+they hated each other, and yet the sword of Hannibal is a shepherd's
+crook which guides them like a common flock; and after this miracle
+would you have me waste my time loving you, staying in my tent lying at
+your feet, my head upon your knees, listening to you while you sing the
+dreamy songs of the oasis? No! Lightning of Baal! The city stands before
+us, mocking at the greatest army ever gathered together on the fields of
+Iberia, and this must stop. The hempen tent must crush the tower of
+stone. Sharpen well your lance, daughter of Iarbas; prepare your
+faithful steed, my beloved! That mysterious breeze which I always
+perceive on the eve of a victory blows around me. This very day we shall
+enter Saguntum."
+
+He glanced to the east as if impatient for the coming of dawn.
+
+The moon shone less clearly; the sky darkened, its blue becoming more
+dense, and on the side toward the sea a broad belt of violet light
+appeared.
+
+"It will soon be morning," continued the African. "This night, Asbyte,
+you shall sleep in the ivory couch of some rich Greek woman, and you
+shall have at your feet the Elders of the city to serve you as slaves."
+
+"No, Hannibal. This day which is now beginning will never end for me. I
+still see the shade of Iarbas, as it appeared to me before the first
+cock-crow. I shall die, Hannibal!"
+
+"Die! Can you believe that? Before the enemy reaches you he must pass
+over Hannibal's body. You are my brother in arms! _I_ will be at your
+side!"
+
+"Even so, I must die. My father cannot deceive me."
+
+"Are you afraid? Are you trembling, daughter of the Garamantan? Ah, at
+last the woman! Stay in your tent! Do not approach the walls! I will go
+and seek you when the moment arrives for you to enter the city like a
+lady!"
+
+Asbyte straightened her graceful figure as if she had just received a
+lashing. Her large eyes glowed with anger.
+
+"I will leave you, Hannibal. Day is beginning to dawn. Make preparation
+for the assault, and you will find me ready when your troops give the
+signal. Knowing that I am going to die, I wish to ask you for one kiss,
+the last--No, do not approach me. I do not want it now; it would do me
+harm. If I fall and you can find me among the slain, you will know what
+my last thought has been."
+
+Leaning on her lance she moved away between the rows of tents, followed
+by the black horse, which sniffed at her footprints in faithful
+devotion.
+
+Day was breaking. The camp fires were nearly extinguished, and around
+the dying embers the men could be seen arising from the ground,
+stretching their benumbed limbs, and shaking out the pieces of cloth in
+which they had been wrapped. Horses whinnied, tugging at their stake
+ropes, and the soldiers set them free, driving them to the river to
+water and clean them.
+
+Along every road huge carts were approaching the camp laden with
+provisions and forage, and the creaking of their axles mingled with the
+songs of the soldiers, who had arisen in good spirits and recalled their
+distant homes, singing in their native tongues.
+
+It was a confusion of voices and cries. Each tribe camped by itself; one
+people greeted the other with joyous shouts. From every side floated
+odors of naked, sweaty flesh, and of strange stews boiling in the pots;
+the hammers of the carpenters echoed loudly as they worked upon the
+siege-engines which would soon be hurling stones and darts against the
+walls. Warriors in flowing mantles, mounted on prancing steeds, galloped
+between the city and the camp, examining the battlements of Saguntum,
+reddened by the sun's first rays, where the defenders were beginning to
+stir among the merlons. Hannibal with uncovered head was sitting on a
+remnant of a wall, the ruin of a villa demolished by the besiegers, also
+studying the city.
+
+He was resolved to begin the attack as soon as his army had finished
+making the morning preparations. Fifteen hundred Africans, armed with
+pickaxes, were gathering on the outskirts of the camp. They were going
+to attack that portion of the city which threw its ramparts into the
+level, open plain, thereby permitting unobstructed approach to its base.
+In other divisions of the camp the Celtiberian infantry was forming with
+long ladders to attempt the walls on many sides at once. The engines of
+war advanced, the catapults, with the thick bow tightly drawn by elastic
+cords, ready to fling the stone deposited in the groove of the long arm;
+the battering-rams vibrating on their chains as they moved. The
+walking-towers, light, with walls of interlaced osiers, trundled upon
+massive disks crowned by the shields of the besiegers who concealed
+themselves behind them to hurl their missiles.
+
+Hannibal hurried to his tent, passing between the cavalrymen who were
+deliberately grooming their horses and polishing their weapons, knowing
+that they were not to take part in the assault until the last moment.
+The chieftain armed himself lightly. He put on a short lorica of bronze
+scales, adjusted his helmet, selected a shield, and on leaving his tent
+he met Maherbal and his brother Mago, in charge of the reserves who
+remained in the camp.
+
+"Your legs are unprotected," said his brother. "Are you not going to
+cover them with greaves?"
+
+"No," replied the chieftain spiritedly. "We are going to make an
+assault, and to climb over the fallen walls one must have his legs free.
+The missiles will respect me as ever."
+
+As he walked out of the camp he thought he saw the queen of the Amazons
+standing between two tents, following him with saddened eyes; but
+Asbyte, when her gaze met Hannibal's, moved away and turned her back
+upon him haughtily.
+
+Trumpets blew, and the army stirred, marching against the city.
+
+The mantelets rolled forward, veritable parapets of wood, through the
+interstices of which the bowmen shot. Under cover of these portable
+bulwarks the Africans armed with pickaxes advanced, while in other
+directions throughout the valley hurried the Celtiberians, carrying
+their ladders in front of them.
+
+In an instant the walls were manned with defenders. Over the merlons
+appeared sinewy arms hurling missiles, slings swirled discharging
+stones, and bows bent followed by sharp hisses.
+
+Hannibal, to animate the assailants, marched behind the fifteen hundred
+Africans, laughing at the projectiles which struck the wooden sides of
+the mantelets. Several nights, dragging himself on his belly, and at the
+risk of being taken prisoner, he had reached the foot of that rampart
+which projected on the valley side, and which formed the strongest wall
+of the city. The base was composed of great stones laid in clay. The
+chieftain being convinced that it was difficult to scale the walls,
+decided to open a breach through the foundation by undermining the
+reddish rampart before which his army had been confounded.
+
+As they drew near it the Africans abandoned the shelter of the mantelets
+and hurled themselves furiously against the barrier of enormous stones.
+Naked, black, shouting, raising and lowering their muscular arms which
+ended in glittering iron-pointed pickaxes, they looked like infernal
+spirits sent by the Cabiric gods of Carthage for the destruction of the
+city. Stubborn and tenacious in their work of destruction, they growled
+and picked, insensible to the blows which fell from above.
+
+The beleaguered people, infuriated by this audacity, scorned the
+Balearic slingers and archers who from a distance aimed over the
+merlons, and stepping into the crenels they cast down missiles and
+stones which, falling vertically, never failed to claim their victims.
+The Africans tumbled over with broken heads or crushed backs; arms and
+legs snapped like reeds beneath the weight of the stones, and more than
+one assailant was pinned to the ground by a dart which passed through
+his back. Over the palpitating bodies, the mangled flesh, the blood
+mixed with the clay from the walls, rushed fresh assailants, grasping
+the pickaxes from the hands of the dying, and taking up the work of
+destruction, pounding on the wall, beating it furiously as if it were an
+enemy standing before them. Africans, Celtiberians, Gauls, men of all
+colors and races crowded together, each cursing in his own language,
+frothing at the mouth with fury, with death hovering above them every
+instant, and surrounded by a din of howls and lamentations. Tormented by
+falling stones and blazing phalarics which set fire to their clothing
+and clung to their naked flesh, roasting them until they writhed in
+agony, they rushed to the river like animated torches.
+
+Now a block in the wall was giving way! Now it rolled out of place! The
+most important thing was to remove the first; after it the others would
+follow. The besiegers burst into exclamations of savage joy; they heard
+Hannibal's voice encouraging them; but before raising their heads to
+rest a moment, a deafening howl arose among them. It was raining, but
+raining fiery, infernal drops which penetrated the bodies of the men
+like interminable knives. Up there on the walls a fire was smoking. The
+merchants were melting the great ingots of silver from their vaults,
+pouring the molten metal like a rain of death upon those who dared
+destroy the city walls.
+
+The assailants fell back, roaring with fury, and sought refuge behind
+the mantelets. Hannibal raised his sword, striving with his blows to
+force them back to work, but in vain he exhorted them, haranguing of
+victory and of the necessity of destroying the wall; his soldiers
+retreated without turning their backs, looking with respect at the
+chieftain who seemed invulnerable, but complaining of the atrocious
+torment of the burns. Some wallowed on the ground kicking with pain,
+their lips covered with foam.
+
+Suddenly it seemed as if the city had burst, hurling its inhabitants
+forth in all directions. In the distance the Celtiberians were seen to
+flee, flinging away their ladders. The populace rushed out en masse
+against the besiegers. The gates were too narrow to allow passage to the
+armed multitude which swirled through them and then spread out in all
+directions like a torrent which, having run boxed in between mountains,
+suddenly inundates the plain. Many impatient ones swung from the merlons
+to fall more quickly upon the enemy.
+
+In a moment the whole space intervening between the walls and the camp
+was covered by attacking Saguntines and by fleeing besiegers. Hannibal
+felt himself dragged by the flight of his soldiers. The mantelets began
+to burn, and a crowd of women and boys, grasping torches, encircled the
+walking-towers, setting fire to their osier walls.
+
+The Saguntines, forming in phalanxes, advanced, sweeping before them the
+besiegers who fled in disorder. Before its movable front of pikes and of
+arms flourishing broadswords, nothing could be seen but fugitive men who
+flung away their arms and leaped into the air pierced by arrows and
+lances.
+
+The giant Theron came out in solitary majesty, as if he alone were a
+phalanx. The lion skin, and his enormous stature, attracted the gaze of
+all. His club rose and fell, crashing into the groups of fugitives and
+opening great swaths through their ranks.
+
+"It is Hercules!" the besiegers shouted, with superstitious terror. "The
+god of Saguntum has come out against us!"
+
+The presence of the giant accelerated the dispersion even more than the
+blows of the Saguntines.
+
+Hannibal tried to advance, to face about; in vain he lifted up his
+voice, brandishing his sword. He was swept by the torrent of flight; his
+own soldiers crowded him along, blinded by the contagion of terror; they
+tramped on his heels, they pressed against his back with their heads
+bent low in swift retreat, and he had to make strenuous efforts to keep
+from being overwhelmed and trampled down. A moment more and the
+Saguntines, having destroyed every engine of war, reached the camp.
+
+The chieftain was snarling curses and threats against his brother and
+Maherbal who did not come up with the reserves to stay the torrent of
+the rout. He saw the troops issuing from the camp hurriedly, but on foot
+and in disorder, with the precipitation produced by an unexpected event.
+Many of them were adjusting the straps of their cuirasses, and the
+different tribes were jostled together and minus their leaders, who in
+vain had trumpeters blow their horns to bring the hosts to order.
+
+The Saguntines in the blind impulse of victory clashed with this
+reinforcement and almost routed it in the first encounter. Hannibal, who
+had managed to reunite a group of the bravest soldiers, presented a firm
+front to the Saguntines.
+
+"This way! This way!" he shouted to those coming from the camp, who in
+their excitement did not know where to rally.
+
+But at the same time his cries attracted the enemy. Theron, as if guided
+by his god, turned toward Hannibal, and soon his mace began to hammer at
+the shields of the Carthaginians. He hurled himself against them with
+cool courage, breaking their lances with a blow of his club, wounding
+himself on the swords which seemed to rebound from his powerful muscles,
+dripping blood beneath his lion skin, ferocious and magnificent, like
+unto a divinity. He never raised his knotty trunk without dropping an
+enemy at his feet.
+
+The besiegers began to recede again before the pressure of the
+Saguntines; Hannibal was once more dragged by his men who were terrified
+by the savagery of the giant who seemed invulnerable, when an unexpected
+turn gave a new phase to the combat. The earth shook beneath a wild
+gallop, like the reverberation of rolling thunder, and leaning over
+their horses' necks, their hair floating from beneath their helmets, and
+their white tunics streaming around their naked limbs, Asbyte's Amazons
+fell upon the enemy with the violence of a hurricane. They came
+whooping, waving their lances, calling one to another to charge upon the
+denser groups, and the assailants fell back astonished at these women
+whom they saw near at hand for the first time, and who were now favored
+by the effect of surprise.
+
+Looking between the heads which surrounded him, Hannibal saw Asbyte pass
+like a luminous flash, absolutely alone. The light of the sun, striking
+upon her helmet, encircled her with a nimbus of gold. Her lover's
+instinct had revealed to her where Hannibal stood surrounded by enemies,
+and she dashed to his support.
+
+Succeeding events were rapid, instantaneous. Through the dust of the
+charge Hannibal barely made out what occurred, as if it were the
+fleeting agony of a dream.
+
+The Amazon, with couched lance, rode at a gallop against the priest of
+Hercules, who in the recoil of that disordered hand to hand struggle had
+been left alone in a broad open space.
+
+"Ohooo!----" shouted the Amazon, exciting her horse by her war cry.
+
+Pressing her legs against the animal's ribs she lifted herself upon his
+back in order to give the giant a deeper wound.
+
+The horse, terrified at the frightful lion's head on the forehead of the
+colossus, reared and whinnied, while at the same moment the enormous
+mace struck above his eyes with a crash like the breaking of a heavy
+amphora.
+
+The horse reeled backwards with a shattered skull, blood spurting from
+his eyes. The Amazon, thrown from his back, fell on her knees a few
+steps away, covering herself with her shield. If she could hold out a
+moment she would be saved. Hannibal, forgotten by his disorganized men
+who were milling like a frightened herd in the confusion of battle, ran
+to her aid. Bodies of cavalry rushed from the camp to assist the
+audacious Amazons, and the mass of the besieged retreated in disorder
+toward the city.
+
+Asbyte arose and advanced a step, raising her lance to thrust the giant;
+but at the same moment the enormous cudgel, brandished with both hands,
+crushed upon her like a toppling wall. Her crumpling bronze shield rung
+plaintively, her golden helmet parted on the seams, and Asbyte doubled
+up on the ground, her tunic stained with blood, like a wounded white
+bird folded in its fluttering wings.
+
+Theron, despite his ferocity, stood appalled, resting on his club,
+oblivious to what was taking place about him, as if repentant for the
+frightful destruction which his power had wrought upon that beautiful
+woman.
+
+"Answer _me_ for that, Theron! Defend yourself, butcher of Hercules!
+Kill me if you can; I am Hannibal!"
+
+The priest turned and beheld a warrior, his face covered by his shield,
+his sword held in tierce, advancing with amazing agility, circling
+around him like a tiger attacking an elephant and seeking by his greater
+mobility to spring upon him at a defenceless point. The battle had
+ceased; the Saguntines fell back toward the city. The besieging cavalry
+charged close up to the walls, leaving the two combatants alone on the
+field. A few soldiers sluggishly approached, and stood still some
+distance away, intimidated by the superstitious terror which the giant
+inspired.
+
+Theron did not falter on finding himself alone. Hannibal! It was
+Hannibal the great warrior, who was now to fight with him absolutely
+alone! This singular duel, in view of the whole city looking on from the
+walls, seemed arranged by his god! He was to rid Saguntum of her direst
+enemy! Hercules had reserved this glory for him; and smiling with
+satisfaction he raised the mace, striding straight toward the African.
+
+Hannibal eluded him, stepping backward, springing aside with feline
+agility, evading the encounter, until at last the priest was weary and
+wished to end the struggle before new combatants should arrive. He
+steadied himself on his colossal legs and hurled the club at Hannibal.
+The enormous tree trunk tore through the air, while Hannibal, seeing it
+coming, sprang aside. It grazed his shield with a thundering clang, and
+fell far away amid a cloud of dust.
+
+The African bent his knees at the shock, but recovered himself, and
+flinging away his broken shield rushed at Theron with lifted sword.
+
+The priest of Hercules, finding himself disarmed, experienced a
+momentary qualm; he knew fear, believing himself in the presence of a
+superior being against whom his strength could not avail, and turning
+his back on Hannibal he fled toward Saguntum. The people on the walls
+seeing his peril called to him. Some drew their bows to stop Hannibal
+with their arrows, but they dared not shoot for fear of wounding
+Theron. The Saguntines breathed hard at seeing their Hercules flee,
+pursued by the warrior who was heading him off so that he should not
+reach the city.
+
+The giant being heavy and muscular, ran with difficulty over the ground
+strewn as it was with dead and with the litter of the fight. He stumbled
+over a shield; his knees bent; he arose again; but this time completely
+nude. The lion skin had fallen from his shoulders, and lay among the
+wrack of battle.
+
+His pursuer caught up to him. The giant felt the cold steel sink into
+the muscles of his back, and not caring to die like a fleeing slave in
+sight of his entire city he turned quickly, extending his columnar arms
+to crush his enemy between them; but before the two muscular masses
+could encircle and mangle him, Hannibal had buried his sword again and
+again in the side of the colossus, and Theron fell, pressing his hands
+against his wounds and gazing at his dark red blood.
+
+He looked at Hannibal without anger, with a childlike expression of
+pain, and then he fixed his death-clouded eyes on the lofty Acropolis,
+where the roofs glistened in the sun.
+
+"Father Hercules!" he murmured bitterly. "Why do you abandon your
+people?"
+
+His enormous head raised a cloud of dust as it struck the ground.
+Hannibal bent over it and with his sword began to hew the robust neck,
+obliged to strike many blows to sever the network of corded tendons and
+stubborn muscles, which seemed to blunt the edge of the blade.
+
+A cloud of arrows began to plow the ground roundabout Hannibal.
+
+The chieftain removed his helmet, loosing his mass of curling hair; he
+grasped the head of Theron by its gory mane, and placing one foot in the
+attitude of conqueror upon the body of the priest, he showed it to the
+people on the walls.
+
+He was magnificent with his sword in his right hand and holding out his
+other arm which sustained the head of the giant. The dark integument of
+his eyes, brilliant as the metal disks which hung from his ears, gleamed
+with pride and icy hate.
+
+The Saguntines recognized the victor, and wails of surprise and peals of
+fury thundered along the wall.
+
+"Hannibal! It is Hannibal!"
+
+He still stood motionless, like a statue of victory, proudly defying the
+enemy, heedless of the storm of projectiles whizzing around him, until
+suddenly he dropped the head of Theron and sank to his knees, letting
+fall his sword.
+
+Mopsus the bowman had shot an arrow through his leg.
+
+From the walls all beheld how, in an outburst of angry pain he tore out
+the arrow-shaft, broke it into splinters, and flung them away. Then they
+saw no more. A host of the besieging army rushed forward and covered
+him, and his archers and slingers began to shoot against the
+battlements.
+
+Actaeon, fatigued by the recent sally, and hidden behind a merlon,
+watched what was taking place around Hannibal, paying no attention to
+the missiles from the slingers, who, infuriated by the wounding of their
+chief, hurled a hail of stones against the walls.
+
+He saw Hannibal move away supported by two Carthaginian captains in
+golden cuirasses, accompanied by a multitude.
+
+Suddenly the chieftain repelled his helpers, and limped painfully toward
+a white, bloodstained object lying on the red earth like a shapeless
+rag. He bent over the form, and the Numidians who surrounded it beheld
+the terrible Hannibal weep--for the first and last time--pressing his
+lips upon the mangled head of the Amazon Asbyte.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE WALLS OF SAGUNTUM
+
+
+The wounding of Hannibal gave the city some days of respite. The
+besiegers remained non-combatant in their camp, watching Saguntum from
+afar. The slingers came out in the mornings to exercise their arms by
+shooting against the wall, but aside from this, and from the arrow-shots
+with which they replied from the city, there was no further exchange of
+hostilities between the besiegers and the besieged.
+
+Bands of cavalry overran the domain foraging, and the immense multitude
+of ferocious tribes finished the work of destruction, sacking the villas
+and country-houses. The groves were cleared away; each day they chopped
+down new trees in order to supply the camp with wood, and in these
+denuded spaces the tiled roofs and towers could no longer be seen. Only
+smoking and blackened ruins appeared here and there through the deserted
+fields. A mosaic on a level with the ground was often the only vestige
+of an elegant villa razed to its foundations by the invaders.
+
+The beleaguered people saw Hannibal's army rapidly swelling. Each day
+new tribes arrived. It seemed as if all Iberia, subjugated by the
+prestige of Hannibal, were coming to camp around Saguntum, fired by the
+fame of its riches. They came on foot or on horseback, dirty, savage,
+covered with skins or dressed in esparto, carrying crescent-shaped
+shields and short two-edged swords, eager to fight, and bringing with
+them showy presents for the African, whose glory dazzled them.
+
+Such of the Saguntines as had trafficked with the tribes of the interior
+recognized the new arrivals from the walls. They came from very far;
+some there were who had marched more than a month to reach Saguntum, and
+they pointed out the Lusitanians, athletic of figure, of whom horrible
+tales of ferocity were told; the Galicians, who lived on fish and by
+washing and melting the gold of their rivers; the Asturians, who worked
+in iron; and the gloomy Basques whose language other nations could not
+understand. Mixed with them came fresh tribes from Baetica, who had been
+slow in answering the Carthaginian's call; agile infantry, of olive
+skin, their hair hanging down their backs, dressed in short white skirts
+with broad purple borders, and carrying large round shields which served
+them as floats in crossing streams. The camp stretched along the river
+and spread over the extensive valley, scattering finally in groups of
+tents and huts as far as the eye could see. It was a veritable city,
+larger than Saguntum, which advanced and advanced as if it would swallow
+her walls.
+
+The day following their courageous sally the Saguntines noticed great
+activity in the besieging camp--the funeral honors to the queen of the
+Amazons. They saw Asbyte's body borne in parade on a shield by the
+women-warriors; then, in the centre of the camp rose a column of smoke
+from the enormous pyre which consumed her remains.
+
+The beleaguered people guessed the mood of the enemy. Hannibal was
+lying on his couch, and the army seemed depressed by the hero's
+suffering. The wizards came and went through the tent, examining the
+wound, and then they searched the surrounding mountains for mysterious
+herbs to compound miraculous poultices.
+
+In Saguntum some of the most daring urged another sally to take
+advantage of that moment of depression for falling upon the enemy and
+putting them to flight. But the besieging camp was well guarded;
+Hannibal's brother with the principal captains were on the watch to
+avoid a surprise; the army lay behind earthen breastworks thrown up
+around the camp as in a strong city, and they took advantage of this
+opportunity to accomplish new work for protecting it from the danger of
+attack. On the other hand the city was no less disheartened by the loss
+of the priest of Hercules. The people could not explain to themselves
+how the African chieftain had put the gigantic Theron to death before
+the eyes of all Saguntum, and the more superstitious saw in this a
+celestial sign, the omen that the tutelary gods of the city were about
+to abandon it.
+
+The same determination as at the beginning was still displayed; all were
+resolved to defend themselves; but the mocking joviality of the early
+days of the siege had disappeared. They believed that they scented
+adversity round about them, and the ever swelling numbers of the enemy
+dispirited them. Each morning they beheld the besieging camp increased.
+When would Hannibal's allies cease to come?
+
+The merry Grecian city of rich merchants and of pompous Panathenaic
+festivals presented the solemn aspect of every beleaguered town. The
+people from the fields who had sought refuge in the city camped in the
+streets and squares, distilling the odor of a sick and suffering flock.
+In the temples the wounded dragged themselves to the bases of the
+columns, groaning; above, on the Acropolis, a funeral pyre smoked day
+and night consuming the bodies of those who had died on the walls, or
+had fallen in the streets victims of strange diseases engendered by the
+congestion of the population.
+
+There were still enough provisions, but there was lack of fruits and
+vegetables; and the rich, divining the future, gathered in all they
+could, seeing days of want ahead.
+
+In the poor wards they killed the horses and beasts of burden, roasting
+the meat over flames kindled in the streets for the roofless refugees.
+
+On the walls, as well as on the Acropolis, all gazed impatiently out to
+sea. When would the auxiliaries come from Rome? What were the legates
+from Saguntum to the great Republic doing?
+
+Frequently impatience caused the whole city to be cruelly deceived. Some
+mornings the lookouts posted in the tower of Hercules on the Acropolis
+raised a furious clangor of cymbals on spying sails upon the horizon.
+The people rushed to the crest of the hill, following with anxious eyes
+the course of the white or red sails over the blue surface of the
+Sucronian gulf. It was they! The Romans! The advance ships of the
+succoring fleet bound for the port! But after hours of anguishing
+expectancy, their hopes were crushed on seeing that they were passing
+merchant ships from Massilia or Emporion, or hostile triremes which
+Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, was sending from New Carthage with
+provisions for the army.
+
+Each disappointment increased the melancholy of the Saguntines. The
+enemy's ranks were ever swelling, and the allies failed to come! The
+city would be lost! The enthusiasm of the defenders was revived only
+when they found old Mopsus on the walls, who because of his sure aim at
+Hannibal was the hero of the city, and the valorous Actaeon, who with the
+light spirits of an Athenian, jesting and merry in the presence of
+danger, knew how to inspire fresh courage.
+
+Sonnica also appeared among them at the points of combat. She ran along
+the walls amidst the hissing arrows, and the poor citizens marveled at
+the bravery of the opulent Greek woman who scorned the missiles of the
+enemy.
+
+Love for Actaeon and hatred of the besiegers made her bold. She was
+enraged at the Carthaginians. From the height of the Acropolis one
+afternoon she had seen the flames pouring from the roof of her villa.
+She saw the red tower of the dovecote topple, the beautiful groves which
+surrounded her house cut down, leaving nothing but a mound of rubbish
+and charred trunks; and she longed to be avenged, not for her lost
+riches, but for the destruction of the secluded retreat sacred to her
+love, and of the sumptuous dwelling crowded with memories. Moreover, she
+was nervous from the insufferable deprivation of this new life within
+the beleaguered city, where she was obliged to eat coarse food and to
+sleep in a room in her warehouse among the valuables piled together in
+the disorder of flight, almost mingling with her slaves, and deprived of
+her bath. There was no water in the city, except that in the cisterns
+which the magistrates distributed with great parsimony, foreseeing an
+approaching scarcity.
+
+This wretched life excited her, making her distinguished for warlike
+audacity. Occasionally she saw her lover, the soul of the defense;
+sometimes on the walls directing the slaves who were repairing them, at
+others on the Acropolis with Mopsus to examine the situation of the
+enemy. He wished to take advantage of the lull caused by Hannibal's
+wound to put the city into a better state of defense, and meanwhile
+Sonnica strolled along the wall talking with the young men, promising
+handsome rewards to those who most distinguished themselves, and
+exciting them to make an extraordinary sally in which the city should
+hurl itself en masse beyond the walls, crushing the enemy and sweeping
+them onward into the sea.
+
+She went everywhere escorted by Erotion and Rhanto. Life in the narrow
+limits, and a community of danger, had drawn her to the two children,
+and they followed in her wake listening to her words with enthusiastic
+smiles, and applauding the rich woman's warlike suggestions.
+
+Rhanto was no longer a shepherdess. One after another her goats had been
+devoured in Sonnica's house, and with no other occupation than following
+her mistress, clinging always to Erotion's hand, she regarded the
+situation as one of joy, and had no desire that it should ever cease.
+Even the frowning Mopsus, the father of her beloved, unprotesting found
+them together, and often smiled at seeing them tranquil and happy,
+walking along the walls without fear of the besiegers.
+
+Danger had developed kindness in the people. Rich merchants elbowed
+slaves as they shot their arrows from the cover of the merlons; more
+than one opulent Grecian woman was seen to tear her linen tunic to bind
+the wounds of rude mercenaries, and Sonnica the rich, she who used to
+scorn the women of the city, now talked of forming a troop like that of
+the Amazons who followed Hannibal. Rhanto, content with this new
+situation, so blinded by joy that she could not see the anguish and
+misery which the town endured, pulled her lover away in moments of
+combat, snatched the bow from his hands, and dragging him from the
+battlements, they hid beneath the hollow of a stairway at the foot of
+the rampart, and made love with fresh ardor, their pleasure seeming the
+more intense because threatened by the singing arrows and the cries and
+exclamations of pain and fury overhead.
+
+The respite lasted only twenty days. Breaking the silence of the camp
+the carpenters' hammers rung ceaselessly and the besieged saw gradually
+rising a great wooden tower several stories high, taller than the walls
+of the city.
+
+Hannibal regained his strength, and was eager to continue the siege. In
+his desire that the enemy should see him without delay, he left his
+tent, in spite of his still open wound, he mounted his horse, and rode
+out of the camp to gallop along the walls, followed by his captains.
+
+The Saguntines were dazed at the sight of him. He shone like a coal of
+fire upon his black horse; the sun wrapped him in a splendor which
+blinded, as if he were a divinity. He wore the cuirass and helmet made
+of gold from the rivers which the Galician tribes had brought him as a
+present. The chieftain preferred the bronze armor which he had ever
+worn in his battles, but his parade around Saguntum was like a
+resurrection, and he wished the besieged to behold him dazzling and
+majestic as a god.
+
+With the reappearance of Hannibal the siege began fiercer than before.
+The Saguntines understood from the first moment that the besiegers had
+taken advantage of the cessation of hostilities to augment their
+offensive power. With great effort they dragged up the enormous wooden
+tower which they had constructed. Archers were stationed in the
+different stories to shoot through the loopholes in the sides. The upper
+platform dominated the wall in such wise that its catapult hurled great
+stones over the merlons, sowing death among the defenders.
+
+Hannibal seemed everywhere at once, irritated by the tenacity of the
+Saguntines, and eager to terminate the siege without delay.
+
+It was impossible to remain uncovered on the walls. The tower had been
+placed near the projecting part of the city which Hannibal considered
+the weakest. Darts and stones fell ceaselessly and while the defenders
+sought refuge behind the merlons, unable to step out into the crenels,
+the battering-rams pounded at the base under the protection of the
+tower, hammering against the walls, and gradually weakening them; and
+the Africans who had outlived the first assault now attacked the blocks
+of stone with more security, little by little opening a breach.
+
+The Saguntines, pale with the rage of impotence, endeavored in vain to
+stay the destruction. The besieging tower, rolling over a level tract
+impelled by men hidden behind it, moved from place to place, scattering
+death, and at times it drew so near that the besieged could hear the
+voices of the bowmen who shot through the loopholes. Meanwhile, down
+below, at the base of the walls, the slow and obstinate work of
+undermining continued.
+
+The more excitable citizens, raging with indignation at seeing their
+walls destroyed with impunity, leaned out into the crenels to shoot at
+those who operated the battering-ram and worked with pickaxes; but no
+sooner did they appear than a stone fell upon them, or they tumbled over
+with their bodies pierced by an arrow. The wall was strewn with the dead
+and dying. The wounded dragged themselves along contemplating with
+clouded gaze the shaft of the arrow sunk in their flesh.
+
+In vain the besieged shot against the tower. Stones rebounded from its
+walls of logs with hollow clatter but without piercing them. It was
+bristling with arrows, moving like a monstrous elephant, insensible to
+wounds, and in vain the phalarics whistled through the air with their
+trail of sparks and smoke, for they could not set fire to the wet hides
+with which the upper part of the tower was covered.
+
+The more prudent fled from those places where the besiegers concentrated
+their efforts, and the more audacious took their places ignorant how to
+repel the enemy, but with the stubborn determination of dying before he
+should advance a step.
+
+Mopsus, the bowman, was the only one in the difficult situation who
+inflicted damage upon the Carthaginians. With drawn bow he thrust his
+head outside the merlons for an instant and shot, managing to send his
+arrows into the loopholes of the tower, scattering death among the
+soldiers who thought themselves secure. Erotion was at his side. Seeing
+his father in a place of danger he repelled Rhanto at the foot of the
+steps leading to the wall, paying no heed to her tears, and grasping his
+bow he tried to imitate the old archer, challenging the men in the
+tower.
+
+But with the imprudence of youth he exposed almost his entire body
+beyond the merlon, and when he managed to plunge an arrow into the tower
+he laughed, standing in the open crenel insulting the besiegers with his
+boisterous peals of boyish laughter.
+
+A stone from a catapult in the tower came whizzing and struck his head
+with a mournful crash. Blood and torn flesh spattered over those nearest
+him, and the boy, doubling up as if made of rags, rolled through the
+crenel and fell outside the wall. The arrows from his quiver struck
+roundabout his body with a metallic ring.
+
+"Mopsus! Mopsus!" shouted Actaeon, striving to restrain the bowman.
+
+The old man had rushed out upon the wall, wholly unprotected, his eyes
+glassy, his gray beard quivering, impotent from grief and rage.
+
+Three times he tried to draw his bow to shoot at the platform in the
+tower which held the catapult, but in spite of his efforts he could not
+bend his weapon. Grief, surprise, despair, at being unable to
+exterminate his enemies with a single blow deprived him of his strength.
+
+While he stood struggling with the rigid bow which seemed to rebel
+against him, the enemy's projectiles were hissing around his head.
+Finding himself powerless, aged in an instant by grief, gazing down upon
+the mangled body of his son, and unable to avenge him, he uttered a
+moan, and summoning all the strength of his will he sprang outside the
+wall, and fell upon the corpse of Erotion. His head struck against the
+stones with a resounding thud, a stream of blood ran from it, and father
+and son formed a motionless pile a short distance from the assailants,
+who continued pounding with the battering-rams, and digging at the base
+of the wall.
+
+The unequal struggle lasted almost throughout the day. The Saguntines
+defending this part of the wall could not repulse the advance of the
+enemy. They felt the dull thud of the pickaxes, the wall seemed to reel
+beneath their feet, and they could do nothing to prevent the progress of
+the besiegers.
+
+Slowly the defenders began to retire. Actaeon, saddened by the tragic
+death of his compatriot, and convinced that it was useless to remain at
+that point, advised them to retreat into the interior of the city. He
+fell back with some of his men, and soon a tower, eaten away at its base
+by the battering-ram, tottered and fell to the ground with a great roar
+of rubbish, and filled the air with dust. After this two other towers
+were battered down, and a long stretch of wall collapsed, burying in the
+debris the most obstinate defenders who had remained at their posts
+until the last moment.
+
+An awe-inspiring acclamation, a howl of savage joy from without greeted
+the overthrow of the walls. From the city streets the desolated fields
+and one end of the camp could be seen through the open breach. Arms
+glittered in the dense atmosphere, reddened by the dust of the shattered
+walls; dark bodies of troops could be seen advancing, and trumpet blasts
+resounded.
+
+"The assault! The Carthaginians are coming!"
+
+From all sides of the city armed men gathered. The narrow streets near
+the wall vomited groups and more groups who came shouting and
+brandishing swords and axes, with the determined mien of those who had
+decided to die. Clambering over the rubbish they began to take position
+in the breach, and this open space, this broad gash in the city's girdle
+of stone, was protected by a motley crowd which flourished weapons and
+formed a solid unbreakable mass.
+
+Actaeon was in the first rank; near him he saw the prudent Alcon, who had
+exchanged his staff for a sword, and many of the peace-loving merchants
+whose astute faces seemed ennobled by the heroic resolution to die
+rather than give passage to the enemy.
+
+When the besiegers advanced to the assault they had to clash with the
+entire city. The walking-tower, the battering-rams, and the catapults,
+availed them nothing; the struggle was hand to hand, and the besieged no
+longer used the phalaric, but the sword and the axe.
+
+Hannibal, on foot, guided the phalanxes, which marched with lowered
+lance or lifted sword. He was fighting like a soldier, anxious to end
+this siege which was delaying his plans, believing this to be the
+decisive moment, and that a supreme effort might make him master of the
+city. With sharp words he encouraged the soldiers in the different
+idioms of their tribes, reminding them of the great riches within the
+city, of the beauty of the Greek women, of the large numbers of slaves
+inside those walls, and the Balearians attacked with lowered head,
+holding before them their wooden spears with points hardened by fire;
+the Celtiberians roared their war songs, beating on their breasts as on
+sonorous drums, drawing their sharp two-edged swords, and the Numidians
+and Mauritanians, dismounting from their horses, moved from place to
+place, cautious and sly, hurling upon the besieged the missiles which
+they carried in their girdles hidden beneath their white vestments.
+
+All in vain. The breach was a narrow throat. The Carthaginian army, in
+spite of superior numbers, had to contract its front to fight in such a
+constricted space, and in this equalizing of forces, the Saguntines
+retained an advantage, repelling the besiegers as often as they tried to
+climb over the mound formed by the fallen wall. Swords sunk into flesh
+producing atrocious wounds characteristic of ancient warfare; breasts
+were torn open by the brutal force of lances; combatants clinched
+entwining their arms like tendrils, linking their legs, making their
+panting chests wheeze like bellows, and rolling on the ground biting
+each other in the face. Often when the victor arose he proudly displayed
+a piece of bleeding flesh between his teeth.
+
+Hannibal's troops rushed up the mound like a hurricane, and on its
+approach the mass of defenders swayed, but none fell back; they must die
+firm at their post, for behind them was a compact multitude which forced
+them to be valiant, leaving no space for retreat.
+
+Thus the battle raged for hours. The mounds of dead between besieged and
+besieger made the advance difficult. The sun had sunk low in the west,
+and Hannibal was exasperated by the stubborn resistance which mocked his
+efforts. Still trusting in his lucky star he ordered the trumpets
+sounded for the final assault; but at that instant an unheard of thing
+occurred which disconcerted the chieftain and sowed confusion among his
+troops.
+
+Actaeon did not know for a certainty whence came the voice. Perhaps it
+was an hallucination produced by faith; perhaps the invention of some
+enthusiast tired of being on the defensive.
+
+"The Romans!" shouted a voice. "Our allies are coming!"
+
+The news spread with the credulity born of danger. From one to another
+the story ran that the lookouts in the tower of Hercules had sighted a
+fleet bound for the port, and none asked who had brought the inspiring
+news to the breach in the walls. Everyone accepted it, adding by their
+own invention fresh details, and eyes shone with joy, blanched faces
+flushed, and even the wounded, dragging themselves over the rubbish
+heap, waved their arms exclaiming:
+
+"The Romans! The Romans are coming!"
+
+Suddenly, without command, by common instinct, as if impelled by an
+invisible force, they flung themselves through the breach, down the
+incline, falling like an avalanche upon the besiegers who were massed
+for the final assault.
+
+The unexpectedness of the shock, the force of the surprise, the cry of
+"The Romans! The Romans!" which the Saguntines raised with such
+conviction, wrought disruption among Hannibal's barbarian tribes. They
+defended themselves, but the whole city fell upon them; even the women
+and children fought as on that morning when Theron died, and Hannibal's
+soldiers, broken into scattered groups, neither seeing nor hearing their
+chiefs, fled precipitately toward their camp.
+
+Hannibal ran bellowing with rage, maddened at seeing that the besieged
+repelled his troops for the second time. Such was the blindness of his
+anger that he rushed in among the enemy, and several times came near
+falling beneath their blows.
+
+The day was almost ended. The Saguntine soldiers reached the vicinity of
+the camp, while the unarmored citizens scattering throughout the battle
+field dispatched the wounded and tried to set fire to the besieging
+engines. They would have destroyed them all had it not been for
+Maherbal, Hannibal's lieutenant, who came out of the camp with some
+cohorts of cavalry. The besieged, unable to resist the cavalry on open
+ground, began slowly to retire. When night closed in they reoccupied the
+breach, commenting with joyful shouts upon the victory which mitigated
+their disappointment over the non-appearance of the Romans.
+
+Actaeon, with those Saguntines who had most distinguished themselves in
+the battles, set to work fortifying the city. He explained to the old
+men of the Senate how difficult it would be long to defend the opening.
+It was impossible to repeat the prodigy of that afternoon many times;
+and by the light of torches the people spent the whole night working
+behind the breach, throwing down tiled roofs and demolishing walls.
+
+Merchants and slaves, rich city dames and women from the suburbs, all
+mingled together, wielding pickaxes, rolling stones and carrying baskets
+of clay. Even the Ancients of the Senate took part in this titanic work,
+which lasted throughout the night and a great part of the following day.
+
+Euphobias the philosopher, who remained idle in spite of the insults of
+those who worked, ironically recalled the memory of the primitive
+founders of the city, the Cyclopes who moved stones as big as mountains
+and had thrown up the base of the Acropolis.
+
+The labor was not finished until the next afternoon, and at the same
+moment the besieging army began to stir. It marched solidly to the
+assault, silently, sullenly, revealing the fixed determination of taking
+possession at the first onset of that breach which had put them to shame
+the day before.
+
+They passed through the clouds of stones and arrows which the besieged
+hurled at them, and the cohorts leading on a run climbed up the pile of
+debris, struggling with the more audacious Saguntines, who still
+disputed passage through the breach. After a short conflict the
+besiegers made themselves masters of the entrance to the city, and they
+burst into exclamations of triumph.
+
+Hannibal marched intrepidly at the head of his soldiers; but on gaining
+the crest of the pile in the breach he stepped backward with an
+expression of disgust.
+
+Before him stretched a broad waste of demolished houses, and beyond the
+hills of debris rose a second monstrous wall, constructed in haste, as
+if an enormous broom had swept the desolated structures of the interior
+to the entrance of the city. Great, square-hewn stones, chunks of
+masonry, broken columns, were laid with the regularity of blocks in a
+wall, and the interstices were chinked with fresh clay. This wall
+quickly raised by a supreme effort of the whole city was taller than the
+previous one, and in the form of a curve it joined with the two curtains
+of the ancient walls which were still standing.
+
+Hannibal paled with wrath on seeing that all his efforts had served only
+to make him master of a pitiful little piece of ground covered by heaps
+of ruins and that by prodigious skill the walls which he had battered
+down had risen again beyond in a single night. Saguntum would destroy
+her houses to refortify herself with new barriers, cutting off his
+passage! He would have to conquer the ground inch by inch, street by
+street, and it might cost him months and years to narrow it down, first
+around the Forum, then up to the hill of the Acropolis, before he could
+succeed in making it surrender.
+
+On the summit of their new wall the Saguntines showed themselves as
+resolute as the day before, and their bows and slings prevented the
+assault of the enemy, who ended by falling back, remaining under cover
+of the debris at the breach.
+
+Hannibal stood outside the city wall, contemplating the heights of the
+Acropolis. He realized that he might gradually sacrifice his whole army
+if he continued attacking Saguntum on the level and weaker side where
+the besieged defended the ground so tenaciously. Calling Maherbal and
+his brother Mago, he laid before them the necessity of capturing a
+position on the hill, and of assaulting a portion of the immense
+Acropolis to attack the city from that direction, obliging it to
+surrender.
+
+Several days went by without resumption of hostilities on the side
+toward the river. The engines of war had been moved over to the foot of
+the hill, and they directed their heavy projectiles against the farthest
+walls of the Acropolis. These were old and had not been repaired, since
+the Saguntines trusted in the impregnability of the steeps.
+
+Moreover the number of defenders was insufficient to garrison the
+extensive precincts of Saguntum, while the besieger had at his disposal
+an immense armed multitude which could hurl itself against several
+places at once.
+
+One night in the Forum, Actaeon encountered Sonnica, who was seeking him,
+followed by Alcon the Prudent.
+
+"The Elders have need of you," said the beautiful Greek woman, with a
+tone of sadness. "Behold Alcon, who wishes to speak with you."
+
+"Listen, Athenian," said the Saguntine gravely. "The days are passing
+and our needed succor does not come from Rome. Is it because our legates
+have been unable to reach the territory of the allied nation, and that
+the Senate of the great Republic is ignorant of our situation? Is it
+because Rome imagines that Hannibal, repenting of his audacity, has
+raised the siege? We need to know what our ally thinks concerning us. We
+wish the Senate of Rome to know in detail what Saguntum is doing, and
+the Ancients, at my suggestion, have thought of you."
+
+"Of me? And what do they wish?" asked Actaeon in surprise, looking at the
+mournful Sonnica.
+
+"They wish you to start for Rome this very night. Here is gold! Take
+also these tablets which will serve as credentials, so that the Senate
+shall recognize you as an embassador extraordinary from Saguntum. We are
+not sending you to a festival. The exit is difficult, and it will be
+even more difficult to find, on these enemy-infested shores, anyone to
+convey you to Rome. You should start to-night; this moment, if possible;
+letting yourself down from the walls of the Acropolis, on the side
+toward the mountains where there are fewer enemies; to-morrow may be
+too late. Fly, and return soon with the aid which we await with
+anguish!"
+
+Actaeon took the gold and the tablets which Alcon offered him, but not
+without making excuses, realizing the gravity of the undertaking.
+
+"No one can perform the mission better," said the Saguntine; "that is
+why I have turned to you. Your life has been spent running over the
+world; you speak many tongues; and you are not lacking in finesse and
+valor. Are you acquainted with Rome?"
+
+"No, my father's father made war against her, under orders of Pyrrhus."
+
+"Then go to her now as a friend, as an ally, and may the gods grant that
+some day we shall bless the moment in which you came to Saguntum!"
+
+Actaeon was not eager to start. It seemed to him a shameful act to
+abandon the city at that critical moment, to leave Sonnica within a
+besieged town.
+
+"I am a stranger, Alcon," he said simply. "No tie of blood unites me to
+your fate. Are you not afraid that I shall flee forever, leaving you
+abandoned?"
+
+"No, Athenian, I know you, and that is why I have stood responsible for
+your fidelity to the Elders. Sonnica also has sworn that you will return
+if you do not fall into the power of the enemy."
+
+The Greek looked at his beloved as if asking her whether he should go,
+and she bowed her head, resigned to the sacrifice. Actaeon then expressed
+himself as ready.
+
+"Farewell, Alcon! Tell the Elders that the Athenian Actaeon will be
+crucified in Hannibal's camp or he will appear before the Senate of Rome
+presenting your suit."
+
+He kissed Sonnica on the eyes again and again, and the beautiful Greek
+woman, restraining her tears, pleaded to be allowed to follow him along
+with Alcon as far as the summit of the Acropolis, that she might see him
+a few moments longer.
+
+The three walked in the dark across the esplanades of the ancient city,
+along the walls of the Acropolis. They had blown out their torch in
+order not to attract the attention of the besiegers, and they went on,
+guided by the diffused light of the stars, which seemed to shine with
+more brilliancy, as if intensified by the cold of the night which was
+one of the first of winter.
+
+Alcon was searching for a place on the wall of which he had been told by
+some of the Elders who were more familiar with the Acropolis. When they
+had found it the Saguntine groped in the dark until he reached the end
+of a heavy rope fastened to a merlon, and he flung it over into space.
+
+The departure took place in absolute secret. The very Elders who had
+planned the journey for their ambassador and had arranged his flight,
+concealed themselves and did not witness it. Sonnica embraced Actaeon,
+sobbing, and clinging to his neck.
+
+"Go quickly, Athenian," said the Saguntine impatiently. "This first hour
+of the night is the best; many groups of soldiers are still stirring
+around the camps before going to sleep. You can pass through now without
+being observed, while later, in the silence of the night, the sentinels
+will challenge you."
+
+Actaeon freed himself from Sonnica's arms, and leaning over the walls he
+grasped the rope in the darkness.
+
+"Have confidence in our gods," said Alcon, as a parting word. "Although
+it may seem as if they have abandoned us, they ever watch over Saguntum.
+Not long ago a fugitive slave from the camp revealed before the Elders
+that the Vaccaei and the Carpetani, exasperated by the robbery of the
+detachments which Hannibal sent to gather supplies, have revolted
+against him, and have beheaded his emissaries. It seems that Hannibal,
+with a part of his army, will have to abandon the siege and go to punish
+them. We shall have fewer enemies before us, and if you return with the
+legions from Rome, Saguntum will be for the Carthaginians what the
+AEgates Islands were for them in Sicily. Ah! How much better is peace!"
+
+With this melancholy exclamation Alcon said farewell to the Greek, who
+descended the rope in silence. His feet soon rested upon a part of the
+rock on which the wall stood. He let go the rope and began groping his
+way down, catching hold, in his precipitous descent, of the scrawny
+olive trees which twisted over the heights as if complaining of the
+asperity of the rocks.
+
+At the feet of the Greek, in the black solitude of the plain, glittered
+the light of camp fires. Perhaps they were advance guards of the camp
+watching that part of the mountain, or marauders who followed the army,
+and had established themselves there out of Hannibal's sight.
+
+Actaeon watched the plain and picked his way cautiously, crouching along
+by a stony ridge, stopping often to listen, holding his breath. He
+thought he was being shadowed, that someone was skulking behind him.
+Not far away blazed a great fire, and against its lurid smoke
+silhouettes of men and women were outlined.
+
+When he stood erect to explore the dark fields in order to circle away
+from the fire, someone suddenly caught him by the shoulders, and a
+hoarse voice murmured in his ears, between peals of loud and stupid
+laughter:
+
+"Now I have you at last!----You can not hide yourself from me!"
+
+Actaeon squirmed from the clutching hands, and tugging at the broad knife
+he wore in his belt sprang in front of the unknown in an attitude of
+defense. It was a woman! By the dim starlight the Greek beheld her
+gesture of indecision and surprise.
+
+"Are you not Geryon the slinger?" she murmured, holding her hands out to
+the Athenian.
+
+They stared at each other, their faces almost meeting in the darkness,
+and the Greek recognized in the woman the unhappy _lupa_ who had fed him
+the first night of his arrival in Saguntum. She seemed even more
+surprised than the Athenian at the meeting.
+
+"Is it you, Actaeon? It seems as if the gods put me in your path,
+although you scorn me. You are running away from the city, are you not?
+You must be tired of Sonnica the rich; you do not want to die like those
+merchants whom Hannibal the invincible will put to the knife! You are
+doing well! Fly! Fly far away!"
+
+She glanced apprehensively at the camp fire as if she feared the
+approach of the soldiers who were warming themselves around it, laughing
+and drinking with a group of _lupas_ from the port.
+
+The miserable harlot, in lowered voice, told the Greek why she was
+there. She was the favorite of Geryon, a Balearic slinger. He had left
+his companions a moment before, and had got out of her way so as not to
+have to give her the wages he had just received, and in searching for
+him she had stumbled upon Actaeon. He might return, or his companions
+might approach, attracted by their voices; it was dangerous for Actaeon
+to remain where he was.
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"I want to reach the coast, and follow along it until I find a fishing
+smack which will take me to Emporion or to Denia. I have money to pay my
+passage. Afterward I will look for a ship to take me away, very far
+away."
+
+"You will not return, will you? I do not wish you to return. If you only
+knew how often I have thought of you while men were killing each other
+on the walls! I shall never see you again, but I would rather not see
+you than have you remain in the city or become the slave of my lover the
+slinger. Hannibal will finish all of them! Ah, cruel city! And how I
+long to see all those rich women fall before Hannibal's troops--those
+women who used to have us beaten when we came near them at the port!"
+
+The poor harlot, extending her hand to the Greek, began to guide him
+through the fields.
+
+"Come!" she murmured; "I will conduct you to the beach, and from there
+you can continue on your way without other help than that of the gods.
+Seeing you with me they will think you are a Celtiberian soldier with
+his woman, looking for a place to spend the night. Come! I fed you the
+first night you came here, and I will save you on this last."
+
+They drew near the shore. As they passed several camp fires they were
+hailed by obscene calls from the soldiers and the women who thought them
+an amorous pair in search of a hiding-place. Some armed groups allowed
+them to pass without the slightest suspicion.
+
+The murmur of the waves on the sand grew louder. They were walking
+through the rushes, sinking into the warm and oozy bottom of the lagoon
+formed by the overflow of the tide.
+
+The poor _lupa_ stood still.
+
+"Here I leave you, Actaeon. If you wished I would follow you as your
+slave! But you do not wish it; I know what I am----I can be nothing to
+you! You are going away forever, but I am content because you are
+fleeing from Sonnica. Before we part, kiss me, my divinity! No, not on
+the eyes----on the mouth----thus!"
+
+The Athenian, with tender commiseration, moved by the kindness of the
+miserable creature, kissed the dry and flaccid lips, from which escaped
+the insufferable odor of the wine of the Balearic slingers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE ROME OF FABIUS THE DELAYER
+
+
+When the sun's first rays reddened the walls of the Capitol the life of
+Rome had been astir for more than an hour.
+
+The Romans arose from their couches by the light of the morning stars.
+Carts from the Campagna rolled in the darkness through the tortuous
+streets, slaves awakened by the crowing of the cock trudged along
+carrying baskets and farm utensils, and by the hour of dawn all the
+houses had their doors thrown open, and the citizens not employed in the
+fields gathered in the Forum, that centre of traffic and of public
+business, that had begun to be adorned with the earlier temples, but
+still retained broad barren spaces upon which in later centuries were to
+rise the architectural glories of Rome, mistress of the world.
+
+Actaeon had been in the great city for two days, lodged in an extramural
+inn established by a Greek. He never ceased to marvel at this austere
+Republic, existing almost in poverty, a hardy nation of farmers and
+soldiers who filled the world with their fame while they endured greater
+privation than any hamlet on the outskirts of Athens.
+
+Actaeon expected to appear before the Senate that very day. The majority
+of the Fathers of the Republic lived in the country, in rustic villas
+with walls of unseasoned adobe roofed with branches, overseeing the work
+of their slaves, guiding the plow like Cincinnatus and Camillus; when
+affairs of state called them to the Senate they came into Rome in their
+carts, drawn by oxen, riding among baskets of vegetables and sacks of
+grain, and with their toil-calloused hands they arrayed themselves in
+the toga before entering the Forum, transfigured by the majesty lent by
+their flowing vestments.
+
+The Greek arrived at the Forum by sunrise, encountering the customary
+crowd--venerable Romans wrapped in their togas discoursing before the
+young men and their clients on the art of prudently placing money upon
+good security, the chief attainment of every citizen; and hungry Greek
+pedagogues scheming ever, in search of a situation among that sombre
+people more apt in war than in culture; old legionaries, their gray
+military cloaks covered with patches, their thoughts yearning back to
+the by-gone wars against Pyrrhus and Carthage, persecuted by debts and
+threatened with slavery by their creditors, in spite of the cicatrices
+all over their bodies; and the plebe, with no other clothing than the
+_lacerna_--a short cape of coarse cloth finished with the _cucullus_ or
+pointed hood--the multitudinous Roman plebe, exploited and oppressed by
+the patricians, ever dreaming, as a remedy for their ills, of new
+divisions of the public lands which, by means of usury, gradually fell
+into the hands of the rich.
+
+On the steps of the Comitium the members of a tribe were gathered to
+probate the will of one of their people who had just died. Near the
+military tribune veteran centurions wearing greaves and helmets of
+bronze stood leaning on staves of vine-wood, the badge of their
+military rank, discussing the siege of Saguntum and the audacity of
+Hannibal, eager to march immediately against the Carthaginian.
+
+On the huge blocks of blue stone which paved the Forum the vendors of
+hot drinks established their great craters, beating on them with ladles
+to attract the people, and at the foot of the steps of the temple of
+Concord some Etruscan buffoons, wearing hideous masks, began their
+grotesque pantomime, attracting the children and the idle from all sides
+of the quadrangle.
+
+It was cold; a damp and icy wind was blowing off the Pontine marshes;
+the sky was gray; and from the crowd stirring about the Forum rose a
+continuous and melancholy buzzing. Actaeon compared this square with the
+bright Agora of Athens, and even with the Forum of Saguntum in its days
+of peace. The Grecian joyousness was lacking in Rome, the sweet and
+gladsome lightness of an artistic people, careless of riches, and if
+engaging in commerce doing so only that it may live more expansively.
+This was a people cold and sad, devoted to lucre and to the laying up of
+money, disdainful of ideals, with no other industry than agriculture and
+war, squeezing the last grain of wheat from their lands, and robbing the
+enemy; methodical, lacking initiative and youthfulness.
+
+"This people," said the Athenian to himself, "seems never to have been
+as young as twenty. Even the children seem to be born old."
+
+Actaeon with his Grecian sagacity thought over what he had seen within
+the two days; the cruel discipline of the family, of the religion, and
+of the State, which held the citizens in subjection; their absolute
+ignorance of poetry and art; that stern training, sad, based only on
+duty, which obliged every Roman to a long and painful obedience so that
+he might some day be able to command.
+
+The father, who in Greece was a friend, in Rome was a tyrant. For the
+Latin city there existed no other member of the family than the father;
+the wife, the children, the clients, were almost on the level of slaves;
+they were instruments of toil, without rights and without name. The gods
+heard only him; in his house he was priest and judge; he could kill his
+wife, sell the children three times over, and his authority over the
+offspring persisted down the years; the conquering consul, the
+omnipotent senator, trembled when in his father's presence; and in this
+gloomy and despotic organization, more stern even than that of Sparta,
+Actaeon divined a latent force cradled in mystery which some day should
+burst its bonds, clasping the world as in an embrace of iron. The Greek
+detested this gloomy nation, but it held his admiration.
+
+Its stamina, the tough and bellicose spirit of the race, were revealed
+in the Forum. The Capitol on the summit of the sacred mount was a
+veritable fortress, with naked and gloomy walls, destitute of such
+decorations as made the citadel of Athens glow with an eternal smile.
+The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, with its low roof and its row of
+flattened, tower-like columns, barely rose above the city ramparts.
+Below, in the Forum, prevailed a similar grave and gloomy ugliness. The
+buildings were low and heavy; they seemed rather constructions of war
+than temples of the gods and public buildings. The great network of
+highroads starting from the Forum was the only embellishment in which
+Rome interested herself, and that because of their usefulness in
+transporting her legions and in the hauling of farm products. From the
+Forum the Appian Way could be seen stretching in a straight line, paved
+with blue stone, with its two rows of tombs which loomed up in the
+suburbs of the city, fading in the distance through the Campagna in the
+direction of Capua; and at the opposite extreme led off the Flaminian
+Way, which ran by the coast, extending into Cisalpine Gaul. Upon the
+immense Campagna rose like fluttering red banners the first aqueducts
+constructed during the reign of Appius Claudius to supply the city with
+fresh water from the mountains, combating thus the malaria of the
+Pontine marshes.
+
+But aside from these crude monuments, the extensive, gigantic city,
+which of itself could arm over a hundred and fifty thousand men,
+presented a savage and wretched aspect, almost like that of those tribes
+which Actaeon had seen on his trip through Celtiberia.
+
+There were few houses of more than a single story; the majority were
+great cabins of round walls of stone or clay, and conical roofs of
+boards and logs. After the Gauls burned Rome the city had been
+reconstructed in a year, haphazard, with precipitate celerity. In some
+wards the houses were huddled so closely together that they barely gave
+room for a man to pass between them, while in others they stood apart as
+if they were country villas surrounded by small fields inside the city
+walls. Streets did not exist; they were but tortuous prolongations of
+the roads which led to Rome; arteries formed at random, twisting hither
+and thither, following the sinuosities of a disorderly construction, and
+suddenly broadening into wide, untilled lands where the refuse of the
+houses was accumulating in piles, and where crows croaked by night,
+pecking at the carrion of dead dogs and asses.
+
+The crude simplicity of this city of farmers, money lenders, and
+soldiers, was reflected in the appearance of its inhabitants. Patrician
+matrons spun wool and hemp at the doors of their houses, clad only in
+tunics of coarse weave, and wearing bronze ornaments on their breasts
+and in their ears. The first coinage of silver had taken place
+subsequent to the war with the Samnites; the clumsy and heavy copper as
+was the current money, and the rich Grecian objects of virtu brought by
+the legions after the war with Sicily almost received adoration in the
+homes of the patricians, but were viewed askance by many as amulets
+which might corrupt the old sturdy Roman customs. Senators who owned
+extensive territories and hundreds of slaves, paraded their togas
+covered with patches in civic pride through the Forum. In all Rome there
+existed but a single table-service of silver, the property of the
+Republic, which passed from the house of one patrician to that of
+another when an envoy arrived from Greece, an ambassador from Sicily, or
+an opulent merchant from Carthage, habituated to Asiatic refinements and
+in whose honor banquets had to be given.
+
+Actaeon, accustomed to philosophic arguments in the Athenian Agora, to
+dialogues on poetry or on the mysteries of the soul wherever two
+unoccupied Greeks chanced to meet, strolled through the Forum listening
+to the conversations carried on in that rude and inflexible Latin which
+wounded an Athenian's ears. In one group they were discussing the
+health of the flocks and the price of wool; in another they were closing
+the sale of an ox in the presence of five adult citizens who served as
+witnesses. The purchaser placed the bronze, the value of the purchase,
+in a balance, and touching the ox with his hand he said in solemn
+accent, as if reciting an oration:
+
+"This is mine, according to the law of the Quirites. I have paid for it
+with this metal duly weighed."
+
+Farther on, a legionary with hungry face was adjusting a loan with an
+old man, offering as security his helmet and his greaves, and
+pronouncing the formulas of the law in such a case:
+
+"_Dari spondes?_" (Do you promise to give?) the soldier asked.
+
+"_Spondeo_" (I promise), replied the lender.
+
+The bargain was closed with these sober words, the alteration of a
+single syllable in which was sufficient to annul the operation, for the
+Romans professed a superstitious respect for the letter and formula of
+their laws.
+
+In another group they were discussing the points which a slave must have
+in order to be useful to his master and to be maintained by him; and
+throughout the entire Forum this grave people, austere, and without
+ideals, talked only of possessions, and of the manner of increasing
+them.
+
+The attention of the Greek was attracted by a youth who, although barely
+twenty years of age, displayed the gravity of an old man. His hair was
+red and close-cropped; his steady gaze gave him an expression of
+intelligence and penetration. He was walking slowly beside a boy who
+was listening to him attentively, as to his master.
+
+"Although your father is consul," said the red-headed man, "you must not
+forget, Scipio, that in order to be a good citizen and to serve the
+Republic, it is necessary not only to know how to use the lance and to
+manage a horse, but to know how to till the soil, and to be familiar
+with the secrets of cultivation. Some day you may command our armies,
+and you will not only have to conquer lands for Rome, but cultivate
+them, so that they will produce abundantly. Do you realize that?"
+
+"Yes, Cato," said the youth.
+
+"Every day you should learn a month of the calendar which our
+forefathers made. With that well fixed in your memory it will be easier
+for you to command your slaves promptly and well in their work in the
+fields. Yesterday I taught you the month of May; repeat it, Scipio."
+
+"Month of May," recited the boy wrinkling his brows in order to better
+concentrate his mind. "Thirty-one days. The nones fall on the seventh
+day. The day has fourteen and a half hours; the night nine hours and a
+half. The sun is in the sign of Taurus; the month is under the
+protection of Apollo. Wheat should be weeded. Sheep should be shorn. The
+wool should be washed. Young steers should be put under the yoke. The
+vetch should be mown in the meadows. The lustration of the crops should
+be performed. Sacrifices to Mercury and to Flora."
+
+"You remember it well, Scipio. Our ancestors neither had nor desired any
+other science; they were satisfied with knowing what they should do in
+each month throughout the year, and with this, and with valor and
+audacity to hold their fields, and to take possession of the lands of
+their neighbors, they founded our city, which grows and will grow until
+it becomes the greatest in the world. We are not charlatans like the
+Greeks, who kneel in admiration before marble puppets and argue like
+buffoons about what comes after death. We are not madly ambitious like
+the Carthaginians, who base their life on commerce and risk all their
+wealth upon the sea. Our life is spent on the land; we are ruder but
+more solid than other people; we advance more slowly, but we shall go
+farther. On the soil which we tread for the first time we do not set up
+a tent as do others; we plunge in the plow, and that is why what Rome
+takes none wrests from her. Do not forget that, Scipio!"
+
+The Athenian followed not far behind. The words of that man, old at
+twenty years, taught him more than his observations. Rome seemed to
+speak through his mouth in that lesson given to the son of one of her
+consuls.
+
+"You should know also," continued Cato, "the domestic rules of every
+good citizen. When our fathers wished to eulogize a worthy man they
+called him 'a good husbandman.' This was the highest praise. At that
+time they lived on the land itself, in rustic tribes, the most honorable
+of all, and they only saw Rome on market days and on days of _comitia_.
+There are still good citizens who lead the sane life of Cincinnatus and
+Camillus, and only come when the Senate gathers; but war, with its
+expeditions to new countries, has corrupted many, who wish only to live
+in the city, and they have substituted for the old Roman home, with its
+roof of boards and its simple penates, houses crowded with columns as
+if they were temples, and adorned with gods and goddesses which they
+order from Greece."
+
+The austere gesture of Cato displayed immense scorn for the imported
+refinements which had begun to break down the sturdiness of his native
+land.
+
+"In the country the good citizen should not lose a day. If the weather
+prevent his going out he should entertain himself cleaning the stables
+and barnyards, fixing up the old utensils, and seeing that the women
+mend the clothing. Even on feast days something can be done; irrigate
+the young vineyards, wash the sheep, go to the city to sell oil or
+fruit. No time should be lost in consulting haruspices and augurs, nor
+in devotion to cults which oblige the citizen to abandon his house. The
+gods of the household or of the nearest cross-road are sufficient. The
+lares, the manes, and the silvani are sufficient to protect a good
+citizen. Our fathers had no others, but nevertheless they were great."
+
+The youthful Scipio listened attentively, but his eyes were fixed on two
+young men from the Campagna, who with the _cucullus_ fallen over their
+shoulders, were having a boxing match close to a vendor of mulled wine.
+The young man's cheeks flushed with emotion seeing the blows exchanged
+by the athletes with quivering muscles.
+
+"If the citizen dwell in Rome," continued Cato, without noticing this
+incident which failed to disturb the gravity of the Forum, "he should
+open the door of his house at dawn of day to explain the law to his
+clients, and to place his money prudently, teaching the young men the
+art of increasing their savings and how to avoid ruinous follies. The
+father of the family should turn everything into money and waste
+nothing. If he give new garments to his slaves, he should recover the
+old ones for other uses. He should sell the oil and the wine and the
+wheat which are left over at the close of the year. Let him also sell
+the old oxen, the calves, lambs, the wool, the hides, the unserviceable
+carts, the rusty iron, the old, infirm, and sick slaves. Let him be ever
+selling. The father of the family should be the seller, not the buyer.
+Note that well, Scipio!"
+
+But Scipio was restless and scarcely heard him.
+
+The rustics had ceased boxing, and the youth, eager to be off, glanced
+far away toward the river.
+
+"Cato, this is the time for athletics. I must go to the bank of the
+Tiber to train myself in running and in pugilism, and to take an hour
+for swimming afterward."
+
+"Go when you will, and heed my advice. After the lesson, athletics and
+the cold bath, which harden the body, are excellent. The citizen who
+wishes to serve his country must not only be prudent but strong."
+
+The boy walked away, and Cato retracing his steps met the Greek who was
+following him. Actaeon's appearance attracted him, and he approached.
+
+"Greek," he said, "what do you think of our city?"
+
+"It is a gloomy town, but a great one. I have been in Rome only three
+days."
+
+"Are you, perchance, the messenger from Saguntum, who will appear before
+the Senate to-day?"
+
+Actaeon replied in the affirmative, and the Roman leaned on his arm with
+grave familiarity, as if he were an old friend.
+
+"You will accomplish very little," he said. "The Senate is suffering
+with a sickness just now--an excess of prudence! I detest mad deeds; I
+do not believe that Hannibal is a great captain, since I see him commit
+such an audacity as the siege of Saguntum; but I cannot tolerate in
+silence the faint-heartedness with which Rome proceeds in her affairs.
+She wishes to avail herself of all means to keep the peace. She fears
+war, while war with Carthage is inevitable. She and our city will not
+fit in the same sack. The world is too small for the two. I am always
+saying, 'Let us destroy Carthage!' and they laugh at me. Some years ago,
+when the war of the mercenaries broke out, we could have crushed her
+with ease. By sending to Africa a brace of legions the revolted
+Numidians and the mercenaries would have finished with Carthage; but we
+were afraid; after her victory Rome occupied herself only in healing her
+wounds. We feared the uprising of the soldiery of all countries, so we
+saved Carthage, helping her to destroy her revolted mercenaries."
+
+"It is different now," said Actaeon, with energy. "Saguntum is an ally,
+and if Hannibal makes war upon her it is on account of the love which
+the city professes for Rome."
+
+"Yes; that is why we Romans are interested in her fate; but do not hope
+for much from the Senate. It is more anxious about the pirates of the
+Adriatic who harrow our coasts, that rebellion of Demetrius of Pharos in
+Illyria, against whom we are about to send an army under command of the
+consul Lucius AEmilius."
+
+"But what of Saguntum? If you abandon her how will you resist the
+audacious Hannibal, who leads the most warlike tribes of Iberia? What
+will those unfortunates say of the seriousness with which Rome observes
+her alliances?"
+
+"Try to convince the Senate with your arguments. I am convinced; I see
+in Carthage the sole enemy of Rome. Would that they were all of my mind!
+They would then accept the audacious challenge of the son of Hamilcar
+and would declare war against Carthage, going to meet her in her own
+territory! Happen what may, we are invincible. Italy is a compact mass,
+and as advance sentinels of our camp, we have in the Orient Illyria, on
+the side which looks into Africa we have Sicily, and in the Occident is
+Sardinia, while the lands which Carthage dominates form an extensive
+belt of nine hundred leagues which runs along a great part of the coasts
+of Africa and all those of Iberia; but so narrow, and peopled by so many
+different races, that it can easily be broken. Though Rome might lose a
+hundred battles, she will always be Rome, but one defeat for Carthage is
+enough to dissolve the nation."
+
+"If only they all thought as you do, Cato!"
+
+"If the Senate thought as I do it would scorn Demetrius of Pharos, and
+its legions would have been in Saguntum days ago. Perhaps by such means
+a danger would be avoided, because who knows where that young African
+will go, and what he may not dare if he succeed in conquering without
+hindrance a city allied to Rome! That is why I, a free citizen, give
+lessons as a pedagogue, as you have just witnessed. That boy is the son
+of the consul Publius Cornelius Scipio, and all the virtues of his
+family are revived in him. Perhaps he may be the one destined to bar
+Hannibal's way, to destroy the insolent power of that Carthage against
+whom we are ever clashing."
+
+They continued strolling through the Forum discussing the customs of
+Rome, and arguing warmly as they contrasted them with those of Athens.
+Then the austere Roman, having to hold conference with various
+patricians in regard to private affairs, to which he attended with great
+scrupulousness, said farewell to the Greek.
+
+On being left alone Actaeon realized that he was hungry. It would be some
+time before the Senate would assemble, and wearied of the noisy stir in
+the Forum he passed on, walking around the base of the Capitoline,
+following a street broader than the others, lined with stone buildings,
+which displayed through their open doors the relative abundance of
+patrician families.
+
+He entered a bakery and rapped on the stone of the deserted counter with
+an _as_. A plaintive voice answered from a kind of cavern. The Greek
+peered into the gloomy grotto and saw a mill for grinding wheat, and
+yoked to it a man, who was turning it with great effort.
+
+The slave came out almost naked, wiping off the sweat which was
+streaming down his forehead, and taking the money offered by the Greek
+handed him a round loaf. Then he stood looking Actaeon over with
+curiosity.
+
+"Do you own the bakery?" Actaeon asked.
+
+"I am nothing but a slave," he replied sadly. "My master had to go to
+the Forum to see the dealers in wheat. You are a Greek, are you not?"
+
+Before Actaeon deigned to answer, he hastened to add with melancholy
+pride:
+
+"I have not always been a slave. I have been in this condition but a
+short time, and before I lost my freedom my fervent desire was to visit
+your country. O Athens! The city where poets are gods!"
+
+He recited in Greek some verses from the Prometheus of AEschylus,
+astonishing Actaeon by the purity of his accent and by the expression
+which he communicated to his words.
+
+"Can it be that here in Rome your masters dedicate you to poesy?" asked
+the Athenian, laughing.
+
+"I was a poet before I became a slave. My name is Plautus."
+
+Glancing around as if fearing to be surprised by some member of his
+master's family he continued talking, happy at being able to free
+himself from the torment of the mill.
+
+"I have written comedies. I tried to establish the theatre in Rome,
+which is almost a cult among your people. The Romans have little
+sensibility to poetry. They love farces; a tragedy that would move the
+Hellenes to tears, leaves them cold; one of Aristophanes' comedies would
+put them to sleep. They, Athenian, enjoy only the Etruscan buffoons,
+those grotesque comedians of the farces which they call Atellanae, and
+the hideous maskers with sharp teeth and deformed heads who stalk in the
+triumphal processions growling their obscenities. They would stone the
+heroes of your tragedies, while on the other hand, they howl with
+enthusiasm at the entry of a victorious consul when the soldiers pass
+disguised in rams' skins, wearing tufts of bristling horsehair, and they
+laugh at seeing them avenge themselves for their humble condition by
+insulting the conqueror behind his triumphal car. I wrote comedies for
+these people, and I write them still in moments when my master ceases
+beating me to make me turn the mill. The patricians, the free citizens,
+do not enjoy seeing themselves personated in the scene. Here they would
+rend Aristophanes to pieces, he who represented upon the stage the most
+prominent men of Athens. My heroes are slaves, foreigners, and
+mercenaries, and they make the audience laugh. I have finished a comedy
+there within that den, ridiculing the fanfare of the warriors. I would
+recite it if I did not fear that my master might return at any moment."
+
+"But how have you fallen into such a wretched situation after having
+been the entertainer of your people?"
+
+"I committed the madness of founding the first theatre in Rome, in
+imitation of those in Greece. It was a wooden enclosure on the outskirts
+of the city. I borrowed money; I contracted debts; the populace came to
+laugh, but they gave little. I was ruined, and the wise laws of Rome
+condemn him who cannot pay to become the slave of his creditor. This
+baker who used to laugh at my comedies, and who gladly loaned me sacks
+of copper, is now getting even for his former show of admiration by
+making me turn his mill, because I cost less than an ass. Every peal of
+laughter in the past is transformed into a blow with a stick dealt
+across my back. The fate of poets! You Greeks also thanked AEschylus for
+his verses by pelting him with stones, yet he was ever a freeman."
+
+Plautus became silent, but after a melancholy smile he added:
+
+"I trust in the future. I shall not always have to be a slave; perhaps I
+shall find someone who will give me back my liberty. The Romans who make
+war and see new countries return with milder customs and with a love of
+art. I shall be free, I will found a new theatre, and
+then,----then----"
+
+Hope shone in his glance, as if he saw the realization of the dreams
+with which he embellished his gloomy den, while, panting like a beast,
+he turned the enormous cone of stone.
+
+A noise was heard from within the house, and before his master's
+children could see him Plautus ran to yoke himself again to the
+mill-spindle, while the Greek left the place, astounded by this episode.
+
+What a people this, which converted its debtors into slaves and turned
+its poets into beasts of burden!
+
+The Greek sauntered back through the Forum munching his loaf of bread.
+He was waiting for the Senate to assemble, and to pass away the time he
+climbed to the crest of the Palatine Hill, the sacred ground which was
+the cradle of Rome. He visited the Lupercal Grotto where Romulus and
+Remus had been suckled by the she-wolf. At the entrance to the narrow
+cave, denuded by the winter, the Ruminal fig tree extended its naked
+branches, the famous tree in the shade of which the twin founders of the
+city had frolicked. Near it on a granite pedestal stood the wolf, in
+dark and lustrous bronze, the work of an Etruscan artist, with the
+hideous half-open fauces, and her belly bristling with a double row of
+gleaming teats to which two naked children clung, sprawling on the
+ground.
+
+From this height Actaeon looked down upon the broad city, a wave of roofs
+between the seven hills, invading the heights and dispersing through the
+deep valleys. Almost at the side of the Palatine rose the Capitolium,
+the great fortress of Rome, on the naked crags of the Tarpeian rock, and
+the Greek passed from the summit of one to that of the other to examine
+the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, more famous than beautiful.
+
+He turned his back on the rude temple of Mars, which occupied the
+highest point of the Palatine, and following a path between abrupt rocks
+he crossed to the Capitoline. On his way he met the priests of Jupiter,
+walking with sacerdotal rigidity as if ever offering sacrifices to their
+god. He saw the vestals wrapped in their flowing white veils, marching
+with a sturdy tread. Some _milites_ were climbing up to the temple of
+Mars, their broad breasts encased in overlapping bands of copper, their
+bare thighs covered by strips of wool hanging from the waist; one hand
+resting on the pommel of their short swords while they talked with
+enthusiasm of the coming Illyrian campaign, without thought of the
+situation of their allies in Iberia.
+
+Actaeon entered the sacred precincts of the Capitoline, surrounded by
+frowning ramparts. It was the ancient mount Tarpeius, with its two
+summits united by an extensive flat. The higher part which lay toward
+the north was occupied by the Arx or citadel of Rome; on the south was
+the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, surrounded by massive columns.
+
+The Greek entered the citadel, famous for its resistance during the
+invasion of the Gauls. On the margin of a pool before the temples
+huddled within the strong enclosure he saw the sacred birds--the geese
+which with their cackling in the silence of the night had protected Rome
+from the surprise of the invaders. Then he crossed the depression which
+divides the hill into two parts, and approached the great fane of Rome.
+
+A stairway of a hundred steps led to the temple, constructed in the
+time of the last Tarquin in honor of the three divinities of
+Rome--Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. The building consisted of three
+_cellae_ or parallel sanctuaries, with three doors opening beneath the
+same pediment. The one in the centre was sacred to Jupiter, and the
+smaller ones on either side to the two goddesses. A triple row of
+columns sustained the pediment, which was decorated with prancing horses
+coarsely sculptured. Two rows of columns ran down the sides of the
+temple forming a portico, in the shade of which the eldest Roman
+citizens strolled, discussing the affairs of the city.
+
+The temple had been built by artists called from Etruria, and under the
+colonnade were statues acquired by the expeditions to Sicily and as a
+result of the many wars carried on by Rome. This rude nation was
+incapable of producing artists, but it had soldiers to supply it with
+art by means of war and loot.
+
+The Athenian entered the sanctuary in the centre dedicated to Jupiter,
+and he saw the image of the god in terra cotta, holding a golden lance
+in his right hand. Before him continually smoked the Altar of
+Sacrifices. On leaving the temple he glanced at the gnomon or sundial,
+which at that height marked the time for all Rome.
+
+It was now the hour to go to the Senaculum, the ancient building at the
+foot of the Tarpeian peak between the Capitolium and the Forum, which
+many years later was converted into the temple of Concord. On the steps
+which gave access to the temple Actaeon met the two legates sent by
+Saguntum before the siege began; two old farmers who had gone away from
+home for the first time, and who seemed to be dazed by their long
+months of waiting in Rome, with their audiences which never terminated,
+and with their interviews and resultless supplications. The two
+perturbed Saguntines, impotent before a city which never responded
+definitely to their words, followed like automata the self-confident
+Greek who went everywhere as if he were in his own house, and who spoke
+many languages as if the entire world were his country.
+
+The senators began to arrive. Some came from their business in the city
+and presented themselves garbed in the white toga with purple border,
+followed by their clients who turned their gaze in all directions as if
+to attract public attention to their majestic protector. Others came
+from the country, drawing up their carts before the steps of the
+Senaculum, and, handing the reins to a slave, ascended to the temple
+with their togas flung over their arms, dressed in the short cloak of
+coarse wool worn by farmers, and emitting the odors of their stables and
+crops. They were mature men who displayed in the firmness of their
+strong muscles the activity of their life of continued struggle with the
+soil and with enemies; old men with long beards and wizened faces,
+tremulous with age, who still revealed in their unflinching eyes
+reliance on their departing strength. The crowd from the Forum, surging
+toward the steps of the Senaculum, watched them with admiration and
+respect. They were the fathers of the Republic, the heads of Rome.
+
+The two legates from Saguntum walked up the temple steps. Under the
+columns which sustained the pediment were numberless piles of loot from
+the last wars, deposited by the conquerors as they paraded through the
+Forum before the multitude, which had hailed them, waving branches of
+laurel. Actaeon saw shields pierced by iron swords, rusted by blood;
+war-chariots with broken tongues, the gilded wheels bespattered with the
+mud of battles. They were spoils from the war with the Samnites. Farther
+on, standing along the wall, a row of hideous wooden dwarfs, dyed red
+and blue, stripped from the prows of Carthaginian ships after the great
+victory at the AEgates Islands; iron bars which had closed the gates of
+many cities conquered by the Romans; the golden standards decorated with
+fantastic animals which led the troops of Pyrrhus; the enormous tusks of
+the elephants which this descendent of Achilles had marched against the
+legions of Rome; the horned or eagle-winged helmet of the Ligurians; the
+darts of Alpine tribes, and, beside the door, as a trophy of honor, the
+armor of the glorious Camillus, paraded in triumph by the city after
+this great Roman had driven the Gauls from the Capitol. Along the walls,
+as a strange decoration, hung a long dark tissue, crisp as parchment. It
+was the skin of the great serpent which for a whole day held back the
+army of Atilius Regulus, when on his expedition to Africa he was
+marching to the conquest of Carthage. The horrible monster, insensible
+to arrows, devoured many soldiers before it succumbed beneath a shower
+of stones, and Regulus sent the reptile's skin to Rome as a testimony of
+the adventure.
+
+The envoys from Saguntum had a tedious wait before a centurion ushered
+them into the Senaculum.
+
+The Greek, sweeping his glance over the semicircle, was perturbed by the
+majesty of the assemblage. He recalled the entrance of the Gauls into
+Rome; the stupefaction of the barbarians in the presence of those
+Elders, firm in their marble chairs, wrapped like phantoms in their
+snowy garments which left uncovered only their silvery beards; their
+ivory staves held with a divine majesty, revealed again in the gleam
+from their steady eyes. None but barbarians intoxicated with blood-lust
+would dare to assault men of such patriarchal dignity.
+
+They numbered more than two hundred. Between them were vacant seats of
+senators unable to attend, and over the concentric rows of marble chairs
+the white togas spread out like newly fallen snow upon a crust of ice.
+Behind them stood a row of columns in a semicircle, sustaining the
+cupola through which filtered a crepuscular light which seemed to favor
+meditation and concentration of the mind. A low stone balustrade
+surrounded the semicircle, and beyond it were grouped important citizens
+who had not the investiture of senators. In the centre the barrier was
+broken by a square pedestal sustaining the bronze she-wolf with the
+twins hanging to her dugs, and on the base in great letters, the device
+of supreme authority in Rome: "S.P.Q.R." A tripod sustained a brazier
+before the pedestal, and over the embers floated a blue cloud of
+incense.
+
+The three legates seated themselves in marble chairs near the image of
+the wolf, before the triple row of white and motionless men.
+
+Some rested their chins in their hands as if to hear better.
+
+They might speak; the Senate would hear them; and Actaeon, moved by the
+supplicating glances of his two companions, arose. In his mind
+impressions did not linger long; he had recovered from the emotion
+produced at first by the majesty of the assemblage.
+
+He spoke deliberately, taking care, after the manner of a true Greek, to
+avoid lapses of style in expressing himself in that rude tongue,
+endeavoring to give to his words the emotion which he wished to inspire
+in the representatives of Rome. He described the desperate resistance of
+Saguntum, and her confidence in the support of the Republic, that blind
+faith which had inspired her people to hurl themselves outside the walls
+and repulse the enemy at the mere announcement that the Roman fleet had
+appeared upon the horizon. When he left the city it still had supplies
+for subsistence and courage to defend itself. But much time had elapsed
+since then--nearly two whole months. The ambassador had been compelled
+to make his way amidst adventures and perils, sometimes by sea, taking
+advantage of the routes of the merchant ships, again on foot along the
+coasts, and at this moment the situation of the city must be desperate.
+Saguntum would fall if they did not go to her succor, and what a
+responsibility for Rome if she abandoned her protege after the latter
+had drawn Hannibal's enmity upon her for wishing to be Roman! How could
+other nations rely on the friendship of Rome when they knew the sad end
+of Saguntum!
+
+The Greek ceased speaking, and the painful silence which fell over the
+Senate revealed the profound impression his words had made.
+
+Then Lentulus, an aged senator, arose to speak. The sharp voice of the
+old man penetrated the silence as he told of the origin of Saguntum,
+which if it were Grecian on account of the merchants of Zacynthus having
+established their factories there, was also Italian on account of the
+Rutulians from Ardea who had gone thither in remote times to found a
+colony. Moreover Saguntum was the friend of Rome. To be more faithful to
+her she had beheaded some of her citizens who had worked in the cause of
+Carthage. What audacity for that young man, a son of Hamilcar, to ignore
+the treaties of Rome with Hasdrubal, and to dare to raise his sword
+against a city friendly to the Romans! If Rome looked with indifference
+upon this offense Hamilcar's lion-cub would grow in temerity, for youth
+knows no bridle when it sees its imprudence crowned by success.
+Moreover, the great city could not tolerate such daring. Outside, at the
+door of the Senaculum were the glorious trophies of war as a
+demonstration that he who revolted against Rome should fall conquered at
+her feet. They must be inexorable with the enemy and faithful to the
+ally; they must carry the war into Iberia and destroy the reckless one
+who defied Rome.
+
+All the choler of the gloomy city, warlike and severe, spoke through the
+mouth of the aged man, who extended his rigid arm above his companions'
+heads, threatening the invisible enemy. The soldierly vigor of the
+veteran of ancient wars against the Samnites and against Pyrrhus, was
+aroused for a moment in the weak old man, and thrilled his muscles and
+caused his eyes to flash.
+
+Actaeon's two companions, who did not understand the Latin tongue,
+nevertheless divined Lentulus' words, and they were filled with emotion
+by the eulogy of the self-abnegation of their city. Tears streamed from
+their eyes, they rent the dark mantles in which they were clad as solemn
+messengers, and throwing themselves to the floor to express the
+vehemence of their grief after the custom of the ancients, they shouted,
+sobbing:
+
+"Save us! Save us!"
+
+The desperation of the two old men, and the dignified attitude of the
+Greek, who, frowning and silent, seemed the personification of Saguntum
+awaiting the fulfillment of pledges, moved the Senate and the multitude
+that surged outside the balustrade of the she-wolf. All were agitated
+and were exchanging words of indignation. Beneath the cupola of the
+Senaculum resounded a disorderly buzzing, the echo of a thousand mingled
+voices. They clamored for the Senate to declare instant war against
+Carthage, to call out the legions, to make ready the ships, to embark an
+expedition in the port of Ostia, and to hurl Rome against the camp of
+Hannibal.
+
+A senator called for silence that he might speak. It was Fabius, one of
+the most famous patricians of Rome, the descendent of those three
+hundred heroes of that famous gens destroyed in a single day fighting
+for Rome on the banks of the Cremera. Prudence spoke through his mouth;
+his counsels were ever followed as being wisest; on this account the
+Senate recovered its calmness as soon as it saw that he had arisen to
+his feet.
+
+With reposeful language, after lamenting the situation of the allied
+city, he said that it was not known whether it were Carthage that had
+broken into hostilities against Saguntum, or whether Hannibal had done
+so on his own account. A war in Iberia would be a grave matter for Rome,
+now that she was going to begin a nearer struggle with the rebel
+Demetrius of Pharos. It would be advisable to send an embassy to
+Hannibal in his camp, and if the African refused to raise the siege, let
+it go to Carthage to ask if its rulers approved the chieftain's conduct,
+and to demand that the latter be turned over to Rome in punishment for
+his audacity.
+
+This solution seemed to please the Senate. Those who a few moments
+before had shown themselves warlike and uncompromising bowed their heads
+as if approving the words of Fabius. The thought of the insurrection in
+Illyria counseled prudence to the most violent. They remembered the
+enemy who was rising almost at their doors across the Adriatic, and who,
+with their fleets given over to piracy, might attempt an invasion of
+Roman territory. Egoism caused them to look upon this enterprise as more
+important than any oath, and in order to deceive themselves and to hide
+their own weakness, they exaggerated the importance of the embassy to
+Hannibal's camp declaring that the African would raise the siege and ask
+pardon of Rome as soon as he saw the Senatorial legates arrive.
+
+Actaeon received this change on the part of the assemblage with visible
+signs of impatience.
+
+"I know Hannibal well," he shouted. "He will not obey you; he will scoff
+at you! If you do not send an army the journey of your legates will be
+useless!"
+
+But the senators, eager to conceal the weakness to which their egoism
+drove them, protested loudly against the words of Actaeon. Who spoke of
+scoffing at the Republic of Rome? Who imagined that Hannibal would
+scorn the envoys of the Senate? Let the stranger maintain silence--he
+who was not even a son of the city in whose name he spoke.
+
+Actaeon bowed his head. Then, turning to his aged companions, who did not
+understand the resolution of the Senate, he murmured: "Our city is lost!
+Rome fears to declare war against Hannibal and delays the clash of arms.
+When they become ready to help us Saguntum will no longer exist!"
+
+The three Saguntine legates received an order to retire. The senators
+were about to appoint two patricians who should go as envoys of Rome.
+
+As they left the Senaculum the eldest of the senators addressed Actaeon:
+
+"Tell your companions to prepare for the journey. To-morrow at sunset
+you will embark with the legates of the Senate in the port of Ostia."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE HUNGRY CITY
+
+
+The trireme conveying the Roman legates had been on her voyage more than
+fifteen days.
+
+She had sailed up the coasts of the Tyrrhenian Sea; she had then crossed
+the Sea of Liguria, bound by abrupt coasts, and had passed before
+Massilia, the prosperous Grecian colony, also allied to Rome. Then,
+audaciously crossing the broad gulf, she had turned her prow toward
+Emporion, and had skirted the coasts of Iberia.
+
+The ambassadors from Rome were the patricians Valerius Flaccus, one of
+those who desired to maintain the peace with prudent words, and Baebius
+Tamphilus who enjoyed the love of the Roman plebs because of his
+sympathy for their sufferings.
+
+Actaeon displayed impatience to reach Saguntum. He wished to confer with
+his friends and avoid the useless sacrifice of the city, explaining to
+them the mood of Rome so that they should not persist in a useless
+defense. For seven months Saguntum had held out in strenuous resistance.
+Autumn had not yet commenced when Hannibal's army had appeared before
+the city, and it was now near the end of winter.
+
+The Greek reflected sadly upon the fond illusions he had cherished while
+making his adventurous and perilous way to Rome. He had hoped that his
+presence in the great city, and his story of the sufferings of the
+faithful ally, would arouse the Romans, and that the legions would shout
+for vengeance----but he was returning without soldiers, in a ship with
+ambassadors feigning interest in Saguntum but not deeply moved by her
+misfortunes----returning without other support than high-sounding,
+impotent words, and a bronze wolf on the end of a staff proclaiming the
+dignity of the embassy.
+
+What of the enthusiastic and credulous multitude fighting on the walls,
+filling the yawning breach with their unflinching breasts, and who to
+gather fresh courage only needed to imagine the coming of the
+Romans!----What would they say? Then, with a sudden turn of thought,
+what of Sonnica, she so brave, sending him that he might save the city!
+How could she, accustomed to a life of luxury and ease, live in the
+misery and horror of that siege, which had endured until the stores of
+the city must be consumed, and the energy of its defenders exhausted!
+
+The ship left the mouth of the Ebro, and struggling against contrary
+winds, at length, one morning, sighted the Acropolis of Saguntum. From
+the tall tower of Hercules shot up a cloud of smoke in greeting! They
+had recognized the vessel by the square rigging of the Roman men-of-war.
+
+The sun was in the zenith when the ship, with reefed sails, and driven
+by the triple bank of oars, stood into the channel which gave entrance
+to the port of Saguntum. Within the harbor, above the reeds waving in
+the marshes, rose the masts of Carthaginian vessels anchored in the
+triple port.
+
+The crew of the Roman ship beheld great troops of horsemen galloping
+along the beach. They were squadrons of Numidians and Mauritanians,
+waving their lances and uttering war cries as when charging in battle.
+
+One horseman, with bronze armor and uncovered head, had called to them
+to heave to. Advancing alone, he urged his horse into the channel,
+approaching the ship until the waters rose to the animal's belly.
+
+Actaeon recognized him.
+
+"That is Hannibal," he said to the two legates standing beside him on
+the poop, who were watching with astonishment the bellicose character of
+their reception before they had even cast anchor in the port of
+Saguntum.
+
+Fresh squadrons continued to arrive, as if the news of the coming ship
+had spread alarm through the camp, attracting all the troops to the
+port. Behind the cavalry came the fierce Celtiberians at full speed, the
+Balearic slingers, all the foot-soldiers, of diverse races who figured
+in the besieging army.
+
+Hannibal, even at the risk of drowning, pressed his horse forward into
+the waters of the channel to make himself heard on the ship, and
+ordering them to stop he held up his hand so imperiously that in an
+instant the oars dropped motionless along the hull.
+
+"Who are you? What do you want?" he asked in Greek.
+
+Actaeon interpreted between the Romans and the Carthaginian chief.
+
+"They are legates from Rome, coming to see you in the name of the
+Republic."
+
+"Who are you, speaking to me in a voice that I seem to know?"
+
+He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked keenly until he recognized
+the Greek.
+
+"Is it you, Actaeon? Always you, restless Athenian! I thought you were
+within the city, yet you have managed to slip away to bring these men to
+me. Well and good! Tell them it is too late. Why waste words? A
+chieftain who lays siege to a city only receives ambassadors after he is
+inside the walls."
+
+The Greek repeated Hannibal's words to the Romans, translating their
+replies.
+
+"Listen, African!" said Actaeon to Hannibal. "The envoys from Rome remind
+you of the friendship which they have contracted with Saguntum. In the
+name of the Senate and the Roman people they call upon you to raise the
+siege and to respect the city."
+
+"Tell them that Saguntum has offended me, and that she was first in
+declaring war by sacrificing my friends and by refusing to respect my
+allies, the Turdetani."
+
+"That is not true, Hannibal."
+
+"Greek, repeat what I say to the Romans."
+
+"The legates wish to land. They must speak to you in the name of Rome."
+
+"It is useless. They cannot make me desist from my enterprise. Moreover,
+the siege has lasted long, the troops are excited and a camp like mine,
+composed of ferocious peoples from many countries, who are only
+restrained when in my presence, is no safe place for ambassadors from
+Rome. We had a battle only a few hours ago, and they are still fuming
+with wrath."
+
+As he said this he turned toward his troops, and, as if taking the
+movement for an order, or perhaps divining in the eyes of their
+chieftain his hidden purpose, they advanced into the water as if to
+attack by swimming against the ship. Horsemen threatened with lances
+still dyed in the blood of recent battle; they raised their shields, on
+which the more savage Africans had hung as trophies the scalps of
+Saguntines killed in the last sally. The Balearians showed their white
+teeth in stupid grins, and taking clay balls from their pouches, they
+directed sling-shots against the Roman vessel.
+
+"Do you see?" shouted Hannibal with satisfaction. "It is impossible to
+receive the legates in my camp. It is too late to talk. There is nothing
+left but for Saguntum to give herself up to me in punishment for her
+crimes."
+
+The legates, scorning the projectiles from the slings, leaned over the
+side of the ship, thrusting forward their bodies covered by their togas,
+with an arrogance which seemed to defy the savage warriors.
+
+Indignation at being received with such scorn blanched their cheeks.
+
+"African!" shouted one of the legates in Latin, heedless that Hannibal
+could not understand, "since you will not receive the envoys from Rome
+we shall go on to Carthage to demand that they turn your person over to
+us for breaking the treaties of Hasdrubal. Rome will punish you when you
+become our prisoner!"
+
+"What does he say? What does he say?" growled Hannibal enraged at the
+incomprehensible words in which he surmised a threat.
+
+When Actaeon explained, the chieftain burst into a loud laugh of
+derision.
+
+"Go, Romans!" he shouted. "Go thither! The rich hate me and they would
+be glad to grant your demands and turn me over to the enemy; but the
+people love me, and there is no man in Carthage who dares to come into
+the bosom of my army to make me prisoner."
+
+Arrows rained around the ship; clay balls rebounded from her sides, and
+the Roman pilot gave the order to recede. The oars moved and the vessel
+slowly began to put about, and dropped down the channel.
+
+"But are we going to Carthage?" asked the Greek.
+
+"Yes, in Carthage they will hear us better," replied one of the legates.
+"After what has taken place, either the Senate there will turn Hannibal
+over to us, or Rome will declare war on Carthage."
+
+"You may go, Romans, but my duty lies here."
+
+Before the two senators and the legates from Saguntum, who had witnessed
+the former scene with astonishment, could interfere, the Athenian flung
+one leg over the rail and sprang head first into the channel. He swam
+under water for some time, then came up, floating near the bank, to
+which the cavalry and foot-soldiers had rushed to take him prisoner.
+
+Before his feet touched ground Actaeon was surrounded by a horde of
+slingers who rushed into the water up to their middles to take
+possession of his clothing without having to divide it among their
+comrades. In an instant they tore off his Celtiberian sword, the pouch
+hanging from his belt, and a gold chain which he wore on his breast in
+memory of Sonnica. They were about to strip him of his traveling tunic,
+leaving him naked, and he had begun to receive blows from the barbarous
+and cruel crowd, when Hannibal rode up and recognized him.
+
+"You have preferred to stay! I am glad of that. After having wrought me
+so much damage from the walls of Saguntum you have repented and you have
+come to join with me. I ought to leave you in the hands of these
+barbarians who would rend you to pieces; I ought to crucify you outside
+my camp so that that Greek woman whom you love could shudder at you; but
+I remember the promise I made you, and I shall keep it, and welcome you
+as a friend."
+
+He ordered one of his officials to cover the Greek's wet garments with
+an _endromis_, a military cloak of long hair with a hood, worn by
+soldiers over their armor in winter. Then he bade him mount a Numidian's
+horse.
+
+They took up their march toward the camp. The troops who had rushed to
+the entrance of the port slowly returned, while the ship fast dropped
+the land, spreading her glowing sails. On the Acropolis the smoke had
+dissipated, leaving only a few light clouds floating in the breeze. From
+afar one could guess the disappointment felt in the city by the
+unexpected flight of the Roman ship. With her seemed to vanish the last
+hope of the besieged. Hannibal's troops, as they retired, commented on
+the scene at the entrance to the port between their chief and the envoys
+from Rome. They did not understand the words which had been exchanged;
+but the energetic accent of the Roman as he spoke to Hannibal seemed to
+them a threat. Some, pretending that they had understood the ambassador,
+repeated an imaginary discourse in which the threat was made in the name
+of Rome to cut the throats of the whole army and to stretch Hannibal on
+a cross. They repeated these threats, each swelling them with inventions
+of his own, and when the troops met other detachments on the Road of
+the Serpent or in different parts of the valley, all declared they had
+seen the chains which the Roman legates displayed from the ship, and in
+which they expected to take their chieftain prisoner, and a howl of rage
+arose from the hosts of Hannibal.
+
+The African was flattered at the flood-tide of indignation surging
+around him. The soldiers, barring his way, acclaimed him with greater
+enthusiasm; he heard voices in every tongue crying death to Rome,
+calling upon the chieftain to make the final assault upon the city, to
+take possession of it before the ambassadors should reach Carthage and
+plot the downfall of the youthful hero.
+
+"Take care of yourself, Hannibal!" said an old Celtiberian planting
+himself before his horse. "Your enemies in Carthage, Hanno's faction,
+will unite with Rome to work your ruin."
+
+"The people love me," said the chieftain, arrogantly. "Before the
+Carthaginian Senate hears the Romans, Saguntum will be ours, and the
+Carthaginians will acclaim our triumph."
+
+With saddened heart Actaeon beheld the desolation of the fields which
+used to be so joyous and so fertile. There were no other ships in the
+port but men-of-war from New Carthage. The seamen slept in the fane of
+Aphrodite after having rifled the temple of its valuables. The
+warehouses had been pillaged and destroyed; the wharves covered with
+filth; in the fields not a vestige of the ancient villas remained. The
+ferocity of the barbarian tribes from the interior, their hatred for the
+Greeks of the coast, had incited them to even tear up the multicolor
+pavements and to scatter the fragments. The whole valley was an immense,
+desolated plain. Not a tree was standing. To combat the cold of winter
+they had felled the groves of fig trees, the broad plantations of
+olives, the stocks of the grapevines of the vineyards, destroying even
+the houses to warm themselves with the rafters from the roofs. Nothing
+remained standing but ruined walls and low shrubbery. A fungoid
+vegetation which grew rapidly, fertilized by bodies of men and animals,
+extended over the valley, obliterating the ancient roads, creeping up
+the ruins, and choking the beds of the streams which, their irrigating
+ditches broken, scattered their waters until the low fields were
+converted into ponds.
+
+It was the devastating work of a continually swelling army composed of a
+hundred and eighty thousand men and of many thousands of horses. In a
+short time they had devoured the Saguntine domain. The soldiers after
+destroying all that was not of immediate use, extended their rapacity to
+surrounding zones, constantly broadening their radius of destruction as
+the siege was prolonged.
+
+Supplies now came from a distance of many days' journey; sent by remote
+tribes in the hope of a reward of booty which Hannibal knew how to
+instill into their minds, telling them of the riches of Saguntum. The
+elephants had been sent to New Carthage some months before, as they were
+useless in the siege and difficult to maintain in this devastated
+region.
+
+Over the domain flew crows in undulating black clouds. From the thicket
+rose the stench of rotting horses and mules. By the roadsides, their
+members pinned to the ground by rocks, lay the bodies of barbarians put
+to death because of hopeless wounds, and whose bodies their compatriots,
+according to the customs of their race, left abandoned to the birds of
+prey. The immense agglomeration had vitiated the atmosphere of the
+valley. They lived in the open, and yet, the filth of the multitude, and
+the vapors of death, seemed disseminated between the mountains and the
+sea as a heavy atmosphere replete with sickness and death.
+
+Actaeon, coming from a distance, was the more sensitive to this stench of
+the camp, and he thought of the beleaguered people with sadness. Looking
+toward the city he guessed the horrors hidden behind those reddish walls
+after a resistance of seven months.
+
+They approached the camp. The Greek saw that this concentration of
+military forces had assumed the aspect of a permanent city. Few tents of
+canvas or of skins were left. The winter, which now was drawing to a
+close, had compelled the besiegers to construct stone huts with thatched
+roofs, and wooden houses which looked like towers and served as supports
+to the earthworks thrown up roundabout the camp.
+
+Hannibal, as if reading Actaeon's thought, smiled savagely while his eyes
+swept the work of destruction wrought by his army outside the city.
+
+"You find all this greatly changed, eh, Actaeon?"
+
+"I see that your troops have not been idle while you were off punishing
+the rebels in Celtiberia."
+
+"Maherbal, my chief of cavalry, is an excellent aide. When I returned he
+showed me two of the walls of Saguntum destroyed, and a part of the
+city in our power. Do you see that citadel near the Acropolis, inside
+the walled district? Well, that is ours. The catapults, which you can
+see from here, shoot into Saguntum, which has become reduced to half its
+former size--and they still dream of defending themselves! They still
+hope for auxiliaries from Rome! Stubborn brutes! They have constructed a
+line of walls for the third time, and thus they have gone on losing
+ground and persisting in the defense until nothing is left to them but
+the Forum, where I shall knife every man, woman, and child whom I find
+alive--O, proud and indomitable city! I will make you my slave!"
+
+The African turned to his old-time companion and changed the
+conversation.
+
+"Your eyes are opened at last, and you have come to me. Are you going to
+follow me with enthusiasm? Will you join me in that series of
+enterprises of which I spoke to you one day at sunrise here on this very
+road? Perhaps you will become a king because of having followed
+Hannibal, as did Ptolemy following Alexander. Are you resolved?"
+
+Actaeon hesitated a moment before replying, and Hannibal read indecision
+in his eyes--the desire to deceive.
+
+"Do not lie, Greek; lies are for enemies, or for preserving life. I am
+your friend, and I have promised to respect your safety. Can it be that
+you do not mean to follow me?"
+
+"Well, of a truth, I do not," said the Greek with resolution. "I wish to
+return to the city, and if you truly have affection for the companion of
+your youth, let me go."
+
+"But you will perish inside that city! Do not expect mercy if we force
+our entrance through the breach!"
+
+"I shall die," said the Athenian simply, "but there, inside those walls,
+are men who received me as a compatriot when I was wandering hungry over
+the world; there is a woman who took me in when I was poor, and gave me
+love and riches. They sent me to Rome that I might bring them a word of
+hope, and I must return, even though it be only to give them sorrow and
+pain. What does it matter if you set me free? To-morrow perhaps you can
+kill me. I shall be one more mouth to feed, and surely hunger must reign
+in Saguntum. Perhaps when I tell them the truth, when they see me return
+without assistance, their courage may weaken and they may give up the
+town to you. Let me pass through the lines, Hannibal; with this, it may
+be that without desiring to do so, I shall forward your plans."
+
+Hannibal looked at him in surprise.
+
+"Madman! I never believed an Athenian capable of such a sacrifice. You
+are such a light-hearted people, so given to perfidy, so false when you
+wish to satisfy your egoism! You are the first Greek I ever found
+faithful to the city which adopted him. Carthage had worse luck with the
+mercenaries from your country! It is impossible to make anything of you;
+you are only half a man! Love overmasters you; you are not satisfied as
+I am with the woman who wanders around the camp, or whom one takes when
+a city is assaulted and afterwards turns over to the soldiers. You bind
+yourself to a woman, you become her slave, and you seek an inglorious
+death in a dark corner of the world, like a mercenary in the service of
+a handful of merchants, merely for the sake of seeing her again. Go,
+madman, go! I give you your liberty--I wish to hear no more about you. I
+was ready to make you a hero and you answer me like a slave. Go in to
+Saguntum, but know that the protection of Hannibal abandons you from
+this moment. If you fall into my hands inside the city you will be my
+prisoner, never my friend!"
+
+Digging his heels into his horse's ribs, Hannibal dashed into his camp,
+contemptuously turning his back upon the Greek. In a moment a young
+Carthaginian approached, who, without a word, nor even a glance at him,
+grasped his bridle-reins and proceeded toward Saguntum.
+
+As they gained the outposts of the besieging army the Carthaginian
+pronounced a word and Actaeon passed on amid the hostile gaze of the
+soldiers who had heard of the scene at the port, and were clamoring with
+rage, thinking of the chains which the legates from Rome had the
+insolence to show to their chief. That Greek who was about to enter the
+besieged city must have been a companion of the legates, and many placed
+an arrow in the bow to shoot at him, but were restrained by a cold and
+haughty glance from the young Carthaginian who spoke in the name of
+Hannibal.
+
+They arrived at the ruins of the first walled quarter. The van of the
+besieging army was within the shelter of the walls. The Greek
+dismounted, and breaking a thorny branch from a bush he walked on,
+holding it aloft as a signal of peace.
+
+He stood before the wall which had been built under his direction one
+night to hold back the invader. Upon it he saw the helmets of only a few
+defenders. The besieger was directing his attacks against the upper
+part. That side of the city where the early battles had taken place was
+almost abandoned. The guardians on the wall greeted Actaeon with loud
+shouts of surprise and joy, and they lowered a rope of esparto to help
+him climb up by means of the rough places on the wall, until he could
+enter through a crenel near the top. All surrounded the Greek eagerly.
+It seemed as if he were in the presence of spectres. Their bodies
+appeared ready to slip out of their ample armor; their faces, sad,
+yellow, parchment-like, were hidden beneath the visors of their helmets;
+their fleshless, wrinkled hands could barely sustain their weapons, and
+a strange, golden effulgence glowed in their eyes.
+
+Actaeon parried their flood of questions with kind words of
+encouragement. He would speak opportunely; he must first render an
+account of his mission to the Elders of the Senate. They must be calm;
+before night they should know all. Filled with commiseration in the
+presence of these heroes, he lied mercifully, declaring that Rome would
+not forget Saguntum, and that he had come in advance of the legions sent
+by the allies.
+
+From the houses nearby, from the streets close to the wall, issued men
+and women drawn by news of the arrival of the Greek. They surrounded
+him, they questioned him; all wished to be first to receive the news to
+scatter it through the city. Defending himself from them, Actaeon gazed
+with horror at their lean, yellow faces, their earthy skin outlining the
+prominent sutures of their skulls; their sunken eyes in their black
+orbits shining with an unearthly light, like fading stars reflected in
+the depths of a well, and their emaciated arms, which creaked like
+canes as they moved them with nervous emotion.
+
+He started onward, escorted by the multitude, preceded by boys
+absolutely nude, horrible to look at, with skins ready to break from the
+pressure of their ribs outlined one above the other, with enormously
+large heads above their fleshless necks. They staggered painfully, as if
+their tottering, thread-like limbs could not bear the weight of their
+bodies; some, to lessen their suffering, dragged themselves along the
+ground, lacking the strength to stand.
+
+Actaeon beheld a deserted corpse lying in a corner, the face covered with
+strange flies which glinted in the sunshine with metallic reflections.
+Farther on at a cross street, some women were trying to raise to his
+feet a naked youth beside whom lay his abandoned bow. The Greek noted
+with horror his sunken, inward-curving abdomen, a palpitating whirlpool
+of skin between the protruding hip bones which threatened to burst from
+the body. It was a mummy still showing a flickering spark of life in the
+eyes, opening and shutting its parched and blackened lips as if feeding
+on the unnourishing air.
+
+He continued on his way down the lengthy streets, but no more people
+joined the group. The doors of many houses remained closed, despite the
+clamor of the crowd, and Actaeon contrasted this solitude with the great
+multitude of people during the early days of the siege. Dead dogs lying
+in the gullies, as emaciated as the people themselves, polluted the
+atmosphere. At street crossings lay skeletons of horses and mules, clean
+and white, holding not even a scrap of flesh to satisfy the repugnant
+insects buzzing in the atmosphere of the doomed city.
+
+With his gift of keen observation, the Greek's attention was fixed by
+the warriors' weapons. He saw only cuirasses of metal; those made of
+leather had disappeared. The shields displayed their texture of osier or
+bull-tendon, destitute of their coverings of hide. In one corner he saw
+two old men fighting over a black and stringy morsel; it was a bit of
+crow boiled in water. Many two-storied houses had been demolished to
+obtain stones for use in the new wall which barred the advance of the
+enemy.
+
+Desolating hunger had swept everything with cruel touch. Even the most
+fetid and repugnant matter had been turned to account. It was as if the
+besiegers had already broken into the city and had carried off
+everything of worth, leaving nothing but the buildings behind as silent
+witnesses to their rapine. Hunger and death stalked hand in hand beside
+the desperate Saguntines.
+
+On approaching the Forum a woman pushed her way through the people
+toward the Greek and flung her arms around his neck.
+
+"Actaeon, my love!" cried Sonnica.
+
+The privations of the siege had left deep marks upon her. She did not
+present the appearance of extreme emaciation as did most, but she was
+thin and pale, her nose sharpened, her cheeks transmitting an interior
+light, the arms which clung to him thin and hot with fever. A blue
+circle surrounded her eyes, and her rich tunic hung loose in empty
+folds; her body, in growing thinner, seemed to have gained in height.
+
+"Actaeon----my love!" she cried again, "I had lost hope of ever seeing
+you! Bless you, bless you for coming back!"
+
+She walked beside him, one of her arms around his neck. The multitude
+looked upon Sonnica with veneration; she had sacrificed herself for the
+poor, sharing with them each day the shrinking supplies of her
+store-houses.
+
+Actaeon recognized Euphobias the philosopher in the crowd, his garments
+more ragged than ever, almost naked, but with an appearance of relative
+vigor which contrasted strangely with the starving appearance of the
+majority. Lachares and the elegant young friends of Sonnica bowed to him
+from a distance with a distraught expression. They had the look of
+starving men, but they concealed their pallor beneath rouge and other
+cosmetics, and they wore their richest vestments as if to console
+themselves for their privations with the pomp of useless luxury. The
+young slave boys who accompanied them moved their emaciated limbs,
+covered by gold-embroidered garments, and gazing at their pendants of
+pearls, they yawned painfully. The crowd halted in the Forum. The Elders
+had gathered in the temple near the quadrangle. Above, on the Acropolis,
+the Carthaginians who occupied a part of the hill, kept up a continual
+bombardment, and great stones from the catapults fell constantly. Some
+of these reached the Forum, and the roofs of many houses and walls were
+pierced and shattered by the enormous projectiles.
+
+Actaeon entered the temple alone. The number of Ancients had diminished.
+Some had died, victims of hunger and pestilence; others, with juvenile
+ardor, had rushed forth to defend the walls, and there encountered
+death. The prudent Alcon seemed to enjoy great ascendancy, and he
+figured at the head of the assembly. Events had justified the prudence
+which had caused him in other days to declare against the warlike
+enterprises of the city and their fondness for alliances.
+
+"Speak, Actaeon," said Alcon. "Tell us the truth, the whole truth! After
+the misfortunes the gods have already sent us, we can bear even
+greater."
+
+The Greek looked at the men, wrapped in their flowing mantles, holding
+their tall staves of authority, awaiting his words with an anxiety which
+they made an effort to conceal behind majestic calmness.
+
+He related his audience by the Roman Senate; he told of the caution
+which had impelled it to favor conciliatory measures; of the arrival of
+the legates off Saguntum; of their extraordinary reception by Hannibal,
+and of the departure of the ambassadors for Carthage to demand the
+punishment of the chieftain and desistance from the siege of Saguntum.
+
+As the sad tale proceeded the calmness of the Elders gradually
+dissipated. Some, more violent, arose to their feet and rent their
+garments, crying aloud with grief; others, in their excitement, beat
+their foreheads with clenched fists, raging with fury on hearing that
+Rome had not sent her legions; and the eldest among them, without
+sacrificing their dignity, wept unashamed, allowing their tears to
+stream down their fleshless cheeks into their snowy beards.
+
+"They have forsaken us!"
+
+"It will be too late when help arrives!"
+
+"Saguntum will perish before the Romans can reach Carthage!"
+
+The assemblage remained long in a state of desperation. Some, motionless
+in their seats from weakness, implored the gods to let them die ere they
+should behold the downfall of their people.
+
+It seemed as if the hordes of Hannibal were already clamoring at the
+temple doors.
+
+"Restrain yourselves, Elders!" admonished Alcon. "Remember that the
+citizens of Saguntum stand waiting outside these walls. If they suspect
+your despair, discouragement will spread abroad, and this very night we
+will become the slaves of Hannibal!"
+
+Slowly the Elders recovered their composure, and silence reigned. All
+awaited the counsel of Alcon the Prudent. He spoke.
+
+"You do not entertain the thought of immediate surrender of the city, do
+you?"
+
+A roar of indignation from the Senate answered him.
+
+"Never, never!"
+
+"Then, in order to keep hearts beating with hope, to prolong the defense
+a few more days, you must lie; you must inspire in the Saguntines a
+deceptive confidence. Provisions are exhausted; those who man the walls,
+weapons in hand, have eaten the flesh of the last horses that remained
+in the city. The plebs are perishing of hunger. Every night hundreds of
+corpses are gathered and burned on the Acropolis for fear of their being
+devoured by wandering dogs pressed by hunger, which have turned into
+veritable wild beasts that attack even the living. There is a complaint
+that some of the foreigners sheltered in the city, in company with
+slaves and mercenaries, lie in wait by night near the walls to eat
+whatever bodies they find. The cisterns of the city are almost dry;
+there is but little water left, and that is thick with mud; and yet no
+one in Saguntum talks of surrender, and the defense must be continued.
+We all know what awaits us if we fall into the hands of Hannibal."
+
+"I have talked with him," said Actaeon, "and he is inexorable. If he
+enters Saguntum every man of us will become his slave!"
+
+The assembly stirred again with indignation.
+
+"We will die first!" shouted the Elders.
+
+Hastily they agreed upon what must be said to the people. They swore by
+the gods to conceal the truth. They would prolong the sacrifice in the
+hope that aid from Rome might come in time. Composing their countenances
+so that none should divine their despair, the Elders walked out of the
+temple. Swiftly the news flashed through the city. The legates had
+proceeded to Carthage to waste no time in the camp; there they would
+demand the punishment of Hannibal. The legions which Rome was sending to
+the support of the Saguntines would arrive at any moment.
+
+The crowd received this specious fabrication with cold insensibility.
+The sufferings of the siege had deadened their feelings. Besides, they
+had been fired so many times with hope of the coming of the Romans that
+they doubted and would not believe until they saw the fleet itself.
+
+Actaeon mingled with the starving crowd searching for Sonnica. He found
+her surrounded by Lachares and the young gallants. Near them stood
+Euphobias, smiling at Sonnica, but not venturing to approach.
+
+"The gods have protected you on your journey, Actaeon," said the
+parasite. "You look better than we who have remained in the city. One
+can plainly see that you have fed."
+
+"But you, philosopher," said the Greek, "are not so lean and emaciated
+as the others. Who maintains you?"
+
+"My poverty. I was so accustomed to hunger in times of plenty that now I
+scarcely notice the famine. Observe the advantages of being a
+philosopher and a beggar!"
+
+"Trust not the words of that monster," said Lachares with repugnance.
+"He is as beastly as a Celtiberian. He eats daily; but he should be
+crucified in the middle of the Forum as a warning. He has been seen at
+night wandering near the walls with a band of slaves in search of dying
+men."
+
+The Greek turned from the parasite with disgust.
+
+"Do not believe it, Actaeon," said Euphobias. "Now they envy me my
+beggar's parsimony, as in other times they jeered at it. Hunger is my
+ancient companion, and she respects me."
+
+All drew away from the parasite, and Actaeon followed Sonnica to her
+house. The beautiful Greek woman was living almost alone. Many of her
+servants had been killed on the walls; others had perished in the
+streets, victims of pestilence. Some slaves, unable to resist the
+torments of hunger, had run away to the besieging camp. Two aged
+slave-women lay groaning in a corner, amidst stacks of luxurious
+furniture and chests filled with riches. The great warehouses in the
+lower story were empty. A gang of boys had taken possession, and passed
+the time watching cat-like in hopes of some stray rat issuing from a
+corner, that they might fall upon it as an animal of inestimable value.
+
+"Tell me of Rhanto!" the Greek said to his beloved.
+
+"Poor child! I see her only occasionally. She will not stay here; I have
+her brought to me so that I can watch over her, but at the first
+opportunity she slips away. Grief over Erotion's death has caused her to
+lose her reason. Day and night she wanders along the walls. She goes
+where the battle rages fiercest, and she passes among flying missiles as
+if she does not see them. By night I hear from afar the strange dirges
+which she chants to her Erotion; sometimes she appears crowned with a
+wreath of those flowers which grow on the walls, and she asks for the
+son of Mopsus, as if he were hidden among the defenders. The people
+believe that she is in communication with the gods, and they look upon
+her with awe and ask her what will be the fate of Saguntum."
+
+The two spent the night amidst the piled up riches in the warehouse
+wrapped in costly tapestries, insensible to their surroundings, as if
+they were still in the rich villa on the domain, at the end of one of
+those banquets which had so scandalized many of the Saguntines.
+
+Days passed. The city was growing weaker, but the people, still firm in
+their resolution, continued the defense, with stomachs faint from
+starvation. The besiegers made no violent assaults. Hannibal guessed the
+condition of the city, and, desirous of avoiding further shedding of
+the blood of his troops, he allowed time to pass, maintaining only a
+rigid blockade, waiting for hunger and pestilence to complete his
+triumph.
+
+The mortality in the streets increased. There was no longer any one left
+to gather up the dead; the crematory fire on the Acropolis had gone out.
+Corpses, abandoned in the doorways of their homes, were covered with
+loathsome insects, and birds of rapine audaciously came down by night
+into the heart of the city disputing the prey of vagabond dogs which
+prowled the streets with lolling tongues and flaming eyes.
+
+Vile smelling people of savage aspect, possessed by the delirium of
+starvation, dragged themselves cautiously through the streets armed with
+clubs, stones, and missiles. They went foraging as soon as night fell.
+Euphobias guided them, giving counsel with majestic emphasis, as if he
+were a great captain commanding his army. When they managed to kill a
+crow or a savage dog they carried it to the Forum and roasted it over a
+bonfire, quarreling violently over the noisome morsels, while the rich
+citizens stood aloof, faint with hunger but nauseated by such horrors.
+
+Spring had set in. It was a gloomy springtime, revealed to the besiegers
+by little flowers growing up among the weeds in the crevices of the
+towers and on the roofs of the houses. Winter was over, and yet it was
+cold in Saguntum, with a tomb-like chill which the besieged felt in the
+very marrow of their bones. The sun shone, but the city seemed obscured
+by a fetid mist which imparted to people and to houses a leaden color.
+
+One morning, on his way to the upper part of the mount where the defense
+continued, Actaeon met the prudent Alcon in the Forum. This loyal
+citizen revealed discouragement in his dejected appearance.
+
+"Athenian," he said, with a mysterious expression, "I am resolved that
+this must end. The city can resist no further. She has waited long
+enough for aid from Rome. Let Saguntum fall, and let Rome be filled with
+shame because of her infidelity to her allies. This day I shall go to
+Hannibal's camp and sue for peace."
+
+"Have you considered it carefully?" exclaimed the Greek. "Do you not
+fear the indignation of your people when they see you treating with the
+enemy?"
+
+"I love my city well, and I cannot remain impassive and witness its
+sacrifice, its interminable agony. Few are aware of the actual
+conditions, but I can tell you, Actaeon, because you are discreet. We are
+much worse off than the people realize. There is not a scrap of meat
+left for those who are defending our walls. This morning there was
+nothing but mud in the bottom of the cisterns. We have no water. A few
+days more of resistance and we shall be forced to eat dead bodies like
+those soulless creatures who feed by night. We shall have to kill the
+children to placate our thirst with their blood."
+
+Alcon was silent for a moment; he passed his hand over his forehead with
+a gesture of pain as if to obliterate terrible recollections.
+
+"No one knows better than we Elders what occurs in the city," he
+continued. "The gods must shudder with horror when they see the deeds
+done in Saguntum since they abandoned her. Listen and forget, Actaeon,"
+he said in a low voice and with an accent of fear. "Yesterday two women,
+maddened by hunger, drew lots to choose which one of their children
+they should devour. We Elders have closed our eyes and our ears; we have
+not desired to see nor to hear, understanding that punishment would only
+serve to increase the horrors. The men who are fighting on the walls are
+chewing the leather from their weapons to deceive hunger. Their flesh is
+loosened from their bones, they weaken and fall as if wounded by an
+invisible stroke from the gods. We have resisted for nearly eight
+months; two-thirds of the city no longer exists. We have done enough to
+demonstrate before heaven and before man how Saguntum fulfills her
+oaths."
+
+The Greek bowed his head, convinced by Alcon's arguments.
+
+"Moreover the valor of the city is breaking down," continued the Elder.
+"Faith is dying. The omens are all against us. There are people who,
+during the night, have seen globes of fire rise from the Acropolis and
+fly toward the sea, plunging into the waters like shooting stars which
+cut through the blue of heaven with a stream of light. The people
+believe that they are the penates of the city, who, divining the coming
+destruction of Saguntum, are abandoning it to go and establish
+themselves on the other side of the sea whence they came. Last night,
+those who were watching up there in the temple of Hercules saw a serpent
+glide from beneath the tomb of Zacynthus, hissing as if it were wounded.
+It was blue, with golden stars--the serpent which bit Zacynthus and was
+the cause of the foundation of the city around the tomb of the hero. He
+crawled between the feet of the astonished watchers; he fled down the
+mount, and crept off across the plain in the direction of the sea. He
+also has abandoned us; the sacred reptile which was like the tutelary
+god of Saguntum."
+
+"It may not be true," said the Greek. "It may be the hallucinations of a
+people tormented by hunger."
+
+"That may be; but observe the women and you will find them weeping; in
+addition to their misery they are lamenting the flight of the serpent of
+Zacynthus. They believe the city defenseless, and many men on the walls
+will feel weaker to-day when they hear of the strange disappearance.
+Faith is the staff on which the people lean."
+
+The two men remained silent for a while.
+
+"Go," said the Greek, at last: "Speak to Hannibal, and may the gods
+incline his heart toward clemency!"
+
+"Why do you not come with me--you who have traveled so much, and who
+possess the eloquence of conviction? You can help me."
+
+"Hannibal knows me. I have refused his friendship, and he hates me. Go
+and save the city. My fate is sealed. The African will never abate his
+anger. He will pardon anyone but me. I will die rather than become his
+slave, or suffer myself to be put to death on a cross."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE LAST NIGHT
+
+
+Fighting on the walls with the defenders of the upper part of the city
+late in the afternoon Actaeon saw Rhanto coming down a street near the
+ramparts.
+
+He had not seen the shepherdess since his return to Saguntum, and now he
+noticed the changes wrought by the sufferings of the siege, and by the
+grief which was breaking her reason.
+
+She walked absorbed, with bowed head, unconscious of her surroundings,
+and in her tangled hair were little faded flowers which at every step
+dropped their withered petals. Her torn and dirty tunic gave glimpses of
+her emaciated body, which still preserved the grace and freshness
+admired by the Greek. Her breasts had developed somewhat, as if pain had
+matured her figure; her eyes dilated by dementia, seemed to fill her
+whole face, shedding a mysterious light about her, an aureole of fever.
+
+She advanced slowly, raising her head at times, looking up at the men on
+the wall, and finally stopping at the foot of the stone steps she
+murmured in a supplicating voice, like the convulsive sobbing of a
+child:
+
+"Erotion! Erotion!"
+
+Behind the mantelets of the besiegers the defenders noticed fresh
+activity, as if a new attack against the city were being attempted, but
+in spite of it the Greek came down from the wall in his eagerness to see
+the girl.
+
+"Rhanto, shepherdess, do you know me?"
+
+He addressed her tenderly, taking one of her hands, but she tried to
+spring away from him, as if she had been startled from a sleep. Then she
+grew faint, and fixing her enormous, frightened eyes on the Greek, she
+exclaimed:
+
+"You! Is it you?"
+
+"Do you recognize me?"
+
+"Yes, you are the Athenian; you are my master; the lover of Sonnica the
+rich. Tell me, where is Erotion?"
+
+The Greek did not know how to answer, but Rhanto continued speaking
+without awaiting his reply.
+
+"They tell me he is dead; even I saw him lying at the foot of the walls;
+but it is not true; it was a bad dream. It was his father, Mopsus the
+archer, who died. Since then he runs away from me as if he wishes to
+weep alone for his father's death. He hides from me by day. I see him
+from afar, upon the walls, among the defenders, but when I climb up to
+search for him I find none but armed men, and Erotion disappears. He is
+only faithful to me at night. Then he seeks me, he comes to me. Scarcely
+do I conceal myself at the foot of the stairway and rest my head upon my
+knees than I see him coming, looking for me in the darkness, strong and
+loving, with his quiver at his side and his bow slung across his
+shoulders. When he comes the ferocious dogs which slink through the
+shadows, sniffing in my face and staring at me with their gloomy eyes,
+are frightened away. He comes to me, he sits beside me; he smiles, but
+he is ever silent. I speak to him and he answers me with a tender
+glance, but never with a word. I seek his shoulder, to lean my head upon
+it as in other days, and he flees, he disappears as if dissolved in
+shadow. What does it mean, good Greek? If you see him, ask him why he
+hides from me. Tell him not to run away!----He loves you so much, so
+much! How often has he talked to me of you and of your country!"
+
+She was silent a moment, as if these words had aroused within her a
+whole past of recollections. With a painful effort, which was reflected
+in her face, she caught at them and arranged them in her mind. Slowly
+surged through her memory again the image of those happy days before the
+siege when she and Erotion ran hand in hand through the valley and had
+for their house all the groves of the Saguntine domain.
+
+She smiled at Actaeon, looking at him affectionately, and she recalled
+their several meetings; their first interview on the Road of the Serpent
+when he had just disembarked, poor and unknown. Then, the touch of
+paternal protection with which he greeted them when he found them in the
+fields climbing the cherry trees and quarreling playfully over the red
+fruit, and that surprise beneath the leafy fig trees, when she, in her
+virginal beauty, was acting as a model for the young sculptor. Did he
+remember? Had the Greek forgotten those days of peace and joy?
+
+Actaeon did indeed cherish them in his memory. He still retained the
+impression caused by the vision of the lovely shepherdess, and at the
+same moment his eyes searched the tattered tunic, seeking with an
+artist's delight the warm tones of her amber skin.
+
+But Rhanto's mind, after evoking these recollections, began again to
+wander. Where was Erotion? Had Actaeon seen him? Was he up there with the
+defenders? The Greek held her back catching her by the hand to prevent
+her climbing to the top of the wall.
+
+The defenders were shouting wildly, shooting their arrows and throwing
+darts and stones. The besiegers had begun the attack. Projectiles came
+hurtling from outside the walls, passing over the merlons like
+dark-colored birds, as if the Africans were covering an assault with
+battering-rams and pickaxes to open a breach.
+
+Actaeon, who since his return to Saguntum had again assumed control of
+the work of defense, must go up on the wall.
+
+"Run away, Rhanto," he said hastily. "You will be killed here. Go to
+Sonnica's house----I will take you to Erotion. But fly! Hide yourself!
+See how the missiles are falling around us!"
+
+He shoved her from the stairway with an energetic push which nearly
+drove her to her knees.
+
+The Greek ran up hastily, hearing the ceaseless and deadly hisses
+rending the air about his head. Before he reached the merlons he heard a
+faint groan at his back, a gentle cry which recalled to Actaeon's mind
+the bleating of a fawn when pierced by the huntsman's arrow. Turning he
+saw Rhanto half way up the steps, wavering, ready to fall backward, her
+breast covered with blood and pierced by a long feather-tipped shaft,
+still quivering from the swiftness of its flight.
+
+She had started to follow him up the wall, but an arrow had caught her.
+
+"Rhanto! Poor Rhanto!"
+
+Obeying an impulse of grief which he could not explain to himself, but
+which was stronger than his will, he forgot the defense of the wall, the
+attack of the enemy, everything, to run toward the girl, who sank down
+with the gentle flutter of a wounded bird.
+
+He took her in his strong arms and laid her at the foot of the steps.
+Rhanto sighed, moving her head as if trying to rid herself of the pain
+which had taken possession of her.
+
+The Greek supported her by the shoulders, calling tenderly:
+
+"Rhanto! Rhanto!"
+
+In her eyes, enlarged by pain, the light seemed to condense. The
+expression of her face had now become sane; it lost, at moments, the
+vagueness of dementia. Pain seemed to have restored her reason, and in
+this supreme moment of lucidity the whole past arose clear in her mind.
+
+"Do not die, Rhanto," murmured the Greek, impulsively, "wait; I will
+draw out that iron; I will carry you on my back to the Forum so that
+they shall cure you."
+
+But the girl shook her head sadly. No, she wished to die. She wished to
+join Erotion, near the gods, among the clouds of rose and gold where
+wandered the Mother of Love, followed by those who had loved each other
+devotedly on earth. She had roamed for weeks like a shadow among the
+horrors of the besieged city, believing that Erotion still lived,
+searching for him everywhere; but Erotion was dead; she remembered it
+well now; she herself had seen his corpse.
+
+"Since he is dead why should I live?"
+
+"Live for me!" cried Actaeon, stung with grief, unconscious of his
+surroundings, deaf to the cries of the defenders on the wall and to the
+footsteps of someone approaching on the street.
+
+"Rhanto, shepherdess, listen to me! Now I understand why I longed to see
+you; why your memory came to me so often in Rome whenever I thought of
+Saguntum. Live and be to Actaeon the last spring of his existence! I love
+you, Rhanto! You are my last love; the flower which blooms in the winter
+of my life! I love you, Rhanto! I have loved you since that day when I
+saw you revealed like a goddess. Live and let me be your Erotion!"
+
+The girl, her face clouded by the shadow of death, smiled, murmuring:
+
+"Actaeon, good Greek, thank you, thank you!"
+
+Her head slipped from between Actaeon's hands and fell heavily on the
+ground. The Athenian remained motionless, mutely gazing at the body of
+the girl. The silence which suddenly fell on the wall seemed to arouse
+him from his painful stupor. The besiegers had suspended the attack. The
+Greek stood up, but he knelt again to press kisses on the still warm
+mouth of the shepherdess and upon her unquivering wide-open eyes, in
+which the red splendor of the setting sun was reflected as in quiet
+waters.
+
+As he arose he was startled by Sonnica standing quietly before him, with
+cold, ironic stare.
+
+"Sonnica! You!"
+
+"I came to tell you to hasten to the Forum. A messenger from the hostile
+camp has presented himself at the gates of the city asking to speak to
+the Elders. The people are gathered in the Forum."
+
+Despite the importance of the news Actaeon did not stir. He was
+transfixed by Sonnica's cold rigidity.
+
+"How long have you been here?"
+
+"Long enough to see how you bade my slave farewell forever!"
+
+She was silent for a moment, then as if impelled by a sentiment stronger
+than her will, she approached him with flashing eyes and with
+outstretched hands.
+
+"Did you really love her?" she asked bitterly.
+
+"Yes," he replied, faintly, as if ashamed of the confession. "I know now
+that I loved her----but I love you also."
+
+They stood motionless, their eyes fixed upon the body which lay between
+them. It was like a cold intervening wall, suddenly risen and separating
+them forever.
+
+Actaeon was shamed by the grief which his words caused her who had so
+loved him. Sonnica seemed stunned by his immense deception, and she
+gazed frigidly at the body of the slave with the eyes of an implacable
+Nemesis.
+
+"Go, Actaeon!" she said. "They are waiting for you in the Forum. The
+Elders are calling for you to serve as interpreter for the messenger
+from Hannibal."
+
+The Athenian advanced a few steps, and then stopped, gently imploring
+mercy for the body.
+
+"It will be deserted. Night is coming on, and----the hungry dogs----the
+soulless men who look for corpses----"
+
+He chilled with horror to think that the beautiful body which had
+thrilled him with admiration might be devoured by the beasts.
+
+Sonnica replied with a gesture. He might go. She would stay on guard,
+and, mastered by her chill hauteur, he turned and hastened toward the
+Forum.
+
+As he reached the quadrangle it was growing dark. In the centre burned
+the great fire which was lighted every night to combat the mortal
+springtime chill.
+
+The Elders brought their ivory chairs to the foot of the temple steps to
+receive Hannibal's messenger in the presence of the populace. The news
+had circulated throughout the city, and the people flocked to the Forum,
+eager to hear the propositions of the besieger. New groups poured in
+each moment along the streets leading to the great square where the
+waning life of the city was concentrated.
+
+Actaeon placed himself near the Elders. He glanced around for Alcon, but
+failed to see him. The aged senator was still in the hostile camp, and
+the coming of this emissary must be in consequence of his interview with
+Hannibal.
+
+A senator explained the circumstances. An unarmed enemy had presented
+himself before the walls, waving an olive branch. He asked to speak to
+the Senate in the name of the besiegers, and the assembly of Elders
+thought it wise to summon the whole city to participate in this supreme
+deliberation.
+
+Orders to admit the messenger had been given, and soon an armed group
+was seen approaching, making its way through the crowd, conducting a man
+with uncovered head, unarmed, and carrying a branch in his right hand as
+a symbol of peace.
+
+As he passed before the fire the ruddy glow of the flames fell full upon
+his face and the Forum reverberated with a clamor of indignation. They
+had recognized him:
+
+"Alorcus! It is Alorcus!"
+
+"Traitor!"
+
+"Ingrate!"
+
+Many hands reached for their swords to fall upon him; above the heads of
+the multitude menacing arms brandished spears; but the presence of the
+Elders, and the sad smile of the Celtiberian restrained them. Moreover,
+the people felt the weakness of hunger; they had little strength left
+for indignation, and they were eager to hear the messenger, to learn the
+fate reserved for them by the enemy.
+
+Alorcus advanced until he stood before the Elders, and the great
+concourse subsided into profound silence, interrupted only by the
+crackling of the wood in the fire. All eyes were fixed on the
+Celtiberian.
+
+"Alcon the prudent is not with you?" he began.
+
+They glanced around in surprise. It was true; until then the absence of
+the man who was first in all public acts, had not been noticed.
+
+"You look for him in vain," continued the Celtiberian. "Alcon is in the
+camp of Hannibal. Heart-broken over the condition of the city, realizing
+that it is impossible to persist longer in the defense, he has
+sacrificed himself for you, and at the risk of his life he came to
+Hannibal's tent a few hours ago to beg him, with tears, to have
+compassion upon you."
+
+"And why has he not returned with you?" asked one of the Elders.
+
+"He was afraid and ashamed to repeat Hannibal's words to you----the
+conditions which he imposed for the surrender of the city."
+
+The silence grew more oppressive. The multitude divined in the terror of
+the absent Alcon the frightful demands of the conqueror which made all
+hearts beat fast with dread even before hearing them.
+
+Fresh groups of people kept straggling in to the Forum. Even the
+defenders of the city abandoned the walls, attracted by the event, and
+stood at the entrances of the streets around the quadrangle, the flames
+from the bonfire glinting on their bronze helmets and on their shields
+of varied shapes, round, rectangular, and oval. Actaeon also saw Sonnica
+make her way through the crowd and seat herself near the group formed by
+the elegant young gallants who admired her.
+
+Alorcus continued speaking:
+
+"You know me well. A moment ago I heard threats, I saw menacing gestures
+when you recognized me. I understand your indignation at seeing me
+before you. Perhaps I am an ingrate; but remember that I was born in
+other lands, and that my father's death placed me at the head of a
+people whom I have to obey and to lead in their alliances. Never have I
+forgotten that I was the guest of Saguntum; I cherish the memory of your
+hospitality, and I am as interested in the fate of this city as if it
+were my native land. Ponder well your situation, Saguntines! Valor has
+its limits, and no matter how much you exert yourselves the gods have
+decreed the ruin of heroic Saguntum. They show it by having forsaken
+you, and your courage is all in vain before their immutable will."
+
+The vague words of Alorcus augmented the dread of the people. They
+feared the conditions set by Hannibal, and they read their harshness in
+the Celtiberian's hesitation in pronouncing them.
+
+"The conditions! Tell us the conditions!" they shouted from all sides of
+the Forum.
+
+"The proof that I have come in your sole interests," continued Alorcus,
+as if he did not hear their cries, "lies in the fact that as long as you
+were able to resist with your own strength, and while you expected
+assistance from the Romans, never did I come to counsel your submission.
+But your walls can no longer defend you; every day hundreds of
+Saguntines perish from hunger; the Romans will not come; they are far
+away, and occupied with other wars; in place of sending you legions they
+send you legates, and thus I, seeing that Alcon hesitated to return,
+face your indignation to bring you a peace rather necessary than
+advantageous."
+
+"The conditions! The conditions!" demanded the multitude, with a
+formidable howl which shook the Forum.
+
+"Remember," said Alorcus, "that what the conqueror offers you is a gift,
+for to-day he is master of everything you possess--your lives and your
+estates."
+
+This terrible truth, falling upon the multitude, produced silence.
+"Saguntum, which, for the greater part is already in ruins, and whose
+extremes his troops already occupy, he takes from you as a punishment;
+but Hannibal will permit you to build a new city in the place which he
+will designate. All your riches, those in the public treasury as well as
+those in your houses, shall be turned over to the conqueror. Hannibal
+will respect your lives and those of your wives and children, but you
+must depart from Saguntum to a place which he will indicate, unarmed,
+and with but two garments each. I understand that these terms are stern,
+but your misfortune commends them to you, for it is worse to die, and to
+have your families fall as booty of war into the hands of a triumphant
+army."
+
+Alorcus ceased speaking, but still the Forum remained in silence, a
+silence profound, threatening, like the leaden calm which precedes the
+tempest.
+
+"No, Saguntines! No!" shouted a woman.
+
+Actaeon recognized the voice of Sonnica.
+
+"No, no!" answered the multitude, with a thundering echo.
+
+They swayed and surged from place to place; compact masses crowded
+against each other, possessed with fury, as if they would rend
+themselves in pieces to give vent to the wrath produced by the
+conditions of the conqueror.
+
+Sonnica had disappeared; but Actaeon saw her return to the Forum followed
+by a cordon of people, slaves, women, soldiers, bearing upon their backs
+the rich furniture from the villa which had been stored in the
+warehouse; the chests of jewels, the sumptuous tapestries, ingots of
+silver, and boxes of gold dust. The multitude observed this procession
+of riches without guessing Sonnica's purpose.
+
+"No! No!" repeated the Greek woman, as if talking to herself.
+
+She was infuriated at the conqueror's proposals. She imagined herself
+departing from the city with no other fortune than the tunic she wore
+and another over her arm, compelled to beg along the highway, or to
+labor in the fields as a slave, persecuted by the fierce soldiers of
+many nations!
+
+"No! No!" she repeated energetically, making her way through the crowd
+to the fire in the centre of the Forum.
+
+She was magnificent with her auburn hair loosened in her excitement, her
+tunic rent by struggling through the multitude, her eyes flashing with
+the expression of a Fury who found an acrid satisfaction in destruction.
+Of what use were riches? Of what use was life? Her desperate energy was
+spurred by the bitterness which she had tasted an hour ago before the
+body of her slave.
+
+She gave the signal by hurling into the bonfire an image of Venus in
+jasper and silver which she carried in her arms, and which disappeared
+in the flames as if it were a clod. The wretched and starving crowd
+which followed imitated her with intense relish. The destruction of so
+many riches made them howl with joy, and they danced in their
+gladness--they, so poor, who had passed their lives in the deprivation
+of slavery! Into the flames fell dainty caskets of ivory, cedar, and
+ebony, and as they clashed against the firewood they burst open,
+spilling treasures within--collars of pearls, clusters of topazes and
+emeralds, diamond earrings, the whole scale of precious stones, which
+sparkled for an instant against the half-burnt wood like gleaming
+salamanders. Then came the tapestries, the silver-embroidered veils,
+the tunics of spun-gold flowers, the golden sandals, the chairs with
+lion claws, the couches with metal clamps, mirrors, lamps, bottles of
+perfume, rich inlaid marble tables, all the splendors of Sonnica the
+rich. The poverty-stricken multitude, transported by this sacrifice,
+applauded with bellowing enthusiasm as it saw the fire grow and grow
+with so much fuel, until the flames mounted to a great height and
+scattered ashes and sparks over the roofs of the houses.
+
+"Hannibal wants riches!" shouted Sonnica in a hoarse voice which
+resembled a howl. "Come, pile here your treasures, and let the African
+lay siege to the fire for them!"
+
+No need of urging them to imitate her! Many of the Elders who had
+withdrawn at the first moment of confusion now returned to the Forum
+carrying chests beneath their white mantles, and flung them into the
+fire. They were the hoarded treasures from their houses.
+
+Above the heads of the multitude furniture and rich fabrics passed from
+hand to hand until they tumbled into the immense furnace, which whirled
+its flames higher and higher, crowned by a white and luminous smoke.
+
+It was a holocaust in honor of the dead and silent gods on the
+Acropolis. Houses seemed to turn themselves inside out to fling their
+adornments and riches upon the fire. The men pursued their work of
+destruction silently and gloomily; but the women seemed mad, and they
+danced around the huge bonfire, disheveled, screaming, their eyes
+bulging from their sockets, hypnotized, caressing the flames with their
+garments, intoxicated by the glare, scratching their faces unconscious
+of their acts, and bellowing curses with mouths foaming with rage.
+Crazed by the infernal round, unable to resist the fascination of the
+lambent flames, one of them sprang and fell into the fire. Her hair and
+clothing blazed for an instant like a torch, and she sank among the
+white-hot coals. Another hurled into the roaring crematory, as if it
+were a ball, the babe she had borne in her arms clinging to her empty
+breast, and then, as if repentant for her crime, she followed the child
+into the burning pile.
+
+The conflagration had extended to the wooden roofs of the houses around
+the Forum. A chaplet of flame began to inwreathe the square. The heat
+and smoke were stifling, and the furniture seemed to travel
+automatically above the heads of the crowd toward the incandescent kiln
+through the dense sooty atmosphere. Lachares and his elegant friends
+began to talk of death. Those effeminate beings discussed with sublime
+tranquility the manner of their end. They did not wish to follow
+Sonnica, who had just armed herself with sword and shield to sally forth
+against the besieging camp and die fighting. It was repugnant to them to
+think of struggling with rude, half-savage soldiers, to inhale their
+wild-beast odors, and to fall with their painted faces cleft by a blow,
+covered with blood, and wallowing in gore like a beheaded ox; neither
+did it please them to stab themselves--that was a means reserved for
+heroes. They preferred to die in the flames; they recollected the
+sacrifice of the Asiatic queens who perished in a fire of perfumed
+woods. What a pity that this fire smelled so ill! But it was not a
+moment for refinements; drawing their mantles over their eyes, shoving
+their little slaveboys before them with their depilated and perfumed
+arms, one after the other the elegant young gallants walked into the
+fire with tranquil step, as if still dwelling in those days of peace
+when they strolled through the Forum, gratified by the scandal caused by
+their feminine adornments.
+
+Sonnica gathered her tunic around her waist in order to run with greater
+freedom, leaving disclosed the resplendent whiteness of her limbs.
+
+"We are going to die, Euphobias," she said to the philosopher, who stood
+absorbed in contemplation before this spectacle of destruction.
+
+For the first time the philosopher failed to display his insolent and
+ironic manner. He was grave and frowning; gazing at the people whom he
+had so often ridiculed, beholding the heroism of their death.
+
+"Die?" he exclaimed. "Must we die? Do you think so, Sonnica?"
+
+"Yes; he who is not willing to be a slave must die. Get a sword and
+follow me!"
+
+"No, if I must die I will avoid the fatigue of running and the exertion
+of striking blows. I will die placidly in the sweet indolence which ever
+embellished my life."
+
+Slowly, deliberately, he walked over to the fire, covered his face with
+his patched and mended mantle, and laid himself in the flames as calmly
+as he used to drop down on the porticos of the Forum in the old days of
+peace.
+
+On the steps of the temple the Elders were stabbing themselves in their
+breasts with a dagger. Before breathing his last, each passed the weapon
+on to his nearest companion, and they died trying to maintain
+themselves erect in their chairs of state. Groups of women caught up
+torches lighted at the great fire, and scattered like furious bacchantes
+throughout Saguntum, setting fire to doors, and flinging burning brands
+upon the wooden roofs.
+
+Suddenly from the direction of the citadel where the attacks of the
+besiegers had been concentrated, arose an appalling commotion, as if
+half a mountain had toppled over. The walls had been abandoned by the
+defenders who had gathered in the Forum, and a tower which the
+Carthaginians had undermined some days before had fallen. A cohort of
+Hannibal's army, seeing the city destitute of the usual outposts and
+guards, rushed through the breach, and made a signal for Hannibal to
+enter with his hosts.
+
+"Come on! come on!" shouted Sonnica with a hoarse voice. "This is our
+last night! I will not die in the fire! I choose to die fighting! I want
+blood!"
+
+She flew from the Forum like a Fury, followed by Actaeon who ran beside
+her calling her name, trying to gain a look from her. But the beautiful
+Greek woman was insensible in her rage, as if she had at her side
+someone she had never seen before. They were followed by a discordant
+crowd, armed citizens, women brandishing knives and darts, naked youths
+with no other defense than a spear. They poured out like a stampeded
+herd, their bronze corselets and their helmets with broken crests
+shimmering in the firelight, their weapons dyed in blood, and displaying
+through the tatters of their clothing emaciated limbs which seemed to
+dance in their loose skin, dried and wrinkled by hunger.
+
+They passed out of Saguntum on the lower side, marching in the glare of
+the burning city straight upon the camp of the besieger.
+
+A cohort of Celtiberians hurrying toward Saguntum was routed, put in
+disorder, harried by this troop of desperate beings who ran with lowered
+head, striking blindly at everything before them. Farther on they
+encountered other troops who advanced in battle form to meet the sally,
+and they collided with the line of shields, unable to stand in a
+struggle hand to hand.
+
+The Saguntines, debilitated by the long siege, their strength exhausted
+by hunger and sickness, could not withstand the clash. The Celtiberians
+wounded mercilessly with their two edged swords, and the company of sick
+men, women, and children, fell rapidly beneath their blows.
+
+Actaeon, fighting with his shield before his face and his sword raised
+against two vigorous soldiers, saw Sonnica receive a stab in the head
+and drop her weapons, doubling up in agony.
+
+"Actaeon! Actaeon!" she cried, forgetting her bitterness, the fire of her
+old love returning to her with death.
+
+She fell face downward on the ground. The Greek started toward her, but
+at the same instant his ears buzzed as if an immense mass had crashed
+upon his head; in his side he felt the chill of the steel perforating
+his flesh; everything turned black, and he sank to the ground, as if
+falling into a dark and gloomy pit the bottom of which he would never
+reach.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Greek awoke. His chest was weighted down by a form as heavy as a
+mountain. He was not sure whether he really existed. His members refused
+to obey him. Only with a painful effort could he open his eyes and
+understand confusedly why he was there.
+
+Gradually he realized that the something which oppressed his breast was
+the corpse of a gigantic soldier. Actaeon thought he remembered having
+plunged his sword into the body of the warrior the instant that he fell
+into the dense and mysterious night.
+
+He looked around. A ruddy glow, as of an endless aurora, scintillated on
+the abandoned weapons and outlined silhouettes of the bodies lying in
+heaps or scattered over the field contracted in weird postures by their
+final convulsions.
+
+In the background a city was burning. The blackened and shapeless
+structures stood out against the curtain of flames, and through their
+restless splendor the walls of the Acropolis trembled.
+
+Actaeon remembered all that had happened. That city was Saguntum; the
+conquerors could be heard howling through the streets; they were covered
+with blood; setting fire to the houses still untouched; cursing a people
+which only gave itself up after consuming its riches; killing in their
+fury whatever living thing they encountered in their way, and stabbing
+the wounded.
+
+As he realized this he knew that he was not dead, but that he was going
+to die. He knew it by the terrible weakness which overpowered him, by
+the mortal cold creeping up to his heart; by his mind which was growing
+dull, and was now but a flickering light.
+
+What of Sonnica? Where could he find Sonnica? His last thought was to
+reach her body, which must be near. He wished to kiss her as her slave;
+to render her that tribute before he died. But as he made a supreme
+exertion, raising his head from the ground, a wave of warm and sticky
+liquid covered his face. It was his last blood.
+
+Then he seemed to see, with the vagueness of a vanishing dream, a kind
+of black centaur, galloping over the slain, and looking at the blazing
+city, laughing with malevolent joy.
+
+He passed near. His horse's hoofs ploughed into the body of the
+Celtiberian lying on his breast. The dying Greek recognized the horseman
+by the light of the conflagration.
+
+It was Hannibal, his head uncovered, possessed by the fury of triumph,
+galloping on his jet-black horse which seemed to have caught the
+ferocity of the rider, whinnying, treading on the fallen bodies, lashing
+his tail above the litter of battle. To the Greek he appeared an
+infernal demon coming for his soul.
+
+Dimly, like a blurred vision, he saw the face of Hannibal animated by a
+smile of pride, of cruel satisfaction--the majestic and ferocious visage
+of one of those gods of Carthage who showed clemency only when human
+sacrifices were smoking upon their altars.
+
+Hannibal laughed on seeing that at last the city which had detained him
+eight months before her walls, was his. Now he was free to go on working
+out his audacious dreams!
+
+The Greek saw no more. He sank finally into eternal night.
+
+Hannibal galloped on around the city, and beholding the purplish glow of
+the coming day breaking over the sea, he reined in his horse, he looked
+into the East, and extending his arm, impatient to stretch it across the
+blue expanse bounded by the horizon, he shouted threateningly, as if
+challenging an invisible enemy before falling upon it:
+
+"Rome!----Rome!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sonnica, by Vicente Blasco Ibanez
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