SÓNNICA

BY
VICENTE BLASCO IBÁÑEZ

Translated from the Spanish by
FRANCES DOUGLAS

NEW YORK
DUFFIELD & COMPANY
1919

COPYRIGHT 1912
By DUFFIELD & COMPANY

CONTENTS

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!"