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, 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.

Innumerable things the little _lupa_ learned at the side of the old

woman, bony and ugly as a Parca! She helped her grind the white lead

which, mixed with isinglass, filled the wrinkles of the face; she

prepared the bean flour to anoint the breasts and abdomen, to make the

skin tight and elastic; she filled little flasks with antimony to give

brilliancy to the eyes; she made a liquid preparation of carmine for

coloring with light touches the paste-filled wrinkles, and she listened

with profound attention to the wise counsels with which the old woman

instructed her pupils, so that they might show off their particular

charms to the best advantage and hide their defects. The old Thessalian

advised the girls with plump bodies to use cork soles inside their

shoes, and the tall ones to wear light sandals, and to shrink their

heads down between their shoulders; she made pads for the thin,

whalebone corsets for the stout, she stained the gray hair with soot,

and those who had good teeth she obliged to carry a stalk of myrtle

between their lips, counseling them to smile at the slightest word.

The young girl possessed the old witch's confidence to such an extent

that she assisted her in the most dangerous part of her science, the

confection of love-philters and the making of charms, which had more

than once caused her to be prosecuted by the officials of the Areopagus.

The richest hetæræ consulted her about their desires and revenges, and

she gave them the benefit of her knowledge. To accomplish the impotence

of a man or the sterility of a woman, it was only necessary to give them

a glass of wine in which a barbel had been stewed; to attract a

forgetful lover a cake of unleavened dough was burned in a fire made of

branches of thyme and laurel; and to convert love into hatred it was

only necessary to follow the man, stepping in his tracks the opposite

way, placing the right foot where he had put his left, and murmuring at

the same time: "I am upon you, I step on you." If one wished to cause a

satiated lover to return, the old woman rolled a bronze ball which she

carried in her bosom, asking Venus to cause the lover to roll in over

the threshold of the door in the same manner, and if the conjury

produced no effect, the wax image of the person beloved was thrown into

the brazier while asking the gods to melt the frozen heart with love

even as the figure melted. With these enchantments, accompanied by

mysterious invocations, went philters composed of aphrodisiacs and

exciting herbs, which frequently led to death.

One moonlight spring night Myrrhina had an adventure in the Cerameicus,

which resulted in her abandoning the den of the Thessalian. Seated

behind a tomb, her howl soft as a lament attracted a man wrapped in a

white mantle. By the brilliancy of his eyes and the insecurity of his

step he seemed to be intoxicated. He wore on his head a crown of

withered roses.

Myrrhina divined that he was a distinguished citizen coming from a

banquet. It was the poet Simalion, a young aristocrat who had won a

crown in the Olympian games, and in whom Athens saw revived the

inspiration of Anacreon. The richest hetæræ sang his verses at banquets

to the music of the lyre, and virtuous dames murmured them in the

solitude of the gynæceum, flushing with emotion. The most famous

beauties of Athens contended for the poet, and he, already an invalid in

his young manhood, and unable to resist the strain of worldly adoration,

took refuge in the temple of Æsculapius when the cough compelled him to

spit blood; he went on a pilgrimage to the healing springs throughout

Greece and the islands; and no sooner did he begin to feel stronger,

with new blood surging through his veins, than, scorning the doctors, he

began once more the round of banqueting with business men and artists of

Attica, in company with famous hetæræ and genteel Cyprians, rolling from

the arms of one to another; paying for the caresses with verses which

the city afterward repeated; ever ardent, and consuming his life like

the torch which at the nocturnal feasts of Dionysus was passed by the

chain of bacchantes from hand to hand until lost in the infinite.

Coming from one of these orgies he met Myrrhina, and contemplating in

the moonlight her youthful beauty, undimmed and almost childlike there

in a place frequented by the filthy _lupas_, he raised his hand to his

eyes as if he feared he were being deceived by the aberrations of

intoxication. This must be Psyche with those firm, harmoniously curving

breasts, round as cups; with those correct and gentle outlines which

would have been the despair of sculptors at the Academy. The poet

experienced the same satisfaction as when, after hours of solitary

plodding along the wall of Themistocles from Athens to the port, he hit

upon the culminating verse of an ode.

She started to drag him to the old Thessalian's hut, but Simalion,

dazzled by the marble flesh which seemed to shine through the rags, took

her to his beautiful residence on the Street of Tripods, and there

Myrrhina remained like a lady, with slaves and luxurious garments.

This caprice of the poet astounded all Athens. In the Agora and in the

Cerameicus they talked of nothing but Simalion's new love. They marveled

at the rescue of a precious stone, forgotten and lost in the sands,

which suddenly shone forth on the forehead of a grandee.

The great hetæræ, who had never succeeded in making complete conquest of

the fickle poet, were amazed at seeing him devotedly attached to a young

girl from a _dicterion_, who was remembered by many adventurers in the

Piræus. He took her out in his chariot, driving three horses with

close-cropped manes, and to all the great feasts in the temples of

Attica; in the morning he composed verses in her honor, and he awoke her

by reciting them, while he flung a shower of rose petals upon her couch.

He gave banquets to his artist friends that he might revel in their envy

and admiration, when, at their conclusion, he had her exhibit herself

nude upon the table, in all the magnificence of that perfect beauty

which aroused a religious emotion in the Greeks.

Faithful to Simalion from gratitude at first, and finally enamored of

the poet and of his works, Myrrhina adored him as teacher as well as

lover. In a short time she learned to play the lyre, to recite verses in

all the known styles, she read in her lover's library so diligently that

she was able to hold her own among the guests at the banquets of

artists, and was invited out among the most brilliant hetæræ of Athens.

Simalion, constantly growing more enthusiastic over his beloved,

dissipated his fortune and his life. He ordered for her from Asia

transparent mantles embroidered with fantastic flowers, through which

shone her pearly flesh; gold dust to sprinkle upon her hair, making her

like the goddesses, which the poets and artists of Greece always painted

blonde; he charged the navigators to buy roses in Egypt of marvelous

freshness. He was steadily growing more emaciated, his skin more pallid,

and his gaze glowing with fever, coughing and lying in the arms of his

mistress, his strength slipping away.

Thus two years passed, until one autumn afternoon, stretched on the lawn

in his garden, his head resting on the knees of his beautiful inamorata,

he heard his verses sung for the last time by the clear voice of

Myrrhina, accompanied by the fluttering of her white fingers over the

chords of the lyre. The setting sun caused Minerva's lance aloft by the

Parthenon, dominating the city, to glow like a coal of fire; his boyish

hand could scarce sustain the golden cup of honey and wine. He made an

effort to kiss his mistress; the roses which crowned him fell apart,

covering Myrrhina's breast with a shower of petals, and, uttering a

plaint like that of a woman, he closed his eyes, falling upon that

breast where he had lavished the last strength of his life.

The young girl wept for him with the desperation of a widow. She cut her

splendid hair to lay it as an offering upon his tomb. She put aside her

dazzling costumes, she dressed in dark wool like the Athenian women of

virtuous homes, and remained in retirement in her house, which she kept

closed and silent as a gynæceum.

The necessity of living, of maintaining the luxury to which she had

become accustomed, of keeping a chariot and slaves and grooms, forced

her, however, to consider her beauty, and the most celebrated hetæræ

became alarmed at the new rival. Covered with a dark red wig to hide the

tonsure of mourning, wrapped in fine veils from which her throat emerged

adorned with pearls, her fresh and alabastrine arms loaded to the

shoulders with bracelets, she showed herself at an upper window of her

house with the grave majesty of a goddess awaiting veneration. The

richest men of Athens paused by night in the Street of Tripods to gaze

at the poet's widow, as the women in the Ceramaeicus sarcastically called

her. Some, more daring, or tremulous with desire, raised the index

finger in mute question; but vainly they awaited her affirmative

reply--the customary sigil of the hetæræ, touching thumb to index finger

as it were an annulus.

Few managed to gain entrance to the famous courtesan's house. They

grumbled that some nights, in moments of tedium, she had opened her door

to young students who were modeling their first statues in the gardens

of the Academy, or reciting their unrenowned verses to the idle in the

Agora--youths who could only afford to spend on pleasures a few oboli,

or at most a drachma. On the other hand the rich, who offered golden

stateres or several minæ to enter the house, were considered too poor to

win favor. The old courtesans whispered into one another's ears, with a

degree of respect, that a petty Asiatic king, on passing through Athens,

had given Myrrhina two talents for one visit--as much as any republic in

Greece would spend in a year--and that the beautiful hetæra, unmoved by

such a fortune, had suffered his presence only while her clepsydra

emptied itself once, for, tired of men, she measured prurience by her

water-clock.

Fabulously rich merchants, on arriving at the Piræus, sought access to

Myrrhina's house through the good offices of friends. They heaped

presents upon the vagabond artists who were the courtesan's familiars,

that they might be admitted to her suppers; and more than one, arriving

at the port with a fleet loaded with rich merchandise, hastened to sell

everything without waiting to discharge his cargo, so that he might stay

in the poet's house; and he returned to his country with the help of

charity, content with his poverty when he saw the envy and respect which

he inspired among his companions.

Thus she met Bomaro, a young Iberian merchant from Zacynthus, who had

come to Athens with three ships laden with hides. The courtesan was

attracted by his sweetness, which contrasted with the rudeness of the

other merchants brutalized by their contact with the great ports. He

spoke little and blushed, as if the silence of his long stays at sea had

given him the timidity of a virgin. If she forced him to relate his

adventures as a navigator he did so with simplicity, without mentioning

the dangers he encountered. He displayed particularly a childish

admiration for Grecian culture.

Myrrhina, during the supper at which she saw him for the first time,

surprised his eyes fixed on her with the expression of tenderness and

respect of one gazing at a goddess impossible of possession. The

navigator, reared among barbarians, in a remote colony scarcely

retaining traces of its mother Greece, began to interest the courtesan

more than the young Athenians and opulent merchants who surrounded her.

Tremulous and hesitant he craved the grace of a single night, and spent

it near her with more admiration than enjoyment, adoring her regal

beauty, thrilled by her voice, put to sleep by it like a warm maternal

lullaby, accompanied by the lyre.

When he awoke he begged to turn over to her the entire product of his

cargo; but Myrrhina, hardly knowing why, refused to accept it, in spite

of his urging. He was rich; he had no parents; far away in that land of

barbarians he possessed immense flocks, hundreds of slaves who

cultivated his fields or worked in his mines; great potteries, and many

ships like the three which awaited him in the Piræus; and seeing that

the courtesan, with kindly smile, treated him like a generous boy,

declining to accept his money, he bought in the Street of the Goldsmiths

a prodigious collar of pearls, the despair of the hetæræ, and sent it to

Myrrhina before he left the city.

Afterwards he came back many times. He could not decide to return to his

country. He set sail with his flotilla, but in the next port he took on

a cargo for Athens, paying no regard to the price, and scarcely came to

anchor in the Piræus before he rushed to the courtesan's house, nor

could resolve to leave until he suspected Myrrhina's weariness of his

presence.

The courtesan finally became accustomed to this submissive lover, ever

at her feet, who was ready to die for her, showing his adoration with

the fervor of a foreigner, so different from the cynical and mocking

courtesy of the Athenians. She called him "little brother," and this

word, which the hetæræ used with young lovers, gradually took on her

lips a warmth of sincere affection. When he was delayed in returning

from the islands she longed for his presence, and when she saw him at

the door she ran to him with outstretched arms, in a transport of joy

such as her other friends never witnessed.

She did not love him as she had loved the poet, but the earnest humility

of Bomaro, his respectful and docile love, so different from the ardor

she inspired in others, moved Myrrhina to a sentiment of gratitude.

One night, the Iberian, who seemed preoccupied, ventured after much

vacillation to express his inner thought.

He could not live without her; he would never return alone to Zacynthus;

he was resolved to abandon his fortune rather than never to see her

more. He would sooner be a stevedore on the wharf at Phalerum; and

finally, like one who makes a dash to more quickly overcome an obstacle,

he abruptly proposed to make her his wife, turning his fortune over to

her, and to take her to smiling Zacynthus with its flowery fields and

its rose-colored mountains, so like those of Attica.

Myrrhina smiled while listening to him and her heart was touched by the

affectionate self-abnegation of the Iberian who, to unite with her

forever, was willing to overlook a shameful past in the _dicterion_ and

in the Cerameicus. She rejected his proposals with an ironical smile;

but Bomaro was persistent. Was she not tired of her mode of life, of

seeing herself flattered as a thing of great price, but often scorned by

coarse creatures who thought they made themselves her masters by merely

offering their gold? Would she not like to be a sovereign on the coasts

of Iberia, surrounded by people who would admire her Athenian

attainments?

Bomaro conquered her by his loving determination, and one day Athens

beheld with surprise that the house on the Street of Tripods was sold,

and that Myrrhina's slaves were carrying to the port the riches gathered

during three years of mad fortune, loading them in the ships of the

Iberian who had unfurled from the masts his purple sails for a triumphal

voyage.

Myrrhina, in her desire to propitiate him who gave himself up to her so

completely, wished to leave her whole past behind. She proposed to be a

new woman, to put away her sinister cognomen, and begging Bomaro to

repeat the most beautiful names of the Iberian women, she chose that of

Sónnica as the most pleasing to her ears.

Arrived at Zacynthus, the navigator and the Greek woman were married in

the temple of Diana before all the Senate, of which the young man was

himself a member.

The city felt the effects of the charm which seemed to emanate from the

person of Sónnica. She was like a breath from distant Athens, which

fascinated the Greek merchants in Saguntum, grown slack by their long

stay among uncultured foreigners.

At the banquets, at the hour of sweet wines, when she sang the hymns of

the great masters, the Saguntine youths from the ward of the Greeks were

impelled to fall at her feet and adore her as a goddess. After being

married a year Bomaro realized in the growth of his fortune the

assistance of the woman, who, in changing her environment, began to

interest herself in material things through her desire to prove her

worth before the noble dames who gossipped about her.

She watched the work in the fields, took note of the great flocks, and

the potteries; she went to the port to greet the arrival of the ships;

and Bomaro's enormous fortune increased. Excellent results followed the

business ventures which she counseled, as she lay in the shade of a

clump of laurel in her garden, speaking in a slow harmonious voice,

caressed by a feather fan in the hands of a slave.

Bomaro, the days of more ardent love-making ended, sailed along the

coasts of Iberia, his mind free from business cares, and desirous of

adding to the fortune which Sónnica administered so well. She had

surrounded herself by a court of youths who treated her as a

preceptress. The young Greeks born in Saguntum flocked about her to

learn the manners and customs of Athens, which was their perpetual

dream. The evil tongues in the city called her Sónnica the Cyprian, but

the plebs who were the recipients of her charity, and the small

merchants who never appealed to her without result, entitled her Sónnica

the rich, and they were ready to fight those who spoke ill of her.

One winter, four years after their marriage, Bomaro perished by

shipwreck near the Pillars of Hercules, and Sónnica found herself in

absolute possession of an immense fortune, and mistress of a whole city,

over which she reigned by virtue of her riches and of her kindness of

heart. She freed slaves in memory of the unfortunate navigator, she sent

costly offerings to all the temples in Saguntum, she raised on the

Acropolis a cenotaph in memory of Bomaro, summoning marble-workers from

Athens for this purpose. By her charities she won consideration,

bringing this city of sturdy and austere customs to tolerate her bright,

mirth-loving existence, which was a perpetuation of Athenian manners in

the midst of Iberic sobriety.

Having passed the period of mourning, she gave suppers in her

country-house which lasted until dawn. She brought famous auletai from

Attica who set the Saguntine youths wild with their flutes. She sent

ships on voyages with no other commercial object than to bring rare

perfumes from Asia, fabrics from Egypt, and unique adornments from

Carthage; and her fame extended so far into the interior that kinglets

from Celtiberia were drawn to Saguntum to behold that wonderful woman,

as wise as a priestess, and as beautiful as a divinity. The Greeks

admired her, observing that she strengthened the prestige of their race

among the primitive Saguntines, who were lavish with eulogy of her

disinterestedness. Thus she lived! No women entered her house, none but

flute-players, dancers, and slaves; she was surrounded by men who

yearned for her, but she held herself aloof, and treated them all with a

masculine but distant intimacy. She was ever thinking of Athens the

luminous, the city which held so many memories, and many of whose

customs she sought to revive.

Euphobias the philosopher, as he reached this point in his story,

stoutly declared that Sónnica's life in Saguntum was above reproach, in

spite of what the Greek women of the district of the merchants said. He

himself, who possessed the bitterest tongue in the city, affirmed it.

Several times she had been attracted toward some guest at her dinners.

Alorcus, the scion of a petty king of Celtiberia, who lived in Saguntum

and frequented her house, had made an impression upon her with his wild,

virile beauty, as a son of the mountains; but Sónnica held him back,

plainly fearing to take the step and unite herself with one of a

barbarous race. The memory of Attica wholly occupied her imagination. If

some young Athenian had landed on those shores, some youth as beautiful

as Alcibiades, singing verses, modeling statues, and displaying skill

and dexterity as in the Olympian games, perhaps she might have fallen

into his arms, but her emotions were unstirred among the arrogant

Celtiberians who came to her feasts smelling of horses and with their

swords girded at their sides, and among the effeminate sons of

merchants, becurled, and shedding perfumes, caressing their small slave

boys, who accompanied them even in the bath.

"Athenian," continued the philosopher, "you should present yourself to

Sónnica. She will receive you kindly. You are not an ephebus," he added,

with a mocking smile; "your beard is turning gray, but you have in your

figure the arrogance of a king in the Iliad; upon your forehead

something of the majesty of Socrates; and who knows but that you may

fall heir to Bomaro's riches! If that should come to pass, do not forget

the poor philosopher. I will be content with a skin of wine from

Laurona, since to-day you condemn me to thirst."

Euphobias laughed, slapping Actæon on the shoulder.

"I am invited to Sónnica's banquet to-night," said the Greek.

"You, also? Then we shall meet there. I am not invited, but I go with

the same right as a dog belonging to the house."

The philosopher saw Alcon, the peaceful citizen, who had just come down

from the Acropolis, pass through the centre of the Forum.

"There is one of the few good men of this city. He extols virtue to me,

he counsels me to go to work, and to forget philosophy, and on top of

all that he never fails to give me something to drink; so farewell until

to-night, stranger."

He hurried toward Alcon who, leaning on his staff, greeted him with a

kindly smile.

Actæon, finding himself once more alone wandered through the centre of

the market. Suddenly he heard a youthful voice calling him. It was

Rhanto, sitting on the ground among the pitchers which were now empty of

milk, selling her last cheeses. Near her squatted the young potter. They

were eating a hard cake with fresh, juicy onions, playfully disputing

the mouthfuls amid merry laughter. The shepherdess offered Actæon a

round cake, and the Greek accepted gratefully. He seemed destined to

receive his food in Saguntum from feminine hands. Twice since he landed

he had been succored by women.

Seated between the young people he saw the market gradually become

deserted. The shepherds drove their flocks toward the Gate of the Sea;

the Celtiberian chiefs, bearing their women behind them on their horses,

rode off at a gallop, eager to reach their villages in the mountains;

and the empty carts rumbled slowly toward the hamlets and towers in the

Saguntine domain.

Again Actæon saw the Celtiberian shepherd in the colonnades, moving from

one group of rustics to another, listening to their conversation. As he

passed near the Greek he gazed at him with those enigmatic eyes which

awoke within him shadowy recollections.

All at once the young potter arose and started to run, hiding behind the

columns around the Forum.

"He has seen his father," said Rhanto quietly. "There is Mopsus coming

down from the Acropolis."

Actæon advanced to meet the archer.

"My word has been sufficient to have you received by the Senate. The

city will soon need good soldiers like yourself. The elders seemed

somewhat alarmed this morning. They fear Hannibal, that young cub of

Hamilcar, who now leads the Carthaginians, and who will not calmly brook

our friendship with the Romans and the execution of his sympathizers in

Saguntum. Here, take this; it is the advance pay which the Republic

allows you."

He tendered Actæon a handful of coins, which the Greek put into his

pouch. Mopsus then invited him to his house to meet his sons and to

dine; but the Athenian was obliged to plead his previous invitation to

Sónnica's banquet.

When the archer had left, Actæon felt the torment of thirst, and,

remembering the philosopher's recommendations, he entered the

establishment of the Roman whose Lauronian wine inspired so much

enthusiasm in Euphobias. At the counter he changed a victoriatus, and

was given a boat-shaped terra cotta patera full of black wine crowned

with iridescent bubbles. Two soldiers were drinking in a corner of the

tavern--two rough mercenaries with the faces of bandits. One was an

Iberian, the other with bronzed skin and athletic frame looked like a

Libyan, and his cheeks, calloused by the helmet and his neck and arms

furrowed with cicatrices, denoted the professional paid warrior who had

fought with indifference since childhood, now in the service of one

nation and now in that of its adversary.

"I am in the service of Saguntum," said the Libyan. "These merchants pay

better than those of Carthage. But, believe me, although content to live

in this town, I realize that they have done an unlucky thing in

displeasing Hannibal. Rome is strong, but Rome is far away, and that

lion's whelp prowls only a few days journey from here. You ought to have

known him, to have seen him from boyhood as I have done when I was

fighting under the orders of his father Hamilcar! He runs like a mare;

he fights as well on foot as on horseback, he eats what there is to be

had, or he eats nothing at all; he goes about dressed like a slave; arms

are his only luxury; he sleeps on the ground, and often, at daybreak,

his father would find him lying among the sentinels of the camp. He is

not content to be told about things, he must see everything with his own

eyes, and mix with the enemy to study their weak points close at hand.

Often Hasdrubal, his sister's husband, was surprised by seeing an old

beggar come into his shop, and he would shout with laughter when

Hannibal pulled off his wig and his rags, under cover of which he had

been spending hours among the enemy."

Actæon left the tavern hastily on seeing that Rhanto, after handing her

pitchers to a slave who loaded them into a cart, was starting on her

walk toward Sónnica's villa.

"I will go with you, little one. You shall be my guide to your mistress'

house."

The sun had begun to set. The afternoon light gilded the foliage of the

domain, giving a transparency of amber to the leaves and vines. Along

the highway through the champaign sounded the bells of the flock, the

creaking of carts, and the sonorous songs of the rustics returning from

the city.

They arrived at Sónnica's villa, which had the aspect of a town. They

first passed the dwellings of the slaves, where buzzed around the

doorways a swarm of nude children with prominent abdomens, and with the

umbilicus protruding like buttons; then the stables, from which floated

a warm vapor vibrant with lowing and whinnying; the granaries and

farmhouses; the dwelling of the overseer; the calabooses for rebellious

slaves, with their breathing-holes on a level with the ground; the

pigeon-house, a high tower of red brick around which fluttered a cloud

of white wings amid incessant cooing; the big straw huts which served to

shelter the hundreds of chickens; and, behind this row of buildings, the

country-seat, Sónnica's villa, which was discussed with admiration even

among the most remote tribes of Celtiberia. It was surrounded by

cypresses and laurels, encircled by walls covered with gnarled grape

vines, while rising above the great mass of foliage were its

rose-colored walls with columns and friezes of blue marble and the

terrace crowned by polychrome statues with enameled eyes shining in the

sun like precious stones.

Actæon was silent and preoccupied. Rhanto had been talking to him for

full half an hour without receiving a reply.

"Look, stranger! All those fields which your eye can see belong to

Sónnica. See, Greek, how many chickens! Nearly all the eggs used in the

city come from here."

Actæon continued oblivious to the objects pointed out by the

shepherdess; but just as she rang the bell on the garden gate, and was

answered from within by the barking of dogs and the sharp cries of

hidden birds, he smote himself nervously on the forehead as if he had

made a discovery.

"Now I know who he is!" he exclaimed, as if awaking from a dream.

"Who?" asked the young girl in surprise.

"Nobody," he replied with the frigidity of him who fears that he has

said too much.

In his own mind, however, he was satisfied with the identification.

Recalling the words of the Libyan mercenary, overheard in the tavern,

had brought back to his memory that enigmatic figure of the Celtiberian

shepherd. Suddenly a light was kindled in his thought.

Now he knew who it was! For a good reason had he been impressed from the

first moment by the glance of that unknown man, by the eyes which never

change in a countenance despite the passing of years. Often had he seen

those eyes in his childhood when his father made war in Sicily with

Hamilcar, and he himself was being educated in Carthage.

That shepherd was Hannibal!