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Updated: June 1, 2025
They had not met since the day when Actæon surprised him modeling before the nude shepherdess. The youth greeted the Greek with a smile. "Are you no longer busy?" asked Actæon with paternal kindness. "Have you finished your work?" The boy answered with a gesture of indifference: "My work! Do not laugh at me, Greek. I have nothing to do." "And where is Rhanto?"
The expression of her face had now become sane; it lost, at moments, the vagueness of dementia. Pain seemed to have restored her reason, and in this supreme moment of lucidity the whole past arose clear in her mind. "Do not die, Rhanto," murmured the Greek, impulsively, "wait; I will draw out that iron; I will carry you on my back to the Forum so that they shall cure you."
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.
To clearly mark the dignity of the rich virgins, slave women marched behind them bearing their sedan chairs inlaid with ivory, and the striped silk sunshades with gay colored tassels at the ends of the staves. A group of slave women chosen for their beauty, with Rhanto in the premier rank, carried on their heads great amphoræ filled with honey and water for the libations in honor of the goddess.
"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.
"Tell me of Rhanto!" the Greek said to his beloved. "Poor child! I see her only occasionally. She will not stay here; I have her brought to me so that I can watch over her, but at the first opportunity she slips away. Grief over Erotion's death has caused her to lose her reason. Day and night she wanders along the walls.
He took her in his strong arms and laid her at the foot of the steps. Rhanto sighed, moving her head as if trying to rid herself of the pain which had taken possession of her. The Greek supported her by the shoulders, calling tenderly: "Rhanto! Rhanto!" In her eyes, enlarged by pain, the light seemed to condense.
Go and save the city. My fate is sealed. The African will never abate his anger. He will pardon anyone but me. I will die rather than become his slave, or suffer myself to be put to death on a cross." Fighting on the walls with the defenders of the upper part of the city late in the afternoon Actæon saw Rhanto coming down a street near the ramparts.
Seeing his father in a place of danger he repelled Rhanto at the foot of the steps leading to the wall, paying no heed to her tears, and grasping his bow he tried to imitate the old archer, challenging the men in the tower.
Before he reached the merlons he heard a faint groan at his back, a gentle cry which recalled to Actæon's mind the bleating of a fawn when pierced by the huntsman's arrow. Turning he saw Rhanto half way up the steps, wavering, ready to fall backward, her breast covered with blood and pierced by a long feather-tipped shaft, still quivering from the swiftness of its flight.
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