Chapter II: Saguntum (1)

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, Phoenicians, who dealt in costly merchandise--trinkets of gold, tusks of ivory, ostrich feathers, and pieces of amber. Before their doors paused rich women clad in white mantles, followed by slaves, and as they talked they peeped their rosy faces into the shop, fascinated by the exotic aroma of stimulating spices from Asia and mysterious perfumes from the Orient. Rare birds brought from the East strode majestically among the bales with strident calls, trailing their multicolored plumage like a royal mantle.

Actæon, after hastily examining these shops, entered the Forum. It was market day, and the life of the city streamed to the great square. Farmers spread out their garden stuff near the porticos; shepherds from the public domain piled their cheeses in pyramids in front of little pitchers of milk, and women of the port, brown and almost naked, called attention to their fresh fish, arranged upon beds of leaves in flat rush baskets. At one end shepherds from the mountain, dressed in esparto, ferocious of aspect, and armed with lances, watched over cattle and horses offered for sale. These were Celtiberians, of whom it was told with horror that they sometimes ate human flesh, and they seemed to feel imprisoned inside the plaza, contemplating with hostile eyes that bee-like activity, so different from the independent solitude they enjoyed in their wandering life. The riches excited their appetites for robbing and horse-stealing, and, grasping their lances, they stared with ferocious eyes at the group of armed mercenaries in the service of the city, who at the lower end of the Forum, on the steps of the temple, guarded the senator charged with dispensing justice on market days.

In the centre of the square swarmed the multitude, buying and dickering, dressed in a thousand colors, and speaking diverse tongues. The virtuous women of the city, simply dressed in white, passed along, followed by slaves who deposited in netted sacks the provision for the week; the Greeks, in long, saffron-colored chlamydes investigated everything, haggling tediously before making an insignificant purchase; the Saguntine citizens, Iberians who had lost their primitive rudeness through infinite intermarriages, imitated the manner and bearing of the Romans who were at the moment the people in highest esteem. Mingled with these were natives from the interior, bearded, begrimed, with long dishevelled hair, attracted by the market in spite of their dislike for the city, and particularly for the Greeks on account of their refinement and riches.

Some Celtiberians, chiefs of the tribes nearest to Saguntum, remained on horseback in the centre of the Forum, without putting aside their lances, and still clinging to their shields of woven bull-sinews. They wore triple-crested helmets and leather cuirasses, as if they were on hostile soil and feared treachery. Meanwhile their women, agile, brown, and masculine, moved from place to place, their ample vestments, embroidered in gayly colored flowers, fluttering as they walked, and anon they stopped with childish admiration before the table of some Greek selling crystal beads and coarsely engraved necklaces and trinkets of bronze.

Mantles of finest linen and costly purple brushed against the naked limbs of slaves or against the Celtiberian sagum of black wool buckled at the shoulder. Coiffures in Grecian style with red ribbons plaited in, the tuft of curls at the back of the head resembling the flame of a torch, the forehead small as a sign of supreme beauty, mingled with coiffures of the Celtiberian women, who wore their foreheads shaven and shiny to make them larger, their hair curled around a little stick placed on their heads, forming a sharp horn from which hung a black veil. Other Celtiberian women wore strong steel collars with little wires which were brought together above the coiffure, and from this cage, which enclosed the head, hung the veil, proudly displaying their enormous foreheads, brilliant and luminous as the moon in her first quarter.

Actæon lingered wondering at the costumes of these women, and at their masculine and warlike aspect. His quick Grecian perceptions divined danger as he contemplated the barbarians motionless on their steeds in the centre of the Forum, from that height dominating with looks of hatred this nation of merchants and farmers. They were like birds of prey that were compelled to come down to the plain as thieves in order to find food for existence in their arid mountains. Saguntum surrounded by such peoples would some day have to struggle for supremacy against them.

The Greek pondering this, entered the colonnades where the idle of the city were gathered before the shops of barbers, money changers, and vendors of wines and refreshments. Actæon could imagine himself still in the Agora of Athens. Although smaller, this was the same world as his native city. Sedate citizens had themselves carried by a slave in a wicker chair to take seats before the door of some shop to learn the news. Newsmongers circulated from group to group spreading the most stupendous lies; parasites seeking an invitation to dine flattered the rich whom they chanced to meet, and spoke ill of everything that happened; unemployed pedagogues disputed in loud tones over a point in Greek grammar, and youthful citizens grumbled against the old senators, declaring that the Republic needed newer blood.

The recent expedition against the Turdetani, and the great victory gained over them, was much discussed. They would no longer dare to raise their heads; their king Artabanes, a fugitive in the most remote of their territories, must be punished for the late defeat. And the young Saguntines looked proudly at the trophies of lances, shields, and helmets, hanging from the pilasters of the porticos. They were the arms of some hundreds of Turdetani killed or taken prisoner on the last expedition. Furniture and ornaments stolen in the villages of the enemy by the warriors of Saguntum were offered for sale at low prices in the barber-shops. Nobody wanted them. The city was filled with such spoils. The Saguntine soldiers had returned, dragging in their wake a veritable army of loaded wagons and an interminable horde of men and beasts. As they thought of the triumph they smiled with the grim ferocity of ancient warfare, incapable of forgiving, and in which the greatest of mercies for the conquered was slavery.

The slave-market was situated near the temple where justice was administered. The slaves squatted on the ground in a circle, covered with rags, their hands clasped around their feet, their chins resting between their knees. Those born into slavery awaited the new master with the passivity of beasts, their limbs emaciated by hunger, their heads shaved and covered by a white cap. Others, more closely watched by the slave dealer, were bearded, and over their filthy hair wore crowns of branches to indicate their condition as slaves taken in war. They were Turdetani who had not given ransom. Astonishment and fury at finding themselves reduced to slavery still showed in their glowering eyes. Many of them wore chains, and on their bodies the cicatrices of the recent war were still fresh. They glared at the hostile people, contracting their mouths as if with desire to bite and some of them restlessly moved their right arms which terminated in mere formless stumps. Their hands had been cut off in wars with tribes of the interior, whose custom it was to thus render their prisoners useless.

The Saguntines looked indifferently upon these enemies converted into chattels, into beasts, by the cruel law of conquest, and forgetting the presence of the Turdetani they discussed the city's quarrels, the rivalry of factions, which seemed to have been stifled by the intervention of the Roman legates. On the steps of a temple close at hand the bloodstains of those beheaded because of their friendship for Carthage could still be seen, and the adherents of Rome, who were in the majority, discoursed bravely and praised the energetic counsel of the envoys of the great Republic. The city would now live in peace and security under the protection of Rome.

Actæon, while listening to the conversation of these various groups, glanced toward the temple and thought that he saw in the crowd streaming up and down the steps the Celtiberian shepherd who had killed the Roman legionary the night before. It was a swift vision; his dark sagum vanished in the multitude, and the Greek was uncertain if it were really he.

The morning advanced. Actæon had spent a long time in the market, and he thought that now the hour had come for occupying himself with other matters. He must see Mopsus the archer, up on the Acropolis, and he began the ascent following winding streets paved with cobbles, and lined with white houses, where in the doorways sat women spinning and weaving wool.

As the Greek approached the Acropolis, he admired the cyclopean walls of great stones laid with rare art, solidly fitted without mortar-joints. Here was the cradle of the city, relic of the companions of Zacynthus as they established themselves among the rude indigenes.

He passed through a long archway, and found himself on the extensive esplanade upon the eminence, surrounded by ramparts which could shelter a population as great as Saguntum. On this immense plain, scattered at random, rose the public buildings, recalling the epoch when the city stood on the summit and had not yet descended, spreading toward the sea. From its walls one could take in the immensity of the fertile domain, the territories belonging to the Republic, reaching out of sight to the south along the shore toward the boundary of the lands occupied by the Olcades; the innumerable villages and estates, grouped on the banks of the Bætis-Perkes, and the city opening like a great white fan down the slope of the mount, enclosed by walls over which the close-packed houses seemed to spring and scatter through the orchards.

Actæon, turning his gaze toward the enclosed quarter of the Acropolis, noticed the temple of Hercules; near it the portico on which the Senate gathered; the mint where money was coined; the temple where the treasure of the Republic was stored; the arsenal where the citizens were armed; the barracks of the mercenaries; and, dominating all these buildings, the tower of Hercules, an enormous cyclopean structure which at night answered with its lights to the _speculæ_ on the shore and on the hills around the port, spreading alarm or giving tranquility throughout the whole of the Saguntine territory. In another quarter a band of slaves, directed by a Grecian artist, was putting the final touches on a small temple which Sónnica the rich was having raised on the Acropolis in honor of Minerva.

The Saguntines who were climbing up to the citadel for a quiet stroll, proudly viewing their city and taking a look at the mercenaries who were burnishing their swords and their bronze cuirasses at the doors of their barracks, glanced curiously at the Greek.

A prosperous looking Saguntine, wrapped in a red toga in Roman fashion, and leaning on a long staff, approached to speak to him. He was a middle aged man, strong, with gray hair and beard, and a kindly expression in his eyes and in his smile.

"Tell me, Greek," he asked sweetly, "why have you come hither? Are you a merchant? Are you a navigator? Do you seek for your country the silver which the Celtiberians bring us?"

"No, I am a poor man wandering about the world, and I have come to offer myself to the Republic as a soldier."

The Saguntine made a gesture of distress.

"I should have guessed it by the arm which serves you as a staff.... Soldiers! Always soldiers! In other times not a sword nor a dart could be seen in the city. Foreigners used to come in ships loaded with merchandise; they took what we had, and in return they gave us what they brought, and we lived in that peace of which the poets sing. But now, those who come, whether Greek or Roman, African or Asiatic, present themselves armed; ferocious dogs who come to offer themselves as guards for the flock which used to frolic in peace without fear of enemies. As I behold all this warlike preparation, as I contemplate the youths of Saguntum rejoicing and boasting over their recent expedition against the Turdetani, I tremble for the city and the fate in store for my people. To-day we are the strongest, but will not someone come stronger than we, and clap upon our necks the chains of slavery?"

Over the top of the walls he looked down at the city with tender solicitude.

"Stranger," he continued, "my name is Alcon, and my friends call me 'the Prudent.' The old men of the Senate give heed to my counsels; but the young men will not listen to them. I have been a merchant, I have run over the world, I have a wife and children maintained in comfortable circumstances, and I am convinced that peace means felicity for the people and should be maintained at any cost."

"I am Actæon, a son of Athens. I used to be a navigator, but my ships were wrecked. I was a trader, but I lost my fortune. Mercury and Neptune have ever treated me like harsh and merciless fathers. I have enjoyed much, I have suffered still more, and to-day, almost a beggar, I come here to sell my blood and brawn."

"You do wrong, Athenian. You are a man, and you seek to turn yourself into a wolf. Do you know what I most admire in your race?... that you jest at Hercules and at his deeds; that you worship Pallas Athene! You scorn force, and you worship intelligence and the arts of peace."

"The strong arm is as valuable as the head in which Zeus kindled the divine spark."

"Yes, but that arm impels the head to death."

Actæon was impatient at Alcon's words.

"Do you know Mopsus the archer?"

"There he is, near the temple of Hercules. You may recognize him by his weapons, which he never lays aside. He is another of those who drew hither the evil spirit of war."

"Farewell, Alcon."

"May the gods protect you, Athenian!"

Actæon recognized the valorous Greek by his bow and by the quiver hanging from his shoulders. He was a robust, long-bearded man, who wore bound around his gray locks a bull's tendon to renew the one which served to string his bow. His strong muscular arms revealed in the elasticity of their sinews the high tension to which they were subjected in bending the strong bow and in shooting the arrows.

He welcomed Actæon with the sympathetic respect which the Athenians inspired in the island-Greeks.

"I will speak to the Senate," he said, on learning Actæon's aspirations. "My word will be sufficient to have you received among the mercenaries with all merited distinction. Tell me more about your military exploits."

"I have made war in Lacedæmon, under the orders of Cleomenes."

"A famous captain! The renown of the deeds of the Spartan king has even reached these shores. What news of him?"

"I left him when, conquered but not mastered, he took refuge in Alexandria. There he dwelt as an exile under the protection of Ptolemy; but, according to what I heard not long ago in New Carthage, he got into trouble through a palace intrigue. The Egyptian monarch ordered his execution, and Cleomenes, with his twelve companions, died fighting. When he fell, a pile of corpses lay before him."

"Worthy end for a hero! Where did you learn the military art?"

"I began in Sicily and Carthage, in the camps of the mercenaries, and I finished my education in the Prytaneum of Athens. My father was Lysias, captain in the service of Hamilcar, put to death afterwards by the Carthaginians in their war with the mercenaries, which is called the 'Inexpiable War.'"

"Famous schools, and an excellent father! His name also came to my ears in the epoch when I was running over the world, before taking service in Saguntum. You are welcome, Actæon! If you wish to enlist in the hoplites, you shall figure in the first rank of the phalanx with the heavy armor and the long spear. But, no, you Athenians prefer to fight light-armed. You are more to be feared in the onset than on account of the force of your blows. You shall be a peltast, with javelin and light shield; you shall fight unhampered, and surely great deeds will be related of you."

Some old men whom the archer greeted respectfully passed near.

"Those are senators," Mopsus said, "assembling because it is market day. Many of them come from their villas on the public domain, and ride up to the Acropolis in their litters. They meet on that portico."

Actæon saw them taking their seats on wooden chairs with curved claw-legs supporting the head of the Nemean lion. Their countenances and dress denoted the great diversity of races existing in the city. The men of Iberian origin came from their country-houses, bearded, grimy, with linen cuirass lined with heavy wool, a two-edged short sword hanging from the shoulder, and a hat of hardened leather equivalent to a helmet. The Grecian merchants presented themselves with faces shaven, wrapped in white chlamys, from which the right arm emerged bare; a fillet was bound around the hair in fashion of a crown, and they were leaning on long staves tipped by the design of a pine cone. They resembled the kings of the Iliad gathered before Troy.

Actæon noted among them a giant with black beard and short curling hair which lay around his head like a mitre of wool. His enormous limbs, with protuberant muscles and elastic sinews which seemed bursting with strength, peeped from below the openings of the red mantle in which he was wrapped.

"That is Theron," said the bowman, "the great priest of Hercules; a prodigious man, who could conquer a crown in the Olympic games. He kills a bull with a single blow on its neck."

Again the Greek thought he recognized among the people gathered near the Senate portico, the Celtiberian shepherd, studying intently the gigantic priest of Hercules; but the archer addressed Actæon, compelling him to turn his gaze away.

"The council is about to sit, and I must be at the foot of the steps awaiting orders. Go, Actæon, and tarry for me in the Forum. There you will find my boy. Did you not say that you met him on the road? No doubt he was with that slave girl who herds Sónnica's goats. Don't hesitate, Actæon; don't tell a falsehood. I guess it. Ah, that boy! That vagabond, who, instead of working, races through the fields like a fugitive slave!"

In spite of the grievousness with which the archer complained, a thrill of tenderness was observable in his accent, the note of preference over his other sons for that wandering and capricious artist who often abandoned the paternal roof to roam about the port and through the mountains for weeks at a time.

The two Greeks bade each other adieu, and Actæon returned to the Forum, not without thinking that he saw again, strolling about the Acropolis, the mysterious Celtiberian shepherd. As he entered the porticos he heard hisses and shouting; the crowds were agitated, laughing and jeering; people rushed from the barber-shops and perfumeries. The Greek saw a group of luxuriously dressed young men passing with scornful smiles regardless of the tempest of hisses and sarcasm raised by their presence.

They were the gallants of Saguntum; the rich youths who imitated the fashions of the Athenian aristocracy, exaggerated by distance and by their lack of taste. Actæon also smiled, with the cynical smile of an Athenian, as he observed the crudeness with which these young fops copied their distant models.

At their head strode Lachares, the gallant who had accompanied Sónnica on her morning visit to the temple of Venus. They were dressed in transparent cloth of screaming colors and subtle weave, disclosing the body, like the tunics worn by the hetæræ at banquets. Their cheeks, carefully plucked free of hair, were tinted with soft vermilion and the eyes were enlarged with black lines. The hair, curled, and perfumed with fragrant ointments, was confined by a fillet. Some wore large hoops of gold in their ears, and hidden bracelets jingled as they walked. Others were indolently leaning on the shoulders of small slave boys with white backs, and with hair hanging in heavy curls, resembling girls in the plumpness of their forms. As if deaf to the insults and sarcasms of the people, they talked with affected serenity of some Greek verses which one of them had composed; they discussed their merit, the manner of accompanying them with the lyre, and only stopped to caress the cheeks of their small slaves or to greet acquaintances, well pleased at heart over the scandal their presence caused in the Forum.

"Do not tell me that they imitate the Greeks," shouted an old man with malicious face, clad in the patched and filthy mantle of an unemployed pedagogue. "The fire of the gods shall be hurled upon the city. It is true that in a moment of emotion our father Zeus carried off the beautiful Ganymede; but how about Leda and all the innumerable beauties touched by the fire of the Lord of Olympus? A fine place the world would be if men were to imitate the gods and were to behave as do these fools, dressing themselves like women! Do you wish to see a Greek? Well, there is one for you. That is a true son of Hellas."

He pointed to Actæon, who found himself the target for curious glances from the assembled people.

"How you must laugh, stranger, at seeing those miserable creatures who stupidly believe they are copying your country," the beggarly phrenetic continued shouting. "I am a philosopher; do you know that? The only philosopher in Saguntum, and by the same token you will guess that these ungrateful people are quite willing to let me starve to death. As a young man I lived in Athens; I attended the schools; I gave up the life of a mariner, and ceased running over the world, to seek truth within myself. I have invented nothing, but I know all that man has said about the soul and the world, and if you wish I will recite from memory entire paragraphs from Socrates and Plato, and all the answers of the great Diogenes. I know your country, and I am ashamed of my city when I see such fools as those. Do you know who is to blame for these follies that dishonor us? Sónnica, that Sónnica whom they call 'the rich,' an old-time courtesan who will succeed in making Saguntum a reproach, destroying the traditions of the city, and the simple, healthful customs of other times."

On hearing the name of Sónnica a murmur of protest arose from the group.

"Do you see?" shouted the philosopher, becoming more abusive. "They are adulatory slaves who tremble at the truth. The name of Sónnica produces in them the same effect as that of a goddess. Do you see that one running away? Well, not long ago Sónnica lent his father a great sum without interest, that he might buy wheat in Sicily, and so he thinks he must run away from any place where things are said against her. See that one turning his back? The courtesan freed his father, who was a slave, and he does not wish to hear anything said that might annoy Sónnica. And these others, who are more valiant, and remain staring as if they would devour me, have all received favors from her, and would like to beat me for my words as they have done before. They are slaves who defend her as if she were a beneficent divinity. There are many others like them in Saguntum, and that is why the magistrates dare not punish that Grecian woman, who with her mad extravagances scandalizes the city. Come, beat me, shopkeepers! Beat the only one in Saguntum who does not lie!"

The crowd slunk away, leaving the philosopher shaking his fist and hurling epithets of indignation.

"What you ought to do," said one of the latter scornfully as he retired, "is to show more gratitude. If you ever get anything to eat, it is at Sónnica's table."

"I shall eat to-night, then!" shouted the philosopher insolently. "And what do you prove by that? I will tell her to her face the same that I say here! And she will laugh as usual, while you will be eating swill in your houses and thinking of her banquet!"

"Ingrate! Parasite!" exclaimed the man, turning his back contemptuously.

"Gratitude is the condition of the dog. Man shows his superiority by speaking ill of those who favor him. If you do not wish Euphobias the philosopher to be a parasite, maintain him in exchange for his wisdom."

By this time Euphobias was talking to empty space. They had all left, and had mingled with the moving crowd on the street. Only Actæon remained, examining him with interest, as if marveling at finding in a far-away city a man so like those who in Athens swarmed about the Academy, forming a class of hungry and obscure philosophic plebs.

The parasite, seeing himself with no other audience than the Greek, caught him by the arm.

"You alone deserve to hear me. One can easily perceive that you are from _there_, and that you know how to distinguish merit."

"Who is that Sónnica whose customs so anger you? Do you know the story of her life?" asked the Athenian, desirous of hearing the history of a woman who seemed to fill the whole city with her name.

"Do I know it? A thousand times she has told me in her hours of melancholy and weariness, which out-number all the rest. When I cannot manage to make her laugh with my wit, when she feels the need of un-burdening her mind, then she tells of her past with as much abandon as though she were talking to a dog; but it is a long story."

The philosopher paused and winked one eye, pointing to a door near at hand, within which was a perforated counter holding a row of amphoræ.

"We shall be more comfortable in Fulvius' house. He is a most honorable Roman who swears that he has quarreled with water. Day before yesterday he received a famous wine from Laurona. I smell its perfume even here."

"I have not a single obolus in my pouch."

The philosopher sniffed as if inhaling the vapor of the new wine, and made a gesture of disappointment. Then he looked at the Greek affectionately.

"You are worthy to hear me; poor, like myself, surrounded by these merchants who stock their vaults with silver! Since there is to be no wine for us, let us take a walk. That clears the brain. I will treat you as Aristotle treated his favorite pupils."

Strolling along the portico Euphobias began to relate what he knew of Sónnica's life.

She was believed to have been born in Cyprus, the isle beloved of mariners. On those shores where the poets made the triumphant beauty of Aphrodite spring from the foam, the women of the island run by night in search of mariners to offer themselves in memory of the goddess. Sónnica was the fruit of one such alligation with a rower. She vaguely recollected the early years of her childhood, running about the deck of a ship, springing from one bank of rowers to another, fed and scorned like the cats on shipboard, visiting many ports populated by people diverse in dress, customs, and language, but seeing it all from afar, and vaguely, like images in a dream, never setting foot on terra firma.

Before she became a woman she was the mistress of the owner of the ship, a pilot from Samos, who, grown tired of her, or tempted by money, sold her one night to a Boeotian who maintained a _dicterion_ in the Piræus. She was not yet twelve years of age, and little Sónnica attracted special attention among the _dicteriadai_ who swarmed by night in the Piræus, the chief centre of Athenian prostitution.

The floating population of the city, composed of foreigners, gamblers, and young men thrown out of their homes by severe fathers, congregated in that suburb of Athens which surrounded the ports of the Piræus and Phalerum and formed the deme of Estiron. No sooner had night closed in than the whole noisy and corrupt world gathered in the great square in the Piræus, between the citadel and the port, and prostitutes began to circulate, who with the coming of the shadows, were privileged to leave the _dicteria_ in which they had been confined. On the porticos around the square the gamblers shook dice, wandering philosophers argued, vagabonds slept, mariners told of their voyages, and through this confusion of diverse peoples passed the _dicteriadai_, with painted faces, almost nude, or wearing striped mantles of vivid colors which revealed an African or Asiatic origin. There the young daughter of Cyprus grew up and became acquainted with the world, seeking each night some wheat merchant from Bithynia, or some exporter of hides from Magna Graecia, rude and merry people, who, before returning to their native lands wished to spend some of their earnings on the courtesans of Athens. By day she was a prisoner in the _dicterion_, a house of sordid aspect, without other ornamentation on the façade than an enormous phallus which served the establishment as a sign, the door standing open at all hours without the chained dog customary at other dwellings, and displaying, immediately the heavy curtain was raised, an open courtyard, in which, near the entrance to the rooms, squatting or lying on the pavement, were all the wares of the house, women worn and consumed by the fires of concupiscence and girls barely arrived at puberty. All were nude, the dark and velvety skin of the Egyptians contrasting with the pale countenance of the Greeks and the white and silky flesh of the Asiatics.

Sónnica, who was at that time called Myrrhina, wearied of the life of the _dicterion_. All the women there were slaves whom the Boeotian beat when they allowed a customer to leave discontented. It disgusted her to take the two oboli stipulated by the laws of Solon from those calloused hands which wounded as they caressed, and she was nauseated by the dirty, brutal people from all the countries in the world who came in search of pleasure, and went away surfeited, being immediately replaced by another and another, like an incessant surging of desires excited by the solitude of the sea, repeating similar caprices and identical demands.

One night she visited for the last time the temple of Venus Pandemos raised by Solon in the great square of the Piræus, and deposited an obolus as her final offering before the statues of Venus and her companion Peitho, the two divinities of the courtesans, before whom she went many times with her lemans of the moment, before giving herself up to them on the seashore or near the long wall constructed by Themistocles to unite the port with Athens. Then she fled toward the city, eager for liberty and joy, wishing to become one of those Athenian hetæræ whose luxury and beauty she had admired from afar.

She lived like the free, poor courtesans whom the Athenian youths called "she-wolves" on account of their howling. At first she spent whole days without eating, but she considered herself more happy than her former companions of the port of Phalerum, or in the district of Estiron, slaves of the masters of the _dicteria_. Her market now was the Cerameicus, a large district of Athens, along the wall between the gates of the Cerameicus and the Dipylon, in which were the garden of the Academy and the tombs of the illustrious citizens who had died for the Republic. By day the great _hetæræ_ went or sent their slaves to see if their names were written in charcoal on the wall of the Cerameicus. The Athenian who desired a courtesan would write her name, with the sum offered, and if this were to the liking of the hetæra she tarried near the inscription until the coming of the favored proponent. In broad daylight the great courtesans appeared there, almost nude, wearing purple sandals, wrapped in flowered mantles, wearing crowns of fresh roses on their hair, powdered with gold. The poets, the rhetoricians, the artists, the distinguished citizens strolled through the green groves of the Cerameicus or along the porticos adorned with statues, chatting with the courtesans, having to rack their brains to keep even with their repartee.

When night came on an irruption of wretched, ragged women filled the promenade, dispersing among the tombs of the renowned dead. It consisted of the dregs of Athenian gayety which lived in liberty under cover of the darkness--old courtesans who, trusting in the night, came out to conquer bread in the same place where in other times they had reigned with the power of beauty; fugitive _dicteriadai_, slave women who had run away from their owners for a few hours, and women of the plebs seeking alleviation of their poverty. Hiding behind the tombs, among the clumps of laurels, they remained as motionless as sphinxes, and scarcely did the steps of a man disturb the silence of the Cerameicus, than from all sides arose faint howls calling to the new arrival. Frequently they fled in mad race on recognizing the official whose duty it was to collect the _pornikontelos_, a tax imposed by Solon upon the courtesans and one which constituted the largest revenue of Athens. At midnight the passer-by crossing the Cerameicus on his return from a banquet, would hear around him the rustle and whispering of an invisible world which seemed to sweep over the turf and the gleaming sand. The poets jestingly averred that the ghosts of the great departed were groaning in their capacious tombs.

Thus Myrrhina lived until she was fifteen, spending the night in the Cerameicus and the day in the hut of an old woman of Thessaly who, in common with all her countrywomen enjoyed great fame as a witch, and assisted at births as well as sold love-philters, and retouched the faces of those who were fading.