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Updated: May 19, 2025
I have just reached Saguntum after traveling three days to say to you; 'Alorcus, your father is dying, and he calls for you. The ancients of your tribe have ordered me not to return without you."
Actæon found Sónnica on the wall, gazing at the hostile camp in the first streak of dawn. The beautiful Greek had taken refuge in Saguntum the night before, followed by slaves and flocks, moving part of her riches from the villa to her warehouse. She had left behind rooms filled with paintings and mosaics; rich furniture, sumptuous table-service, all which would fall into the hands of the victor.
We shall have fewer enemies before us, and if you return with the legions from Rome, Saguntum will be for the Carthaginians what the Ægates Islands were for them in Sicily. Ah! How much better is peace!" With this melancholy exclamation Alcon said farewell to the Greek, who descended the rope in silence. His feet soon rested upon a part of the rock on which the wall stood.
He had chosen well the vulnerable point of Saguntum.
After a heroic but vain resistance comparable only to that of Saguntum or Petelia, during which every available metal, and even money, was converted into bullets to repel the assailers, there followed a three days' slaughter of young and old; then the cardinal blessed his army and pronounced, in the blood-drenched streets, a general absolution. Even this man has discovered apologists.
While the Carthaginians, therefore, were occupied with the Celtiberian war, they promptly crossed the Iberus, and not seeing any enemy, pursue their course to Saguntum; for it was reported that the hostages from every part of Spain, having been consigned to custody, were kept in the citadel of that place under a small guard.
The crude Celtiberians, gathered to witness the festival, remained silent in astonishment at the procession which dazzled them with its glitter of arms and jewels and the multicolored confusion of costumes. The natives of Saguntum congratulated their fellow-citizens, the Greeks, admiring the splendor of the festival. The festivity did not cease with the passing of the brilliant procession.
The besiegers remained non-combatant in their camp, watching Saguntum from afar. The slingers came out in the mornings to exercise their arms by shooting against the wall, but aside from this, and from the arrow-shots with which they replied from the city, there was no further exchange of hostilities between the besiegers and the besieged.
"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.
"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.
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