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She brought famous auletai from Attica who set the Saguntine youths wild with their flutes.
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.
"The Elders have need of you," said the beautiful Greek woman, with a tone of sadness. "Behold Alcon, who wishes to speak with you." "Listen, Athenian," said the Saguntine gravely. "The days are passing and our needed succor does not come from Rome.
A lurid light filled the horizon, and upon this ruddy background the serrated outlines of an immense mass were traced. A village was in flames. Hannibal's troops, composed of mercenaries from all countries, and from barbarian tribes in the interior, intended to terrify the hostile city, hence immediately upon entering Saguntine territory they laid waste the fields and set fire to the dwellings.
Black wine from Laurona and the pink wine from the Saguntine vineyards were scorned by those who had money.
The very Elders who had planned the journey for their ambassador and had arranged his flight, concealed themselves and did not witness it. Sónnica embraced Actæon, sobbing, and clinging to his neck. "Go quickly, Athenian," said the Saguntine impatiently. "This first hour of the night is the best; many groups of soldiers are still stirring around the camps before going to sleep.
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.
The wine from Massilia they despised also, sneering at the rosin and gypsum employed in its preparation, and they called for wines from the Campagna, Falerno, Monte Massico, or Cæcubum, which, in spite of the price, they drank in capacious cymbas boat-shaped drinking vessels of Saguntine clay.
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.
Slowly surged through her memory again the image of those happy days before the siege when she and Erotion ran hand in hand through the valley and had for their house all the groves of the Saguntine domain. She smiled at Actæon, looking at him affectionately, and she recalled their several meetings; their first interview on the Road of the Serpent when he had just disembarked, poor and unknown.
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