DANCING GIRLS FROM GADES
Sónnica awoke two hours after midday. The oblique rays of the sun
filtered through the gilded bars of her window over which crept the
foliage of grapevines. Its light heightened the color of the stucco
frames around scenes from the Olympian games painted on the wall, and of
the columns of rose-colored marble which flanked the doorway.
The beautiful Greek threw to the floor the covers of white Sætabis
linen, and her first glance swept her figure, taking in the outlines of
her body with affectionate eyes, from her swelling bosom curving in
harmonious lines, to the tips of her rosy feet.
Her heavy hair perfumed and falling in silky curls, hung down over her
body, enveloping her as in a regal mantle, caressing her from throat to
knees with a gentle kiss. The old-time courtesan, as she awoke, admired
her body with the adoration inspired in her by the eulogies of the
artists of Athens.
She was still young and beautiful; she could still thrill men with
emotion when, at the end of a banquet, she displayed herself upon the
table nude as Phryne. Her hands eager for the thrilling touch of her
beauty, caressed her firm round throat, the pearly globes terminating in
a soft rose petal, testing their firm elasticity, and the winding
network of slender blue veins delicately outlined beneath the satiny
skin, flowing down, down--in line with the strongly incurved waist; the
rotund hips, the slightly rounded abdomen, like that of a crater, and the
limbs the harmonious proportions of which had been compared in other
times to the elephant's trunk by the Asiatic merchants who visited her
in Athens.
Passion had swept its fiery tongue over her without consuming her; she
had lived in the midst of its ardor, cold, emotionless, and white, like
a marble statue in the warmth of the sun. Seeing herself young, still
beautiful, and with a virginal freshness, she smiled, pleased with
herself, content with life.
"Odacis! Odacis!"
At the echo of her voice there entered a Celtiberian slave, tall, spare,
strong, whom the Greek valued highly for the gentleness with which she
combed her hair.
Supporting herself on the shoulders of the slave, she raised up and
sprang from the couch to enter the bath.
Her nude form was invested by her hair like a transparent, golden veil.
As her bare feet pressed the mosaic, which depicted the Judgment of
Paris, the chill of the tiles with its agreeable shock brought a smile
to her lips; her laugh deepened the dimples in her cheeks, and the
reaction caused the curves of her body to quiver with gentle
undulations.
She descended three steps and threw herself into the jasper piscina
swinging her arms and splashing the water into tiny pearls. In the green
pool her body assumed an ideal transparency, the glow of a fantastic
apparition, and she moved from one side of the tank to the other like a
siren with pearly back and floating hair.
"Who has come, Odacis?" she asked, lying deep in the bath.
"The women from Gades, who danced last night, have arrived. Polyanthus
has given them lodgings near the kitchens."
"And who else?"
"A moment ago the stranger from Athens, whom you met this morning at the
temple of Aphrodite. I have had him go into the library, and I have
forgotten none of the duties of hospitality. He has just come from the
bath."
Sónnica smiled, recalling the meeting that morning. She had slept badly.
She attributed it to the wakeful night spent with friends on the terrace
of the villa, and to the capricious journey to the port before sunrise;
but she thought with some confusion of the impression made in her mind
by the Athenian's figure, which had reappeared several times in her
dreams. Without knowing why she associated Actæon's appearance with that
of Zeus when he came to earth in mortal form in search of human love.
In her moments of tedium in Athens, when she used to submit with
repugnance to caresses for piles of gold, she experienced the vague
desire of being loved by a god. She thought of Leda, of Psyche, even of
the effeminate Ganymede beloved of the guests on Olympus, and she was in
despair at the impossibility of finding a god who should transport her
captive through a mysterious forest, or along some roadway leading to
the unknown. She longed to contemplate her image in the depths of eyes
animated by the splendor of the infinite; to kiss a mouth which served
as a portal to supreme wisdom; to feel herself imprisoned in arms
possessed of the immense strength of omnipotence. She had experienced a
suggestion of this joy in loving her poet, who was sometimes as majestic
and sublime as a divine being; but the simplicity of youth prevented her
appreciation of that joy, and now, in her maturity, she only met men
like those she had known in Athens, some rude and brutal, others
effeminate and captious, lacking the severe and sovereign beauty she
admired in statues.
She left her bath breathing with happy, childlike thrills, while her
hair scattered a light shower at every step.
Odacis called, and three slaves entered; they were those who assisted at
their mistress' toilet, the _tractatrices_ in charge of the massage of
the body.
Sónnica allowed herself to be manipulated by the three women who rubbed
her vigorously, stretching her limbs to keep them supple and agile. Then
she seated herself in a marble chair, resting her pink elbows on the
dolphins which formed the arms of the seat, and in this position, erect
and motionless, she waited for the slaves to proceed with the toilet.
One who was almost a child, wrapped in a mantle of broad stripes, knelt
on the floor holding a great engraved bronze mirror in which Sónnica
gazed at herself down to her thighs. Another arranged the toilet
articles on the tables, and Odacis began to smooth her mistress'
splendid hair with ivory combs. Meanwhile, the other slave approached
with a bronze patera filled with a gray ointment. It was the bean-flour
used by the Athenians of refinement to preserve the skin firm and
elastic. She anointed Sónnica's cheeks with this, and then the
prominent breasts, the abdomen, the thighs, and knees, leaving nearly
the whole body covered by a lustrous, unctuous coating. Where hair had a
tendency to grow, she applied dropax, a depilatory paste, composed of
vinegar and earth from Cyprus.
Sónnica passively assisted these toilet preparations, which made her
momentarily ugly in order that she might reappear each day more
beautiful.
Odacis continued combing her hair. She lifted the splendid tresses,
burying both hands in the brilliant cascade; she gently wound it over
her arms like an enormous golden serpent; then she shook it out,
dividing it into small locks to dry it, and then she smoothed it
lovingly with the ivory combs piled on the table near at hand, veritable
prodigies of art, with the finest of teeth, their upper parts engraved
with scenes representing forests, arrogant nymphs in pursuit of stags,
and malodorous satyrs giving chase to nude beauties. After drying the
hair the coiffeur proceeded to dye it. With a small, long-necked amphora
she moistened it with a solution of saffron and gum arabic, and opening
a little chest of gold dust she sprinkled it over the ample, silky
skein, which assumed the brilliancy of the sun's rays. Then twisting the
locks above her forehead around an iron heated over a small brazier, she
formed tight curls which covered the Greek woman's brow almost to her
eyes; she gathered the mass of hair at the neck, tying it with a red
ribbon firmly interbraided, and she curled the crown of the coiffure,
imitating the spiral flames of a torch.
Sónnica arose. Two of the slaves approached with a heavy earthen
amphora of milk, and dipping a sponge into it, they washed their
mistress' body as she stood near the piscina, to remove the bean-paste.
The glossy whiteness of her skin reappeared more fresh and moist.
Odacis, with silver tweezers in her hand, carefully inspected her
mistress' body, with the attentive and frowning brow of the artist
preparing a great work. She had charge of the depilation; her skillful
hand won praise for its gentleness as it obstinately sought out the
lightest down, implacably destroying it with her tweezers, in deference
to the Greek custom of imitating the polished smoothness of the statues.
Sónnica being again seated in her ivory chair, the touching up of the
face began. On the table near at hand was a formidable array of bottles,
alabaster vases, pots of bronze and of silver, little caskets of ivory
and gold, all engraved, brilliant, covered with delicate figures,
ornamented with precious stones, containing Egyptian and Hebraic
essences, balsams from Arabia, perfumes and intoxicating cosmetics
brought by caravans from the heart of Asia to Phoenician ports, and
thence to Greece or Carthage, bought for Sónnica by the pilots of her
vessels in their venturesome trading voyages.
Odacis painted her face white, and then, moistening a small wooden style
with attar of roses, she thrust it into a bronze pot decorated with
garlands of lotus and filled with a dark powder. It was the kohol, sold
by Egyptian merchants at a fabulous price. The slave applied the point
of the style to the Greek's eyelids, dyeing them an intense black, and
tracing a fine line about the corners, which made them appear larger and
softer.
The toilet was almost complete. The slaves were opening the innumerable
bottles and vases arranged in rows upon the marble table, and the
atmosphere of the room was laden with costly perfumes--spikenard from
Sicily, incense and myrrh from Judea, aloes from India, and cumin from
Greece. Odacis took a small glass amphora inlaid with gold, with a
conical stopper, terminating in a fine point which served to deposit
antimony above the eyes to brighten them, and, after finishing this
operation, she presented to her mistress the three ointments for
imparting color to the skin in different shades--vermilion, carmine, and
the Egyptian red extracted from the body of the crocodile.
The slave began delicately coloring her mistress' body with a fine
brush. She produced a pink flush on her cheeks and dainty ears; she
marked rose petals on her bosom, and she colored her elbows and the
harmoniously curving relievo of her dimpled sides. Then, with Egyptian
red, she colored one by one the nails of her fingers and toes, while
another slave put on her white sandals with papyrus soles and buckles of
gold. Perfumes were showered upon her, each on a different part of the
body, so that it might resemble a bouquet of flowers in which various
aromas were mingled. Odacis presented the jewel-casket, within which
precious stones lay shimmering like restless and glistening fish. The
Greek woman's pointed fingers lifted with indifference the heap of
collars, rings, and pendants, which, like all Grecian jewelry, were more
valuable on account of the workmanship of the artists than for the
richness of the material. Scenes from the great poems were reproduced
almost microscopically in carnelian cameos, onyx, and agate, and the
emeralds, topazes, and amethysts were decorated with profiles of
goddesses and heroes.
The slave clasped a necklace of stones of complicated design upon
Sónnica's uncovered breast; she loaded her fingers to the tips with
rings, and the whiteness of her arms seemed more diaphanous girdled here
and there by wide bracelets of gold. To add more expression to the
countenance, Odacis decorated her mistress with small patches, and then
she proceeded to bind around her body the fascia, or corset of the
epoch, a broad woolen band to support the breast. Sónnica, gazing into
the burnished bronze, smiled at her statue-like reflection, as beautiful
as Venus in repose.
"Which costume, my mistress?" asked Odacis. "Do you wish the tunic with
the golden flowers brought from Crete, or the _kalásiris_ veils,
transparent as air, which you ordered bought in Alexandria?"
Sónnica could not decide. She would choose in the vestiary; and in the
majesty of her unveiled beauty, her papyrus sandals rustling, she walked
from her dormitory followed by her slaves.
Meanwhile Actæon was waiting in the library. He had visited great
palaces in his travels about the world, he had seen--two years before
the earthquake which ruined it--the celebrated Colossus of Rhodes; he
was familiar with the Serapeum and the tomb of the great conqueror in
Alexandria; he was accustomed to elegance and splendor; yet he could not
conceal surprise at this Grecian house in a barbarian land, more
luxurious and artistic than those of opulent citizens of Athens.
Guided by a slave, and leaving the garden with its whispering foliage
and its cries of exotic birds, he had passed along the colonnade which
gave entrance to the villa. First the vestibule with its plinth of
mosaic, on which were painted ferocious black dogs with fiery eyes,
their fierce and foaming mouths agape, their fangs erect.
Above the door, fastened to a lamp, hung a branch of laurel in honor of
the tutelary gods of the house. Next to the somewhat gloomy vestibule,
beneath the open sky, like a lung of the house, was the atrium with its
four rows of columns supporting the roof and forming an equal number of
cloisters, upon which opened the doors of the rooms, their three panels
decorated with large-headed nails.
In the centre of the atrium was the impluvium, a rectangular marble tank
to catch and hold the waters from the roof. Great terra cotta urns
covered with flowers stood upon pedestals between the columns; four
marble tables sustained by winged lions surrounded the impluvium, and
near it rose a statuette of Love which on festive days threw a spray of
water.
Actæon admired the graceful strength of the columns wrought in blue
marble to match the socles of the galleries, which imparted to the light
of the atrium a diffused radiance, as if the dwelling were submerged in
the sea.
Afterward the attendant turned him over to Odacis, the favorite slave,
and she ushered him into the peristyle, an inner courtyard much larger
than the atrium, which astonished the Greek with its polychrome
decoration. The columns were painted red at their bases, and the color
changed above into blue and gold on the fluting and capitals, and was
dispersed over the trellis-work covering the porticos. In the unroofed
part of the peristyle was a deep piscina of transparent water in which
fish darted like flashes of golden lightning. Around it were marble
benches supported by Hermæ; tables held by dolphins with knotted tails;
clumps of roses, between the foliage of which peeped white or terra
cotta statuettes in voluptuous positions, and covering the walls of the
peristyle, between the doors of the rooms, were great paintings by
Grecian artists--Orpheus with his heavy lyre, nude and wearing his
Phrygian cap, surrounded by lions and panthers who listened to his songs
with humbled heads, stifling their growls; Venus springing from the
waves; Adonis allowing himself to be cured of his wounds by the Mother
of Love; and other scenes eulogizing the influence of art and beauty.
Actæon was conducted to the bath by two young slaves, and as he emerged
from this he again met Odacis, who bade him enter the library beyond the
peristyle.
It was a great room paved with mosaic representing the triumph of
Bacchus. The young god, beautiful as a woman, nude, and crowned with
vines and roses, was riding on a panther, waving his thyrsus. The
pictures on the walls illustrated famous passages from the Iliad. The
more voluminous books were ranged on shelves, and the smaller ones
formed bundles placed in narrow willow baskets lined with wool.
Actæon admired the richness of the library, where he counted more than a
hundred volumes. They represented a veritable fortune. The navigators
received from Sónnica commissions to bring her whatever notable works
they found on their voyages, and the booksellers in Athens remitted to
her famous books of entertainment which enjoyed vogue in their city.
They were all of papyrus, consisting of strips rolled upon cylinders of
wood or bone, each end wrought into an artistically carved _umbilicus_.
The sheets, written only on one side, were impregnated on the other with
cedar oil to protect them from moths, and the title of the book, the
name of the author, and the index, gleamed in letters of minium and gold
on the purple outer wrapping. The copying of these books represented the
life work of many men, productions to be acquired only at the cost of
great sums of money, and the Greek, with the respect characteristic of
his race for art and wisdom, recognized that he was surrounded in the
silence of the library by the august shades of many great men, and with
veneration he turned from the Homer in its old, time-worn papyrus, and
the works of Thales and Pythagoras, to the contemporary poets,
Theocritus and Callimachus, whose volumes were unrolled, denoting recent
reading.
Actæon's ear caught a faint rustling of sandals in the peristyle, and
the square of pale gold thrown on the floor by the light entering the
doorway from the courtyard was darkened by a form. It was Sónnica
arrayed in a gauzy white tunic. The light behind her marked the artistic
lines of her body in the diaphanous cloud of her garment.
"Welcome, Athenian!" she said, in a studied but harmonious voice. "Those
who come from over _there_ are ever masters in my house. The banquet
to-night shall be in your honor, for no one can be king of the feast and
direct conversation like a son of Athens."
Actæon, somewhat stirred by the presence of a beautiful woman enveloped
by intoxicating perfumes, began to speak of her house, of his
astonishment at its magnificence in that barbarian land, and of the
admiration which its owner enjoyed in the city. Everyone he met had
spoken to him of Sónnica the rich!
"Yes, they like me; yet sometimes they censure me; but let us speak of
you, Actæon; tell me who you are. Your life must be as interesting as
that of old Ulysses. Tell me first what new thing there is in Athens."
For a long time the two Greeks maintained an incessant chattering. She
was eager to know what courtesans triumphed in the Cerameicus and set
the fashions; merry, unconsciously harking back to the life of old,
forgetful of her princely opulence in Saguntum, as if she were still in
the house in the Street of Tripods, and Actæon one of the poor artists
who visited her of an afternoon to discuss affairs of the city, in the
intimacy of comrades. She laughed at the latest witticisms of the idlers
in the Agora, at the song in vogue the year before, when Actæon left
Athens; and with frowning brow and the gravity of a goddess, she
listened to a detailed relation of the recent changes of fashion and of
the style of coiffure used by the most celebrated hetæræ.
The curiosity of the exiled Athenian being satisfied, she longed to
penetrate the adventurous life of her guest, and Actæon told his story
simply. Born in Athens, he had been taken to Carthage at twelve years of
age. His father, in the service of the African republic, fought with
Hamilcar in Sicily. In a village in the interior the selfsame slave
attended the son of the Greek mercenary and a lion-cub of Hamilcar, who
was at that time only four years of age. It was Hannibal. The Athenian
recalled the blows he had often dealt the savage youngster in exchange
for bites with which the African surprised him in the midst of their
games. The revolt of the mercenaries broke out with those horrors which
gave it the name of "the truceless war," and his father, who had
remained faithful to Carthage and would not take up arms with his
companions, was despite his loyalty crucified by the Carthaginian
populace, who, forgetting his wounds received in the service of the
Republic, saw in him only a foreigner, a friend of Hamilcar who was
hated by the partisans of Hanno. The son miraculously escaped these
red-handed reprisals; and Hamilcar's faithful slave smuggled him aboard
ship for Athens.
There, under the protection of relatives, he received the education of
all young Greeks. He won prizes in the Gymnasium, in wrestling, in
running, and in throwing the discus; he learned to ride unbridled horses
bareback, balancing himself merely by resting his toe in a groove of the
lance; to temper the rudeness of this education he was taught to play
the lyre and to sing verses in diverse styles, and being strong of body
and mind, he was sent, as were all Athenian youths, to pass his military
apprenticeship in the garrisons on the frontier.
The monotony of this existence bored him; it was dull, and he loved
pleasure; the blood of his forefathers, soldiers of fortune all, surged
through his body; and he ran away from Attica to take charge of a
fishing fleet in the Euxine Sea. Then he became a navigator, trading on
land and sea; his caravans threaded Asia, through warlike tribes, and
among peoples who dwelt in the lethargy of a remote and decadent
civilization. He was a powerful personage in the court of some tyrants
who admired him on seeing him drink at a gulp an amphora of perfumed
wine, and overcome the giants of the guard in a boxing match with the
agile dexterity of a true Athenian; and, loaded with riches, he built a
palace in Rhodes near the sea, and he gave banquets which lasted three
days and nights. The earthquake which flung down the Colossus, also
destroyed his fortune; his ships were sunk, his warehouses full of
merchandise disappeared beneath the waves, and he began again his
pilgrimage roundabout the world; in some places he was a singing master,
in others a military instructor of the young men, until, attracted by
the Spartan war, he enlisted in the army of Cleomenes, the last Greek
hero, accompanying him at the moment in which, vanquished, he embarked
for Alexandria. Poor, disappointed, convinced that riches would never
return to him, saddened at seeing the whole world filled with the names
of Carthage and Rome, while that of Greece was sinking into oblivion, he
had come to take final refuge in Saguntum, the small and almost unknown
Republic, in search of bread and of peace. Perhaps, in this retired
spot, if war did not disturb its calm, he would write the history of his
adventures.
Sónnica followed his narrative with interest, fixing upon Actæon a
glance of sympathy.
"And you, who have been a hero and a potentate, have come to serve this
city as a simple mercenary?"
"Mopsus the archer has promised to give me a post of distinction among
his troops."
"That is not enough, Actæon. You would have to live like the other
soldiers, spending your life in the Forum taverns, and sleeping on the
steps of the Temple of Hercules. No! here is your home! Sónnica will
protect you!"
In her sparkling eyes, enlarged by the dark circle traced about them,
shone an almost maternal love and sympathy.
The Athenian gazed at her with admiration as she sat erect in her chair
like a white cloud in the dimly illuminated library, which, like all
Grecian rooms, received no other light than that entering through the
doorway.
"Let us go into the garden, Actæon. The afternoon is delicious, and we
can imagine ourselves for a moment in the groves of the Academy."
They went out of the house and strolled along a winding avenue bordered
by tall laurels, above which peeped the tops of banana trees, irrigated
with wine to accelerate their growth. On the terrace two peacocks hailed
them with strident calls, strutting along the balustrade and spreading
their majestic tails.
Actæon, on beholding his beautiful protectress in the light of the sun,
felt a thrill of desire rush through his body. She wore as her only
covering a Grecian chiton, an open tunic, fastened with metal clasps
over the shoulders, and secured around the waist by a golden girdle. The
arms emerged bare from the white wrapping, and the left side of the
tunic, closed from the armpit to the knee by small brooches, half opened
at each step, revealing her pearly nudity. The material was so delicate
that its transparency displayed the outlines of her rosy body, which
seemed to float in a veil of woven foam.
"Does my dress astonish you, Actæon?"
"No; I admire you. You seem to me Aphrodite surging from the waves. It
is a long time since I have seen the women of Athens disclosing their
divine beauty. I am corrupted by my travels, through the rude customs of
the barbarians."
"It may happen so. As Herodotus says, nearly all who are not Greeks
consider it opprobrious to appear nude.--If you only knew how
scandalized the people of this city were in the beginning at my Athenian
customs!--as if there existed anything more beautiful in the world than
the human form!--as if the nude were not the supreme beauty! I adore
Phryne, astonishing with her nude body the old men of the Areopagus;
making the thousands of pilgrims gathered on the Eleusinian strand shout
with enthusiasm when they saw her white form surge from among the veils,
like the moon from behind the clouds. I believe in the promise of her
bosom more than in the power of the gods."
"Do you doubt the gods?" asked Actæon, with his fine Athenian smile.
"The same as do you and all those from _there_. The gods now serve only
as themes for artists, and if they are tolerated in old Homer, it is
because he was skilled in celebrating their quarrels in graceful verse.
No; I do not believe in them; they are as simple and credulous as
children, but I love them because they are sane and beautiful."
"In what do you believe, then, Sónnica?"
"I do not know--in something mysterious that surrounds us and animates
life; I believe in beauty and love."
She was silent a moment, standing in a pensive attitude; then she
continued:
"I hate the barbarians, not because they have no treasures of art, but
for the odium they cast on love, which they enchain with all manner of
laws and restrictions. They are hypocritical and deformed; they make
reproduction a crime, and they hate the nude, hiding the body with all
kinds of rags, as if it were an abominable spectacle--when carnal love,
the meeting of two bodies, is the sublime love through which we are
born, and without which the fount of existence would dry
up--extinguishing the world."
"That is why we are great," said Actæon with gravity. "On this account
our arts fill the earth, and all bow before the moral grandeur of
Greece. We are the people that has known how to honor life making a cult
of its origin; we satisfy the impulses of love without hypocrisy, and
because of this we understand better than others the needs of the
spirit. Intelligence wings more truly when it does not feel the weight
of the body tormented by pudicity. We love and study; our gods go naked,
with no other adornment than the ray of immortal light upon the
forehead. They do not demand blood, like those barbarian divinities
enwrapped in clothing which only leaves uncovered their frowning
assassin faces; they are as beautiful as human beings, they laugh like
them, and their peals of merriment wafted around Olympus gladden the
earth."
"Love is the most virtuous sentiment; from it emanates all greatness.
Only the barbarians calumniate it, hiding it as a dishonest thing."
"I know a people," said Actæon, "among whom love, the divine fusion of
bodies, is looked upon as an impurity. Israel is an amalgamation of
miserable tribes, occupying an arid region surrounding a temple of
barbaric construction, copied from all peoples. They are hypocrites,
rapacious and cruel; on this account they abominate love. If such a
people were to attain universal influence like Greece, if it should
dominate the world, imposing its beliefs, the eternal light which shines
on the Parthenon would go out; humanity would grope in darkness, with
the heart dry and the thought dead; the world would be a necropolis, all
would be moving corpses, and centuries and more centuries would pass
before man would again find the road, coming back to our smiling gods,
to the cult of beauty that gladdens life."
Sónnica, listening to the Greek, approached the tall rose bushes and
began to pluck the flowers, smelling them with delight. She imagined
herself in Athens, in the garden on the Street of Tripods, listening to
her poet who had initiated her into the sweet mysteries of art and love.
And she gazed sweetly at Actæon, with frank and sincere passion, with
the submission of a slave, saying "I love you" with her eyes, as if only
awaiting a word to fall into his arms.
The breeze lightly stirred the whole garden. Bits of purple sky inflamed
by the setting sun could be seen through the foliage. A mysterious
penumbra began to form beneath the trees. The sounds from the fields,
the stirring of the people outside the villa in the houses of the
slaves, and even the cries of the exotic birds on the terrace seemed to
come from a distant world.
Between two clumps of rose bushes stood an image of Priapos carved from
the trunk of a tree. The rustic god was smiling with a lewd expression,
arching his hairy breast and thrusting his abdomen forward.
Sónnica smiled on seeing the Athenian looking at him.
"You know that it is an ancient custom to place the gardens under the
protection of Priapos," said Sónnica. "They say that he frightens away
thieves. My slaves believe it firmly, and I keep the god as a symbol of
life in the midst of these roses, which are as beautiful as those of
Pæstum. The allurements of Priapos complete the sweet charm of abounding
Nature."
The two Greeks walked on in silence, with slow step, along an avenue of
slender cypresses at the end of which opened a grotto, its rocky walls
draped with ivy, allowing a greenish, diffused light to filter through
its openings. A white cupid spilled from a shell a stream of water like
tender falling tear-drops, caught in an alabaster basin. There the
luxurious Sónnica spent the warmer part of the day.
Actæon was conscious of a soft, warm touch upon his shoulder.
"Sónnica!"
Caressing her around her gold-encircled waist, her white and satiny arms
knotted themselves responsive about his neck like ivory serpents; her
head fell upon the shoulder of the Greek, who, looking down, saw fixed
upon him a pair of violet eyes moist with ecstatic emotion.
"You are Athens come back to me!" She murmured sweetly, with bated
breath. "When I met you this morning on the steps of Aphrodite's temple
I thought you must be Apollo descended to earth. I felt the Olympian
fire, impossible to resist. Long have I scorned love, but at last the
little god is avenged, and--and--I love you!"
Like a soft glow the beauty of the Greek shone in the twilight of the
grotto.
* * * * *
Nine guests were bidden to Sónnica's banquet, and as night closed in
they came, some in chariots, others mounted on gaily caparisoned horses,
passing between rows of slaves holding lighted torches.
When Sónnica and Actæon entered the festal hall, the guests stood in
groups near the purple couches arranged about the curving table, the
marble top of which some slaves were washing with sponges and perfumed
water. Four enormous bronze lampadaries occupied the corners of the
triclinium. From their brackets were suspended numberless little jars of
perfumed oil, in which floated wicks, shedding a rich light. Garlands of
roses and foliage hung from lamp to lamp, constituting a fragrant border
for the banquet hall. Near a door leading to the peristyle stood carved
wooden tables piled with gold and silver dishes and the keen-edged
carving knives for the use of the slaves.
Alorcus the Celtiberian stood talking with Lachares and three of those
young Greeks who so scandalized the Saguntines in the Forum by their
effeminate ways. The arrogant barbarian, according to the custom of his
race, wore his sword belted to his waist until the banquet began, when
he hung it upon the ivory _anaclintron_ of the couch that he might have
it ever within reach of his hand.
At the other extreme of the table two citizens of advanced age, and
Alcon the pacific Saguntine, with whom Actæon had spoken that morning on
the esplanade of the Acropolis, were carrying on a quiet conversation.
The two old men were long-time friends of the house, Greek merchants
whom Sónnica had taken as partners in business, and whom she invited to
her nocturnal feasts, appreciating the dignified air which they added to
these occasions.
As the devoted pair entered the banquet chamber the guests divined their
felicity in Sónnica's tender, shining eyes, and in the abandon with
which she inclined toward Actæon her blonde head, crowned with roses and
violets.
"At last we have a master," murmured Lachares with a tone of jealousy.
"He has been more fortunate than we," replied the Celtiberian
resignedly. "But he is an Athenian, and I can understand that Sónnica,
the cold hearted, should have surrendered to one of her own people."
Actæon, being presented to the guests, moved about the hall with the
self-possession of a potentate enjoying his riches, like a man
accustomed to princely splendors--he whom a stroke of fortune had
suddenly lifted out of poverty to his old-time condition.
At a signal from Sónnica the guests reclined upon the purple couches
which surrounded the table, and four young girls entered the hall
bearing on their heads, with the slender grace of canephoræ, little
willow baskets filled with rose-crowns. They walked with airy ease, as
if gliding over the mosaic to the sound of invisible flutes, and with
their delicate girlish hands they crowned the guests with flowers.
Suddenly the steward appeared with an irritated countenance.
"Mistress, Euphobias the parasite is trying to enter."
The guests burst into cries and protests on hearing this.
"Throw him out, Sónnica! He will make us miserable!" shouted the young
men, recalling with anger his jeers in the Forum at their dress and
manners.
"It is a shame for the city to tolerate that insolent beggar," said the
grave citizens.
Sónnica smiled, then suddenly recalling a cruel epigram which the
parasite had dedicated to her, and had recited in the Forum a few days
before, she said frigidly to the steward:
"Drive him away with a club."
The guests bathed their hands at a lavabo of perfumed water which a
slave passed from couch to couch, and Sónnica had given the order to
commence the banquet when the steward returned with a rough-knobbed club
clutched in his hand.
"I have beaten him, mistress, but he will not go. He suffers the blows,
but after each one he works his way a little farther into the house."
"And what does he say?"
"He says that one of Sónnica's feasts is impossible without the presence
of Euphobias, and that the blows are a sign of appreciation."
The woman displayed compassion; the guests laughed; and Sónnica gave the
order to admit the philosopher, but before the steward had left the
room to comply with her command Euphobias had already entered the hall,
cringing, humble, but looking at the assembled company with insolent
eyes.
"The gods be with you! May joy ever attend you, beautiful Sónnica!"
Turning to the steward he said loftily:
"Brother, now that you see that I get in anyhow, try to wield a less
heavy hand in future."
Accompanied by the laughter of the guests he rubbed his forehead on
which a lump had begun to rise, and with a corner of his time-worn
mantle he wiped off a few drops of blood close to one ear.
"Greeting, lousy one!" the gallant Lachares called to him.
"Away from us!" shouted the other youths.
But Euphobias paid no attention. He smiled at Actæon, seeing him
reclining near Sónnica, and his eyes shone with a malicious expression.
"You have arrived where I thought you would. You will master these
effeminate creatures who surround Sónnica and who heap insults upon me."
Paying no heed to the mocking retorts of the young gallants he added
with a servile smile:
"I trust you will not forget your old friend Euphobias. Now you can set
him up to all the wine he wishes in the taverns of the Forum."
The philosopher took the couch at the farther end of the table, and he
refused the crown offered him by the slave.
"I have not come for flowers; I have come to eat. I can find plenty of
roses merely by taking a stroll in the country; but what I do not find
in Saguntum is a crust of bread for a philosopher."
"Are you hungry?" asked Sónnica.
"I am more thirsty than hungry. I have spent the whole day talking in
the Forum; they all listened to me, but it never occurred to any one to
refresh my throat."
According to the Grecian custom an _arbiter bibendi_ must be chosen, a
guest of honor who should propose the toasts, announce the moment for
drinking, and direct the conversation.
"Let us choose Euphobias," said Alorcus, with the grave humor of a
Celtiberian.
"No!" protested Sónnica. "One night we put him in charge of the banquet
for a joke, and we were all drunk before the third course. He proposed a
potation at every mouthful."
"Why choose a king?" said the philosopher. "We already have one at
Sónnica's side. Let it be the Athenian!"
"Yes, let it be he," said the elegant Lachares, "and may he not allow
you to speak during the whole night, insolent parasite!"
In the centre of the table stood a broad bronze crater, over the edges
of which peeped a group of nymphs looking at themselves in the oval lake
of wine. Each guest had a slave at his back to serve him, and they
dipped wine from the crater to fill the glasses of the guests for the
first libation. They were murrhine cups, brought from Asia at a great
price, of mysterious fabrication, into which entered the dust of certain
shells, and myrrh, hardened and tinted. They were white and opaque, like
ivory, holding pieces of colored glass embedded, and their mysterious
composition gave a voluptuous fragrance to the wine.
Actæon raised himself in his couch to propose the first toast in honor
of the chosen divinity.
"Drink to Diana, Athenian," spoke the grave voice of Alcon; "drink to
the Saguntine goddess!"
But in the hand which remained free the Athenian felt another, delicate
and beringed, clasping it with a warm caress, so he dedicated his
libation to Aphrodite, and the young men greeted it with shouts of
enthusiasm. Aphrodite was to be the goddess for that night! While the
young men thought of the dancers from Gades, the great attraction of the
banquet, Sónnica and Actæon, their elbows resting on the cushions,
caressed each other with their eyes, while they leaned shoulder to
shoulder, close to the edge of the table.
Strong slaves, perspiring from standing over the fires in the kitchens,
set upon the table the food for the first course, served in great plates
of red Saguntine terra cotta. There were shellfish raw and broiled, all
highly spiced. Fresh oysters, mussels, enchinoderms dressed with parsley
and mint, asparagus, peppers, lettuce, peacock eggs, tripe seasoned with
cumin and vinegar, and fried birds swimming in a sauce of grated cheese,
oil, vinegar, and silphium. There was also served _oxygarum_ made in the
fisheries of New Carthage--a paste of tunny milt, loaded with salt and
vinegar, which excited the palate, stimulating one to drink wine.
The aroma from these dishes floated through the festal hall.
"Talk not to me about the nest of the phoenix!" said Euphobias with
his mouth full. "According to the poets, the phoenix bestrews its
nest with incense, bay, and cinnamon, but I swear by the gods that I
would rather be in Sónnica's triclinium than in that nest!"
"Which does not prevent your dedicating insulting verses to me, you
rascal," said the Greek woman, smiling.
"Because I am fond of you, and I protest against your follies. By day I
am a philosopher; but at night my stomach compels me to come to you, so
that your menials may beat me, and that you may give me something to
eat."
The slaves removed the plates of the first course, and brought on the
second which consisted of fish and meat. A small roasted wild boar
occupied the centre of the table; great pheasants with their plumage
laid as a covering upon their cooked flesh, were displayed on plates
surrounded by hard-boiled eggs and fragrant herbs; thrushes spitted upon
reeds were arranged in form of crowns; hares, on being carved, displayed
a stuffing of rosemary and thyme; and wild doves were brought on with
quails and thrushes. There were innumerable dishes of fish, reminding
the Greeks of the viands of their native land, and between mouthfuls
they discussed the glauci from Megara, the eels from Scione, and breams
and xiphiae from the coasts of Phalerum and from the Hellespont.
Each guest chose his favorite food from among the different dishes, and
regaled his friends with it, presents being carried by slaves from one
end of the table to the other. More wines, in sealed and dusty amphoræ,
were brought up from the cellars, and overflowed the festal goblets.
Wine from Chios, rare and costly, mingled with those from Cæcubum, from
Falerno, and from Massico, in Italy, and those from Laurona and from the
Saguntine domain. To the bouquet of these liquids was added the aroma of
the sauces, into which entered, following the complicated recipes of the
Grecian cuisine, silphium, parsley, sesame, fennel, cumin, and garlic.
Sónnica barely touched her food; she neglected the successive plates,
heaped with presents from her guests, to smile at Actæon.
"I love you," she whispered. "I feel as if a Thessalian magus had cast a
spell over me. My whole being responds to the throb of love. Do you see
these fishes? I am afraid to eat them; I feel that I would be committing
a sacrilege, because roses and fishes are dedicated to Venus, the mother
of our joy. I only wish to drink--to drink profoundly. I feel within me
a fire which caresses, yet consumes me."
The guests gormandized, rendering tribute to Sónnica's cook, an Asiatic,
purchased in Athens by one of her navigators. He had cost her almost the
price of a villa; but they considered the money well spent, and they
admired the art with which his meditations in a corner of the kitchen
produced these astonishing combinations, afterward executed by the other
slaves--above all that happy invention of a mild sauce of dates and
honey for the roasts. With such a slave it were possible to enjoy one's
food throughout the whole of life and to ward off death for many years.
The second course had ended. The guests were lying surfeited on their
couches, loosening their garments. The slaves served them with wine in
horn-shaped flagons of alabaster, which permitted a slender stream to
gurgle from its spout, so that they need not lift themselves to drink.
The purple drapery of the couches was stained with wine. The great
lampadaries in the corners, with their tapers of perfumed oil, seemed to
glow more faintly in the dense atmosphere charged with vapor from the
steaming viands. The garlands of roses hanging in festoons from the
lamps wilted in the heavy atmosphere. Through the open door the guests
caught glimpses of the columns of the peristyle, and of a strip of dark
blue sky in which twinkled many stars.
The pacific Alcon rising up in his couch, smiled with the amiability of
mild intoxication, gazing at the splendor of the firmament.
"I drink to the beauty of our city!" he said, raising the horn filled
with wine.
"To the Grecian Zacynthus!" shouted Lachares.
"Yes, let Saguntum be Greek!" answered his friends.
The conversation turned upon the great festival which, at Sónnica's
initiative, the Greeks of Saguntum would celebrate in honor of Minerva
on gathering the harvest. The Panathenaic festivals should end with a
procession like that which took place in Athens, and which Phidias had
immortalized in marble in his famous friezes. The young men spoke with
enthusiasm of the horses they would ride, and of the contests for which
they were training by persistent exercise. Sónnica patronized the
festivals with her immense wealth, and she wished to make these as
famous as that one which Athens celebrated on the dedication of the
Parthenon.
The Saguntine youths would race outside the walls in the morning to
demonstrate that they were as clever as the Celtiberian horsemen; the
more pacific would contest in the Forum, lyre in hand, to win the crown
offered to the one who should hymn the poems of Homer most creditably;
afterward the procession would reveal all its magnificence through the
streets of the city, climbing up to the Acropolis; and in the afternoon
the race of the flaming torch would take place to divert the people, who
would hiss at him who let his torch go out, and would whip up him who
traveled slowly to protect the flame.
"But do you really believe in Minerva?" Euphobias asked of Sónnica.
"I believe in what I see," she replied. "I believe in spring, in the
resurrection of the verdant fields, in the grain which springs from the
ground to nourish man from its golden bearded heads; the flowers, which
are the incense-bearers of the earth; and, above all the goddesses, I
love Athene for the wisdom with which she endows man and makes him
divine, and I love Minerva for her bounty which maintains them."
The slaves laid the third course on the table, and the guests,
half-inebriated, raised themselves in their couches to look at the
little baskets of fruit, the plates covered with pastry toasted over the
fire in the Cappadocian style; buns made of sesame flour, filled with
honey, and browned in the oven; and cakes of cheese stuffed with stewed
fruits.
Small amphoræ containing the choicest wines, brought from the uttermost
ends of the world by Sónnica's ships, were uncorked. Wine from Byblus in
Phoenicia saturated the atmosphere with a fragrance as penetrating as
bottles of perfume; that from Lesbos which on being poured gave forth a
ravishing odor of roses, and, in addition to these, cups were filled
with cordials from Erythrea and Heraclea, strong and spiritous, and
those from Rhodes and Chios, prudently mixed with sea-water to aid the
digestion.
Some slaves, to excite again the appetite of the guests, and to make
them drink, offered plates of locusts cured in brine; radishes with
vinegar and mustard, toasted garbanzos, and olives, prized for their
size and flavor, swimming in a piquant sauce.
Actæon could eat nothing, diverted by Sónnica, who, leaving her
_epiclintron_, pressed against him, rubbing her cheek upon the
Athenian's with mingling breath. Thus they remained in silence, each
watching the image reflected from the pupils of the other.
"Let me kiss you on the eyes," murmured Sónnica, "they are the windows
of the soul, and I imagine that through them my caress will penetrate to
the depths of your being."
The arrogant Alorcus, grave as all Celtiberians when intoxicated, spoke
of the coming festival as he gazed into his empty cup. He had five
horses in the city, the finest his tribe could furnish, and if the
magistrates would allow him to take part in the rejoicings, despite his
being a foreigner, the Saguntines would have a chance to admire the
strength and swiftness of his beautiful coursers. The crown should fall
to him, unless some unexpected event summoned him from the city.
Lachares and his elegant friends proposed to contest for the prize in
singing, and their effeminate hands, slender and beringed, moved
nervously over the table as if already thrumming the lyre, while their
painted lips sang Homeric verses in subdued tones. Euphobias, lying on
his back on his couch, gazed aloft with dreamy eyes, with no other
earthly desire than to reach forth his glass and call for wine; but
Alcon and the Greek merchants became impatient at the slowness of the
banquet.
"The dancers! Let the daughters from Gades come!" they called with
tremulous voices, the fiery spark of intoxication glowing in their eyes.
"Yes; let the dancing girls come!" cried Euphobias rousing from his
stupor. "I want to see how this honorable people disturbs its digestion,
which is the best gift to man, by the lewd steps of the daughters of
Hercules."
Sónnica made a sign to her steward, and in a moment the joyous sound of
flutes was heard in the peristyle.
"The auletai!" shouted the guests.
Four slender girls, violet-crowned, marched into the triclinium, wearing
a chiton open from waist to ankle, displaying the left leg at every
step, holding to their mouths the double aulos, their agile fingers
playing over the holes of the instrument.
Standing in the space enclosed by the curve of the table, they began a
sweet melopoeia, which caused the guests to sit up in their couches
and to smile placidly. Most of them recognized the flute players as old
acquaintances, and swinging their heads in time with the music, they
watched with avid eyes the outlines of their bodies which swayed
rhythmically from the movement of their dancing feet.
Several times the flutists changed the tune and measure, but at the end
of an hour the guests became bored.
"We are used to all this," protested Lachares; "they are the same
flutists who always play at your banquets, Sónnica. Since you have
fallen in love you forget your friends. Give us something else! Let us
see the dancers!"
"Yes, let the dancing girls come!" chorused the young men.
"Have patience," said the Greek woman, lifting her head for an instant
from Actæon's breast; "the dancers will appear, but not until the end of
the banquet when I am overcome with sleep. I know you well, and I can
guess what the finish of the feast will be. First I wish you to see a
little slave who has learned from the Grecian mariners tricks like those
of celebrated Athenian performers."
Before the slave entered, the guests turned in alarm toward the farther
end of the table. A beast-like growling arose from beneath it. Euphobias
had fallen from his couch, and with his head on the mosaic was
disgorging his dinner, accompanied by a stream of wine.
"Give him laurel leaves!" called the prudent Alcon. "There is nothing
better to dissipate drunkenness."
The slaves compelled him almost by force to chew the leaves, paying no
attention to the philosopher's protests.
"I am not drunk," shouted Euphobias. "It is the hunger which persecutes
me. Most of the time I can find no bread, and when I am so fortunate as
to sit at a table like Sónnica's, the food which I eat escapes me."
"Say rather the wine which you drink escapes you," replied Sónnica,
resting her head again on Actæon's breast.
The contortionist had reappeared before the table, and had greeted her
mistress by touching her hands to her face. She was a girl of about
fourteen, with yellowish skin, wearing a pair of red trunks. Her nervous
and agile limbs, and her lean, undeveloped chest, made her look like a
boy. The elder guests smiled, stirred by her fresh and almost masculine
beauty.
She uttered a shout, and doubling over with elastic vigor stood on her
hands, and with feet in the air and her head almost touching the floor,
she began to run swiftly about the triclinium. Then, with a powerful
spring of her arms, she leaped upon the table, and trotted on her hands
among the confusion of plates, amphoræ, and cups, without upsetting
them.
The guests applauded with enthusiasm. The two Greek merchants offered
her their goblets, pinching her cheeks while she drank, and passing
their hands caressingly over her back.
"Lachares," said the philosopher to his aristocratic enemy, "why have
you and your companions not brought your beautiful slave boys who serve
you as supports in the Forum?"
"Sónnica will not allow it," replied the young gallant, pleased at the
question, not suspecting the irony in Euphobias' words. "She is a
superior woman, but this is the only one of the refined customs of
Athens which she declines to tolerate. She believes in Jupiter and Leda;
but she spits upon the beautiful Ganymede. She is not a full-fledged
Athenian."
A double row of broad, sharp swords was placed along the floor by a
group of slaves, so that the contortionist might show her greatest feat.
The flutists began to play a slow, solemn melody, and the contortionist,
again standing head downward, began to walk between the swords without
disturbing them or touching their sharp edges. The guests, cup in hand,
followed her course anxiously through the forest of keen steel blades,
which at her slightest wavering would penetrate her body. She paused
near a sword, extended one arm, and sustaining herself on a single hand
she bent the elbow until she kissed the floor; then she stiffened the
muscles, raising herself back to her first position, and throughout this
whole maneuvre the cutting edge grazed her breast without even abrading
the skin.
When the girl finished her act the guests applauded vigorously. The two
old men flung their tunics around her, while her malicious, boyish face
peeped forth and sniffed the foods and sweetmeats.
"But, Sónnica," protested Lachares, "when did the beautiful Greek ever
forget her friends like this? Athenian, you have maddened her with your
love; now intercede for us, and ask that the daughters of Gades present
themselves quickly!"
Sónnica appeared to be sleeping upon Actæon's breast, spellbound by his
close, warm, throbbing heart.
"Bid them enter----let my guests do what they wish----only leave us in
peace!"
Footsteps, giggling, and whispering were heard in the peristyle, and the
Gaditanian dancers entered the triclinium, crowding each other like a
stampeding flock.
They were girls of small stature, with supple, agile limbs; their skin a
pale amber, their eyes large and luminous; their hair black; their
bodies floating in vapory veils, alluring and deceptive in their
semi-transparency. They wore on their breasts and on their arms and
ankles strands of coins and amulets which rung with merry tinkle at the
slightest movement, and they stared boldly at the guests like a flock
accustomed to such feasts, who traveled from banquet to banquet, seeing
men only in their hours of intoxication.
The ruler of the band, a wrinkled, parchment-faced old man with an
insolent stare, was dressed like them in feminine veils, his cheeks
painted, his eyes encircled with black, having great hoops in his ears,
and a cynical leer on his vermilion lips, ready for trade in the most
infamous traffic.
Euphobias, indifferent to the charms of the dancing girls, looked at him
with amazement, wondering to what sex belonged those skeleton arms
peeping from beneath the veils, painted white, and weighted down with
jewels.
"Brother, are you a man or a woman?" the philosopher gravely enquired.
"I am the father of all these flowers," replied the eunuch with a
squeaking voice, showing as he smiled his repulsive, toothless gums.
Three of the women, squatting on the floor, began to fillip their
castanets with lively clacking, while another beat with her hands on a
globe-bottomed timbrel tucked under her left arm.
The eunuch rapped on the floor with his staff, and instantly four pairs
of dancers whisked into the centre of the triclinium, and began to swing
to the sound of clamorous barbaric music played by their companions.
They danced with stately step, holding themselves majestically erect,
spreading their arms as if swimming in space, their brown bodies
wheeling in slow spirals, seeming to float on the waves of transparent
foam which enwrapped them. Gradually their movements accelerated; they
gracefully extended their bodies, elevating their firm chests, outlining
their contours among the veils--contortions in which the trunk revolved
on the hips, a whirl of forms enclosed in white and floating drapery,
which as it flew into a thousand folds with voluptuous undulations,
fanned up the flames of the lamps.
Suddenly, at a signal from the old crone, the music stopped, and the
dancing ceased.
"More! More!" shouted the guests, sitting up in their couches with
excitement.
It was merely a halt to change the time and to evoke applause by taking
a brief rest. The music assumed a gay and noisy rhythm; the old eunuch
marked time on the floor with the beating staff; he uttered a prolonged
lament, sad, yet with a mild sweetness, which did not seem to come from
his infected mouth; and then followed slow dreamy strophes of love with
words of double meanings, which acted like aphrodisiacs, and were
greeted with a roar of enthusiasm.
The dancers sprang into the centre of the triclinium, whirling swiftly,
as if possessed of a fever. Each song served as a lash further to excite
their nerves, and their bare feet tripped over the mosaic like
snow-white birds, or rose in gentle flight, trailing clouds of gauze,
displaying well modeled limbs with tinkling ornaments which scattered
silvery tones. Their gently curving abdomens seemed to assume a separate
existence, moving like restless animals over their bodies which they
held in sacerdotal rigidity, contracting in circular waves, forming a
whirlpool of voluptuous undulations, of which the umbilicus was the rosy
centre. They accompanied the dance with incessant snapping of fingers.
Gathering the gauzy draperies beneath their arms and adjusting them
around their hips, they moved their amphoral curves with seductive
rhythm, sighing langourously, with bowed heads, as if enchanted by the
contemplation of their own beauty. Suddenly the music grew fainter, as
if drawing away, and the dancers, their feet together and limbs half
opened, descended in a slow spiral, with gentle undulations, until they
touched the floor; the instant their callipygian charms grazed the
mosaic, they recoiled like suddenly awakened serpents, and the castanets
clacked and the timbrel beat louder, accompanied by the howls of the
musicians who animated them with lascivious words and exclamations of
supreme abandon.
The guests, red with emotion, their eyes sparkling and their mouths dry,
had rushed into the centre of the triclinium, interrupting the dance,
mixing with the couples and grasping them. Euphobias lay snoring at the
foot of his couch. Sónnica had disappeared long before, leaving the
triclinium, supported by a slave without lifting her head from Actæon's
shoulder.
The veils of the dancing girls fell to the foot of the table; they
devoured the sweetmeats and fruits, they drank from the amphoræ, plunged
their heads into the crater of the nymphs, and laughed on seeing their
faces bespattered with wine. The eunuch continued singing and pounding
furiously on the floor to mark the rhythm for his musicians. In vain!
The girls who tried to dance could not escape from the hands of the
guests, who at every turn slapped them on their buttocks and tore off
their veils. The young men rolled at the foot of the lamps, maddened by
these bacchantes wise in perversion, reared in a port to which
navigators brought both the refinements and the corruptions of the
entire world. Alorcus the Celtiberian, brutalized by his enthusiasm,
walked around the triclinium making a display of his strength by
sustaining in his sinewy hands two dancing girls, who screamed with
fright, while outside could be noted in the darkness of the peristyle
the movement of the slaves, men and women, from the kitchens, creeping
near to enjoy from without the spectacle of the bacchanal.
It was not yet dawn when Actæon awoke, wondering, no doubt, at the soft
couch and at the perfumes of the dormitory. Sónnica was lying beside
him, and by the light of a lamp hanging near the door he could see a
smile of felicity flitting over her lips.
After the intoxication of the night the Athenian felt a vehement desire
to breathe the fresh, open air. He was stifling where he was, in
Sónnica's room, sunk down in the couch that seemed to burn with the fire
of their recent passion, near the form, which now lay inert and with no
other sign of life than the gentle sighs which inflated her bosom.
The Greek softly tiptoed out to the peristyle. The lamps were still
burning in the triclinium, and an insufferable vapor of viands, wines,
and sweaty bodies floated through the doorway. He saw the guests lying
on the floor among the snoring women. Euphobias had awakened from his
drunken sleep, and, occupying the place of honor, Sónnica's couch, was
forging for himself the illusion of being master of the villa. Wrapped
in his tattered mantle he was compelling two sleepy dancing girls to
dance, contemplating their nude flesh with a disdainful stare like a man
who considers himself above carnal desires.
As Actæon appeared in the triclinium some slaves fled, fearing lest they
should be punished for their curiosity. Not wishing to be seen by the
philosopher the Greek went out of the house seeking the cool garden.
There he noticed the same flight before his steps. Embracing couples
fled along the avenues; from behind the clumps of foliage arose
exclamations of surprise as he approached, and in the dissipating
shadows of the night the garden seemed animated by a mysterious life
beneath its leafy bowers.
They were slaves who, excited by the feast, continued beneath the open
sky the scenes of the triclinium.
The Greek smiled, reflecting that the feast was destined to augment his
mistress' wealth.
"Let them enjoy themselves in peace. To disturb them would damage
Sónnica's interests."
He passed out of the garden so as not to interfere with the joy of the
miserable flock which, forgetting every trouble, sought each other
there in the dim light of dawn.
He crossed Sónnica's immense dominions, through groves of fig trees and
extensive olive orchards, until suddenly he found himself in the highway
of the Serpent. It was deserted. In the distance he heard the galloping
of a horse and saw in the bluish light of dawn a rider who was
undoubtedly making for the port.
As he drew near Actæon recognized him in spite of his head being covered
by the hood of a war mantle. It was the Celtiberian shepherd. The Greek
dashed into the centre of the roadway and grasped the horse by the
bridle, while the rider, checked in his race, leaned back, tugging at
the knife which he wore in his belt.
"Be calm!" said Actæon in a low voice. "If I stop you it is to say that
I have recognized you. You are Hannibal, the son of the great Hamilcar!
Your disguise may serve you among the Saguntines, but your boyhood
friend knows you."
The African bent his head forward with its bushy mass of hair, and his
imperious eyes made out the Greek in the dim light.
"Is it you, Actæon? When I met you so many times yesterday I knew that
you would finally recognize me. What are you doing here?"
"I am living in the house of Sónnica the rich."
"I have heard of her, a Greek as famous for her beauty and her talent as
the courtesans of Athens. I was also desirous of knowing her, and I
think I should have loved her if it were a man's mission to chase after
women. And are you doing nothing else?"
"I am a soldier in the pay of the city."
"You, the son of Lysias, the confidential captain of Hamilcar! You, a
man educated in the Prytaneum of Athens, in the service of a city of
barbarians and merchants!"
Hannibal was silent for a moment as if wondering at the conduct of the
Greek. At last he added resolutely:
"Mount behind me on my horse! Come with me! In the port a Carthaginian
ship, loading with silver, is waiting for me. I go to New Carthage to
place myself at the head of my troops. Days of glory are coming, an
immense and sublime enterprise, like that of the giants when, heaping
mountain on mountain, they scaled your Olympus. Come! You are the friend
of my childhood; I knew you before Hasdrubal and Mago, those sons of
Hamilcar, whom the glorious captain gave me for brothers, calling all
three of us 'my lion's brood.' I know you. You are astute and brave like
your father; at my side you will conquer riches. Who knows but that you
may reign as king in some fair land when, imitating Alexander, I divide
my conquests among my captains!"
"No, Carthaginian," said Actæon gravely. "I do not hate you; I remember
our early years with pleasure; but I will never go with you. Your
lineage prevents it, the past record of your nation, and the bloody
shade of my father."
"Nationality is but a fiction; 'the people' a pretext for making war.
What matters it to you whether you serve Carthage or any other republic,
since you are a Greek? If my own people should abandon me I would fight
for any country. We are men of war; we fight for glory, power, and
riches; the needs of our people only serve to justify our victory and
our despoiling of the enemy. I hate the merchants of Carthage, pacific
and stuck to their shops, as much as I hate the proud Romans. Come,
Actæon, since we have met, follow me! Fortune goes with me."
"No, Hannibal; here shall I remain. Seeing your African soldiers I
should remember the mob that crucified Lysias."
"That was an unavoidable crime, a mad deed of that truceless war to
which the mercenaries impelled us. My father lamented it a thousand
times, remembering his faithful Lysias. With my protection I will make
amends for that injustice of Carthage."
"I will not follow you, Hannibal. I have bid farewell to war and booty.
I prefer to grow old here in this sweet and tranquil life, at the side
of my Sónnica, loving peace like any one of those Saguntines who dwells
in the merchants' ward."
"Peace? Peace?"
A strident and brutal shout of laughter, like that which Actæon had
heard on the steps of Aphrodite's temple when the Roman legates were
embarking, broke the silence of the roadway.
"Listen well, Actæon," said the African, recovering his gravity, "the
proof that I still remember my boyhood affection for you lies in the
frankness with which I speak my mind. Only to you, understand it well!
If, sleeping in my tent, I should learn on awaking that what is in my
mind had escaped in words, I would stab the sentinel who guarded my
sleep. You speak of peace! Actæon, awake! If you think of growing old in
tranquility in any part of the world, flee with that Greek woman whom
you love, far, far away! Where I am, there shall be no peace until I
have become the sovereign of the world! War marches ahead of my
footsteps; he who will not submit to me must die or become my slave!"
The Greek comprehended the significance of the threat.
"Remember, Hannibal, that this city is Rome. The Republic has taken it
for an ally and protects it."
"Do you imagine that I fear Rome? If I hate Saguntum it is because she
is proud of her alliance, and that she scorns and forgets me, in spite
of my being near. She fancies herself secure because that far-away
Republic protects her, and she laughs at me, though I reign over all the
Peninsula as far as the Ebro, and am encamped almost at her very gates.
She antagonizes the Turdetani, who are my allies, as are all the Iberian
tribes, and within her walls she beheads the citizens who love me, those
who were friends of the great Hamilcar. Ah, blind and vainglorious city!
How dear shall it cost thee to live near to Hannibal without knowing
him!"
Turning about in his saddle he glared with menacing eyes at the
Acropolis of Saguntum, which stood forth above the fog of the early
morn.
"You could scarcely lay siege to her ally before Rome would fall upon
you!"
"Let her come!" replied the African arrogantly. "That is what I want, I
hate peace! I will not submit to seeing Carthage subdued while there
exist men like me and my friends. Either Rome or Africa! Let the final
clash come! The sooner the better, the supreme struggle; and let that
nation which is left standing be ruler of the world! I hate the rich of
my country who live content in the shame of defeat because it enables
them to traffic calmly and to cram their vaults with silver. Those are
the wretches who, after our defeat in Sicily, dared to dream of
abandoning Carthage and of moving wholesale to the islands of the Great
Sea to live in tranquility. They are Carthaginians indeed; true sons of
Phoenicia, with no other conception of glory than trade, nor other
aspiration than to find new ports where they can market their wares! We
Barcas are Libyans; we descend from the gods; like them we have
greatness of thought; we must be masters, or die! Those merchants do not
understand that it is not enough to be rich; that one must dominate and
instill fear; and they formed in Carthage a peace-party, which
embittered my father's life by defeats, and they leave me with no other
resources than those that I can procure on the Peninsula. They do not
know the Barcas, despite the fact that we struggle to make Carthage a
world power! My father, when he lost Sicily, foresaw the future
extinction of our nation, and he wished to prevent it. We had lost a
great part of our ancient commerce. We needed an army to defend us from
ambitious Rome, and we did not have it. The citizens of Carthage are
good, at the best, to fight on their own soil. The merchant cannot bear
the weight of arms nor endure marches for months and years through
hostile countries. The profit derived from booty conquered with blood,
he can win more easily standing behind his bales of goods, and as he
loves money he does not wish to pay it out to foreign soldiers. That is
why Hamilcar brought us to the Peninsula, and here we have given
Carthage new ports and markets, and the Barcas have an army gathered
together by their own efforts. Little does it matter that the
Carthaginian Senate, lovers of peace, refuse to send us soldiers. The
Iberian tribes loved my father after putting his bravery to the test,
and they will rise in arms at the voice of the Barcas against whatever
enemy we may designate."
Hannibal turned his gaze toward the distant mountains, as if he could
behold the innumerable barbarian tribes who lived behind them scratching
the earth, or pasturing their flocks. "Hamilcar fell," he said sadly,
"just as he was beginning to see his dreams realized in a great army
with which to enter anew into strife with Rome, with riches of his own
to carry on the war without need of assistance from the African
merchants. Hasdrubal, the handsome husband of my sister, frittered away
eight years on succeeding to his authority. He was a good governor, but
a timid commander. Perhaps it was Baal, our savage god, who guided the
arm of his assassin that he might be succeeded by another capable of
exterminating the eternal enemy of Carthage. That one shall be I! Listen
well, Greek! You are the only one who shares my thought. The moment for
fighting the final battle has come. Soon shall Rome know that there
exists a Hannibal who defies her by taking possession of Saguntum."
"You have scant power for that, African. Saguntum is strong, and I, who
come from New Carthage, have seen there nothing but the elephants, the
fragments of the army which your father brought, and the Numidian
cavalry which your friends have sent from Africa."
"You forget the Iberians and the Celtiberians, the whole Peninsula,
which will rise bodily and flock to the taking of Saguntum. The country
is poor, and the city is overstocked with riches. I have noted it well.
There is enough in it to pay an army for entire years, and even the
Lusitanian tribes from the coast of the Great Sea will come attracted by
the hope of loot and urged on by the hatred of rude natives for a city,
opulent and civilized, where dwell their exploiters. It will be no great
task for Hannibal to take possession of a republic of farmers and
merchants."
"And after you become master, what then?"
The African answered nothing, but shrugged his shoulders with an
enigmatic smile.
"You are silent, Hannibal. But after you are master of Saguntum you will
have gained nothing. Rome will hurl her thunder at you for violating her
treaties, and the Carthaginian Senate will curse you; it will set a
price upon your head; it will order your soldiers to disobey you; and
you will die crucified, or you will wander about the world like a
fugitive slave."
"No! Fire of Baal!" shouted the chief arrogantly. "Carthage will attempt
nothing against me; she will accept war with Rome, even though to-day
she may not wish it. I have there innumerable partisans of the Barcas;
the populace which loves war, because it yields cargoes of loot for
distribution; the people of the out-lying districts, whose enthusiasm I
keep at white heat by sending them riches sacked on the Peninsula, after
having paid my troops. Hamilcar and Hasdrubal did the same. They would
be ready to cut off the heads of the rich if anything were attempted
against Hannibal. Since following my father for nine years, I have not
returned to Carthage, but the people adore my name. Even those of the
peace-party will follow me to war, if to war I drag them."
"And how will you conquer Rome?"
"I know not," said Hannibal with his mysterious smile. "I harbor a world
of thoughts which would provoke the laughter of my friends if I should
relate them. I see myself like a Titan scaling immense mountains,
following the course of the eagle, ploughing through the snow, climbing
to the very sky to fall upon my enemy with greater force. Ask me no
more; I know nothing further. My will says, 'I desire,' and that is
enough--I shall carry it through!"
Hannibal was silent, wrinkling his brows as if fearing he had said too
much.
It was now daylight. Women with baskets on their heads were passing
along the road. Two slaves carrying a great amphora hanging from a pole
swung between their shoulders, stopped near them a moment to rest. The
African patted his horse's neck as if preparing to leave.
"For the last time, Greek, will you come?"
Actæon shook his head.
"I know you too well to beg you to forget that you have seen Hannibal.
You are astute. You know that what we have spoken here must be swallowed
in the silence of the fields, and must be repeated to no one. Be happy
in your new love, and live in peace, since, though born to soar as an
eagle, you choose to stay here in a barnyard. If ever you oppose me as
an enemy and contend against me, I will not crucify you; you shall not
become my slave. I love you, although you will not follow me. I do not
forget that you were the first who taught me to hurl a dart. May Baal
guard you, Actæon! My men await me at the port."
His mantle floating in the breeze, he started on a gallop, raising a
cloud of dust, scattering the country people and slaves, who scurried to
the sides of the road to give him passage.